-JEEP

My son was born on May 30.  It’s been fun remembering how really little children are.  Having a boy is different.  You have to remember to put up a little shield while changing him, for one.  And the decision of whether to circumcise or not is non-trivial.  Anyway, enjoy the show.

Errata:

• TBD

Notes:

As always, I’m very interested in feedback. Here are some of the links from the show:

• Loneshark Games
• Titanic Games
  
• Stonehenge Design Diary
  
• BGG Entry for Stonehenge
  
• Theories of Stonehenge
• Blue Panther LLC

I still am working on sound issues. I may need to break down and buy something.

Credits:

The music was found at: http://www.incompetech.com/

• Funky Rap Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
• Whimsy Groove Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

My very next episode will be a new branch of the podcast called Learn to Play. I’ll teach you how to play Alien City. I have the prep work done and am in the process of doing both a flash (swf) and Quicktime movie (mov) of the episode to see which is better. That should come out later this week. The LtP webcast will go over rules to games and possibly include some strategic/tactical analysis of specific situations in the game. Alien City is complex enough that I’m only going to do a rules explanation in LtP#1.

The next audio podcast (Episode 6) will be a very brief essay on game components followed by two reviews- DVONN and ZERTZ. You still have time to influence the strategy sections. I have most of this episode recorded, but I’m still waffling on what to say about strategy. I’ll put that out as soon as I figure out the strategy stuff. No later than the middle of next week.

Episode 7 will be on Stonehenge and an interview with Mike Selinker. I’ve very excited about Stonehenge. I’m recording the interview on Friday and hope to release it 2 weeks after Episode 6 is released.

Episode 8 will finish up the GIPF series. I’m still wide open on the strategy for this. I have the review part done. If there is interest, and if the Learn to Play episode looks good, I’ll do a learn to play for the series. The rules episodes for those should be pretty quick.
Have fun!

-JEEP

-JEEP

Errata:

• The travel piecepack sets are valued at $40. I included shipping and rounded up.
• The stackable plastic Icehouse pieces were originally sold in a boxed set of four stashes with the rules to four games (Icehouse was not one of them), not as single stashes. I didn’t go back far enough in time when I was thinking about how they “were originally” sold.

Notes:

As always, I’m very interested in feedback. Here are some of the links from the show:

• Super Duper Games
• piecepack.org
• piecepack Wiki
• Icehouse Wiki
• Official Treehouse page (how you buy the Icehouse game system)
• Blue Panther LLC

I finally listened to this after I uploaded and I need to apologize for the sound quality. I think the level control s/w that I ran on it really distorted things. The music between the sections got reduced to virtually nothing and the outro got very distorted. I may try to regenerate the MP3 w/o the level control or the noise cancellation.

Some clarifications: There are currently over 160 of both Icehouse games and piecepack games listed on their respective wikis. I don’t think I said anything that was incorrect, but I was implying that there were more Icehouse games. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I was only looking at the games on piecepack.org and stuck with a preconceived notion.

The prize:

Credits:

The music was found at: http://www.incompetech.com/

• Funky Rap Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
• Whimsy Groove Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

I do have four complete shows scripted (except for the news section). Two finish off the Gipf series, one show on Tournaments and Cannon (which I had hoped publish before last November) and one on the Icehouse Game system and Homeworlds. I’m almost finished with the fifth- the piecepack game system and Alien City.

I’ll try to start recording ASAP and I’ll carefully back up my originals. Thanks for your patience.

-JEEP

 Well, back to editing.  Thanks for following the podcast!

-JEEP

Here is episode 4. Just in time to keep it at every 14 days. My dog managed to get ANOTHER skunk, so I now own a large bottle of concentrated skunk odor remover. I’ve also been trying to de-skunkify my dog– again.

Errata:

• At 12:30, I say: “if you form a row of five colors of your own color” but that doesn’t make any sense… it should say: “if you form a row of five markers of your own color”
• Wow! Speed talking. Sorry for the high speaking rate in the Online gaming section. I cut that up a little aggressively and got things too close together and I was already speaking fast. I’ll be more conscientious about this in future shows.

Notes:

As always, I’m very interested in feedback. Here are some of the links I promised:

• Richard’s Play by eMail Server
• Super Duper Games
• Mafiascum.net
• BrettspielWelt
• BrettspielWelt English help server
• Boardspace
• Yinsh.biskai.de- this was not mentioned in the show, but is a good Yinsh resource.

Credits:

The music was found at: http://www.incompetech.com/

• Funky Rap Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
• Whimsy Groove Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

GIPF is the first game in a series of games from a project of the same name.  The games in this series were designed by Kris Burm and the six games in the project were released between 1997 and 2006.  The game GIPF was released in 1997 and is a nice x-in-a-row game.  I first played it against one of my regular opponents via e-mail.  I don’t recall if we used Richard’s PBeM Server or not.  In any case, we both enjoyed it and wound up playing it a couple times.  I then played quite a bit against GF1 (GIPF for 1) which is a computer implementation.  It was a couple years before I got to play it on a board.  I normally prefer playing it across the board, but something about GIPFmade it as enjoyable for me to play online.  Perhaps it is because that is how I started.  I don’t know.

Rules:

The board is a pattern of lines that divide up a hexagon and you play on the intersection of those lines.  Essentially, the play area is a standard hex board with four points on a side, making a total of 37 points to play on.  In addition, there is another ring around the board that is not part of the play area, but helps you see how pieces are introduced onto the board.  More on that soon. 

In preparing for this review, I went through the rules form start to end.  I was mildly surprised to find that there are three versions of the game.  I only knew about two of them.  I’ll go through all three of them in order, since they build on each other.

In the Basic game, each player has 15 pieces.  Each player takes three of his pieces and places them in the corners of the outside hex defining the play area such that the colors alternate (see the picture below).  This leaves each player with 12 pieces.  This is called your reserve.  You take turns putting one piece from your reserve onto the board.  You do this by placing a piece on one of the dots outside of the play area and then pushes it, onto the play area.  If that point is occupied, you push that piece to the next point and repeat.  You cannot push a piece off the play area.  If you ever form a row of four or more pieces of the same color, the person who is playing that color MUST remove those four pieces and put them into their reserve again, AND they must also remove any pieces that are in a direct extension of these pieces too.  If they are opposing pieces, they are removed from the game.  If they are friendly pieces, they go back to the reserve.  You win when your opponent cannot make another move.  It’s important to note that the pieces do not move on their own- to move them, you must push them with a piece from the reserve.  I’ve never played this version of the game.  One element that I do like about this is that there is a nice handicapping feature built in.  The game comes with 18 pieces per side, so you can give the weaker player up to three more pieces with ease.  The next time I teach a new player this game, I may indeed start with this version.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was originally taught the standard version.  This game is identical to the standard version, except for the introduction of a new piece type… a GIPF piece.  Similar to a king in checkers, a GIPF piece is a stack of two pieces.  (This is why there are 18 pieces in the box.)  In the Standard version, the starting pieces are GIPF pieces.  The thing that makes a GIPF piece special it that when it is in a row of four, it is removal is optional!  If you do choose to remove your own GIPF piece, then it returns as two separate pieces.  In addition, a player loses if he has no GIPF pieces left on the board.  So now you have two ways to win… capture all three of your opponent’s GIPF pieces or capture enough pieces so that your opponent cannot place another piece.  This game is nicely balanced and plays in about 45 minutes.

The third version of the game is the tournament version.  The game is identical to the standard version with the exception of how it starts.  Instead of starting with three GIPF pieces on the board, you start with 18 pieces off the board an on your first turn you must introduce a GIPF piece onto the board, just like a standard move.  You may continue to introduce GIPF pieces on each of your turns until you place a regular piece.  So you COULD spend your first 9 turns playing GIPF piece.  Of course, if you do that, then one of those moves better return some pieces to your return or that will be your last play. 

Game Play:

I prefer the tournament version of the game.  This version allows you to pick your strategy.  Basically, you get to decide how aggressive you want to be.  The more GIPF pieces you have, the more aggressive you can be but, you must be careful because each GIPF piece takes two pieces to make.  The tournament version also tends to play just a little faster.  The ever changing configuration on the board keeps it interesting too.

Components:

The board I have is a bi-fold board, but I believe there is a newer printing with a quad-fold board, which I think I would prefer.  The pieces are black and white interlocking checker-like pieces.  The are a nice plastic with a raised ridge set in slightly from the edge to allow them to stack without toppling.

Comments:

One of the things that makes this game so good is that the board is constantly changing.  However it does suffer from a difficult handicapping system.  You can use some of the “potential” pieces, which I’ll talk about soon, to add pieces for the weaker player, but even a moderate difference in skill requires 3-4 pieces.  In addition one of the better handicaps to handle abstracts, allowing “takebacks” is difficult because the board is ever-changing.  GIPF was reviewed in the first issue of Abstract Strategy Magazine and in that review Kerry Handscomb made a comment that resonated with me… and I started using a paraphrased version of his quote.  I now describe the game as Abolone meets Go-Moku.  Unfortunately, the comment is lost on people unless they already know about abstract games, so most of the people who might get it already know GIPF already. 

Rating:

I give the game GIPF a solid 7 rating.

Recommendation:

I highly recommend GIPF if you like abstract strategy games.  The game does take 45 minutes to an hour, making it one of the longer games in the series.  I enjoy myself throughout the game, though.  I don’t know that it makes the best introduction into the GIPF series of games, for that I might go with YINSH, instead.

Rules and Game Play:

I’m going to assume you know the rules to GIPF in this review.  If you do not, you can read my review of the game GIPF.  The GIPF project adds potentials and sub-games.
Potentials are additional pieces with the “potential” of a particular move. After you finish putting your GIPF pieces onto the board, you may then start to introduce pieces loaded with potentials. So now you have the basic single piece; you have a GIPF piece, which is two basic pieces stacked on top of each other; and you have pieces loaded with the potentials you choose. You must first play any GIPF pieces you want, then any loaded pieces, then single pieces. Once you introduce a single piece, you may not introduce any other type of piece. A loaded piece is similar to a GIPF piece in that you need not remove it when it is in a line-of-four. The one exception to this is that you cannot leave a line-of-four on the board. So if you make a line of four with only GIPF and loaded pieces, you have to remove at least one of them to break up the line. If a loaded piece is ever removed from the board, the potential is lost.

The condition for a player losing the game remain the same, but I find it more intuitive to think of them in a slightly different way.  You lose the game if you ever have no GIPF pieces on the board OR if you cannot make a move.  Since this game adds moves other than introducing new pieces from your reserve, you will not lose just because your reserve is empty. 

Now, I’ll go over the various potentials:

• TAMSK Potential: When a piece loaded with your TAMSK potential gets pushed into the center point, you get another move. You take the potential off the piece and introduce it as a new single piece. This is all one turn, so after the first move of this special turn, you do not remove pieces that form a line of four.  This is only done at the end of the turn.  Notice that this extra move does not require you to play a piece from your reserve.  When the potential is captured, regardless of by whom, it is removed from the game.
•  ZERTZ Potential: The ZERTZ potential allows you to jump instead of placing a piece from your reserve. Unlike the TAMSK potential, this can be done on any turn. You simply make the jump and discard the potential. This jump can be over any number of pieces in a straight line, but it may not jump over an empty point. That is, it must land in the very next empty point and it must jump over at least one piece. As a side-note, this does not capture the pieces jumped.
•  DVONN Potential: The DVONN potential is interesting in that it allows you to jump it onto an opposing basic piece or an opposing piece loaded with a DVONN potential. It cannot jump onto a GIPF piece or any other potential. To use it, you simply move it from your loaded piece to an opposing piece that is adjacent to it. This essentially converts that piece to your color.  When that piece would get removed from the board, the underlying piece stays. This has potential to cause some very interesting positions.
• YINSH and PUNCT: I do not know what the Yinsh and Punct potentials do yet because as of this writing, they haven’t been announced.

Now if that wasn’t enough, there is yet another way you can play the potentials- you can combine the various games. To do this, you are playing GIPF with potentials, as stated above, but when you try to use a potential, your opponent can challenge its use. When a potential is challenged, you set aside the GIPF game and play the game that the potential is named for.  For example, if you try to use a DVONN potential, your opponent can challenge its use and you play a game of DVONN. If you don’t lose the game, you get to use the potential. If you lose the game, you don’t get to use the potential and you lose the potential.  There are a few things you do have to agree on before you start playing. First, how many challenges can you make. I tentatively recommend allowing three of six potentials to be challenged. I want to play this more, but it tends to scare my regular of my opponents.

Components:

The potentials are slightly modified GIPF pieces.  The TAMSK potential has an extra ridge inside the outer ring making it look a little like a target.  The DVONN potential is a piece with a hole in the center.  The ZERTZ potential has some notches in the ridge.

The potentials are extra pieces that don’t come with GIPF, which you get in the following ways:

• TAMSK Potentials: You can get 3 white and 3 black from the TAMSK game or you can get 6 of each color in GIPF Project Expansion Set #1.
• ZERTZ & DVONN: You get 6 DVONN potentials in each color and 6 ZERTZ potentials in each color in the GIPF Project Expansion Set #2.

Comments:

I played in one game with DVONN and TAMSK potentials and the TAMSK potentials were huge, but sometimes led to confusion.  We were constantly trying to remove pieces between the two moves of the turn. (I say constantly, but I think we only used three of the six TAMSK potentials between us.)  The DVONN potentials really didn’t get used much, but they influenced the game tremendously.  It almost felt like a completely different game than GIPF with the flavor of GIPF.  It almost felt like GIPF with a slight flavor of something else.  It’s hard to explain.  So far, my opponent and I have played with identical potentials available to us.

Rating:

I’m going to skip out on giving an actual rating to this until I play it more.  The potentials add significant complexity to the game and I’m not sure I have a good feel for it yet.  And playing a sub-game to earn the right to use a potential is yet another layer.

Recommendation:

Until you are very familiar with the base game, I would recommend not playing with potentials.  Also, I suggest that you introduce only one type of potential at a time. Start with one type, then go from there. The other thing to consider is how many potentials you will be allowed to start with. The recommendation from the publisher is 6 per player.  I’ll bow to their experience in this.

If you like GIPF and want to try adding a little more complexity to the game, add the potentials. I don’t think that using the potentials makes it a BETTER game, but it certainly does change it up, which is interesting in its own right.