GEW9: Weekend Six / SSG@B&S

(That's Game Every Weekend 2009)

The BFF's son, Yehaw McK, was here for the weekend, and lots of gaming was done! There was a Magic tournament on Saturday that all four 'boys' were going to, and in preparation, there were a few practice games Friday evening to start the weekend. I am not a Magic player, I've tried it a couple times, I understand the concept, and have learned from trying it (as well as a couple other CCGs) that I do not enjoy deck building. If someone builds a deck for me in a CCG that I really like the concept of, like Deadlands, I'll definitely give it a go, but CCGs are not really for me.
So Saturday, after packing them each an awesome (if I do say so myself) snack bag of apple, box of animal crackers, package of cheese crackers, a couple string cheeses, a couple slim jims (none for the budding vegetarian), and a bottle of water, I sat down for a little Spore. OK, a lot of Spore. They were gone for HOURS! I've been concentrating on 'finishing' my first creature, he's in space, almost 3/4 'done'. Saturday, I did a few errands to raise enough bucks to increase my travel length and energy hold, and journeyed as close to the center of the universe as I could get. I did meet the Grox, and yes, they killed me. But one benefit to getting killed far away from home, you reappear back home. The guys all reappeared back home eventually, too, but none had won anything, which is surprising. Yehaw McK usually wins something in Magic tournaments, and often, a couple more do, too. The BFF consoled himself by buying Hunting which we'll have to try another weekend.
Sunday was our regular Second Sunday family gaming day, and The BFF and Yehaw McK had planned a nice Dungeons and Dragons day, but our printer wouldn't cooperate with the on-line creation sheets. So we switched to a card game day. We hadn't played Race For The Galaxy with five players yet, and we all enjoy that game. We also brought out Lord of the Fries, which I got for about six bucks a few weeks ago, when the 'other' Big Box Hobby and Gaming store had 75% off a few games.
Lord of the Fries was originally a Cheap Ass game (sorry, Mom, that's just their name). We have a few others on the shelf, but we haven't played many of them. I do love the cheapness and black-and-whiteness and lack-of-bit-ness of their games, such a change of pace from the heavy bits I usually love, I need to see about getting them to the table. This beautiful color version was put out by Steve Jackson games in cooperation with Cheap Ass games, and it has a lot of extras added beyond the original game. You are Zombies. What could be better than that? You are Zombies working in a fast food restaurant, feeding the humans, probably fattening up their brains for later consumption! There are eight different restaurant menus, all players (3-8) play off the same ones. You have to alter the deck (which are ingredients like meats, drinks, buns, sauce, etc) depending on which menu you're playing, so there are always some ingredients that are more rare for each menu. You deal out all the cards, 'make' the recipes on the menu, and the 'shift' is over when someone is out of cards. If you can't make the recipe called for, you give away a card, which is the biggest strategy in the game. In the beginning, you want to gather more cards to your own hand to be able to try for a bigger recipe (bigger recipe = more points!), but there is a time in the game that you don't want any more cards given to you, because the points in your hand count against the points you've earned from your recipes. We played a practice shift, and a whole game which consists of three shifts, and we all quite enjoyed it. Since two had never played before, we didn't use the timer, which is used to put a little pressure on the deciding player, deciding whether to roll for the recipe (when they would get all the cards that are passed), or pick a recipe they think no one else can make but them (then cards would pass to the left). We had all five of us playing only one of the 'shifts', and it sure does make a difference in how many cards you get, and how long it takes to get back to you. Since you only control the order being placed after you completed one, there are rounds that you don't get to put down too many points on the table at all. At one point, Rawk Star only had completed one menu item, with three cards, and he ran out of cards and stopped that round. He hadn't been able to make any more recipes, so he had given away all his cards. Very fun game! It played ok with three the first time we tried it, better with four or five, I will be excited to try it with six-eight sometime just for fun!
Gathering Storm, the expansion to Race For The Galaxy, adds a couple extra ways to get victory points, a solo game (which we haven't tried), and enough new worlds and other cards to play up to five players. The basic play of this game, if you haven't read about or played it yet, is you have a hand of cards, and you want to get some of them onto the table into your tableau, you also use your hand cards to 'pay' for what you bring out. Each turn is played in five stages, with a separate set of seven cards to determine what stage you want to play. This is a very cool game mechanic, and I don't know any other game that has something like this. Every player decides what stage they want to play in, and all put out their stage cards face down to be revealed at the same time when everyone is ready. All players get to play each stage that is revealed, but only the person(s) who played that particular stage card get to use the bonus for that stage. Even with five players, there were turns where only two of the five stages were able to be played, part of the strategy is trying to guess what stage everyone else is going to play. The cards you get into your tableau are going to give you victory points at the end, and/or give you an advantage during the game. The game stops at the turn that someone lays down their twelfth card, or someone picks up the last victory token (which we have never had happen in any of our games), and then everyone adds up their scores. The cards you bring to your tableau can work together in so many ways, the more expensive to bring out, the more they will probably help you. There are many strategies to play, mine is, see what starting world you get, and what you get in your first hand, and see how you can make it work together. I don't really enjoy trying to play military, but if that is what my starting world and starting hand lean towards, I have learned that I will get myself behind if I fight against my starting cards. And you can't get behind. It is a race after all. ;p
This is one of the best games I've ever played. It seems complicated at first with all the stages, they even give you huge cheat sheets to help you keep up, but it really ends up being much less complicated after you've played it a few times. The complexity is part of the beauty of it, trying for the most Alien cards, because you have the card that will give you bonus points for all of those Alien cards, but still trying to do it fast, because someone will definitely get twelve (or thirteen) in their tableau before you do! The BFF and son tried a modification after all of us who had to get up Monday morning had hit the hay, they went to sixteen in the tableau instead of twelve, and they enjoyed that as well.