Archive August 2015

Here's what I considered worth reading during the week and didn't want to link separately, collected and uncommented.

Long time no programming language links: Haskell for Mac is an interactive programming environment for Haskell on the Mac (as the name suggests). Interesting, as it offers a kind of notebook interface with which you can interactively develop code, try it out directly and visualize the results. Quite interesting for playing around with Haskell, but I don't know if it's worth 25 dollars - especially the sandboxing enforced by Apple can quickly become annoying. And since it requires Yosemite, I won't be able to try it out anyway.

Kashgar: Händler der Seidenstraße I got it because it was cheap (12 Euro) and the mechanics interested me: deckbuilding and engine-building. And the game implements this very well. Thematically, you are a spice trader on the Silk Road and have to manage your (usually 3) caravans. Each player starts with the same number of caravans, but each is slightly different from the starting options. This makes the game a bit asymmetrical, which I generally like. In addition, there is a really sophisticated deck builder in the form of caravan management. You win by optimizing your caravans to optimally fulfill orders. And the whole thing fits thematically very well - every person in the caravan has coherent actions available. The first game was really fun, it plays very smoothly after a few rounds, as there are only a few building blocks that you have to learn beforehand - the rest is on the cards. Through the optimization of the caravans, you have interesting long-term strategic options, through the several caravans you have short-term tactical options (which caravan you activate depends on what orders are currently on display and what the opponents are currently doing). In addition, there is an optional expansion for more interactivity, with which you can sabotage opponents' caravans. Really nicely done and completely under the radar, the game.

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

Pandemic: The Cure has just been released and is already in my closet. And already played - the Generalist on Easy level was of course easy, but a good way to get to know the game. And it's just fun to roll all those dice. I think it will soon come to the table in the group, I'm still looking for a quick game as a digestif - Nations Dice Game was actually a bit too heavy, but maybe this will work. Especially since coop as a digestif or starter is never wrong.

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented: