A brief note to say that we (me and Andrea “Ganesha Games” Sfiligoi) are thinking about the realisation of a limited edition of my game Zen Garden with some revised rules and better materials. It will be handmade but with professional elements. In the following weeks we will start the production. A demo will be present at Lucca Games at the end of October. You could see the real game ready for Christmas, I suppose. Now I’m a game producer too…

Another day in Terni, another day with Song of Drums and Shakos Large Battles (maybe in the final version the name will be without “Song”). The train left Roma station at 7.48 in the morning. This time Federico from Rome was with us. He is a veteran of Napoleonic battles. Our guest is Sergio as usual, with his game, his kindness and a powerful pasta with red and green pesto, red and green as Terni’s coat of arms.

I resulted in a very bad performance. I act as an amateur. I went straight ahead but enemy cavalry was not so convinced to permit this to me. It is true that in this manner we could destroy it because was alone in the field and under fire from our forces. At the end I put my soldiers at the will of my partner in the game, Sergio himself. But Sergio wrong move was that he didn’t develop early the reserves, especially the artillery.

As I thought, this is not the last version of SDS LB (from now DSLB). Other tweaks have to be do. Nothing so big, but something to improve the game in some situations. Linear games are even a bit complicated by geometric messes, and we don’t want a game for land surveyors.

Maybe we could see the complete game at the end of the year…

Some weeks ago, in the middle of August, during a hot evening, me and Diego tried in a private session the last release of Song of Drums and Shakos Large Battle. As I said before, Diego is very involved in the Sergio’s project, so he wanted to taste some of the rules to understand if all is smooth and fine. He set a scenario and adapted his 1/72 miniatures to the game. And he introduced some different composition of the armies to create peculiar forces, a variation to the more aseptic battalions that we used before for the tests.

I’m not an expert of Napoleonic warfare, but now I know some of the basics, so I moved my pieces with skilfulness, or almost I believe it. At the start I strike very hard, and glory was at hand. But in the following turns, a hill slowed my paces and I couldn’t give the final punch to the enemy on my left flank. Maybe the rule for hills are not good, because to climb them you must spend two activations only for movement. So I had too many turn overs. And to this followed a general change of situation on my throws: it meant a drawback and after defeat.

Another test and a list of observations to Sergio. Tomorrow we will have another playtesting day in Terni. Sergio tell us that this is the last test for the rules. I don’t believe him…

At last, my report on GiocaRoma 2011, the boardgame convention of Rome. I repeat myself: I like these events build by gamers for gamers. There were tournaments, boardgames presentations, wargames, vendors, free toy library with people who explain rules and follow you during the first turn. All inside a sporting centre near the underground, with pool and tennis camps. We don’t use the pool, usual clients did. There is a restaurant inside with low prices (water + potatoes + pizza = 6€) and a bar. The sad thing is that there was a misunderstood and the restaurant owners don’t know about the event so ice creams and other food disappeared too soon. And GiocaRoma is always very hot, so ice creams were a necessary resource!!!

This is the free toy library before the assault, early in the morning…

Over 1000 registered visitors, but hardcore gamers were less. Among boardgame players there are even women, a factor unknown by wargamers. And a lot of women are brides of other gamers. So here we aren’t only among bald and fat men as usual.

An interview for tv to Bao (an African game) promoter. He runs an international tournament and the diffusion of the game for beneficence purposes.
The orange dress of the interviewer was very pretty, indeed. Look at the shoes, she is moving like a child…

These are the cups for tournaments played in GiocaRoma.

During the first day I presented Zen Garden. Read the other post to know more about it. When I will find the time I show more on it.

Here you can see a Miles Glorious‘ delegation playing with Zen Garden.

And here other players. On the right Sinclair from Ratio Ludica, on the left Lorenzo from Zerloon Place. Their comments were enthusiasts!

And now some words about games we tried on Sunday. Carson City is an interesting game. Someone say that it is a sort of Caylus without too many mental calculations, with a far west flavour and some dices to add fun. Well, if you don’t know Caylus, I can say that this Carson City is about a placement mechanism of meeples with added a terrain where you can buy land and put buildings to have revenues. And if you want the same resource, placing your meeple (who resemble a cowboy) on it where just where another gamer placed his, then there is a duel! More fun than Pillars of the Earth! So, a great far west game!

It was a long time that I wanted to try Letters from Whitechapel because of the setting in actual Banglatown. The map is gorgeous. The game is a more complicated version of the old Scotland Yard. Fun, but not so intriguing as the box and the map. For a night with friends and a smart guy as the fugitive. I was not so smart so the play ended before than I expected.

Ventura is an Italian game distributed by Fantasy Flight Games. It is a classic game with a map, some armies around and your zone of control where you take your money to built armies. But this time all is packed in the age of mercenary armies in Italy, the age of condottieri. The new thing is that you can built the map adding terrain hexagons with specific values. So, it is a great-grandchildren beautiful variant of Risiko in a great setting. Some material are of the highest quality, others are not. However some rules are weak, so he urges some tweaks, as hidden composition of armies. I think I play again with this game because Paolo bought it.

We give another try to 7 Wonders. I like it, but Paolo tell us it is only a card game with a high price. I hope Francesca buy it.

While I was involved with Zen Garden, Paolo run an exhibition game of MEKA, still in beta form. This time in a desert setting instead of the urban one. Zakus are always the best mechas around…

Our friend Di Bartolo showed his Napoleonic game, almost ready to be published. The best terrain and painted miniatures of the event.

Subbuteo football club. For football fans only. I’m not in this category, but I like stubbornness of Subbuteo fans from ’70s!

There was Miniature Mania, a painting service from Perugia. I take some pictures. I like the weird effect of miniatures at twilight!!!

I didn’t buy anything, but there were gracious games and related stuff. Another time. The hard true is that I buy things but I haven’t the time to play with them! Sad, sad, very sad. At the end I remained only with these tickets. They were for the lottery. 1000 tickets for 10 prizes (a holiday during Modenacon 2012 + 9 boardgames), so I bought 11 tickets for 11€, 1 to 100 to have something. I only had the pleasure to give away little money for 2 days of fun. Thank you GiocaRoma!

I’m just returned from the first day of GiocaRoma, the convention of boardgames here in Rome. Well, there is even a large section of wargames, very large indeed, but the people who organise all are from boardgames clubs. All the work is voluntary, so it is a great d.i.y. convention made by real gamers for other gamers. I want to do my part in this, so today I presented my game, Zen Garden.

Here you can see my space. A small place on a large row of tables but they hadn’t a 30×30 table…

All went fine, very fine. I was available all the day. Positive feedbacks. The greatest comment was: “a poetic game”!

And now a fast look to the finished game with all his components: dices for activations, dices for combat, measurements sticks (made from “samurai” labelled toothpicks!!!), counters for lack of fire and wounds, cards for stats.

Now is late night, and tomorrow I am going to have another full day in GiocaRoma, this time to play with games made by other people, so I close here. In the future I will spent more time on how my game works. And there will be a report on this edition of GiocaRoma.

A friend of mine, a real demented friend of mine, gifted me, some Christmas ago, a small Zen Garden that you can put on your desk. He thought to be witty, but I hated him (well, he is still one of best friends of mine, so I didn’t kill him). Now, what could I do with this little newage crap for puffs? I put it on a bookshelf for some years. After I had the right idea.
When you go to conventions you have to take with you a lot of miniatures and a beautiful terrain if you want to show a game. But the game is full of options and a convention is full of people, of confusion and of heat, so you cannot have the right attention from your guests. A easy move is to present simple scenarios with less rules and standard troops. That results as a watered down version of your game, and so you give away a poor aspect for your game. So I thought to a specific game only for conventions, with a small terrain, few miniatures, easy rules, fast explanations. A game contained in a zen garden that you can put on your desk…

My mini zen garden is really mini. It can be used only with 6mm miniatures but you have to buy an hundred when you only want ten. So I brought from IKEA a simple and small frame (Nyttja type) at 5 euros for a two pack. I closed one part with cardboard, put a lot of vinyl glue and spread quartz sand. My intention was to design the classical tracks of zen gardens, but the glue was too thick so I had a lot of lumps. I tried to solve this situation but the final effect was more a Lunar surface than a garden for Japanese monks. At the end, I didn’t give to it a particular importance, I have got my terrain, if it is not so zen I don’t care. I can always tell the story that it is a zen garden in the middle of the fighting storm! So no regular tracks, but scattered sand!
Then I added some trinkets I found in the mini box, as the rake, creating obstacles to miniatures.

For the miniatures I ask to Paolo (Ronin Clan) if he can gift me some of his 10mm samurai. Eight are enough for a scenario. To create the bases I brought some rings for rivets in a hardware store. I put here the result on cardboard, ready for the painting process. On a next post more zen on arrival…

Another day in Terni, another day in Sergio’s house, another day of testing of Ganesha Games’ rules. This time was the 7th of August and the staff were: me, Diego “Legio Palatina”, Sergio “SDS”, Andrea “Ganesha”, Gasbarri “Italian champion of all miniature wargame tournaments”, Salini “Chimera”. So we had two gamers from Rome, two from Arezzo and two from Terni.

After a debate on who from Arezzo works as a apothecary (don’t mind, it is a inner joke), we started a game with Song of Drums and Shakos Large Battle. Every time I think it is in the final state of the testing, every time I found something new in the rules. Well, you can’t say we didn’t try this ruleset before its publication! We are testing it since a couple of years. What can I say? I confirm all my impressions. This time the game was faster because Sergio wants to close a game in a 2 hours and half, because he is tired of longer games that you cannot end in a evening. So you have a more deadly play, but with realistic results. I would prefer a slower and less compress view of the game, but frankly 2 hours and half are enough for a game, so now SDS LB is still better.

In the middle of the play we made a pause for lunch. At the restart I left SDS LB (my place was taken by Sergio and they made another game too, with a long debate after) for a game with Mighty Monsters. I aided Andrea in its development and founded some key ideas about the mechanism of the game. They were a lot of months that I didn’t play with these small versions of Godzilla and foes. We made some little adjustments and tried some terrain effects. It is almost ready for betatesting to external playtesters, but still we have to try it putting Japanese Defence Forces in the pit.

At the end I tried for the second time the new game of Andrea, Swatters (not the definitive name), a sci-fi game about voracious aliens and terrestrial garrisons (I talked about it in the 17th of July post). Andrea is very involved in its development because of the new form of the play. It is a game with easy rules and with a immediate visual recognition of the troops statistics and wounds using the miniatures and their position inside circular trays (made from old CDs). I think that especially this game it’s very easy to play without reading the rules before, because you have all what you need just on the table. I suggested to use trays made from mini-Cds, but now you can find only mini-DVDs, and Andrea is stockpiling them to play a very large battle. Using 15mm, the Ganesha’s distance sticks, a bunch of dices to add probability factors to your fighting results, and mini-DVDs as trays, you can have your sci-fi battle.

In these times I’m looking E-Bay all days because I’m looking for some ancients troops to create armies for all Italic people around 400 b.C.. So in the while you can find a thing like this, even if Filippo find it before me! It is a huge resin arena from USA wide 2 feet and 8 inch high. Quick! This auction ends today!