Boardgamecafe.net Meetup Report @ OTK Cheras 2/8/2013 – ARTIPIA Theme Nite a.k.a. Kickstarter Nite #0
By jack208

EXCERPT
Back to Theme Nights with ARTIPIA GAMES hogging the limelight with BRIEFCASE, DRUM ROLL and AMONG THE STARS. Non-Artipia games also saw some play-time notably NANUK, PANIC ON WALL STREET and CHINA. This is Kickstarter Nite #0 of many more kickstarter nites to come.

Gamers: Matthew Lok, Norman, Ian Tan, Hiew, Allen, Sinbad, Ivan, Kareem, CK Au, Waiyan & others.

Games:  Nanuk, Briefcase, Drum Roll, Panic on Wall Street, China.

Location: OTK Cheras | Google Map | Lat-Long: N 03° 06.179′ E 101° 44.237′
Date/Time: 2 August 2013 (Fri) 9.00 PM – (Sat) 3:00 AM

After doing two weeks of free-n-easy, we felt organizing Theme Nights is the way to go. Kaz has wanted to do an ARTIPIA Nite as we’d just closed the ARCHON Kickstarter a few weeks back. That’s Artipia’s 4th kickstarter games in less than 3 years. They funded their first two games via Indiegogo (Briefcase & Among the Stars) before switching to Kickstarter.com.

• Briefcase – 2012 (funded in Indiegogo)
• Among the Stars – 2012 (also funded in Indiegogo)
• Drumroll – 2013 (but originally published 2011)
• Archon: Glory & Machination – 2013
• Among the Stars XP: The Ambassadors – 2013

And I just read they’ll be announcing their 5th Kickstarter in a few weeks time SHADOWS OVER EMPIRE, and even though this is announced very close to Essen, they commit to get this ready for pickup by Essen 2013. I sure know who’s going to pick this up! J

Have to say they are one successful Greek boardgame publisher and with this strong line-up of games, certainly deserve an ARTIPIA Nite of their own @ OTK!

ARTIPIA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Artipia-Games/230014853695810

Note: I loosely use the term “kickstarter games” to indicate games that were published thru crowdfunding whether it’s thru Indiegogo or Kickstarter.com or other crowdfunding platform. For a more detail look at boardgames in Kickstarter, do check out my blog post on Monster Kickstarters incoming.

Errmm… okay we didn’t start the nite with an ARTIPIA game. We started with NANUK; not a Kickstarter and neither from Artipia. However we had more than 6 gamers and while waiting for the rest to arrive, thought it best to get going with a game that can support more than 6 gamers and doesn’t take too long.

In fact we have 7 players! Ian Tan played rules teacher. Have to admit I’ve not actually play the game proper so this is one I need to add to my to-play list. 🙂

Most of the ARTIPIA games play 4 and once we’ve our 4th gamer, we quickly got ourselves settled down to do (arguably) their first kickstarter game on Indiegogo, BRIEFCASE.

BRIEFCASE is a deck building game, not unlike DOMINION.

Everyone starts with a standrd Power Plant building (for producing energy resource – read: currency) and 12 cards; six of which are dummy (called Obstacle) cards. If you have played Dominion or it’s similar genre card games, then you’ll understand the purpose of these Obstacle cards.

There are more (and better) buildings to acquire for you to build up your VP engine. Unlike Dominion, there’s less option to pick up. But that’s only becoz Dominion comes with 5-6 expansion boxes while in Briefcase we are looking at just the base game.

BRIEFCASE introduces a “blocker” card that limits the resource you can gain or purchase to 2 (from possible 4). You can spend cards to move the blocker to another resource but that slows you down. There is also a building that allows you to ignore one of these blocker cards.

There are only three of this building – and the other three gamers grabbed them before me – so I kinda need to switch my plan to another route to negate the disadvantage of not being able to ignore one blocker card.

Buildings when built/purchased are not activated – and you can’t use it’s ability nor count its VP (until it’s activated). The building on the left (above) is not yet activated (indicated by shades of gray) while the Power Plant building on the right is already activated (in full colors). You flip the building card over when you activate it (by paying with the appropriate required resource cards).

Lots of cards in this type of deck building game. If you enjoyed Dominion, you should check this out to see how it compares.

The Stock Market is one theme that’s missing a good quality boardgame. There are a few light to light-medium game in this theme and a couple serious (but aged) games from Avalon Hill – Stock Market Guru – but nothing that stands out.

While on this topic, I used to play the Whitman Deluxe version of Stock Market (above) many years back. The only thing left of my copy now is the game board! Am been trying to look for a good copy from eBay but no such luck so far. L

PANIC ON WALL STREET is Asmodee’s entry for this genre. One of our groups did a 4-player game a few weeks back and I think that experience fell flat. This game is not obviously designed for a low player count. As in a stock market trade, the more the merrier!

The same group of NANUK players continued their gaming nite with Panic on Wall Street.

(Above) Seems like Hiew’s being harassed by the others into a sour deal? 😛

I’ve never seen Sinbad so excited!

Actions are fast and furious….

Because there’s a timer that determines how long the trading can go on… so you do need to step it up! If you want the best deal!

Okay.. Looking at the way he sniggered, someone must have been conned by this Allen.

Now EVERYONE’s on their feet! I wonder how can Ian and Matthew stayed so calm… Incidentally Matthew (the chap seated, with white t-shirt) won this game so maybe there’s a reason to remain calm when everyone else around you is losing their heads!

This is definitely a fun fun fun game but you’ll need at least 6+ players to make it worthwhile. This game supports up to 11 and you certainly do not want to play this with 5 or less.

After everyone’s calmed down from the high of their stock trading in Panic on Wall Street, and Allen & fren have to take their leave; Hiew decided to bring back an old classic CHINA.

Even I’ve not done this for a while. We did bring this up in one of our earlier Retreats and it remains a favorite light-medium area control game of mine.

I didn’t know they brought this game to the table else I would have asked them to try out the expansion The Duel (below) and see if that changes the game.

© Boardgamegeek.com

While DRUM ROLL kickstarted its 2nd edition this year, it was actually released in 2011 so this makes it the first Artipia game. It actually made it to Essen 2011 but didn’t get into wider distribution. Kaz has a copy since then. I saw it at Essen 2012 – Artipia was selling off their remaining limited stock and I thought of getting a copy for myself but slow to act. It was sold out by the time I went back to the Artipia booth. 😦

It’s a 4-player game and with Norman leaving for the day and Ivan (having already played this) opted to move to the CHINA table, we have Ian and Matthew joining us after we were done with Briefcase.

In my limited knowledge, I think this is the only worker-placement circus-theme boardgame. The game is about gathering and employing performers for your circus troupes, and getting ready to put on a perfect show on your tour.

Everyone starts with 10 coin, and for me the next show’s in Athens. The two red & blue icon indicates the type of performers the crowd in Athens are looking for; and if you are able to hire those type of performers you get bonus VP for your show.

Performers cost money to hire (top right), and they also have a maintenance cost (think: salary) for each round so it’s not an obvious game of “go hire the best you can”. You need to balance who’s available on the market and how much money you have (or are capable of generating).

Ian’s fave performer.. The Sword Eater. Think he’s still suffering from incontinence.

This is a worker placement game on a very vivid colorful board. Weight-wise it’s heavier than Lords of Waterdeep but far lighter compared to the classico Caylus. Some of the placement choices can be obvious in the beginning of the game. The limited number of actions available to you means you need to be very efficient with your choice of actions.

There are also Personnels you can hire to your circus to enhance the ability of either your circus in general or some performers. Think of them as the Occupation cards of Agricola. J

A special Performer from pre-order promos back in 2011.

The game is played over 3 shows; with each show giving you 5 rounds of actions (each player has 3 action markers) and an optional (to be decided by player votes) 6th & 7th rounds.

The two “acrobat” performers in my troupe will allow me to score the Athens 2 VP bonus for acrobats (blue) when the show is hosted at Athens.

This game was quickly sold out last year (the last 20 or so copies were brought to Essen 2012) but Artipia has kickstarted it’s 2nd edition this year; and even offered a bundle with their next kickstarter ARCHON. Hope the 2nd edition of this game will have enough stock for the wider retail distribution.

Some might think this game is similar to COLOSSEUM (Days of Wonder). Except for the theme which is similar ie you attract the best performers to host a great show – circus in Drum Roll and arena in Colosseum – that’s where the similarity ends. The game mechanics are very different in both.

We also did a quick preview of the incoming Kickstarter card game THE AGENTS.

We got BRIEFCASE and DRUM ROLL played tonight but we didn’t get to play AMONG THE STARS – however we did that a few weeks back in one of our July OTK Meetups so considered that done? 😛

Above: AMONG THE STARS in play @ OTK on 12 July

We have since this meetup kicked off Kickstarter Nite #1 and Kickstarter Nite #2 so what was to be ARTIPIA Theme Nite is now also known as our Kickstarter Nite #0!

There are more ARTIPIA Kickstarters coming this year – ARCHON, AMONG THE STARS: THE AMBASSADORS and the upcoming SHADOWS OVER EMPIRE. All of these are expected to be ready by Essen 2013 so you can expect to see them in the next ARTIPIA Theme nite at OTK – or more likely hitting the tables at our BGC Retreat in end Nov this year!

We still have one last place for our BGC Retreat… hurry if you do not want to miss it. Check out the details in this blog entry “BGC Retreat 2013 – Essen in Green?”

Till our next Kickstarter Nite!

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