Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Quarriors play at Strategicon: recap

I played a game of Quarriors at Strategicon about a week ago. Here's how it went:

3 player game, me going first.
Turn 1: I rolled enough Quiddity to bu some 3vp blue die which had the special ability of drawing additional dice after it scored.

Turn 2: I rolled 3 Pawns, and activated them all.

Turn 3: Score 3 points, cull 3 dice. Rolled the Blue die, which came up creature and killed the Pawn one opponent had played. I think I bought another Pawn as well.

One opponent bought a Red creature die. That die came up 2 or 3 times, but never rolled the creature side the whole game.

Turn 4: Score 3 points, cull 1 die, drew 1 extra die (from Blue die ability). Rolled something unimpressive, I think I bought a Portal or another Pawn or something.

Turn 5: Rolled the Blue die again, came up Creature again, killed 1 of opponent's 2 pawns, killed the other opponent's pawn. I think I also activated a Pawn.

One opponent finally scored 1 point (not the one who bought the red creature die).

Turn 6: Score 4 points, cull 2 dice, draw additional 2 dice (from Blue die ability). I think I activated a Pawn or 2.

Turn 7: Rolled the blue creature die a 3rd time, came up creature side for a 3rd time. Also rolled 2 Pawns.

This game was over at 15-1-0, I made 1 choice (buy the blue die) and was completely hopeless for both opponents. I'm not sure if it mattered WHICH die I chose, the fact that it came up Creature every time and my opponents dice didn't meant I was going to win no matter what.

I'm not terribly impressed with Quarriors. I'm just sayin'...

4 comments:

Paul Owen said...

I don't mind a game with dice luck if it's leavened with risk management (Can't Stop) or bluffing (Liar's Dice), but when there's no thought required, well, that ceases to be fun. That's just my take on it.

David said...

I liked Quarriors! enough to buy my own copy, and I think there's a great game in there... somewhere. The game is designed to be over quickly if somebody starts to run away with it, but it sure can be frustrating for people being steamrollered.

I think the culling rule is broken, but I'm not quite sure how to fix it. There are some obvious fixes but they end up making certain cards' special abilities pretty useless.

Seth Jaffee said...

When I shop for games, I usually prefer to get a "game" - not "game components with which if I tried hard enough I could make a game."

I do plenty of game design in my spare time :)

Seth Jaffee said...

My current thoughts on Quarriors are that the expensive dice should have more Quiddity on their non-creature side. To put it in Dominion terms, if you buy a Province that's not always a province, it should be a Province/Gold, not a Province/Copper.