Game Memories: Gruen

When writing about my first game memory, I mentioned that we didn't call the game by it's actual name in my family. This is one of those family stories, that is so old (and/or I was so young), I don't actually remember it happening, I just remember the story. One of those stories that is told every time the event happens, usually embarrassing the person in the story when they are of a certain age, but fondly remembered at a later age.
As the story goes, my parents, brother, and I were visiting Dad's parents for the weekend (in such a small town, our weekend visit would warrant a sentence or two in the town paper). And I kept asking Grandma to play a game with me, the game I wanted to play was Gruen. Grandma had no idea what I was talking about, and I thought I was mispronouncing it, so I kept trying to make her or my parents understand what I was saying, to no avail. I'm sure they all thought me daft. Finally, someone suggested that I go find the game in question and we'd see what I was talking about. The card game was one of my favorites, and was in a nice copper colored box with the name Gruen on it, I knew right where it was on the basement shelves, so I went to get it.
Turns out, Gruen was a watch company, and my Grandma's copy of the card game Authors was so old, it either had worn out it's original box, or didn't ever have one, and so Grandma had kept the cards in the old watch box. Laughter was all around when the grown-ups finally figured out what little shelly was trying to say. Hey, that's the name on the box, how was I to know?
Every time the game was played after that, we called it Gruen, and had a laugh, and a nice memory. After Grandma passed a few years ago, my Mom was going through some of Grandma's things with some other family members, and since all the grandkids loved playing this game, the deck was split up between branches of the family. But my Mom asked if she could also have the box, so she could make me something special. And the next Christmas after that, this wallhanging was one of my gifts. It will always hang in my gaming room, and hopefully will be passed down to future gamers.

KODT

About a year and a half ago, the BFF (Boy Friend Forever) got addicted to a new type of geek crack, when we attended Free Comic Book Day 2007. This has got to be the best marketing scheme EVER, the idea possibly coming straight from the streets where the drug dealers have perfected getting people addicted with a free sample. Once a year, the first Saturday of May, most comic book publishers give away demo copies or complete comics, and most comic book shops participate and get very high traffic that day! (I’d like to set up an energy drink and cheesy-pouf stand outside a comic book store on that day)
So almost every other week for the last eighteen months, the BFF has gone back to his favorite comic shop to pick up things from his ‘pull list’ (this new geek crack even has weird new language to go with it!), I've gone with him sometimes, but the shop has about 30 cats laying on the counters, which bugs my nose (and non-cat-person sensibilities) a little. A couple weeks ago, after his usual stop during the week enlightened him to a great sale, he wanted to back on the weekend before the sale was over, and he said he’d buy me something, too. Can’t pass that up!
As I was wondering around the store, I couldn’t decide what I might like to read. He already brings home so many good titles and I read what I have time to, and I didn’t really know what new comic I might like. Then I decided to dig through the old boxes of comics, who knows, I might find a copy of one of the series I bought many years ago (when dating a different comic collector), Samuri Penguin, Boffo Laughs, or the one Moon Shadow I’m missing.
And then I saw a bunch of old copies of Knights Of The Dinner Table, a comic about gaming, specifically role playing. I'd heard of it before, but never read it, and with old copies going for 4 for $2, with the store sale on top, I decided to try it out.
I started with the ones that were actually in order #30-#34, published way back in 98, but the story line got me hooked. And in addition to the comic stories about the different gaming groups, there are articles about building your RPG characters, and some board game reviews, too.
Since RPG-ing is one (probably the only) gaming type that I don't currently do much of, but would like to do more, I have been reading these comics cover to cover, and picking up more. The LGS (local game shop) has used copies as well, so now I've picked up several, and I'm probably going to subscribe. The most recent issue that I was able to get my hands on has some parts of a new-ish western RPG, including some NPCs and maps.
Their website has much cool stuff, too.

Game Memories: Authors

Possibly the first game I ever played, and certainly the first game I ever remember playing was the card game Authors (although that’s not what we called it in our family-and that’s another story) Going from memory, the rules were similar to Go Fish, but a bit more advanced, instead of just asking for ‘threes’ or in a themed deck ‘catfish’ or whatever, you had to ask for a specific card which was a specific book. For example, the Mark Twain cards were, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, and The Mysterious Stranger, the book’s title was at the top and the other three books were listed at the bottom of the card. So instead of asking “do you have any Mark Twains?” you would have to ask “do you have Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain?” I never really enjoyed playing Go Fish, probably because I was spoiled by Authors.
In addition to learning more complicated rules (and thus sparking the life-long desire for interesting games), I learned who wrote what, and even thou I’ll admit I haven’t read some of them, I’ll never forget who wrote The Call of the Light Brigade, or Little Women, or Oliver Twist. It might be fun to make a reading list from this game, they are all classics, after all. I also learned the value of gaming as a family activity, learned how to play games with young children, and learned a nifty trick to help kids keep track of a big handful of cards.
My teacher was my dear Grandmother, my dad’s mom, and this was the first of many games that I played with her or at her house over the years. When I was very young, my parents would sometimes have to go out-of-town for conferences or classes, and often I and my little brother would stay with our Grandparents for the weekend or week while our parents were gone. Time at Grandma's house was more precious on these times when our parents weren't with us, because Grandma would have more time to spend with us personally. My brother played outside a lot, and was (still is) four years younger, so he wasn't old enough to play at first, so I remember most the games just between Grandma and I.
I don't remember learning the rules, but I remember Grandma teaching me a nifty trick. She got out a section or page from the newspaper, and taught me how to put the fold at the top, and lay my cards out on the bottom, having the top to easily come down as a cover. And Grandma used a newspaper, too, and didn't ever 'let' me win, and never considered the game a kid's game. I tried to play my kids' games with them when they were little similar to how Grandma played with me, as if the game they were interested in at the time was the best game in the world.
I've played a lot of games in my life, and will play many, many more. But you always hold a special place in your heart for the first one.

Nuke Con: Other Games

Yes, I did play a few other games at Nuke Con besides Agricola! ;p
I also played Cash N Guns, Race For The Galaxy, Bang, Monsters Menace America, Rock Band, Run For Your Life Candyman, Torres, volunteered for one two-hour block, and play tested Boltz & Voltz.
I didn't play an RPG I meant to, because of a table mix-up (we were at the right table, but they had changed to a different table). The BFF (boy friend forever) really wants to play RPGs, and I'm not very good at them yet, so I didn't want to play without him there for moral support. I feel self conscious if I try to play with real RPGers. So I was a little bummed about the table mix-up, but I probably would have clogged up their game, so it's ok that I didn't play.
We also tried to play Power Grid, after hearing and reading so many good things about it, and we checked it out from the game library. But it was late into the night, and the BFF and I were very tired, and we couldn't get through the rules, we were just that tired! That's how we ended up playing the Candyman game, it was much simpler to understand at the late hour. It was actually very cute, it was basically the broken Candyland game in the playing of the board, with the added element of attack! Each player (he was Stinky, I was Butch) has a grid sheet to keep track of attacks on each body part, so hitting someone in the peppermint was hitting them in the head. This ended up being a perfect silly game for overly tired oldsters, even tho it went on too long, like the game it's parodying.
Cash N Guns les Yazukas was also very fun. This was one I had heard about first from the On Board Games podcast as a fun group game. It was also getting late the night we played this, and we had a fun table of folks to play with. The throwing stars, that are in this expansion were so much fun, maybe someone can perfect the double-knock-down move that our Yazukas were trying to do.
Bang was a little less fun, but not as silly. With part of who you are being hidden from the other players, it maybe was hard to first play with people you don't know. That's one part of a game convention, from all my little experience, that I've learned; some games are hard to learn with complete strangers, or maybe some strangers are hard to learn new games with. Either way, it's a dice roll, proving once again that Gaming = Life.
Monsters Menace America is a good game with a cool movie monster theme. I've played it once or twice before at game days or mini-cons, and have always enjoyed it. My kids and I played while we were waiting for scheduled games to start, and had a bonus player of an adorable Baby Bug who was an excellent player for such a young age. This is a game we've enjoyed each time we've played, and we've not bought it for our own collection only due to it being 3 player and up. The BFF and I usually only buy games that can be played two player, for those times when it's just he and I playing.
I learned at last year's Nuke Con that I really enjoy play testing new games, so when I saw one play test on the schedule this year, I made sure to sign up for it. Since it's just in playtesting, I don't know how much to say about it, but Boltz and Voltz is a good solid game with great artwork. I will be watching for it and will buy it as soon as it comes out!
Race For The Galaxy is a great game, which we have enjoyed many times since we got it last month. The time slot at the con was going to be a tournament, and there were something like 64 slots available. The BFF and I were getting pretty good, and were excited to play in a tournament, but including he and I, there were only six of us, and none of us being the tourney leader. Don't know what happened with that. We six separated into two games of three (good thing we brought our copy) but each table only played one game, with no tourney, it was more appealing to go play Agricola again! In my game, we were all pretty concentraty, and not talking much, and I commented to my group that I had read or heard that the game wasn't very social, and now I saw why.
Torres was a game I had seen the cool bits for and was very interested in, so I was excited to see it close up. I love that people bring their favorite games to a convention, just in case they can find someone interested in playing, and that was what happened. It is a very spacial game, almost a puzzle, and it reminds me of the kinds of games my brother and I would buy for and play with my dad when we were kids. I would like to pick this one up sometime, or maybe buy it for my dad.

OK, Just ONE More...

We knew there were animeeples, our local game store is getting some in I hear, and now there's a hint of veggimeeples!!!

Stop Talking About Agricola Already!

OK, OK!
Here's just a couple Agricola links before I move on to talking about some other game.
(There are still other games, right?) ;p

Play Agricola On-Line
I tried it just a little, and one of my people disappeared. ?? But I'll definitely try it again!

Agricola on-line Scoresheet Very cool, just plug in what everyone got for each category, and it tabulates your score.

Common Agricola Mistakes I definitely want to read through this more before th next time I play!

Game Day October: Agricola

We started a family and close friends Game Day a couple months ago. I'd been thinking about starting this for a while, I wanted for one, to have a good reason for all the teenager-almost-adult kids to come visit once a month, to start a family tradition that will carry for years. So far, they've been small, which is fine, building up the tradition. This month, yesterday, it was the smallest so far, with just the BFF and I in attendance, but that's fine, because we all gamed a lot last weekend.
Since Agricola is my hot game right now, we played two games of that. We sure discovered the differences between a two player game and a five player game!
Part of how Agricola is varied depending on players, besides having three different decks to choose from, is that some cards are only in play depending on how many people are playing. Each pack has cards for 1+, 3+, and 4+ players, so for solo play and two player, the cards available are the same. We talked about having a ghost third player, and we could roll a die to decide their turn, or just cheating and adding in the 3+ cards, but we didn't try that yet.
The cards distracted us again, I would say, and not getting things out in the right order. Some of the cards have to be played before certain activities and vice-versa, and it's still tricky to plan far enough ahead of time to get it all done properly.
We each won one game, the BFF said on the second game, he purposely took the wood before I could get it, because he thought that was how I beat him the first time. I've heard that in each number of players, there are certain resources that are harder to get, I guess wood is harder to get in a two player game.

Agricola: Rules Reading and First Solo Play

Alone on a Friday evening, the BFF at work, Rawk Star at the play he was teching for, Artist Extreeme at his dad's, I finished reading through the Agricola rules, punched out all the bits, and tried a solo game.
A couple things of note in the rules: in addition to the phase/stage thing being confusing, the rules point out the difference between person and player. Since we're using 'people' for game pieces, the term 'people' means 'family member' or playing piece, not the person playing the game, that term is 'player'. Just in case you thought you as the player had to jump onto the playing board to claim your spot. ;p
The other thing I'm not sure if I had misunderstood when being taught, but the harvest is in three phases, in order, with new animal babies being the last phase. So if you only have two of an animal and you need to cook it up to feed your family, that animal won't have a baby, because cooking one leaves you with only one. I may have played this wrong at Nuke Con, but it would have only been on the third game which I stunk at anyway.
These were my cards for my first experiment with solo play.
Trying to concentrate on getting 'some of everything', I still was distracted by the cards I got. I decided that a solo game is kind of a puzzle, since you don't have to take turns with anyone else, you just have to figure out when to do things. I did use a few cards, I had good cards that would work towards house building, but I only was able to get out 1/2 of the cards I wanted to. I was able to build wooden rooms cheaper, so I did that first, then renovated twice. I would have had a ton more points if I had been able to bring out the Chief and the Chief's daughter, since I was able to get my house up to stone. Below is my final farm, I ended up with 32 points, only having negative points for veggie and boar.

Agricola @ Nuke Con

The most anticipated game in our house recently was Agricola. (and that is pronounced ah-GRICK-oh-lah)(and yes, I am the annoying one who has corrects everyone who pronounces it like a soft drink)(and by everyone I mean every game store clerk, every potential player, even the guy who taught us the game)
Last weekend at Nuke Con, I finally got to play it. I preregistered on-line to make sure I didn’t miss it. And the guy that taught us during the slotted time was happy to teach more new players and play more games during the rest of the weekend, so I actually got to play three times. I was a little afraid that I had read and heard too much hype, like a movie where all the good parts were in the trailer, and it wouldn’t be as good as anticipated. But playing it everyday of the convention only made me want it more!
Since this is leaning toward a review, let me mention what kind of games I usually like. My official favorite game is Carcassonne. I love all it’s expansions, I love all sorts of Eurogames, give me wooden bits and I’ll be very happy. My close second favorite game, or maybe I’ll say my favorite game series, is Zombies!!! I love all things zombie and gross like that, zombie movies and comics are always watched and read, and zombies are a theme in my arts-n-crafts, too. So I’ll play any and all games related to zombies, but the Twilight Creations Zombies!!! series will always be at the top of my list. (Now if I can figure out a game with zombie meeples…) I like various card games and party games, I don’t lean toward collectable card games though, and I’m usually turned off by war themes. Good mechanics of a game will win me over, but it’s the bits I love. Gimme good bits!
Speaking of good bits, back to Agricola! (who doesn’t love a good segue?) I opened the box this morning to get the rule book out to read, and there’s all the great bits! Nothing like the smell of cardboard and wood in the morning. ;p The first thing that impressed me was that they included a bag full of baggies, for when you separate out the bits. That’s game packaging at it’s finest. There are quite a few different kinds of bits, and I had wondered if it might get confusing, but I haven’t really run into that yet, except for clay is the lighter brown disk, and wood is the darker brown disk. I’m not sure if so many kinds of bits will be confusing for younger or older players, we’ll test it out with my mom next month.
The first two games we played, we just used the E deck. The coolest part, IMHO, about Agricola is the different sets of cards, and the quantity of each, so that the cards you use each time will be different. The three sets are: E which is basic, I for Interactive, and K for Complex (remember, the game was written in German). In each set there are Occupation cards and Minor Improvement cards, and you are dealt seven of each, and with a total of over 300, depending on how many players and which set you use, the possibilities are virtually endless. There are different cards used for different numbers of players, last weekend all three games were five player games, so we used the most cards available. The cards give you ways to do things easier, or allow you to break a specific rule. But a warning for new players, when you're first learning, and someone has a card that lets them break a specific rule, it's easy to forget that they get to do it because of the card, and get confused on the actual rule. That happened to us a couple times, when someone had a card that let them bake bread at harvest time.
Since I had watched the "Board Games with Scott" video of Agricola, I had a pretty good idea of the rules before sitting down to be taught. The best thing I learned from the video was to watch the scoring. As Scott says, ‘you want a little bit of everything’, and I really kept that in mind playing my first game. I’m proud to say that the tip from Scott even helped me win a little prize! Our game teacher played with us, and since he’d played many times before, he outdid all of our scores by plenty, almost doubling them. But out of us four newbies, I had the highest score, thus the prize. Watching the scoring is one of the keys, as our teacher pointed out, it is a two point swing, having nothing of something will give you a negative point, where even only one of something will give you a positive point in most cases. I only beat the BFF by that two point swing (but don’t feel too bad for him, he watched the video, too!).
The progression of playing is interesting, the second time playing, I also did pretty good (tied for second after our experienced teacher), and tried to incorporate more of my cards. The third time, with no newbies, we advanced up to the I deck and used one of the advanced rules, where you are dealt 10 cards and have to decide on the 7 that you want. I really got too focused on the cards that time, trying to use all the cards together, and ended up messing myself up, and even having to take ‘begging cards’. Begging cards are what you want the least in this game, and what you have to take if you can’t feed your family at a harvest. I was so intent on making my cards work together, I forgot that I had already eaten my sheep, and had to take two stupid begging cards! Our teacher had been saying all weekend that everyone he had ever taught hadn’t had to take begging cards, and I messed up his good record. (Sorry, Jerry!) At the end of that game, one other player who I think won that time around gave me some good advice: try to get maximum regular score points, focus on that, not on the cards. Why didn’t I think of that?!?
I always like learning strategies from other players, I watched our teacher save up his wood and build his fences all three times we played. I figured he's had good luck with that strategy, but it didn't leave him a lot of time to get animals out. It will depend on what cards you have, I suppose, when I had animal cards, I really needed to build my fences early! Another good tip I picked up from our teacher is the difference between the stage and the round. Some cards specify stage, which is a set of rounds, and he had a player with hurt feelings when he misunderstood the card.
Now I'm off! I have a date with the rest of the rules, and all the bits, and maybe a solo game tonight.

A Little Introduction

I've been a board gamer all my life.
I remember playing games when I was very young with my Grandmothers and cousins.
I remember camping with my parents and brother growing up, and playing games were part of our camping fun.
I remember other gaming family traditions while growing up, like getting a family game from Santa every year (a tradition I started with my own children when they were young).
I remember finding new games to play with my college friends, mostly ones that involved or could incorporate decadent behaviors.
I remember new friends teaching new-to-me games, and games around campfires, and gaming with my first husband and his family. Everyone's family has different game history and tastes.
I remember games my children liked at every stage of their lives so far, and played whatever games they wanted to play. OK, I admit, I never played CandyLand. That is one broken game!
I remember playing better and better games with my kids as they grew older, and having three generation games whenever possible, with my parents and my children.
And now, with teenagers, sometimes it's a scramble to fit games in, but we try! I've started a Game Day for family and close friends which is growing slowly, but I hope it will be a tradition that keeps the young'ens coming home once a month.
The BFF (that's Boy Friend Forever) is a bit of a collector (not like I'm not) so our game collection grows every month and is at this moment between 100-150. Gaming is one of our together activities.
I'm addicted to podcasts, or as some brilliant person said, internet radio shows, and I've found some gaming podcasts to add to my never-miss collection.
I just attended the largest close gaming convention last weekend, Nuke Con, for the second year after attending various smaller conventions & game days.
I find myself more and more wanting to talk about games.
And so this blog begins.....

The Beginning of the Board Broad

My name is shells, and I'm a board gamer....