After Action Report – Thursday Night Gaming @ Paradise Perks, November 7, 2013

I returned to Paradise Perks this week for the Thursday Night Gaming event after my trip to Comic Quests Halloween event last week.  There were around 15 people there with 3 games being played at any one time.  This was a fairly small crowd for them as they usually get over 20 people and have at least five games going.

I was able to play two games at the event:  Compounded and La Boca.

The first game up was Compounded.  Compounded is a chemistry themed game.  The players are scientists who are working in a lab trying to mix together elements to create compound.  They score points for each compound created.  The more complex the compound and the more rare the element that make up the compound the more points it is worth.

There are four rounds in each turn.  The first round is the Discovery Phase where the players collect elements.  The players take a number of elements from the bag of elements based on their discovery score.  They may then trade the elements with other players.  Once this is done play moves on to the Study Phase.

In the Study Phase the players take turns claiming compounds they wish to work on from the compound cards that are face up on the table.  After this is done play moves into the Research Phase where the players take the elements that they got in the Discovery Phase and ad them to the compound that they have claims on.  A turn ends with the Lab Phase where any complete compounds are scored, any ability adjustments are made, lab fires are resolved, and new compounds are added to replace the ones that are scored.

The game ends when the first player reaches 50 points, a player has all four of their abilities maxed out, or there are no more compound cards left.

I liked the concept of the game but ended up having very poor execution during it.  I thought that the most important thing was to be able to get and use as many elements as possible so I focused my strategy on getting the compounds that would increase my abilities to do those things and ignored the skill that would allow me to claim more compound to work on.  This cause me a lot of problems as the game progressed because I was able to get a bunch of elements but I did not have any place to use them as many compounds require a number of turns to capture.  I was able to get my first increase in the number of compounds I could claim as the game ended and was not able to gain back any ground.  I managed to come in a distant third out of four players with the player in fourth being a point behind.

We did not have much time left after we finished Compounded so we decided to follow it up with a quick game.  We settled on La Boca to be that game.

La Boca is an abstract game in which the players team up with another player and solve a three dimension puzzle using a set of 10 different shaped blocks (11 blocks in the case of the advanced game.).

The players are shown a challenge card.  On each side of the card is a different pattern.  The players then use the blocks to build the pattern so that both players solve their pattern correctly in two minutes or less.  The players gain victory point for the amount of time they spend solving the puzzle.  The less time you spend the more points you get.

The game ends when each of the players has teamed up with all of the other players twice.

People that have been following my blog know about my love of abstract games that I find very difficult to win them.  This time however I was able to do quite well.  I was able to complete every one of the puzzles I did in less than a minute, which is great as one of the other teams did not finish one of theirs.  Since I did so well, I was able to win the game which is one of the best victories I have had in a while.

My stats for the event were:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Avg.
Compounded	1	-	-	1	-	-	-	-		3.00
La Boca	1	1	-	-	-	-	-			1.00
Totals	2	1	-	1	-	-	-		-	2.00

 If You are Interested In Purchasing These Games:

Z-Man Games Press Relase - La Boca - What's it all about?

From the Z-Man Game Website

La Boca - What's it all about?

La Boca is a game where you will have to build structures with a teammate. Sounds easy enough right? The tricky thing is, you don’t see half of the building plan and neither does your teammate. You will have to constantly communicate in order to get your building built as fast as you possibly can. How are the teams determined? In La Boca, you will always be changing teammates. At the beginning of each round, the active player will reveal a colored token that will determine his or her teammate for this round.  The person who will have gathered the most points individually at the end of the game will be victorious! How do you know what to build? At the beginning of each round, a Task card is placed in the card slot with one side facing one player and the other side facing the other player. The task card shows each player how the game pieces must look after completing the construction. You must match the card exactly on both sides. To do so, partners must communicate to explain what colored blocks are seen on one side of the card and which one are seen on the other. You must use every single piece included in the box (except for the RED piece if you are not playing the expert version of the game) to build your construction as fast as you can. Why should we build fast? Each round is timed. The less time you take to build your construction correctly, the more points you will earn! Well there you have it! That was a more in-depth look at La Boca!

Game Review – La Boca

La Boca
Number of Players	3 - 6
Play Time	40 minutes
Ages	8 years and up

La Boca is a 3D puzzle game set in Buenos Aires.  There is a neighborhood there called La Boca that is famous for its colorful and eccentric skyline.  In the game you are trying to replicate it using 10 or 11 blocks of different shapes and sizes.  The number of blocks you use depends on the difficulty level that you are playing at.

The players are put together in shifting teams of two across the table from each other.  Then a challenge care is set between them on the board.  The challenge card has the different ways that the puzzle should look when completed for each of the players.  The players then build the puzzle using all 10 block that they are given.

They must build complete the puzzle in 2 minutes or less.  Based on the amount of time before the 2 minutes that they complete the puzzle, they score points.  The less time it takes to complete the puzzle the more points the players get.  The number of rounds that a player plays depends on the number of players in the game. 

The person that has the most points at the end of the game wins.

The game has two difficulty levels.  The basic level is completing challenges with 10 blocks.  The advanced game adds an 11^th block, a 3 space tall L, which does not seem that much harder on paper, but when you are trying to complete the puzzles, it is actually much harder.

The game uses inserts in the bottom of the box as the playing surface and comes with the following:  11 wooden pieces of different shapes and colors, 64 challenge cards that have the puzzles to complete (128 in all), 100point chips of varying values,  6 player boards, 30 partner chips to divide the teams with, and an electric timer.

La Boca is a very entertaining game.  It is an abstract game that is light enough that most people that do not like abstract games will enjoy it.  On the other side of it the puzzles are engaging enough that abstract game lovers will find La Boca entertaining as well.

Even though only 2 people play each turn those turns are over in 2 minutes or less so there really is not that much down time for the players that are not solving the current puzzle.

La Boca should be on any gamer’s play list and is a good entry level game because it is easy to explain and very engaging.

Scorecard Review – May 2013

May is over so it is time for a review of the scorecard.

May

In the month of May I played 18 games at 8 events for an average of 2.25 games per event.  This is down from April’s 3 games per event.

I continued to have a rough time winning games.  I won 2 games, came in second 3 times, third 4 times, fourth 7 times, and fifth 2 times for an average standing of 3.22, which is down from the 2.44 I had in April.

I played the following games multiple times:  La Boca and The Great Heartland Hauling Co.

I played I played five games for the first time, City of Iron, Just In Time, Keyflower, La Boca, Merchant of Venus.

Here is the ending scorecard for May 2013.

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	Avg.
Bazaar	1	1	-	-	-	-	-		1.00
Cargo Noir	1	-	1	-	-	-
City of Iron	1	-	1	-	-				2.00
Empire Builder	1	-	1	-	-	-	-		2.00
Just In Time	1	-	-	-	1				4.00
Iron Dragon	1	-	-	-	1	-	-		4.00
Keyflower	1	-	-	-	-	1	-		5.00
La Boca	2	-	-	-	2	-	-		4.00
Lunar Rails	1	1	-	-	-	-	-		1.00
Martian Rails	1	-	-	1	-	-	-		3.00
Merchant of Venus	1	-	-	1	-				3.00
Stone Age	1	-	-	-	1				4.00
The Great Heartland Hauling Co.	2	-	-	1	1	-			3.50
Thebes	1	-	-	1	-	-			3.00
Trajan	1	-	-	-	1				4.00
Yedo	1	-	-	-	-	1			5.00
Totals	18	2	3	4	7	2	-	-	3.22

Year to date

The total games I have played is 27 games at 11 events or 2.45 games per event, which is down 0.55 games per event.

I have won 2 games and have a standing of 2.89 which is down from the previous month by 0.45.

The stats for my 5 most frequently played games are:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	Avg.
The Great Heartland Hauling Co.	3	-	-	2	1	-			3.33
La Boca	2	-	-	2	-	-	-		3.00
Salmon Run	2	-	2	-	-	-			2.00
Yedo	2	-	1	-	-	1			3.50
Bazaar	1	1	-	-	-	-	-		1.00