Game(s) Played:
VivaJava
Game:
Kings Of Air And Steam
I arrived a little later than my usual time at BGN Puchong and two tables of gaming were already underway. I watched a little of Smash Up which I’ve read about and am interested to play but not to own. I’m trying to avoid being caught up in the Dominion-esque nightmare of endless expansions that Smash Up is likely to turn out to be. Gameplay seemed simple enough but that group moved on to Kings Of Air And Steam which would have been too heavy for me so I hopped over to the other table who had just finished I’m The Boss to start a game of VivaJava.
Session – VivaJava
For those not in the know, VivaJava is a boardgame about brewing coffee. It’s certainly an interesting idea and a variant of the recent wine brewing theme that might appeal to caffeine loving boardgamers out there. Whilst I am "sadly" caffeine neutral, I had a pretty good time with VivaJava and wouldn’t mind playing it again, preferably with strangers as playing VivaJava is just a great way to get to know people.
Brewing coffee in VivaJava is blessedly simple. You send out a worker to collect 1 of 7 different coloured beans from the world and based on your location in the world, you are forcibly grouped together with Players who collected beans within your vicinity and have to make a choice: to brew or to research. Brewing is a combined mechanism of Push-Your-Luck style probabilities & Poker as each Player in the group blindly digs into their bag of collected beans and contributes at least one coloured bean to the experimental brew. Once five beans are contributed, the quality of the brew is determined Poker style: five of a kind, four of a kind, full house etc. This part is probably the most fun as you get to know your impromptu and very temporary group mates, loudly haggle over who has the highest probability of drawing the right coloured bean, scream in dismay if you risked wrong, quickly recalculate the next best brew you can get & curse the luck of the other team that pulled off a 1 in 4 chance of drawing the right bean. Again, like Poker, ties are broken by the colour of your beans and consulting the board of colour rankings to bring you caffeinated enlightenment.
Or you can research, which is less fun but no less important as research lets you take multiple beans, set aside beans you’ve drawn by "mistake" and basically screw with your probabilities in a positive way. Plus, it gives points too. Yea, research is kinda dull, hence the shorter paragraph.
The local café maintains a list of the top 5 brews of the week and so long as a brew you participated in remains in the top 5, you get points at the end of each round. The game ends when a prescribed number of brews have been brewed or a Player reaches the magic score of 21 (not sure if that’s a further reference to another card game or the result of heavy play-testing and extensive research).
Time Taken: 75 minutes
Results Of Game
I didn’t do very well as I didn’t participate in many brews and ended up having a very heavy coffee bean bag of colours that more often than not, my teammates didn’t have, largely due to my own monopoly of the colour. I ended up placing 3rd I think but I had a really fun time getting there.
Rating: 7 or 8 / 10
I’m a bit uncertain with my rating of VivaJava. I personally wouldn’t consider it to be part of my library largely because I almost always play with the same bunch of people and I feel VivaJava’s strength lies in playing with people you don’t know. It is also somewhat abstract in that you don’t really get the feeling of brewing coffee since most coffee brewers I know don’t randomly pick different beans for one brew.
And those are my only two complaints of an otherwise interesting game that is also educational (the amount of coffee terminology in VivaJava is "kaw" or potent & thick in English) and most importantly, fun! for all the reasons as listed above.
Opening – Kings Of Air And Steam
I picked up Kings Of Air And Steam today, after waiting 1 year and 4 months for it and it has certainly gotten me salivating in anticipation of my first game, which is hopefully "soon". So what comes in it? Let’s have a look:
TMG game boxes have this really nice feel which I have no name for, it just feels nice
My first steampunk themed game! My first pick-up-and-deliver game! So many firsts!
So much colour! So much cardboard! Aiyee! I see the colour purple, shoot me now!
Nyooooooo!!! It’s supposed to have 10 Depots and 2 Cylinders! Why purple??? WHYYY???
All bagged up and when I have time, I’ll work on a storage solution
So yes, now you know I count EVERYTHING upon purchase and would have even counted the number of pieces of currency had the rulebook not said "Plenty of cash in several denominations", perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. Damn, why did it have to be purple though? Look forward to the session report and subsequent review!
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