Carcassonne Central

Yesterday I saw a game that appears to be a total rip-off of Carcassonne. I didn't get to play it (it was at some event thing at the university) but I've e-mailed the producer (a group of young girls) and asked to buy a copy. I'll definately get back with a review when I've gotten a closer look at it.

It's called Värmlandskampen - which roughly translates to The struggle over Värmland or some such.  Värmland is the name of my home county in Sweden.

Hopefully they'll get back to me today! :)

In general: how common are various rip-offs? In this case I don't consider it especially harmful, there are lots of localized games around. I've played versions of Monopoly where I can buy streets in my home town - all sponsored by local shops etc.

Interesting!  If the format of the game is licensed or used with permission, one would call them a "spin-off" game, whereas if the format is used without permission yeah I'd call it a rip-off.  Most of the regional Monopoly variants are licensed (at least ones I've seen).  Definitely keep us posted Tobias!!

Today they finally got back to me, so now I've ordered a game :) I've got an exam saturday - so up till then there will be no gaming, but saturday evening I'm pretty sure I'll pour myself a glass o red and play this (if they've sent it byt then of course - other wise I'll play something else).

So - hopefully soon I can give you all a review :)

And today it arrived. I had a quick glance at the rules, and from what I can tell it's an almost complete rip-off of C. It has some added twists to it, but it's basicly C with some features from T&B. And they don't mention a license anywhere.

I'll need to play it properly before judging it too hard, but as of now I deem it a blatant copy.

Let us know how it plays

Okay, now I've had a chance to beat Sara in a playtest of this game ;)

I've never written a review before so bear with me (I'll keep my dictionary handy, so if you don't understand my english just tell me :) )

Värmlandskampen - a review of a Carcassonne rip-off.

Quality: It comes in a little bag made of sackling, which looks really nice, but the bad thing is that it spreads its dust on the table - if you're allergic to dust you should really swap this out for a cloth bag. The tiles themselves are made of plastic, and this has the advantage of beeing beer-proof. With these I don't have to be afraid to down a chilly one while kicking butt! The game pieces are small huts made of stone, and are actually quite classy. Among the tiles are also six river tiles which act just as in C. They are supposed to represent Klarälven (the biggest river in Sweden) but six tiles hardly makes it justice. (I live next to it - it's much, much larger then six tiles)! The game consists of 97 game tiles, six river tiles and two bonus tiles. Every player also get a city tile as a representation for different towns in the county. Unfortunetly my home town wasn't among the five - so I couldn't feel the patriotic touch either ;) Each player is also given eight huts.

The graphic of the game are sincerely found wanting. The colours doesn't match, the roads aren't well aligned
and neither are the river tiles. The actual motif of the seperate tiles looks as if drawn by a six-year old. Crappy - to say the least.

Features: Since it's Sweden we're talking about the farms in C are exchanged into woods and the cloisters against small lakes. There are some tiles with animals on them, for example one of the lake tiles has a wolf which gives you the dubble amount of points for the lake {16} instead of the normal {8} should you place a hut on it. There are also a tile with a moose which gives you three points when you place it, and doubles your hut's value (makes it count like a big meeple in C) if you choose to place a hut on it, and three tiles with deer on them - which act as the moose but don't give you instant points.

Gameplay: It's Carcassonne with a few added twists. For one there are two special tiles; a stop tile which makes you hand over the turn to the next player without further ado, and one duel tile. The duel tile makes you - if you so choose - to challange another player for one of his huts. The crux is that you do this by .. rock-scissor-paper (I think this is the name of the game in english, you should figure it out anyway), first to three points in this sub-game wins the area where the hut is placed. If you have no huts in your pool, and you are the challanger, the opponent's hut gets removed. It's a good tought, but doesn't fit into the game - at all.

Final thoughs: Again; it's Carcassonne and there is no way denying it. Sara's comment was that it's an absolute B-game (and that's not a compliment), and I concur. Regarding the game tiles themselves; they are too many. Yes you read right. 97 tiles are too many, or maybe they are just not balanced. The roads can end in crossings as normal, but also if a tree has fallen over them (this is a nice idea actually). But there are too few "clean" roads, and too many crossings - and also too few city tiles. We found ourselves building small four-points cities quite a lot, since the bigger city-tiles were so uncommon. Only four small lakes are included as well, which makes them into a non-regarded feature for the most part.

The lack of a license (at least the mentioning of one) is however what irks me the most. I wonder if Rio Grande Games (or whomever owns the license) would send me a copy of C - The City if I told them abut this game ;)

On the other hand, I'd wager a guess and say that they won't sell a whole lot of this game, maybe upwards fifty - hundred or such. Most people who are into this kind of gaming knows about C already.

Edit: Typos  ::)

Interesting nonetheless. Can you post some pics of the game pieces?

I only have my mobile phone camera - but I can try and take some pics tomorrow. Don't expect anything near quality shots though ;)

Besides - I did exaggerate about the six-year olds, but if I manage to get a few shots up you'll see for yourself.

Pictures (although the quality isn't the best):

http://www.lidos.se/Kamp001.jpg Tiles that doesn't fit well togheter.
http://www.lidos.se/Kamp003.jpg Bonus tiles. (It says "duellen" on one of them).
http://www.lidos.se/Kamp004.jpg More tiles...
http://www.lidos.se/Kamp006.jpg The bag.

Cant see anyone paying for this game , what a pile a crud. The tile slook like my daughter has drawn them !

Dont think Carc has onything to worry about from this one.

While this is true, it's a cheap game. About €10 or thereabout. On the flipside of the tiles are their sponsors - not all tiles, but about half of them..

Still - if they dont have a license it's an infrigment on ownership.

worse quality than I thought   :-\

Yeah, it's quite crappy.  didn't expect any equisit artwork or anything, but .. meh.

Does anyone know who owns the licens?

AFAIK, the license is owned by Hans-im-Gluck in Germany. They are the originators of the game at least.

Would they care about this infrigment or regard it as a too awful realisation of it to bother with?

I'm pretty sure they'd be more than a little annoyed. They have no problem with fans creating 'expansions' so long as they're freely available. Replacement games for money would be a different issue altogether...

The only other 'replacement' I know of is York (http://www.jwhitham.org.uk/york/), but that's online/computer based and free, so it isn't a competitor.

Hm, yeah that makes sense. I wonder if I should drop them a mail - or if I should ignore it.

Alrigth - can someone PM me thier E-mail? I just can't find it anywere :(

Sorry for necroposting, but do you have a box picture Tobias, so that I can include it in "the guide"?  Thanks in advance.

I will try and get a better picture up during the weekend, but please do remember that this is most likley an unauthorised rip-off of C. Also: it did not come in a box but in a bag!

sweden shall stay in great heavy music than ripping off great material... this is completely sucking from the bottom feeder...