Good Portsmanship contest results

["Meredith &#92;"The Eradicator&#92;" Hale" <piecepack7@...>]

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OK, now your e-mail program won't spoil the surprise by displaying the
first line. :-)

WINNER OF THE GOOD PORTSMANSHIP CONTEST:
The Colonists of Natick, a port of The Settlers of Catan Card Game,
by Gary Pressler

RUNNER-UP: Shopping Mall, a port of MarraCash, by Michael
and Stephen Schoessow.

Congratulations to Gary, Michael, and Stephen! I'll be sending the
contest prizes to Gary ASAP. I'll also try to come up with a little
something for Michael and Stephen.

It took me longer to judge this contest than I thought, largely
because in many cases I had to play two games instead of one: the
contest entry, and an original that was unfamiliar to me. So, I
apologise, and here's the feedback on the games. (I hope to have
feedback on the noncompeting games as well later.)

As Clark Rodeffer said recently, authors receiving feedback
should be prepared to take a little vinegar with their honey
(or vice versa). Game authors are encouraged to request even _more_
detailed feedback, which I will be happy to provide as time permits in
private e-mail or on the list. Practically all the games that didn't
win qualify as "good fixer-uppers", and in my opinion can be turned
into darn fine games with a bit more playtesting, feedback, and
tweaking. Make no mistake, this is a good batch of games.

If there is one common problem, it's that the entry rulesets tend to
be hard to understand and need to be better organised, preferably
with tables and player aids. I realise it might have been somewhat
unclear how to do this within the plain text / Markdown constraint of
the contest. However, I do encourage the authors to streamline their
rules, add player aids, and so on, when polishing them for formal
release.

I don't know who the authors are as I write this. When I'm done, this
message will go to Marty Hale-Evans for an edit pass, and then to
Meredith "The Eradicator" Hale, who will add the authors' names and
send it to the piecepack list.

Finally, if the authors would be kind enough to drop me a note and say
whether it's OK for me to web-publish a PDF of the contest version of
their rules while they're working on the release version, I would
greatly appreciate it.

Now on to the feedback.

1. WINNER: The Colonists of Natick, a port of The Settlers of Catan
Card Game, by Gary Pressler. This game is solid, playable, and
well-presented, the stand-out winner of the contest. It hums along like
a little sports car; in the marketing jargon of the computer industry, it
"just works". The "San Marco" (I divide, you choose) mechanism for
selecting events from dice is a welcome improvement on the original
game. It is the most "piecepacky" of the contest entries (with the
possible exception of Pub sCrawl), and makes ingenious use of its
single-piecepack constraint. One of my playtesters suggested opening
the game up to more than two players by using more than one piecepack.
I'm not sure I agree with that, but the author does mention the possibility
of an expansion using a seasonal piecepack, and I look forward to that a
great deal.

2. RUNNER-UP: Shopping Mall, a port of MarraCash, by Michael and
Stephen Schoessow. Although we had some rules questions for the author,
this is another game that pretty much "just works" as presented. Everyone
who played it enjoyed it, and most of us agreed it was an improvement on
the original. Indeed, I tend to think of it as Fischer Random MarraCash,
because the random setup fixes a problem with the static layout of the
original
game's board in the same way that Bobby Fischer has tried to overcome
the modern dependence on book openings with Fischer Random Chess. Nor
is that the only improvement to the game; there are many. There is an
"improvement" we never used, and that's the one in which you can
exchange managers between different stores you own in the mall. After
some analysis, we agreed that this was probably because the game is a
little too short, so tempo is everything, and you can't waste a turn
action not making money. Pretty easily fixed by adding a few more
customers (pennies), we thought. Finally, Shopping Mall could use a
bit of zazz. The theme is a little drab. It makes perfect sense, but
the game could have taken a tip from Take Off, Eh! and added some
funny colour text. Even renaming it "Regional Manager" would lend a
bit of humour. But overall, a splendid game.

3. Globular Cluster, a port of Tikal, also by Michael and Stephen Schossow.
Globular Cluster is a fine, solid, playable, close port of Tikal. The only
serious problem with this game is that it's _too_ close a port of the
original,
and doesn't really improve on it significantly, unlike the winner and
runner-up in this contest. Other, minor problems include the spacing of
supernovas toward the end of the game, which needs some tweaking, and
again, that the game is such a close port that players familiar with
the original tend to muddle the themes, calling supernovas "volcanos",
and so on. Nevertheless, one of my playtesters, for whom Tikal is a
personal favourite, remarked that if he were going on vacation and
didn't have room for Tikal, he would bring a piecepack and the rules
 to Globular Cluster. High praise!

4. Sonic Bio-Mutants in Space!, a port of Holiday, by Jonathan
Dietrich. First, a tip of the hat to the author for good taste in choosing
a game to port: the forgotten classic Holiday, by Sid Sackson. The
way the author ported the world-travel mechanic to rook-like
constraint on a rectangular grid is ingenious and fascinating. However,
it's also a little murky. Whereas Holiday has incredible clarity -- you
always know which exotic location you want to jet to next --
Bio-Mutants often left players hemming and hawing. The ending is
also somewhat anticlimactic and drags a bit. However, everyone who
played it agreed that it had depth, and repeated play would probably
be rewarded.

5. Croquet for Piecepack, a port of Croquet, by Dan Smith. While the rules
to this game need streamlining and better organisation, there is fun to
be had after you get through them. The die-rolling mechanic to
determine the success of a shot adds a lot to the fun; it seems to
simulate superb players with terrible obstacles. One of my playtesters
said he would rather see two or more dice used for more realistic
odds, but I rather liked the one-die mechanic. It gives a springy,
bouncy feel to the game that's not at all apparent from merely reading
the rules. However, in the end, the rules are just too fiddly. They
need a good edit pass. It's also interesting to note that Croquet for
Piecepack is more of a simulation than a direct port, unlike every
other game in the contest. It certainly took some imagination to port
a lawn game, though.


6. Take Off, Eh!, a port of El Grande, by Clark Rodeffer. "OK, so ten out
of tenfor style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?" --
Zaphod Beeblebrox. If games could win with theme alone, Take Off, Eh!
would leave the other entries coughing up blood in the dust. (Maybe
 the author was just pandering to the judge, since I enjoy Canadian
comedy.) However, mechanics count too, and the mechanics to this game
need more playtesting. One game of TOE! was enough to show there are
some serious things wrong. In our game, for various reasons, the Queen
hardly moved at all. Imagine if the King never moved in El Grande --
it would be a static, anticlimactic disaster for all players. We were
all also put off by the incredible redundancy and clutter in the rules
 -- multi-page tables repeated multiple times at random intervals,
and so on. The rules to this game are actually something
like six or eight pages longer than the rules to the original when
printed in the same typeface. The author jokes that the rules are
redundant so they'll waste paper and support the Canadian lumber
industry, but this is a case where form intrudes on function, and with
respect to this bit of humour, my playtesters and I share the
sentiment of the Queen: "We are not amused." Everyone who played
agreed the game was fixable, however, and we have several suggestions.

7. The Wandering Merchant, a port of Merchant of Venus, by Jorge
Arroyo Gonzalez. This game was pretty fun. One of my playtesters
remarked he'd rather play it than the original. I might agree, once some
basic problems are fixed. For example, the game claims to be for from
one to eight players, but it can't support anywhere near that many.
Every player needs a horse (Moon coin) to haul their cart, but there are
only six Moon coins in the game, and some players can end up with
more than one. Thus, the absolute maximum number of players is six,
and even thatmany players will break one of the basic mechanics in
the game, which is the competition for horses, since everyone will
have just one horse and be unable to get another one. Another problem
is with the theme of the game. The author transposed a science fiction
setting of galactic trade to a fantasy setting, but while there are wizards
and elves and dwarves and so on in the game, there's precious little
magic. Why not set the game in the Wild West? They had carts and
horses too. Summary: Has some basic problems, but will probably
eventually be quite playable.

8. Pub sCrawl, a port of Senet, by Jonathan Dietrich. If Take Off, Eh! is
the
thematic high point of the contest, Pub sCrawl is the low point. I
personally found the theme, a drinking contest where players try
to avoid vomiting on the steps of the frat house, distasteful to the point
of causing me to procrastinate playtesting the game. However, when I
actually played it, it was surprisingly enjoyable. The mechanics work
quite well, especially for a roll-and-move game. They add some strategy
to Senet with blind bidding for the initiative to move, and they speed
Senet up with some mechanics borrowed from its descendant,
Backgammon. The game also makes good use of the components
of a single piecepack. This is the only port of an abstract game in
the contest, and if it had stayed abstract, it would have scored a lot
better. I would advise the author to lose the theme, and maybe reduce
the number of rounds in the game (each round is equivalent to an entire
game of Senet), or let the players decide how many rounds they will
play. Removing or changing the theme would reveal another of the game's
strong points: playtesters agreed that it would be an excellent game to
play with kids, except for the inappropriate theme.


9. Temple of Gold, a port of Goldland, by Jorge Arroyo Gonzalez. Another
game that's basically OK, but badly needs more playtesting. The setup
for the game is long and complicated, complicated even further by the
fact that the setup rules are actually broken (they conflate the Suns
and Summer suits once or twice, which caused much confusion). The
rules need clarity, streamlining, and player aids, player aids, player aids
(preferably with graphics). The treasure-finding "triangulation"
mechanism is clever, but broken in at least two ways (the author did
not seem to consider null tiles and edges). It would be nice if the
game had a bit more intrinsic colour; it doesn't really stand well on
its own but expects you to know all about what things are and why they
work that way because you played the original game. As for Goldland
itself as a choice of games to port, I enjoy it, but it tends to
suffer from what I call the Golden Snitch problem (cf. Quidditch in
the Harry Potter books): the only thing that really matters is getting
to the Temple first, not the adventures you have beforehand. Temple
of Gold seems to work (or not) the same way.

10. Human Harvest, a port of Atta Ants, by Todd Krause. First, I think the
choice of game to port here is brilliant. Atta Ants could have been
an original piecepack game. The components map from Atta Ants
to the piecepack nicely: tiles to tiles, ants to coins, and so
on. That said, the game doesn't really gel. In the original game, the
spiders move slower than the ants, so the ants can leave the nest and
go foraging without constantly getting gobbled by spiders. In Human
Harvest, the human militias (= spiders) move _faster_ than the cyborgs
(= ants), so the cyborgs are in a constant state of zugzwang
("Zugzwang means that one player is put at a disadvantage because he
has to make a move ? the player would like to pass and make no
move."--Wikipedia). In short, it's never to the advantage of the
cyborgs to leave the factory (= nest), and there is no rule (that we
could find) that says you have to. I actually suspect that the author
initially paraphrased the rules to Atta Ants and did a
search-and-replace on them, because there's one place where the word
"ant" is used instead of "cyborg". Anyway, I suspect this is a
beginner effort, so please try again. Make the spiders slower! :-)

That's all! Thanks to Meredith "The Eradicator" Hale for all her help.
Also, as usual, Marty Hale-Evans for her help and putting up with me.
Thanks also to my playtesters Dave Adams, John Braley, Karl Erickson,
Kisa Griffin, Mark Haggerty, Marty Hale-Evans, Gorm Nykreim, Mark
Purtill, Tim "AlphaTim" Schutz, Chad Urso McDaniel, Steve Vallee, and
Eric Yarnell.

Ron H-E, Port Authority

--
   Ron Hale-Evans ... rwhe@... ... http://ron.ludism.org/
Mind Performance Hacks book: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mindperfhks/
          Center for Ludic Synergy: http://www.ludism.org/
(revilous life proving aye the death of ronaldses when winpower wine has
                  bucked the kick on poor won man)