-+@ Something Pink @+-

I got the card from the post office today that said I had a package? Ooooh, could it be that my He-Man and Beastman from Matty Collector has finally arrived? No such luck. Grrr...

What did arrive was in a small envelope of hard card. When I saw it I wondered what it could be. When I saw the writing (it's funny how I can recognise the writing even though I've only seen it a couple of times before) and where it's sent from I had a good idea what was inside. Here's a photo (with the names and addressed censored):

If you have a closer look, you can probably make out the German stamps underneath the Finnish postmark. Also under the address, Hans im Glück is visible. That should give a good clue what is inside. Yay, my blank tiles from Europe has finally arrived! Thanks nipa!

I had my first surprise when I opened the box. Something pink? Eeek... did nipa send the parcel meant for someone else to me by mistake? Erm... pink... now why is that colour significant? Of course it's significant... it's the colour mostly associated with Geishas!

What's a Geisha? A joke between the few of us at the now defunct CCGW. Stuff like - I walked into the hotel room and saw that there was a Geisha on my pillow. Heh. Oh well, those were the days which I will remember fondly. Here's a close-up of the chocolate bar:


I think the packaging used to have pictures of Geishas on it, but that was supposed to be sexist or racist or whatever, so that got removed. Apparently Geisha is the most popular of the candies made in Finland with really unappropriate names. I don't remember what they are, but I'm sure somewhere on the internet...

Anyways, the story is this: I wrote HiG to ask them if they would sell me those blank tiles - i.e. send them outside Europe. I even told them I'd pay more. They wrote back and said the tiles were not for sale, but were only available as a replacement. They also said that they would not be shipping them outside of Europe. So much for that.

Not long after that, they put out an announcement that there were going to limit the total number of sheets of 12 tiles to 5 per person. Ouch. That's gonna put a crimp in anyone's style. The story is that they did not want others to get those tiles, make bad quality fan tiles on them and then sell those tiles on ebay, because that would just be 1. copyright infringement and 2. dumb buyers will complain to HiG about the badly made tiles asking for a replacement... which won't be available as HiG didn't make those tiles.



Anyways, to cut my story short, I had to find a. a European, b. willing get the sheets for me, c. willing to ship to me, d. doesn't want it for themselves and e. can accept Paypal. Well, since I am still talking to one on a regular basis (the other being Martin, but we hardly talk anymore since, well, he's busy with work and all), I sent an IM to nipa asking him if he would help me get the 5 sheets. He agreed, agreed to scam HiG by using 2 separate addresses to get me 10 sheets.

I paid him a week ago after he has sent it and I must say I'm really happy with the result. He even threw in a Geisha! here are the 10 sheets as the "before" picture. I shall be happy making custom tiles from these! Kiitos Tomi!

=(*)= King's Gate =(*)=

I played this last week...

This is a tile laying game, where there are ten locations and player has to win points printed on the locations by having the most strength around the location. It's a 4 player game with red, yellow, blue and green tiles for the players, each of which have either a number from 1 to 5, or a cup or a dragon (some of these tiles are shown in the image above).

The game starts with a location being laid (and the locations are marked 1 to 10 to show the order that they are to be used) and each player plays one tile per turn around the location during their turn, usually, but there are exceptions. The tile with the 1 has a star on it to remind players that they can put as many 1 tiles as they have in hand (max of 6 tiles in hand) during a turn. The cup, is a bonus tile that has a strength of zero, but can be played in addition with another tile, if the location permits. Most locations permit the placement of multiple tiles, if the tiles themselves allow it. However, two locations only permit a limited amount of tiles to be played and there are some locations (marked by black circles) allow a player to do nasty things to the tiles around that location. The dragon, for example, removes a tile from play.

When all 10 spaces around the location is filled, players calculate who has the strongest strength around it by summing up the number of their tiles around the location and get points as printed on the tile. The last player gets no points. The player who completed the tile then gets to place the next location touching at least one of the existing tiles. This goes on until all players run out of tiles, or location 10 is completed, whichever comes first.

Gamewise, it's pretty boring, but there are twists with the personalities that can be won. I've never played with the personalities, since I've always played this game with little kids who want to feel grown up by playing a grown-up game so I have no idea how they factor into the game. There aren't a lot of tiles anyways, and in a 3 player game, the game ends after about half an hour at location 8, so games are relatively short.

There is some Strategy with this game. Whoever wins early and scores all the low points will generally lose later when the higher scoring locations are placed. The cup and the multiple 1s adds an interesting twist as it means one cannot count on who might finish the location. And of course, a 3, with the sword icon, cannot be displaced by a dragon or a higher scoring number while a location with a black circle is being played, so it is good to horde 3s until such a time as it proves useful.

What is gorgeous about this game is the artwork, which ensures that no matter which way the tiles are placed, as long as they are upright, the images are "completed" along the edge that are placed. Although the art may seem dull at first sight, the details that it contains is excrutiatingly well done and one gets to enjoy the scenery "in between turns" which, due to the tile laying nature of the game, is different every game.

The other thing that the box contains, besides a tray that doesn't seem to hold the tiles too well, are gold coins with 1 and 5s on them to allow a player to keep track of the score. I find these tokens useful for teaching maths to the younger players, i.e. I have 4 points (4x1) and I score 4 more points. How many point would I have? 8. What would be the most efficient way to deal with the tokens? Take away a 1 and add a 5, literally 4-1+5=8.

Overall, this is a boring game, unless one is playing it for educational purposes. Oh, and the game I played? I lost to the youngest player. Go figure!