Go-Cassonne

it is like Go because you score based upon the amount of area that you surround. it is like Carcassonne because the road pieces are random hexes. I will explain it some more in the near future. I will get some plays in with my wife

I'm not sure you'll see this as a problem but I'll throw it out as I know it's an issue I run into constantly with Go: with it getting some extra media attention in the last few years (some would say from the movies "Pi" and "Beautiful Mind") there are a lot of people who have randomly picked up the game. However, with the steep learning curve to Go (not necessarily in learning how to play, but to play even remotely on the competent level -- a problem many don't have with Checkers or even Chess, which you'll always hear in comparison even if not appropriate).

In short: over the last year or so I hear all kinds of trash talk against Go as people pick it up, try it, find out they are abyssmal, and then mock the game rather than themselves. This isn't the case with, say, Chess because if you have two people with only a slight degree of difference between them, you might have a 6 wins vs. 4 wins situation, but it will at least be "fun" for both. In Go, if you are even remotely worse, I've learned that you get destroyed.

Perhaps it's just my own experience -- and, don't get me wrong, I LOVE Go and while I don't play it at any semblance of expert level, I play well enough to do well against casual players. But even amongst gamers ... there is some sense that I, um, sense against Go.

Again: might be just me and the gamers I deal with, but something to be aware of in associating anything with Go (a problem I have as well with a board game I've been designing for the last year with a friend which has some basic elements that are Go'ish -- hence my problem finding a quality 14 x 14 square board where each square is around 2" x 2").

Note: I did NOT put those smiley icons into my post.

Is this an example of the site being "broken" as darke said on the front page?

I don't know how that happened and hopefully this email isn't rife with them as well.