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Board Gamers of Finland #8: Titus (The Titan of Hamming)

2017-07-04T16:00:00+08:00

As you can see from the picture above, today's feature does not take himself all too seriously. That being said, he is no slouch when it comes to games of strategy too. Often seen at meetups playing all kind of games, Titus is always welcoming to new players and to extend a helping hand to teach games too.

He is also known for his mantra of "Going Ham", which comes from an internet meme and stand for going all out.

This amazing package of a board gamer coming from a person who only started to seriously take up the tabletop hobby a year ago in 2016.

Titus started board gaming when he decided he wanted to move away from video gaming and noticed that his sister had a hobby he would not mind trying out. His sister is an avid board gamer and part of the SMU Boardgaming club called Strategica.

After which, he was hooked and from there he would join his sister at her board gaming meetups and the rest is a history of more than a few board games played with fun, laughter and joy.

Titus's recommended game of the day is The Little Prince: Make Me A Planet. The game is based on the world famous comic also called "The Little Prince."

Each round, the starting player chooses tiles up to the number of players in the game from four stacks of tiles. The lead player then chooses a tile and gives it to another player. The receiving player then builds their planet and gives another player a tile. The last player to take a tile becomes the start player for the next round.

At the end of the game, players will score based on what is on their planet but the person with the most volcanoes loses as many points as the number of volcanoes on their planet. The player with the highest score wins.

Titus likes The Little Prince as it is a small package that provides a lot of fun. Also, the game has simple rules but is very tactical. There is also an element of negotiation in the game which is a mechanic that Titus likes a lot.

The Little Prince though is not without a chip on its shoulder as there is a possibility of king-making in the game. King-making being when a player who can't win the game themselves basically chooses who will win the game based on whatever action they choose to do.

The Little Prince mirrors Titus quite a bit as he also breaks expectations of what you would expect from him when you first meet him. So go get that rocket and fly off to space and beyond to make your own planet with The Little Prince.

E: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

Suburbia: It's Sim City without a Computer Screen

2017-05-09T23:14:00+08:00

For the masses, the equation of city building equating to fun was probably first started by the world renown series of computer games called Sim City. In fact, Will Wright, the video game designer of Sim City found that out too by accident, when he had more fun designing the city background to a game than playing the game itself. Thus Sim City came to be.

Since then, there have been many city simulation games made in the digital form. This demand not going unnoticed by the tabletop hobby and especially Bezier Games, who made Suburbia, the highest ranked city building board game on BoardGameGeek, the world's most popular boardgaming site.

In Suburbia, you are in charge of building a borough and you want it to be the most populated among all your other competitors.

The board game feels like one of the scenario campaign missions in Sim City as at the start of the game, several public victory goals are decided on randomly with each player getting one private one too, which only that player can do. Thus like one of those scenario missions, you have a niche way you want to build your borough that accomplishes as many goals as possible.

During a player's turn, they first choose a tile from the row of those available and then after paying for it, build it in their borough for it's effects. Such as green tiles are residential areas and usually gives you population while blue business tiles usually gives you money.

Add to that, many tiles are connected indirectly to other player's boroughs. Such as airports that gives that player a benefit everytime another player builds an airport. Thus Suburbia is not a multiplayer solitaire game. You actually want and have to keep track of what the other players are building and doing to win.

Although the art style is somewhat bland. At the end of the game, you do feel you have built a borough with a distinct personality and probably will still want to take a picture of it as i did with my libertarian borough called Independence Hill.

Suburbia has many pros, it is fun, plays in about an hour and a half, is interactive and has quite a bit of strategic value to each decision. The downsides of the game is that it is probably on the heavier side strategy wise for newer gamers to the hobby and the luck of what tiles get revealed during a player's turn .

Overall, a thumbs up from me and it truly gives me the feeling I had from playing Sim City when I was a child and yet, does it in less than 2 hours.

E: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.