With the New Year coming up, we decided to do a double-date this week – that’s rite folks two OTK Meetups back-to-back. This is the report on the 1st OTK Meetup on Thu evening where we did Alien Frontier (again!) and our first-play of a game that we’ve been having in our library for a long time – Power Struggle!

 

Gamers: Kareem Koh (kareem), Allen (blownfreaks), Heng Aik Yong (ayheng), Ainul (aanemesis) and CK Au (jack208)

 

Games: Alien Frontiers, Power Struggle, 7 Wonders

 

Location: Old Town Kopitiam Cheras | Google Map | GPS: N O3° 6.195° E 101° 44.058°

Date/Time: 30 December 2010; 8.00 PM – 1:00 AM (Thu)

 

 

HAPPY B’DAY HENG!

 

Today is the birthday for one OTK regulars – ayheng – so join us in wishing him HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

 

That bugger did arrive late though (hehe)… but just in time to join us as we were setting up the table for Power  Struggle. Allen has had his copy of Power Struggle since like last year (?) but for one reason or another we’ve been dragging our feet over getting this to the table. One factor obviously is the challenge in “reading of rules” but Hiew did a session a few weeks back during their Midah Meetup (click here for sessrep) so Allen’s now all set to teach us the game.

 

Before we move on to the Power Struggle session, we did another round of Alien Frontiers this time with aanemesis and Kareem. Is it still as good on 2nd play?

 

ALIEN FRONTIERS

 

 

Allen going thru the rules with aanemesis (left) and kareem.

 

 

This game saw more actions on the planet itself as everyone jockeyed for positions to grab the majority points.

 

 

Dice! Loads of them! LOL

 

Yup, after the 2nd play I still find this game absorbing. You do not want to compare this to Caylus or Brass. But if you enjoy light & fun Euros like Stone Age, Kingsburg or perhaps looking for a slightly more complex game than Settlers but not so demanding, then you should be looking at this one.

 

POWER STRUGGLE by ayheng

 

 

I arrived late from my own birthday party to find Allen, Kareem and Aanemesis apparently finished playing Alien Frontiers…

 

 

… and was setting up Power Struggle with CK Au. I had read the rules to this game and Allen also had played it with Hiew but both of us still need time to refresh the rules…

 

 

In this game we play as a shadowy figure attempting to wrest power in a generic multinational company

 

 

We hire our ‘crony’ employees to take over various departments and abuse department privileges

 

 

Which can sometimes go awry as our own cronies get bribed

 

 

All this in order to gain power which are defined in game terms as influence, shares, indestructable main departments, corruption and external consultants

 

 

It’s fun to backstab, sidestab, frontstab each other…

 

 

Especially after receiving a bribe just to ‘retire’ the bribed employee out of reach of the bribe offerer!

 

 

Overall a nice game but the rules itself are not ‘transparent’ in the sense that there are minor details easily overlooked. After we played the game, we found at least three misplayed rules, not enough to break the game but it’s still there.

 

 

Next we did 7 Wonders and it’s a quick light filler… although it might not be quick since anyone who plays it wants to play it twice!

 

 

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by jack208

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I’d some feedback some people were put off by the theme but then again unless you work by yourself in a SOHO, office politics are inevitable. Surprisingly the designer pulled off the theme pretty well. You can really feel you are playing a game of office politics as everyone huffs, pushes and jostles for the top posts!

 

Game-wise, while it appears to be a “long” game at the start when you see that many pieces on the board.. the actual game time can be short once everyone understands the mechanics. I’m even thinking this game can be played under 1.5 hrs for 4 players.

 

There’s lot of screwage factors in this game (similar in a sense to Alien Frontiers) therefore if played with the right group, it’s a BLAST!

 

The negative I can see is the fiddliness of the rules.. Even more fiddly than Power Grid.

 

7 WONDERS

 

 

We did 7 Wonders again – and we played it twice! Yes it plays that fast.. And it’s fun!

 

 

Apparently Allen has not done 7 Wonders before this session… aha.

 

 

Session ended early around 1 am as we are having another OTK Meetup tomorrow which would be our usual Friday OTK Meetup. Till then, ciao for now!

 

 

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