Games
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A friend of mine brought over a little card game to the last Grand Rapids Area Boardgamers game day. It came in a VHS video case. You know the old big bulky ones? The cover proclaimed “Scripts and Scribes A medieval Game of Strategy and Intrigue.”
I was, well, intrigued. I love card games. They are my first love in gaming. I have spent countless hours playing Spades, Euchre, Hearts and Rummy. I was eager to give it a whirl. It turns out that it really is a wonderful game. After really enjoying Scripts and Scribes I looked up Dr. Finn’s games.
It turns out he is an interesting cat. The blurb on his web site reads: “Games should be a good time: easy to understand, quick to learn, and fun to play. Games have come a long way since Monopoly thanks to some great strategy games that have broken the mold like Settlers of Catan and Carcassone. Dr Finn's Games are a perfect "gateway" to this new world of games, easy to understand, exciting to play and straight from the designer.” He has self published these games in “limited runs of 100-200 games. If the game is well received, we may make additional runs.”
I picked up Slush Fund from him directly and signed up for his email list. Being on the list I was lucky enough to be among the group of people who were able to order his most recent game “The Trial of Socrates.”
Manipulating victory points is a common element in all three games I have played by the good doctor. All three are short, easy to learn, have a nice flow of play and most importantly are (as advertised) fun. The type of game you want to play a couple of times in a row, once you grok what is going on. I would call them Super-Fillers. If you are looking for some games to have on hand while you are waiting for the entire gang to get to game night, these are perfect!
In S&S VPs are dice – value starts off at 3 and during game play cards (Bishops) come up that allow you to add or subtract from the VPs. There are two phases of the game. Both phase are different hand drafting mechanisms. In the first you are building your hand by picking cards off the deck. You have 3 choices. Put the card in your hand, put it in an “auction pile” for the next phase, or put the cards face up (enough for every other player in the game). The face up cards are then drafted by the other players. Play goes round and round until the deck is depleted. Then the auction phase! Yes, I can hear you groan, but fear not friends! It is quick and is just another hand drafting mechanism for this game. Cards come face up one at a time, and you bid gold for cards that aren’t gold, and some number of cards for gold cards. In the end each player has a hand built consisting of various suits. The player with the most points in a suit gets the die, i.e., the VPs. Most VPs wins!
Slush Fund is billed as “An exciting game of bribery, scandal, and politics”. It has VP cards that are added to the politicians you are trying to bribe, scandal cards that subtract VPs, and Thief cards that can steal bribes from other players bribe piles. You play your cards on your side of the politician card and after all the machinations are done, the player with the most money in his bribe pile wins the politician. Base point of politicians is 7 plus and/or minus any VP or scandal cards in that player’s pile.
The Trial of Socrates is a light worker placement filler game. This is a very homespun affair. It has almost a prototype feel to it, production wise. The components are simple but perfectly functional. You place follower tokens of various value face down in various areas of the “board” and are vying for the VPs in each house. The worker (cube) placement mechanism allows you reveal tokens values so you assess where players are in the race to control the houses. A second cube allows you to choose between playing cards, drawing cards, or adjusting your tokens around the board. Most points wins the house VPs and most VPs wins the game.
Some may be turned off by the low production quality, particularly The Trial of Socrates. Much like Winsome games, it actually is part of the charm of the games in my opinion. In the two card games, the cards are fine quality and I rather like the art. Some of the folks I have played with complain that the cards in S&S are a bit hard to differentiate. That is a fair criticism. I would put it down as a minor gripe rather than a reason to not try out the game. It is also perfectly fair to note, that theme in all of these games is utterly superfluous. It is there for ambiance only. It works for me just fine, but may be a disappointment for fans of theme heavy games.
These may sound like the stuff of any usual dreary Euro game, but these games are absolutely a blast. Each of them play in about thirty minutes. While the game play is quick, there is a fair amount of strategy hidden in the simple rules.
If you are looking for a nice filler game (or two) I would highly recommend you check these out. I would note that Scripts and Scribes and Trial of Socrates may be hard to purchase right now. I understand that S&S will be re-released by a professional publisher, hopefully in 2010, albeit under a new name. So keep your eyes open and if you get a chance to support a small publisher I think you will be well pleased with these games.
