Awhile back I wrote “Treasure Maps & The Unknown: Goals in the Megadungeon“. This post is just a simple streamlining of an idea that was running throughout that essay:

If an RPG rewards you for a specific tactical method, that method will be preferred and sought out. For example, if the game rewards you only for combat, that provides a strong motivation to seek out combat. There will still be some strategic thought employed (as one differentiates between “challenges that can be overcome” and “shit that’s too tough for us”), but the tactical method being rewarded will be strong pre-selected.

If you shift the game’s reward to a strategic goal, on the other hand, then players are free to pursue any tactical method for achieving that goal. As a result, you game will be more flexible and, in my opinion, more interesting.

Actually, as I write this, I realize this principle probably applies beyond RPGs. For example, Chess provides only one reward (winning the game) and it only awards it when a strategic goal has been achieved (achieving checkmate). Imagine if Chess instead rewarded points based on capturing pieces. The entire focus of the game would be narrowed. And what if the game preferentially rewarded capturing pieces with your Rook instead of your Bishop? The focus of the game would become even more limited.

In a similar fashion,victory in Twilight Imperium is achieved when a player reaches 10 victory points. Virtually every reward in the game is a strategic one (which can be achieved using a variety of tactics depending on the circumstances of the game). The exception? One of the strategy cards gives the player picking it 2 victory points. This specific reward for a tactical method (“pick the Imperial Strategy card”) warps the game by “forcing” everyone to pursue that tactical method. The problem was so significant that Fantasy Flight Games completely revised the strategy cards in order to eliminate it in the first expansion pack for the game.

Tagline: One of four games in WOTC’s family card game line, Pivot has all the potential of becoming a classic card game.

Ultimately, Twitch was definitely the best of the games in this line. Pivot hasn’t gotten as much play through the years, but I did pull it out at a party recently and had a good time with it. I’d still recommend tracking down a copy as a quirky alternative to Uno.

Wizards of the Coast has recently released a series of four games – Twitch, Pivot, Alpha Blitz, and Go Wild! — designed to enter the family marketplace alongside familiar games like Uno and Skip-Bo. After reading a review of Twitch I immediately went out and bought myself a copy of what sounded like a great, addictive game and was anything but disappointed (see my review of Twitch elsewhere on RPGNet).

On the strength of my extremely positive results with Twitch I went out and bought Pivot. After playing this game I would have to say that Twitch is the superior game, but Pivot is fantastic as well – as testament to that fact I’ve played it three nights in a row, and have plans to play it again this evening.

The concept, like Twitch’s, is incredibly simple: You have cards numbered from 1-80 along with a handful of Up cards, Down cards, and Pivot cards. Each player is dealt a hand of seven cards. The first player plays a card and the next player (going clockwise) must play a card higher than the one last played. Play continues in this manner until a Down card is played. When the Down card is played play now goes counterclockwise and each subsequent player must play a card lower than the one before him. This, of course, continues until an Up card is played. Pivot cards have the effect of reversing the direction of play no matter which way it is currently going (if you’re going up, a Pivot card will make you go down – if you’re going down the Pivot card will make you go up). If you can’t play you have to draw a card. If you play a card and no one else can play a card (play goes all the way around the circle and returns to you with no additional cards being played) you can play whatever card you want to. The goal is to get rid of all your cards.

That’s the game in a nutshell. In addition some of the number cards also act as specials – Extra Turn lets you take an extra turn before play goes onto the next player, Next Player Draw makes the next player draw a card before his turn, and Skip Next Player means (surprise, surprise) play skips the player after you. There’s also an optional scoring method if you want to play several games in a row to determine an outcome.

I have only one specific, quantifiable problem with this game. To understand this problem requires a bit of context: The Up card has a picture of a red arrow curving in a clockwise direction (which is the direction play continues when an Up card is in effect). The Down card, on the other hand, is a blue arrow pointing in a counterclockwise direction. The Pivot card has two arrows – one pointing clockwise and the other counterclockwise. So far so good, but for some unknown reason they chose (on the Pivot card) to color the clockwise arrow blue and the counterclockwise arrow red.

No one’s claiming that this isn’t a minor problem, but it confused us several times when we were first trying to get a hang of the game. (“What direction is play going?” “Let’s look at the arrow…” whoops…).

Here’s the final analysis: Twitch is ultra-addictive and a great game – if you haven’t bought it yet, I would say you should buy that one first. Pivot is a fairly addictive game, but also has strategy (which Twitch definitely doesn’t have).

Like Twitch, Pivot isn’t going to find a place on your shelf alongside Magic or the Dune CCG, but it is an admirable addition to your collection of games like Uno or Skip-Bo.

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Title: Pivot
Writers: Andre Francois with Jim Lin, Richard Garfield, Robert Gutschera, Paul Peterson, and Teeuwynn Woodruff
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Price: $6.95
Page Count: n/a
ISBN: 1-57530-597-6
Originally Published: 1998/06/23

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Tagline: The first game designed by Richard Garfield and released to the public, RoboRally shows the intriguing conceptual ideas and addictive game play which have since become Garfield’s stock in trade. Like so many games released by Wizards of the Coast I first picked this product up because the description just sounded too intriguing to miss. Like every product I have ever picked up from the Wizards, I was anything but disappointed.

“Like every product I have ever picked up from the Wizards, I was anything but disappointed.” Ah, 1998. How I miss ye. RoboRally remains one of my favorite games. Unfortunately, my original copy was lost in a move and later turned up in the bottom of a box that was being stored in a pole barn. Although sadly water-damaged, it is still tremendous fun. Anyone know what Richard Garfield is up to these days?

GAME CONCEPT

In the future the widget factories of the world are controlled by the mightiest artificial intelligences ever created by man. Capable of solving any problem which might arise and controlling the entire factory from top to bottom to compensate for any problems and keep production right on schedule, these mighty machines suffered from only a single problem: Boredom.

Then one day a processing robot fried a circuit and went careening onto a conveyor belt, which sent him spinning through the high-powered laser systems and dropped him off just in time for his broken and decaying programming databanks to send him plummeting down a bottomless disposal bit on the factory floor.

The computers were … amused.

Immediately they created the game of RoboRally – each computer controlled a single robot and, using a limited set of data registers, was required to send the robots through a specially converted section of the factory floor.

In the boardgame RoboRally you are the computer, programming your robot to cross the factory floor and reach a set of checkpoints in a specific sequence in order to win the game. In your way are conveyor belts, bottomless pits, gears, crushers, pushers, and laser beams… not to mention the robots of your fellow players.

RULES

The game comes with six gameboards which can be played individually or arranged in any combination you want. The checkpoints you must reach are represented by six counters numbered from 1 to 6 – you can place these counters anywhere on the gameboards you want and in any order you choose. The options are practically infinite.

On each turn you are dealt nine program cards. From these you must select five cards and “program” your robot by assigning one card to each of five programming registers. When all the players have completed programming their robots the turn begins – each register is considered in order and your robot moves.

This sounds simple, but in truth you’ll find yourself making bonehead mistakes – especially when you come in contact with the board elements. “Okay, first I’ll move forward, which will put me on the conveyor belt which will move me there, then I’ll turn left, and the conveyor belt will move me again, turning me as I go, so that when I move backwards on the next phase I’ll end up…” And, of course, you can always be pushed around by the other robots on the board so that your preciously planned sequence of movements will suddenly all be off by one square … and the results cascade through the rest of the turn.

Plus, your robot can take damage and be destroyed by various game elements on the board. Plus, your robot and the robots of the other players are all outfitted with lasers – allowing you to whittle away. What can be worse than getting blasted out of existence and having to start over from the beginning (there is also a way of “archiving” a copy of your robot at certain waypoints on the board)? Well, as you take damage the number of program cards you dealt to select from are decreased. If you take enough damage some of your robot’s programming registers may become locked – meaning that the cards you have assigned to those registers will have to stay the same until you can get your robot repaired.

Finally there are ways of retrofitting your robot with special abilities.

STRENGTHS

This game is a tremendous amount of fun. If you’ve ever played Paranoia and gotten great laughs out of watching your characters getting fried you’ll already understand the appeal this game carries with it – nothing is more hilarious then when one of your fellow players suddenly groans, “Oh nooooo…” and you know he’s made a mistake in his plans and his robot is about to go cascading off-course and into jeopardy.

The game is beautifully designed by Phil Foglio – the cover illustration of a ZIP 550 looking nervously over his shoulder as he enters the factory is absolutely perfect at setting the tone of the game. Foglio also designed the miniatures which come with the game.

WEAKNESSES

The learning curve is pretty simple, but there are some rules which could so with better explanation. Wizards of the Coast has posted the complete rules and a FAQ at their website, and from what I’ve seen they have not fixed these problems.

The confusion over these rules is quickly eliminated however by some practical familiarity with the game. Play your first game on a single board and establish up front that rule interpretations could fluctuate wildly during the course of the game as you figure out some of the nuances.

There are several handy reference sheets and the rulebook is laid out in such a fashion that information is easy to find when you need it. This is not an overwhelming problem, merely one of having to play the game first before you can see what some rules mean.

CONCLUSION

This game is great. The idea is great, the carry-through is great, the rules are great, the entertainment value is great. You simply can’t go wrong.

There are also several expansion sets for the game (Armed and Dangerous, Grand Prix, and (coming later in 1998) Radioactive). I hope to own and review both these and the second make of this game in the near future here on RPGNet.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Author: Richard Garfield
Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $34.95
Page count: n/a
ISBN: 1-57530-088-5
Originally Published: 1998/06/19

[ This is a review of the first make of the RoboRally game. The second make of the game (which I do not yet own), slightly altered the lay-out of the rules and changed the design of the miniatures included with the game. However, to my knowledge, game play was not affected to any serious degree. The ISBN product code above refers to the second make of RoboRally, as that is the one which you can still order from Wizards of the Coast. ]

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Tagline: Wizards of the Coast and the Bourbaki card game design team strike again in this surprisingly fascinating and addictive card game, the first in a line of non-collectible games meant to provide competition with games like Uno and Skip-Bo.

Thirteen years later, Twitch remains one of my favorite card games. My review speaks highly of it, but a game with that kind of staying power deserves special attention. Sadly, it is long out of print and virtually unattainable as I write this. If you get a chance, though, I recommend you grab a copy ASAP.

The premise of the game is simple: Someone plays a card. The cards tells you who goes next. If it’s you, you’ve got to play another card before someone challenges you and you have to take the entire stack of cards. If it’s not you, you’ve got to figure out who it is and challenge them before they can play. Be careful, if you play or challenge wrong you’ll end up taking those cards.

Simple, right? Right.

Until you start playing the game, that is. Then what seems so simple on the surface suddenly seems to be the most complicated thing you’ve ever done.

The basic game centers around eight different cards. The four basic cards are Left, Right, 2 Left and 2 Right. These cards tell you who goes next (the player to your left, your right, two seats to your left, and two seats to your right – respectively). In addition the card Ditto means that the last card’s effect is repeated, the card Back At Ya! sends the turn back to the last player to play a card. The last trick is that all players are given a color card, and a duplicate of this card is place in the play deck. When that color card is played the person to who it belongs must play next. Finally there are the challenge cards – these cards are keyed to the colors of the players. If a player is too slow or if they make a mistake, you can challenge them with the challenge card corresponding to their color.

The name of the game is speed, and once you’re into the heat of the chase you’re going to find that these simple rules are more than challenge enough.

Now let’s take another step, into the Advanced Game. At this point we add three more cards: Pick a Color, Rotate Colors, and Left to Right. These are called “Pause Cards”, when they are played gameplay temporarily stops while their results are gauged. Pick a Color means that the person who just played the card picks the color of another player, and then that player plays a card (resuming play). Rotate colors means that everyone takes their color card (indicating what color they are) and hand them to the player on their left – this causes confusion regarding what color to use to challenge which players and what color you are when the color cards come up during gameplay. Finally, Left to Right means that all cards referring to a particular direction mean exactly the opposite – left means right and right means left. Conveniently there are exactly two of these cards, meaning that once play is reversed, it will eventually turn back the other way.

Twitch is the first in a line of games Wizards of the Coast is producing in order to apparently attempt to compete with traditional family games. On the strength of this product I intend to go out of my way to also purchase Pivot, Alpha Blitz, and GoWild! — the other products in this line-up.

At seven bucks you can’t lose with this game. It won’t be put on the shelf next to your Magic cards or your Doomtown cards, but I think it more than amply deserves a place alongside such classic games as Uno and Skip-Bo.

Style: 4
Substance: 5

Author: Richard Garfield, Skaff Elias, Jim Lin, and Dave Pettey
Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $6.95
Page count: n/a
ISBN: 1-57530-581-X
Originally Posted: 1998/05/30

Tagline: “Chess will never be the same!” This innocent looking pack of 80 cards completely alters the game of Chess – from a static strategic puzzle to a dynamic tactical conflict. Moody and evocative art by Rogerio Vilela. Translated from the original French.

I actually have quite vivid memories of writing this review. It was the first time I really became aware of how thoroughly I’d been bitten by the reviewing “bug” because I started thinking about how I would write the review of the game as I was playing the game.

The tagline of Knightmare Chess is, “Move a piece. Play a Card. Chess will never be the same…”

There you have the whole game. In the elegant box in which Knightmare Chess comes you will find 80 cards – each of which subtly alters the rules of Chess in different ways. These cards let you do all the things you always wish you could do in a tight moment during a game of Chess – resurrect a piece which has been captured, move a piece out of the way, take not one piece, but many on a single move. On each of your turns you can play one card.

When first approaching this game I was both anticipatory and doubtful. Anticipatory because it sounded like a fun thing to do once or twice. Doubtful because chess is an ancient game – its grace and its beauty come from the fact that its rules are carefully balanced, all the pieces are known, and the challenge comes from manipulating a known set of variables in a strategic way to overcome your opponent.

The premise of Knightmare Chess, while seemingly innocuous, actually radically alters the very basic appeal and structure of the game. The rules are no longer balanced, they are in constant flux. The pieces are not known, they can be altered and rearranged. There is no known set of variables, the variables are unknown and changing.

At first glance, therefore, Knightmare Chess has the potential to completely screw the only appeal chess has – its strategic component.

After playing the game awhile I realized I was wrong. Knightmare Chess transformed Chess into a radically different game, but it did not destroy it. Where Chess is a static strategic puzzle (with its elements known and the possible interactions between pieces completely proscribed), Knightmare Chess is a dynamic tactical conflict. Just because the rules are always changing, doesn’t mean that Knightmare Chess is an inferior game. It does mean, however, that it appeals to an entirely different aesthetic than Chess.

Chess has often been described as a wargame. Indeed, in some ways it is – if you are willing to accept a certain degree of abstraction. Nonetheless, it is an odd one – one in which you have only a certain number of troops, in which both sides are equal, and in which everything is ultimately predictable. If Knightmare Chess is similarly a wargame carried to an extreme degree of abstraction, then it presents a model of modern warfare – where the sides can quickly become unequal, where reinforcement is conceivable, and where combat is anything but predictable.

Knightmare Chess is a fascinating game. If you are a chess player, approach it with an open mind. If you have no taste for chess, then it is entirely conceivable that this game will appeal to you nonetheless.

It should be noted that I am using a copy of the Second Edition for the purposes of this review. The differences between the first and second editions are extremely subtle and largely inconsequential to the overall gameplay and assessment of this game. For a list of differences you can check Steve Jackson Game’s website.

Style: 4
Substance: 5

Author: Pierre Clequin and Bruno Faidutti
Company/Publisher: Steve Jackson Games
Cost: $14.95
Page count: n/a
ISBN: 1-55634-319-1
Originally Posted: 1998/05/30