SquarkBlog

Today is the last day of 2008. Some people will be glad to see the back if it, and others will bid 2008 a fond farewell. It has been a tumultuous year for most. It has been the year the US sub-prime issue took a stab at practically everyone in the world. It has been the year of many landslides in Malaysia. It has been the year where political flashpoints erupted in many areas of the world. It has been the year of suffering. However, 2008 also have had its cheerful moments. It has been the year of the Beijing Olympics. Who could forget the amazing Opening Ceremony, or Michael Phelps' eight gold medals?  It has been the year of the first Formula One night race in Singapore. It has been the year when the price of crude oil plummeted. Games-wise, it has been  The Year of the Outer-Space Euro Game - the year when the theme of Designer Euro Games moved on from the Renaissance trader into outer space.

The typical theme of a Designer Euro Games was trading in the Age of Renaissance. Being games designed in Europe, this was understandable. However, there were too many games with similar settings. Examples of very good games with Renaissance trading themes are The Traders of Genoa, Ys,  Goa, Oltre Mare, Medici, etc. Besides these classics, there were also mediocre games with tired oft-repeated games mechanics set in the Renaissance era. Personally, I am of the opinion that the Renaissance trader theme has been over-utilised in board games design. The delicious games displayed in Essen Games Fair 2008 had a preponderance of science fiction themes. This is a refreshing change. I believe 2007's very popular card game, Race for the Galaxy (RftG) had something to do with this. RftG was a hot game for many reasons. It's a fast game where players has to analyse the immediate game conditions and deploy compatible combination of cards. The adrenaline felt while playing a good session of RftG is, to date, unmatched. Needless to say, RftG sold like hot cakes. Board game designers, being  intelligent beings as they were, quickly caught on to this and saw the light beyond the candle-lit Renaissance night. A quick theme change and voila! One science fiction game was born.

 I was drooling when I read about the science-fiction games released in Essen 2008. One of these was Duck Dealer published by one of my favourite games publishers, Splotter. This game was released in Essen 2008 without any pre-release info on what the game was about. Nor were there any pictures, samples, description, etc. Minimal marketing costs! When the gates of Essen  2008 were opened, the Splotter stand was swamped and all 200 copies of limited edition of Duck Dealer were sold out. This is apparently an efficiency engine building game. Commodities are traded and exchanged for more advanced goods.

Another space game that caught my eye was Space Alert. This is a real-time co-operative game where players try to save their space craft from being destroyed. Sounds good to me. However, comments from players who have played the game reveal that Space Alert has limited re-playability, as on repeated games, the players can anticipate the threats easily.

As expected, the expansion for RftG was released in 2008, entitled, Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm. This is a hot item since it expands on another hot item. The business model is simple. Make hay while the sun shines. Produce expansions for hot games while they remain hot. Seriously, this expansion makes RftG better, and ,as a bonus, it adds a fifth player. As another bonus, it has components and rules for a ‘robot' player, allowing a single human player to play RftG solitaire. I absolutely love this expansion.

Galaxy Trucker has been an enigma to me throughout 2008. I first came to know bout this during Essen 2007. I read many posts on the internet on this game, but since we did not stock it for the best part of 2008, Galaxy Trucker somehow lingered somewhere in between my conscious and sub-conscious thoughts. When Essen 2008 arrived, I took the opportunity to order this colourful comical game. The picture of the front box cover somehow reminds me of the space recreational vehicle, Eagle 5, in the movie Space Balls. Upon opening the game box, I half expected Dark Helmet to jump up at me looking for Princess Vespa. The loud, prolonged box fart did not help. I was in stitches in no time. This game is about building space ships and making money by carrying cargo. Sounds boring? Au contraire! Players are space truckers in a coprporation that builds sewer systems. They build their space ships by literally grabbing space ships components from the table and either add the component to his space ship board or discard it before grabbing another. This happens in real time. The faster one grabs and fits the components, the faster his space ship is going to be built. Now, there are rules on how each component can be joined to another. These rules are simple, but the chaotic environment of your opponents frantically grabbing components and building their space ships may cause even the calmest, coldest, most calculating player to panic and connect components wrongly. After building your space ships, there is the test flight! This is where anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Anything from meteors (small and large) to cannon fire (light and heavy) from pirate space ships can hit your ship. The test flight may also yield goods and money. At the end of the flight, gains and losses are totalled. In the second round of the game, players build a bigger ship and go for more dangerous missions. In the third round, gigantic class III ships are built to hopefully withstand the journey to the far reaches of space, the final frontier. This game cheered up everyone. Afterall, who could resist a game where the blurb at the back of the box starts with, ‘In a galaxy far, far away, they need sewer systems'?

There are other space-themed games released in 2008. Honourable mention goes to Neuroshima Hex! Babel 13,  Battlestar Galactica and Android. As for 2009, I hope to expect more space-themes in games, but these games must break new ground in terms of games mechanics.  The next year could bring uncertainty to many. As such, I hope for more games that make players laugh out loud, literally. They may also roll on the floor laughing theirs out. The more laughter, the better. Seriously. The world needs more laughter. Furthermore, I would also like to see more contemporary-themed games, perhaps reflecting more on the good points of life, with subtle reminders of the threats we could face and how we can co-operate to overcome them together as one before we lose the human race.