Perhaps the World's Worst Kept Secret

The paperwork has been signed and I can finally talk publicly about something that I've been hinting about for months: I'm bringing Mü to the iPhone!

Last year, as you may recall, I did an unauthorized implementation of Mü for the Zune. That was something that I did mostly for my own amusement but seeing as the Zune has virtually no third-party application market to speak of, I never bothered to take it any farther. Well, this summer my wife and I both bought iPhones and naturally that changed things.

Late in August I sent Frank Nestel email asking him if he'd be interested in seeing his game available on the iPhone and his response was swift and encouraging. The following months were spent rewriting the game almost from scratch and ironing out the details of a licensing agreement with Frank. If you like card games, I think you're going to love what we've done. Let me tell you about it.

That's the screen you see when you start Mü for the first time. After a few brief screens designed to get you oriented with the bare essentials, you're taken to a menu where you can start the game. From that point on, whenever you start the game you're taken right back to where you were the last time you played. Saving is automatic so you never need to worry about losing progress.

The game supports 4, 5 or 6 player games against several independently configurable computer opponents. There are three bidding aggression settings and five skill settings to choose from. The game also supports linked play over Bluetooth for up to six human players! What's more, the computer plays even better than it did on the Zune. I promise you that winning will be a satisfying feeling.

Here's a screen shot of a game in progress:


The first thing you might notice is that the iPhone's screen is bigger. A lot bigger. The result is a much richer user interface. The touch screen works wonderfully. To play a card, you tap or slide your finger over the card you want, bringing it to the front of your hand, and then you tap on that little round arrow icon above it to confirm your selection. That extra step avoids accidental card play and it works very well.

The game supports the iPhone's accelerometer. Tilt the phone on its left side and you can browse both sides of the summary card from the original game: the one with the bidding and scoring charts. Tilt the phone on its right side and you get a score sheet for the current game that looks like this:

Other features include detailed statistics tracking, Shake-A-Hint™, auto-play, and full in-game documentation. I expect the game to be available in both German and English and I'm also considering other languages if I can find volunteers willing to provide help with translation. (Send me email or post a comment below if you're a native speaker of a language other than English or German and you're interested in helping out. Sorry, but I can't afford to offer payment other than a pre-release copy of the game.)

The game is in final beta testing and it should be ready for release soon. I won't set a formal release date yet other than to say "I'll release it when it's ready" but it shouldn't be too much longer now.

The one thing that I'm still undecided on is the price point. Do I price it very low in the hopes of attracting people who are unfamiliar with the game or do I price it a little higher on the assumption that most people who are likely to pick it up will already be familiar with the card game and therefore be willing to pay a little more? I have my own strong opinions on that but I'm interested in hearing yours. What do you think? How much would you be willing to pay? Please post your opinions in the comments below.

I'm still here.

Life has been a little crazy this year and certain things in my life have suffered a bit as a result. This blog is just one of them. My game playing has been another. Now things are starting to calm down a little bit and I finally almost feel like I'm ready to start another holiday season.

So what's been going on? Oh that's a very long list, my friend. Here are just a few of the things that have been conspiring against me recently:

First off, my dad died of a heart attack in September. That took me out of commission for a couple of weeks while I helped my mom and siblings prepare for the funeral. It was sudden. It was horrible. It's in the past and we're (mostly) over it now.

At about the same time, my wife was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma. We caught it very early and after a round of radiation therapy she's doing well but it's never a fun thing. (Incidentally, she's running in a fundraising half-marathon for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. If you'd like to help, you can go to her fundraising page.)

But not every barrier to my productivity has been such a downer. These days the biggest thing standing in my way of attending our game night (which, by the way, has been moved to Thursday night) is that my 15 year old son is taking driver's ed on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I've needed to help get him to and from (mostly from) class.

And there's one other little project that's been eating up most of the rest of my spare time. I'm not quite ready to talk about that in detail yet but let's just say that it involves the iPhone and a certain popular card game. Papers are being signed. Code is being written. Details will soon be forthcoming.

First impressions of Dominion: Intrigue

Last night I played a couple of games of the new edition of Dominion: Dominion: Intrigue. I hesitate to call it an expansion because it's really a stand-alone game with an all-new set of 25 kingdom cards as well as complete sets of treasure, curse, and victory cards. Still, it's not completely wrong to call it an expansion either, as the new game has the same rules as the first and the 25 new kingdom cards can be mixed with the original 25 kingdom cards to create nearly endless deck-building possibilities.

As I said, I played twice last night and both games were very enjoyable. The new cards are different enough from the original 25 that, while the game still feels very familiar, it played very differently. Some of the new cards are (how shall I put it?) rather wicked. In our first game, everyone loaded up their decks with the Saboteur, who forces your opponents to flip through their decks until they come upon a card with a cost of 3 or more, trash it and then replace it with a card worth 2 less. One of the effects of this was that it was nearly impossible for players to get Province cards. I believe that the winner of that game only had something like 8 victory points, which is a very low amount. Our second game wasn't quite that extreme but it still felt quite different from games we'd played with the original edition.

My initial impression of the new game is very favorable. While the rules are basically identical, the new cards made for a very different experience, which in my opinion is a great thing. I'm really looking forward to mixing the new cards in with the original cards to see what crazy combinations people come up with. By the way, if you're worried about getting cards from the two sets mixed up: don't be. If you'll look closely on the lower-right of all your Dominion cards, you'll see a small symbol. That symbol identifies which box the cards came from so if you've mixed them, it's very easy to separate them out again when you're done.

If you haven't played the original game then I'd still recommend you pick that one up first, as this edition makes for a slightly more brutal experience, but if you've enjoyed the original and are looking to take it to the next level, then you definitely should pick this one up!

Yes. I still go to game night!

I've been so busy lately that I usually show up late and leave early but I still go. And this week I actually went early and stayed late! The fact that my good friends Joel and Curt, who each moved out of state (and in one case out of country) some time ago, were back in town for a visit might have something to do with that. It was great seeing them again, and getting to play games with them again. Joel brought his two oldest boys along and it was great seeing them too. Good times!

The addition of these four long-lost gamers, coupled with the fortuitous re-emergence of some other wayward gamers, meant that we had one of the largest groups at game night that we've seen for a while. Many a game was played, some new, some old. Good times were had by all.

But the one game that I want to focus on with this post is my old friend: Tichu! Why? Because Cristopher and I teamed up against Curt and Jose for two of the all-time awesomest couple of Tichu games. It was delicious! Let me break it down for you.

Game One:
Hand 1: Christopher Makes a Tichu call and we start the game off right: 180 to 20
Hand 2: I make a Tichu call and set the tone for the rest of the game: 340 to 60
Hand 5: Curt calls a Large Tichu and fails miserably! We take all 100 points in play and they lose 200. The score is now 510 to 90.
Hand 9: Christopher ends the misery with a convincing Tichu where we take all 100 points in addition to the 100 points for the Tichu call.
Final score: 1085 to 215. Ouch! Over the course of the game Christopher made three Tichu calls, I made one, Curt made two and missed one, and Jose missed one.

Well it just wouldn't be right to deny them a rematch so on to

Game Two:
Hand 1: we start strong and go up 80 to 20.
Hand 2: things begin to look bad. Curt and Jose score a double win. Score is now: 80 to 220.
Hand 3: we counter with a double win of our own against Jose's failed Tichu call: 280 to 120.
Hand 9: after Curt and Jose go on a tear of four made Tichu calls to our one the score is now: 620 to 980.
Hand 10: we somehow manage to keep hope alive by taking 90 points in play: 710 to 990.
Hand 11: when it seems certain that we can't possibly salvage this game Christopher catches lightning in a bottle and calls a confident Large Tichu. We play it perfectly and score a double win.
Final score: 1110 to 990!

What a great way to finish the night!

Thanks guys!

Dominion wins 2009's Game of the Year!

Dominion has just won the Spiel des Jahres (German Game of the Year)!

Out of all the nominee's, this is the one I was pulling for the most (with Pandemic a close second in my book) so I was very happy to hear the news.

Dominion is an excellent deck-building card game that is very easy to learn, easy to play, and yet offers a lot of strategic possibilities for such a simple game. A worthy choice! My hearty congratulations to Donald X. Vaccarino! Well done!

If you haven't had a chance to play this fine game, or its expansion (which we should have in stock any day now), then what are you waiting for? Get to it!

Yet another game about building a castle?

I arrived late for game night last Tuesday so it didn't leave time for much gaming beyond the obligatory game of Tichu. I did manage to get in one game that I hadn't played before. That game was A Castle for All Seasons, a new game by Inka and Markus Brand, who also brought us Guatemala Cafe. It's a very pretty game about building a castle. What is it with so many games about building large medieval structures lately? We've got Pillars of the Earth and the two Cayluses just to name a few. Is this theme the new "trading in the Mediterranean"? Oh well, I digress.

Anyway, I don't have time to write a proper review (and I've only played it once so it wouldn't be fair to do so) but my initial impression was rather favorable. There seems to be some depth here and it's certainly a very attractive game. It's also pretty short which is typically a plus in my book. I do like the shorter games. Around an hour seems to be my sweet spot and this fits the bill nicely. I'm looking forward to playing it again.

Game Night and a BDay Greeting

Last night was another fun game night. My night began with a couple of games of Dominion. I really enjoy this fast-playing card game. For me it strikes just the right balance between complexity and simplicity. The game is very easy to learn but the interactions between the cards (which are different each game) are just deep enough to keep the game fresh for quite some time. And with an expansion on the way, it'll only keep getting better. My only complaint was that someone else had played using my copy sometime earlier and had failed to keep the different mini-decks in alphabetical order, making setting up our game a real pain in the butt. So to whoever you are: please keep the cards sorted!

Next up for me was a rousing game of Tichu. I began the night with a Grand Tichu call on my very first hand. Unfortunately I just missed it, starting our team 200 points in the hole. Ah but don't despair! For we had more than a few successful Tichu calls that game, including another Grand Tichu call where my partner and I scored a double-win! Four hundred points baby! Inspite of that, our opponents gave us a pretty decent run for our money and while we won, it wasn't exactly a blowout.

Finally, I want to wish Happy Birthday once again to my friend Jason who brought his whole family to game night last night. Sorry I wasn't able to get in a game with you but I sure did enjoy sharing your Thin Mint cookies!