Troy Goodfellow

Episode 197: All By Myself

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Troy and Bruce welcome original panelist Tom Chick back to the show to talk about solitaire boardgames, starting with the new Phantom Leader for iPad and then roaming through Nemo's War, Levee En Masse, some Lovecraftian thing and Ambush. What makes a solitaire board game distinct from a computer game played against an AI? When do theme and production values matter if it's just you? Plus the return of the Geryk outro tunes.

Here is the show.

Phantom Leader on iTunes

Shut Up Sit Down Show on Phantom Leader and Ambush

Elder Sign

Levee En Masse

Nemo's War

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"Elder Miskatonic School Gils in Trouble" ha! I have the same problem with those two girl titles.

I have played some Arkham Horror, works as a device to create a story with a small group of people, but all the bookeeping and managing tons of components during play substracts the desire to play it, for what the game mechanics are I don't feel the reward of going through a full game.

I bought not so long ago "Boots on the Ground" it selled itself as a game you might play Solitaire, Cooperaively, Cooperatively-Competitive or Competitive. Sounds Great! Sadly the game rules feel "incomplete" basically when playing solitaire you make the decisions for the board, there really are not proper rules to follo for the "cardboard-opponent", so you end up playing two sides. And competitive play is just so dry... there are just not enough decisions for one of the players.

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In almost any board game the inner workings will always be more exposed than in a video game.

I find (for me at least) this often puts the process of mastering of a system front and centre in terms of what I get out of a good board game, and that a good part of the appeal of solitaire board games is that as Bruce puts it “it can't hide anything”.

Often the best of these game feel like they offer me a chance to understand the forces that are operating against me far better than I could in a multi player game.

Of course I'm often not doing much more than moving a few pieces and following some instructions but even then its a far more comprehensible and above all predictable than a human opponent. Which is one of the reasons I also like having solitaire versions of multi player games because it is a great way of learning them (especially if your going to have to explain that game to a impatient game group).

Feeling I understand a system that do not quite fully understand it is often the sweet point me, in games of any type, and I think the way that the inner logic of the solitaire game's 'engine' is laid out combined with the randomness of card or dice based mechanics can sometimes hit that dead on.

I think what Bruce labelled “decimalisation” can be big part of this, because being able to sense how strong something is is a big part of the way I understand any game world. Everyone knows how dice work, it something we understand at a very basic physical level when we have a dice in our hand.

I also agree with Bruce that this is something the digital version of Elder Signs has a lot of issues with. It's choice to use abstracts symbols instead of numbers makes it a lot harder to understand instinctively when I can hold a dice in our hand and turn it round, feels its weight.

Now while the information about the probabilities is in the game, it's not helpful that I have to dig several pages into the manual before I can find any it. Certainly I feel that that once I did know the results the three different dice were capable of producing the game did become a lot more readable for me.

I think that may be something digital games may always struggle with, because I feel I will always feel that a dice I have seen myself rolled is far more fair, than a dice roll randomly generated by a computer even though it is nothing of the sort.

However I think it's worth considering that in some ways this is quite appropriate for the sort of narrative a game set in the Cthulhu mythology would be trying create. It is certainly not a universe renowned for its fair and understandable logic.

Anyone find themselves similarly more forgiving of randomness in physical products than in their digital equivalents?

because i wonder if this can make or break some solitaire board games digital adaptations

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Often the best of these game feel like they offer me a chance to understand the forces that are operating against me far better than I could in a multi player game.

Well, I think it gives you the time to understand a system, you can take days or weeks to complete a solitaire game, nothing is stopping you from analyzing every situation.

In multiplayer games, especially if you're learning the game... its usually an excersice in thinking faster to better resolve the puzzles at a given time.

(I could be totally wrong but...) Good multiplayer play is usually born when all players have similar skill or experience with a given system, when all the basic puzzles are resolved and the only thing left is the unpredictable actions of your team/opponents.

Anyone find themselves similarly more forgiving of randomness in physical products than in their digital equivalents?

because i wonder if this can make or break some solitaire board games digital adaptations

I like randomness, it doesn't matter if the format is digital or physical.

Of course, understanding a dice, and the probabilities to be succesful at a certain action is easy, especially if you have the dice in hand (For a digital port of a boardgame, players should be always warned of the "objects" you're using to determine results),

Armageddon Empires, was a really satisfactory game for me (after learning the basics) because it displayed all results clearly. The only thing that was somewhat frustrating were the "invisible rolls" used for scouting, since I didn't know how that system worked (or that it existed) until I read the manual.

Edit -- This "boardgame engine" looks very good: https://www.youtube....d&v=8WD0gMu0LDU

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Enjoyed this episode, with just a trio of the "originals" at the helm.

It was good to hear Levee en Masse get some love, it's part of the States of SiegeTM boardgame range, whereby similar mechanics are employed in a whole range of themed games - but some play better than others. The one I absolutely love is Zulus on the Ramparts, which does a spiffing job of melding the frantic "underdog" defense of Rorke's Drift against the Zulu horde. It manages to incorporate a lot of "hero" character cards with a more rewarding dice based volley fire to keep the Zulu's out. Similar mechanics, but suits the theme (at a more personal tactical level) much better IMHO.

I ran an after action report on sugarfreegamer of a game of tabletop Zulus on the Ramparts, interjecting narrative with each draw and roll. I think interest in the theme with these sort of games really does go a long way to draw the player in, and if you're ambivalent to the theme, the actual mechanics might not have the same draw. Since I have a strong interest in the Anglo-Zulu War, I'd have much preferred the effort of development of Levee en Masse go towards a Zulus on the Ramparts title, simply because it would have more an intimate setting, and anyone who has seen the film Zulu would instantly relate to the desperate plight of men involved. I would imagine a similar more broader appeal would also happen with their Alamo title.

The high production values of Levee en Masse was very encouraging, and as a short pick up and play boardgame that doesn't involve very complex rulesets, I think it does a cracking job for a quick blast lunchtime game with tension, some choices with limited actions, but with lady luck always breathing down your neck on the battle rolls. The game has historical card draws (in a set order), or random - providing some replayability, and as you progress through the event deck, it goes through the colours of the french flag, increasing the modifiers against you, accelerating the pressure you'll be under to hold it all together. Might not be the best choice for the States of Siege series, but it's a good effort, and I'd hope sales would encourage bringing more of these titles to the tablet platforms.

(for Tom) There is an American Civil War themed game, called The Lost Cause - although I haven't played it so I can't comment on whether it's worth the effort.

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Edit -- This "boardgame engine" looks very good: https://www.youtube....d&v=8WD0gMu0LDU

Thats pretty cool, it a weird way dice that are physically simulated do feel more fair to me, the Witcher 2's

seemed to do something pretty similar.

Which reminds me physical dice aren't always fair anyway. (I imagine most people will have seen that but it still makes me smile that there may be a actual reason why I seem to roll so many ones ;D )

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Thats pretty cool, it a weird way dice that are physically simulated do feel more fair to me, the Witcher 2's

seemed to do something pretty similar.

Which reminds me physical dice aren't always fair anyway. (I imagine most people will have seen that but it still makes me smile that there may be a actual reason why I seem to roll so many ones ;D )

Simulating physical rolls actually could be more fair (than throwing "real dice"), since the objects have no different weight on each side (unless the dev also wants to simulate that), a good "physics engine" with no randomization involved could do the job perfectly. In the video I think when you pick up the dice, their faces are changed randomly, maybe it was a design decision to evade to a degree "skill rolls". I would still prefer a button so the dice are thrown for me, with the memory capacity and processing power of computers today I don't worry too much about randomization, a sophisticated algorithm might do a really good job at that.

That article has interesting results, maybe the manufacture of the mold makes the dice denser by one side? I have no idea.

One thing to consider is that all games workshop games (and most boardgames in general) are designed with these dice and so should reflect this in the gameplay accordingly. If you see somebody using games workshop dice for leadership tests and vegas style dice for everything else, then you can be sure that they are trying to get an unfair advantage though! Try to ensure you are using the same dice as you opponent.

That part was just so "meta", it would be interesting to "re-balance" a game by using weighted dice. Or... you could make another mini-game into the system by drafting random dice you might think have "better" rolls :P

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