the Board Broad

2011-09-19T17:19:00.000-05:00

Ten Years

2011-08-13T14:55:00.000-05:00

So it's that time of year again when we start thinking about our local game convention, Nuke Con, coming up Sept. 30-Oct. 2.
And the call for GMs came out, and I want to GM again, but what should it be?
And then it hit me. Since this is the ten year anniversary of my favorite game, I will GM Carcassonne. Maybe there are gamers who still haven't played it (I know that's hard to believe, but I've still never actually played regular Catan with real live people, so it's possible), and it's a great intro game for anyone that might be coming to the con just to check things out.
So that's a great excuse for me to add a couple things to my Carcassonne collection. I did pick up the ten year anniversary edition shown above, not my own photo. It has clear meeples!! So cool. And the box is shaped like a freakin' meeple! How could I pass that up? And I picked up the catapult expansion too. It seems so silly and fun. And hopefully also intriguing to new gamers.
Our personal family game day is tomorrow, I wonder if I can get anyone to go a'catapulting with me?

Awesome Dice!

2011-08-08T16:31:00.001-05:00

Isn't this the coolest?
Dice used as the art medium.
Thanks Dude Craft!

More Kickstarter-ing

2011-04-16T16:21:00.001-05:00

Odds'R

2010-11-25T15:08:00.001-06:00

The box

The game is Odds'R, a party game for up to four players or teams. And my choice for game of the day for Thanksaturgiving this year.
Put out by Eagle Games in 2002, no longer in print. So if it's no longer in print, how did I even find out about it??
Well, I do loves me The Spiel, as I've mentioned before, and their back-shelf spotlight a few episodes shined on this game, including letting me know that there were some for sale through the BGG marketplace.
I tried out the BGG marketplace for the first time, to much luck, and got the game still in shrink, for a decent price, and dealt with another BGG user for the sale, which makes me feel better than giving money to some random eBay user. (Like I know a BGG user will buy more games, an eBay user might only be in it for the money)

The board

It's a trivia game at it's base. But it has a lot of other elements.
There's a lottery to start, and each time you ask a question, you first read the winning lottery number. You have three opportunities to buy lottery tickets, so it seems like it's a small chance of winning, but still an interesting addition.
After the lottery, the trivia question, in one of 15 categories is read, and the multiple choice answers are shown to all of the non-answering players or teams. And everyone bets on if the answering player or team will get the answer right.
The winning of the game is who has the most money, not who's answered the most questions, so the lottery and the betting are key. Game ends when one player gets to the center, and they get a bonus for getting there, but they are still not necessarily the winner. I like that element a lot, no wedgie hogging.

The grab bag tokens and cow chip

Other fun twists are different odd spots you might land on.
There are grab bag spaces, where you'll pull one of 15 tokens out of the velvet bag. The "GrabBag is full of goodies-and gotchas!" according to the box. Since I like being as surprised with a new game as my guests, I try not to read too much of the specifics, so we'll see how that plays out.
There's a cow chip to flip, and it's just a heads-or-tails win-some-money or get nothin' space.
And there's a space where you get to use a special die in addition to the moving dice. The special die will let you know if you are going ahead or backwards on the moving dice. This was one of the gotta-have-it things about this game, I love specialty dice! And bonus that you only use the extra die if you land on the space, not all the time.

The pawns

And then there's the pawns. Another gotta-have-it part of this game. Your pawn starts off as a candle stick looking kind of thing, with rings you add for each answer you get wrong.
If you get too many wrong, you get the dunce cap placed on top.
There are spaces where you could sell your ding-rings for cash, so it's not that bad to get a few rings, as long as you're going to land on the right space to have them removed.
This seems like fun, I only hope that no one feels bad for having too many rings. But I think playing in teams will help that. I love the colors, nice and bright. I'm thinking of how to incorporate these fun pawns into other games too. Or they could even be used as a counter in some games. It would be easy to see from across the table how many rings your opponent has.

The Meeples playing with the colors

So if you listened to the same Spiel episode, you already knew all of this. ;p
I don't have any actual play experience yet, since we'll be playing Saturday. But I do hope to do mini-reviews with any/all who play. And take more photos.
I hope you and yours are having a great Thanksgiving, whether you're celebrating today or Thanksaturgiving like we do.
What games will you be playing while you digest?

Guess the Game?

2010-11-24T20:07:00.002-06:00

The Meeples are on the loose!
They opened up a new game, and discovered they matched the playing pieces.
What game are these from?

Happy Meepleween!

2010-10-31T16:09:00.000-05:00

Nuke Con Wrap Up

2010-10-08T17:30:00.000-05:00

Last weekend was Nuke Con 2010, and I'm still trying to catch up on sleep, chores, how to talk to non-gamers, stuff like that. The BFF and I wondered if it seemed lighter in turnout than other years, but chatting with others, we discovered that turnout was still strong. He and I figured out later that it what seemed different was less miniature war gaming. Other years, there are several tables completely decked out with homemade displays, suitcases full of miniatures, and people with measuring tapes walking around the table looking for the best angle. This year, there only seemed to be a few of these kinds of tables, I think that was the only difference.
And more diversity in games, it seemed. I did my part in stretching the diversity, volunteering to lead two newish European games. I had to sign up to GM a month early to get in the program, so I've been thinking about teaching games, and how (and why) we all learn games, and I'll go on more on that thinking in another post or three, but now the play-by-play (pun intended) of my weekend at Nuke Con 2010!
Cast of characters on this trip: Me. The BFF (that's Boy Friend Forever). Dawn Child, my 19-year-old, almost too old for me to still state his age, doesn't live at home anymore, but still games a lot! and The Munchkin, my 17-year-old who does still live at home.
First thing, straight after check-in, I rushed to the concession stand to buy a t-shirt. I had procrastinated through the on-line purchase time, and didn't want to miss out. This year is the 20th anniversary, so the theme was "It Was 20 Years Ago Today..." with a cute Sgt. Pepper's done in gaming logo. I had to have one!
Friday night, The BFF and I pretty much stuck together, starting with Temple of the Beastmen. Out-of-print old, but still very enjoyable. Searching for treasures and avoiding the beastmen through five levels, where the beastmen are x times more plentiful on each lower level (so level 5 with ten beastmen, makes them actually fifty), and each character having specific strengths and a specific goal. I won, thanks to the kind player who traded me some treasure for my 'boy'.
Side note: The prizes were awesome this year! I don't remember having second and third place prizes on very many games other years, this year, I think all games did.
So when I was victorious in the game of Beastmen, I won Warhammer Invasion! Quite a prize. The kids tried it out sometime over the weekend.
Next, The BFF and I went to a panel on Zombie Defense and Education put on by the Omaha Chapter of the Zombie Research Society. If you're interested in anything Zombie, check out their site, their Facebook, and their podcast. But since it's not specifically game related, I won't go into great details, but just to sum up: Awesome panel!
After that, we playtested The Nightly Misadventures of Pizza Guy. I love playtesting. A few years ago, I got to playtest a couple new games in development by the creator of House on Haunted Hill. His games were scribbles on index cards, Pizza Guy was very well fleshed out, lots of nicely typed and well-thought-out playsheets, cards, tip charts. My favorite part was the hilarious descriptions of the art that is hoped to be on each card, I LOL-ed. There were great ideas in Pizza Guy, and some parts that need to be worked through more. As a good playtester, I gave all my ideas and opinions to the designer. I hope to someday buy the finished product.
Then it was on to Fiasco, a GM-less RPG. Dawn Child, a very seasoned RPG-er, joined The BFF and I along with three others. I always play one RPG at Nuke Con, despite feeling like I'm not very good at it. How will I improve if I avoid it? Being GM-less, and the unique way that it is able to be GM-less, made it easier for me to get into it. I did still get the bad RPG-er blues about 2/3 into it, when I just ran out of ideas and steam. We bought the pdf, and are going to try it at our family game day this weekend. I think I will be able to get into it a bit more with just family, but we'll see.
While the three of us were RPG-ing, The Munchkin was Zombie LARPing, which he said was great fun, and he won a cool t-shirt.
Saturday started with Mythos, a Collectable Card Game, luckily with pre-made decks. I am on record as not liking CCGs, but it's not the game play (usually) that I don't like, it's trying to build a deck. I have no idea how to do that. But since the decks were pre-made, I was happy to try it out (or again, I think I played it a few years ago). I really liked how this played, when you have a properly made deck, you're trying to bring out specific things for victory points, and you fight with the other players. We had six people ready to play, so the GM put us in two groups of three, and The BFF and I each won in our trio. Since we already have a bunch of the cards, we're going to find the pre-made deck lists on-line, because I will definitely
play this again.
Next, we tried out Ruin by Buffalo Games. It would be good for a younger crowd, or party gamers. It was a fun twist on the Sorry type of game.
Saturday, I didn't do as much gaming myself, since I was leading games at different times, and I didn't want to be late for my own game!
I GM-ed Fresco, ironically being all the way in Omaha, to teach the game to two of our buddies from our Lincoln FLGS. Later, I GM-ed Dixit, and I was happy to find people excited about playing, and they loved it!
Sunday, The BFF and I joined in a huge game of Zombies!!! with three home grown expansions we play tested. My favorite was the Zoo. This game took most of the part of the day that we were awake and not driving! Then the pooped out gamers headed back home.
Can't wait for next year!!

Gamey Weekend

2010-09-14T18:07:00.001-05:00

Agricola bits with Bohnanza on the table

The second weekend of the month is the gamiest. This month was no exception.
Owl House Game day, hosted by James (who is now a contributor on The Gaming Gang site), was on Saturday, and our own SSG@B&S (Second Sunday Gaming at Bryan and Shells') was Sunday.
Saturday, we had six players, and among other games, we learned Bohnanza, and taught one of our newest games, Forbidden Island.
I've been interested in learning Bohnanza for a while, especially since the farmers in Agricola enjoy playing it. The uniqueness in this game is not being able to rearrange your cards, which was a very interesting thing to have to try to think through. I need a few more games under my belt to get the strategy down. A more thorough review can be found on The Game of The Day blog, I didn't mind the beans as much as he did. They were cute, and not everything can be zombies or robutts.

Forbidden Island was my suggestion to play, both Saturday and Sunday. After playing it with three and with two, I was interested to see how it played with more, and both times we had six, the max players...or so I thought.
I will readily admit, that I was the rules reader on this game, and I taught it the first time we played, and on Saturday (with help from The BFF), just checking a few specifics in the rule book. Saturday, we lost twice, and in a big way, but it was a fun experience.

Sunday, with my children and parents all present, that makes six again, so we sat down to play. That's when my dad actually read on the tin that it says 2-4 players!!

Since there are six pawn/roles, I just assumed up to six could play. No wonder we got creamed so hard on Saturday!
As we already had it out, and I was mostly done explaining the rules to the newbies when the mistake was noticed, we decided to go ahead and try it, not expecting a less watery death than any previous game.
We did allow one small cheat, starting the water marker at a make-believe level 1, just below the Novice level 2, but other than that, we really just got lucky with the cards we drew, and as you can see, we all six got to Fool's Landing just in the nick of time!

My kids went off to game in another part of the house, and The BFF and my parents and I got out Gemlok. I was a bit surprised by a couple things Sunday. One: that my folks actually read this blog (hi folks!), and B) that my mom really picked up the gauntlet that I unknowingly threw down when I said I didn't think she'd like the game, and she played her heart out!
She was ahead most of the game, but had an unfortunate roll of two Gemloks at once, when she didn't have anything good to 'lock', otherwise, I'm sure she would have won.
As it ended up, the perceived strongest player was rather picked on by the rest, allowing ME to win by one point!
Hah! It's good to not be a threat sometimes!

Gemlok

2010-09-06T17:14:00.006-05:00

The BFF had a B&N coupon burning a hole in his pocket, and we needed to get out of the house, so yesterday we ventured out and The BFF picked up Gemlok. The first thing I thought of when seeing the picture on the box was 'Bejeweled: the Board Game'. But it's not.
The second thought when looking at the box was: gotta get these dice! Cool, funky, movement with arrows dice. And the surprise when the box was opened, the dice are huger than I expected. (yeah, I know that's not a real word, but it's fun)

Huge dice with regular sized Meeple for comparison

It's a pretty solid little game. Reminded me a bit of some of the tactics in chess, the movement only, the what's-the-other-player gonna-do Analysis Paralysis is gone, with every player only able to do what the roll of the dice tell him/her to do.
The two dice are different except for the one Gemlok side, so there are ten possibilities of how to move. You have to take the two or three steps laid out on the dice face, but you can turn the die any direction to start the movement (that was the one part that alluded me for about 1/2 the first game).
If you land on yourself or an opponent on your last movement, you get to bump, them/you, up to three spaces.

CU of game play

The board is set up with smaller point value gems sprinkled around the outside, with plenty of empty spaces, the center is a four by four cluster of higher end gems. I like that the colors of the gems seem to represent actual gems and dollar values, I'm not sure what 4 is, though, Opal? When you bump, of course, you want to bump your opponent out into the boondocks, and yourself closer to the center squares (and Paul Lynde). If and when you roll a Gemlok, with the exception of your very first roll, you have to/get to lock one of your gems. (Thus the name. Drink.) You don't want to get the Gemlok side when you're sitting in the sand, but you are aching for it when you're sitting atop one of the diamond 9 pointers (the highest point gem). Of course, as dice go, you can sing 'Luck Be A Lady Tonight' all you want, Big Jule, but you know those dice ain't gonna roll how you want them to.
After ten rounds, either player can declare the game end, but the other player(s) get another turn to try to bump you. I tried this tactic the first game, and sure enough, The BFF bumped me off TWO separate seven point jems, left me sitting in sand, and he beat me by less than that 14 points. So second game, I waited and let him call it quits, and that time he only beat my by two points. ;p You're supposed to play a four game series, but we were done after two, only because it was a long weened, and we were ready for relaxation, not thinking.
The other game ending condition would be if someone gets all eight of their gems locked. Which I think would be really hard with the two player game that we played, probably even harder with three or four. We're interested to see just how different the game will be with three or four. Next weekend is our family game day, we really think my dad and older son will like this. Maybe The Munchkin can get Grandma to play something else for a while. Or I'm sure she'd be happy with Plants vs. Zombies.

P.S. Now that The BFF has started his own gaming (and movie) blog, I hope this won't turn into a who-can-blog-it-first competition. But I did blog it first this time. With photos. ;p

Meeples swimmin' in Gems

P.S.S.
Be careful letting your Meeples out along with any kind of gems or gem-like bits. They are soooo money hungry, they jumped intot he gems like they were Uncle Scrooge McDuck.

Forbidden Island

2010-08-30T20:57:00.000-05:00

I was so excited when we went to the new and improved game section of B & N this weekend. There are lots of good 'gamer' games that they haven't had before. Agricola, Dominion, Alhambra, Castle Panic, all the Munchkins, Word on the Street (which will probably be my next game purchase there), all sorts of stuff. And the B & N Onyx editions of some old favorites, including Stratigo, and more kid's games.
It seems that Barnes and Nobel are getting into the game business seriously. And good sales are always included, so we perused the 30% off table too.
I had been wanting to pick up Forbidden Island since I heard about it on the Spiel. Great bits, cooperative game play, and it comes in a TIN!! (I collect useful tins to store things in, so any game in a tin is a bonus!)
With an e-mail coupon to save on the already very reasonable price of Forbidden Island, I was able to pick up a little Connect Four carabiner key chain from the sale table for basically free.
We tried it tonight twice, first The BFF, The Munchkin, and I, and we didn't even come close to winning. The second time, The Munchkin opting for season four of Angel he's watching on Netflix, so we tried it two player. We had some great luck, like drawing no Waters Rise cards for most of the Treasure Deck, then drawing two at once, which actually makes the water rising not as bad. But second time through the Treasure Deck, the Waters Rise cards came up too quick, and bit us in the ass. We opted to play through our plan as if we hadn't gotten the last one at just the wrong time, and we would have won if that last card had been even one card lower in the deck!!
It's a very compelling game. We're excited to try it four, five, and six player, to see if it's better or worse. Also excited to push that 10+ age suggestion, we have some very bright game players at our church game day, that are 7 or 8 that I think would really bring something to the game.

Kickstart some Games!

2010-03-10T19:34:00.002-06:00

Have you seen the new site, Kickstarter? A little like Kiva, but instead of giving someone a loan to start their business, you're investing in a project.
There's tons of awesome projects, crafts, films, books, and I was most excited when I saw there are some board games too. A great outlet for game designers!

Android

2010-02-17T22:43:00.000-06:00

Two Sundays in a row now, we've had a game of Android. Both of my kids, The BFF, and me.
The BFF got this game on a great sale, 50% off, and I hadn't heard much about it before he brought it home.
It plays 2-5, and it has so many different parts to the game, we've likened it to playing 3-4 games at once.
It's kind of a mystery, because you're trying to figure out who's guilty, but it's no Clue. Who ends up being guilty is determined by how much/what kind of evidence is put on each suspect.
So there's putting evidence onto suspects (my least-best part of playing this game), plus there's points to get on the board, your own character's plot to resolve (or not), a conspiracy grid to resolve by playing puzzle pieces, and probably something else I'm not remembering.
There really are so many different things to do. But it doesn't seem over complicated, once you dredge through the rules.
Oh, and the picture is with my new camera! Woot! is awesome!!

Awesome Cupcakes

2010-01-09T14:00:00.001-06:00

Game Cupcakes

Check out these cupcakes! One hundred differently decorated cupcakes in game themes. With a little guessing game element. I got most of them, with the exception of a few video games.
Also wonderful inspiration because I got a cupcake carrier for Christmas. I've been wanting one for a while. And it has a cupcake 'tree' for serving. And since tomorrow is our family game day, I decided to add to the monthly tradition, and always make cupcakes for it.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Bunnies & New Year

2010-01-01T15:42:00.001-06:00

Happy Two Thousand Ten!!
Waiting to ring in the new year, The Artist Extreeme and I played 1 1/2 games of Killer Bunnies last night. We have the blue starter, along with the yellow, red, and violet expansions. We haven't played the violet much, so there were lots of new cards we hadn't played before.
It takes so much shuffling, and the first game went pretty quickly, so we decided to just use the second half of the giant deck for the second game. A half hour or so later, we decided that all the 'free carrot' cards and bunnies must have been in the first half of the deck, and all the weapons were in the second half of the deck.
I do really enjoy this game, and would love to keep adding in the expansions, but how the heck to you properly shuffle it??

On the new year: no actual resolutions, as resolutions are things that usually get broken. But a plan to remember to post game sessions more often. And to put my Spiel Game Journal into action!

Dominating Dominion

2009-12-07T09:11:00.000-06:00

The BFF found an iPod app that randomly picks which card sets to use, which completely solves one of my problems with this game. (who gets to pick, and possible arguements) So he and I and the Artist Extreeme played two quick games yesterday afternoon, while the snow fell.
I didn't take the time to write down which cards we played, but the first game we had four or five attacking cards with no defensive cards out. Crazily, we ended with a three-way tie!! With 42 points each. Hmm, maybe there IS something to that number...
The second game the gardens came into play, so I decided to try my flying-under-the-radar strategy. For me, this is almost a game within a game and it works with several games. It's basically all about seeing how long you can play a certain way before the other players notice. In this case it was buying as many garden cards as I could, starting with the very first turn. Garden cards are the ones that give you one extra victory point for every ten cards in your final deck and by the time The BFF figured out what I was doing, he and The Artist Extreeme each had two, and I had ALL the rest! (that's eight, for those of you playing along at home)
When we each counted our number of cards, we each had 50 (rounded down), so my gardens alone gave me almost as many victory points as my total victory points from the first game. Final scores were great for all of us, 58, 62, and 68.
And the snow continued to fall...

Exploding Dice

2009-11-18T09:23:00.001-06:00

We played a game of Deadlands Sunday afternoon, The BFF, The Artist Extreeme, and me. This was the second time we played, the first was last month including The Rawk Star, so this was the first three-player game.
It went well, except for one little thing we forgot, which was actually a big thing. If you roll a six, you get to roll again, and add the six to whatever the next number is. And if the second number is another six, you get to keep going.
So for the first 3/4 of the game, we were all getting creamed in fights because some of the NPCs start at 7 even.
Pretty embarrassing to be looking for a rules clarification on something completely different, and realizing that you messed up a basic rule.
But it did serve to remind us why we play, not to win, or even get the rules right, but for the fun of being together.

Nuke Con 9

2009-10-05T07:21:00.006-05:00

This year we made a lesser attack on the Nuke Con weekend, four of us went for just Saturday: me, The BFF (BoyFriend Forever), his son Yehaw McKickass, and my younger son the Artist Extreeme. Going for one day only, we completely packed the day with gaming fun. I, for one, am still pretty tired!

Since a few things we had wanted to try (separately) were full, it ended up that The BFF and I played all our games together, which was great for playing his favorite overall game, "I-Beat-You!". We played all new-to-us games this year, not wanting to waste our one day playing stuff we've played before.

We played:
* an unscheduled Kingsburg with our LGS buddies (my must-have of the day)
* when no GM showed up for Shadows Over Camelot, we filled some empty slots on Are You Smarter Than a Con Guest (super fun! but made me feel dumb)
* On The Underground (train-ish game of the London underground) (which The BFF kept reminding me that he has actually BEEN on!)
* Chicago Express (train-ish game mostly auction-y)
* The RPG Don't Rest Your Head (I'm not experienced at RPGs. I'm especially shy in a con setting, but I really liked the story, and the folks we played with)
* Robo Rally for the Brain Dead (which I proved to be by 10:00, and could not 'get' the part about when the conveyor belt turned you or not)

The kids played D&Ds most of the day, broken up with one Race For The Galaxy session, which is a fav for them both.

We also made some purchases, of course! The BFF bought Small World and Dead Lands, and I bought Silent But Deadly Night in a great tin, Martian Fluxx, and some blank Fluxx cards that the Artist Extreeme and I are going to design!

More in-depth reactions coming soon...

?

2009-05-12T19:52:00.002-05:00

Inspiring Gaming Cakes

2009-04-19T12:27:00.002-05:00

In case you don't read the blog Cake Wrecks: Most of the week they present photos of the most awfully funny awful cakes. On Sundays, for a change, they post wonderful cakes, and today's theme is games!
Check them out!
My favorite, of course is this Carcassonne cake! Inspiring...I might have to try one myself.

Also Last Weekend

2009-04-18T12:07:00.003-05:00

Last Saturday was the first Family Game Day at my church. Organized by myself and a gaming friend met through yet another gaming podcast, Garrett's Games and Geekiness. We had twenty folks total, including the organizers and the baby, which was a great turn out for the first time, I think.
The age range was younger than I had hoped, one part of my plan is to get more teenagers involved (including MINE!), but that will come in later months. It was nice that the youngsters attending were roughly in the same age range, around K-3, so they could play the same types of games. I got to play Jumpin' Monkeys, Bat Man Uno (The BFF, when told this, replied 'you hate Uno' which is true, but I adore these kiddos!), my thrift store gold find Poppa's Pizza Topple, and even played a little Seismic, after taking out all the earthquakes and workers. It actually was great as a puzzle game, with it's hexagon pieces, and different amounts and styles of roads on each piece.
Also exciting was seeing a table of adults playing together, their children all at different tables playing other games.
A nice time was had by all. And next month, maybe I can drag my own kids? *fingers crossed*

Game Session: Killer Bunnies in Space

2009-04-18T11:14:00.004-05:00

OK, I know that's not the real title of the game, but that's what I keep calling it. It's Killer Bunnies and the Journey to Jupiter. There, happy? ;p
Our monthly family game day, SSG@B&S (Second Sunday Gaming at Bryan and Shelly's) happened to fall on Easter, and without really thinking about it, I had been having a hankering to try Killer Bunnies in Space again. Then I also had a hankering to make deviled eggs...so Killer Bunnies and deviled eggs...On Easter...stereotypical much, shell?
Those present for our gaming, The BFF, The Artist Extreeme, and myself, agreed we all wanted to try KB and the J to J again, so we reread some of the spacey rules, and got the game set up. We have a good sized table, but this is one game that makes us wish for a larger one! There is so much stuff, and we didn't even have room for the organizing/cheat sheets we like to use for regular KB.
The game itself is fine, on the second playing, not counting the rules issues, it went much faster. We didn't get into any one-on-one combat, mostly because you have to be right next to the other player, and we were mostly all over the board. I almost wish the game would have taken longer, so we could have each gotten more ships on the board. I think each player getting 2-3 ships out there would be awesome, as it was, we each barely got a second ship out, and each lost the second ship pretty quickly. In the end, we each had two carrots, having decided at the beginning to play only six (duh! six carrots divided by three players...wasn't the best planning) The BFF had the 'magic' carrot, so he officially won.
Now about those rules issues. Or a sidebar dovetailed before the rules issues. I've been listening to and LOVING The Speil podcast for a few months now, including listening to the old shows, one of their segments is the Game Sommelier, trying to find the right game for the right group, and I've been attempting to think in sommelier terms when I'm picking games. [/sidebar]
This game, with these players, the sommelier didn't do such a great job. For one, all three of us tend to be 'rules lawyers', a phrase we've coined in our house, sometimes there can be more looking up clarification of rules than actually playing, or so it seems. I've tried to implement the idea (that I think I got from the On Board Games podcast) of just play it for now how the players agree the rule should be played, and take the extra time to look it up LATER, and most times that works ok most of the time. Unfortunately, we also had the Problem of Three working against us that day. The problem of three was first taught to me by my dad, who once, thirty something years ago, wouldn't let me do some activity with the two neighbor girls, because there would be three of us, and (paraphrasing) "when there's three, it's too easy for two to gang up against the other one." Even at that tender age, I knew this to be true, I had seen it already with these same girls, and it's something that I've always kept in mind with my own kids, and in the rest of my life.
In the case of a rules-lawyery kind of game, combined with the Problem of Three, it wasn't the most fun game session we've had. Another learning curve for the game sommelier in me.
After we ate (sandwiches and deviled eggs, of course), we played Dominion, which was a much better choice game for the three of us.

MEEPLES!

2009-04-09T20:47:00.003-05:00

So I ordered meeples a couple weeks ago, from Meeple People, the coolest meeple website on the interwebs! I ordered one hundred meeples, and I got a few extras, they are so awesome!
More photos will be coming, that's part of the reason I bought them.

Zoinks!!

2009-03-24T21:42:00.002-05:00

What happens when games sit too close together on the shelf? They intermingle! Oh, NO!!! Scooby Doo and the gang (and the ghosts) from Scooby Doo Hide and Shriek have invaded Ghost Stories! Will they rip the fake mask off Wu-Feng only to hear him hollar "You meddlin' kids!!" (while shaking his fist, of course)

2 Player Ghost Stories

2009-03-23T07:35:00.005-05:00

The BFF and I tried Ghost Stories yesterday as a two-player game. My overall reaction: wait for another two people.
The first game, we played by the official two player rules, each player takes one random board, across from each other, and the other two boards are randomly placed on the sides. The two non-player boards still play, but in a modified way; they only do their 'bad' stuff!
Backing up a little, in regular play, each player has two phases, the Yin where they have to do ghosty stuff, draw an additional ghost card, move ghosties up, haunt villagers, roll the curse die, fun bad stuff like that. The Yin phase is followed (again, in regular play) by the Yang phase, in which you get to move your pawn and either use the villager power you land on, or try to exercise the ghosty in front of you. So in normal four player mode, all four players get both phases.
Except in two player, you get all four times worth of bad stuff, with only two times worth of good stuffs! Sure, you can occasionally use abilities from the two non-player boards, but that doesn't work out very often. So without a full compliment of good things that can happen, the game was pretty slanted straight down into hell. It definitely made me not want to try the solo play (right on the week I have time to try solo games!)
The second time we played two player, we did it our own way: we each played as two players. We both had assumed that this would be the official rule until we read it. So it felt much more balanced, getting four times the good along with four times the bad. We still didn't win! We were doing a little better at the beginning, keeping the villagers unhaunted, and killing off the ghosties as they came out, but a couple times when drawing the required ghost caused another, then ANOTHER ghost to come out, and all-of-a-sudden we were down to the big baddy. And he was really big and really bad. We actually got the last 10 ghosties on the board after him, so we actually lost on the ghost deck being expired.
Funny side note: The BFF always wants to play green in whatever game we are playing (I always want purple, if you're keeping score), but with all four times of playing Ghost Stories, we've handed out the boards completely randomly, like shuffled behind my back and tell me when to stop and tell me a number and I'll count from there, randomly. And every time he's gotten green. At least in the last game, he got to play something in addition to green, but green still came up for him first.
Green must want to play him, too.

Ghost Stories Links

2009-03-22T10:28:00.002-05:00

The very helpful videos we watched to help us understand game play.
The latest podcast at The Spiel features cooperative games including Ghost Stories and Pandemic.

Ghost Story

2009-03-16T21:39:00.000-05:00

Sunday we played two new games, Ghost Story and Zombiegeddon. Ghost Story was part of the last game order, waiting behind Dominion, Call of Cthlulu card game, and World of Warcraft miniatures to be played. Zombiegeddon was purchased Saturday night after seeing The Watchmen*, we love the theatre that's in the same mall as the big box hobby and game store, and the chain craft store.
The BFF and I both read through the rules (huge complaint on the white print on black background), and we checked out some videos for more clarification. The rules by themselves were a bit confusing, explaining things that hadn't happened yet, but we got them figured out. The bits are beautiful, with symbols instead of words, which is good and bad. It looks simple and no words to clutter up the art, but we had to keep looking up what the symbols mean. But it was our first couple of plays, we were just getting the symbols into our heads.
We played four player, The BFF, Rawk Star, Yehaw McK, and me, and it worked great with four. I honestly didn't take time to read the rules for 1-3 yet, but I imagine it will be a handicapped game.
We lost the first game. I should say we got creamed the first game! In your ghost deck, you put one random big bad ghosty in towards the bottom. The first game, we didn't get through 1/3 of the deck, never even saw the big baddy. The second game, we were killin' ghosts left and right, using our abilities to our best advantage, but getting so worn down...and then the big baddy came out, and he wasn't that big or that bad, and we actually won. It was a much uncelebrated win, we all felt like we hadn't won at all, and I still am thinking that we must have done something wrong to be able to kill the big bad guy so easily. But I guess it was just luck that we got an easy one, plus working well together to even get to him.
It is, in it's cooperativeness, much like Pandemic. You really have to work together to use everyone's abilities at the right time, and cooperatively plan ahead. It was a good gaming experience for the gamers playing. Great pretty bits, and a good solid game. With the different levels of difficulty, it will be a game that can come out a lot, I imagine.

*Mini Review: I loved the movie. I actually collected The Watchmen twenty years ago, waiting each month for the next one to come out. It was my first and only experience with being a comic book nerd, really, driving at least an hour to get the next one, waiting patiently for that next edition. Again, I loved the movie. It was like reading the comic with action between the cells. They were very true to the comic, it was much appreciated. One voice I had heard a little differently in my head than it ended up on the screen, but that's the beauty of getting to know characters on their own, letting them show themselves to you, before just watching and being told what the characters are.

Spore Creature Creator Video

2009-02-11T18:53:00.001-06:00

Since I haven't posted a photo for a while, here's a Spore creature I made over the weekend.
It's a Killer Tangelo!

GEW9: Weekend Six / SSG@B&S

2009-02-10T07:18:00.006-06:00

(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.

Super WoW Review

2009-02-02T00:29:00.002-06:00

#1 I don't I would have liked or even understood the game if I had never played the online MMORPG. I will even go a step further and say that if you've never played it online, you may even want to skip this review, as I would definately NOT recommend this game to you.
WoW is known for it's artwork and details, and that's the first thing you notice on the box, and the insides are even better. The core set, which is what we got, has everything needed for both players to start (it's only a two player game, tho I would guess that expansions could add more players). There is one of three random boards, and three random characters each, in two of three teams, Horde, Allaince, and Monster. We hot Horde and Monster, and a green foresty playing board. I wish we would have gotten the cool iced fucia board, it was purty.
Each of the six total game characters that you get have a card to represent them, with stats and specials, and two cards of things they can use, a weapon, instant action, buff, or heal ability. In one of the ways to add to your game, you can get extra cards for their abilities, and make your own 'deck' for each of your characters. Some cards are unique to the type of team, or to the species, or to the specific character (that might only be for the Legendary characters), and other cards could be used by anyone.
Whenyou buy more boosters, you get more cards, and I can really see how you could make a great team with abilities that really compliment their strengths.
The figs themselves are just georgeous! Very detailed and painted so well they don't look machine made. Since we got Monster, we could recognize things we had actually fought against in the game, like a harvest gollum, very cool. The figs have separate bases that are intended to go together. With maybe half of our figs, the dude went into the base just fine, but the others just wouldn't stay, so we abandoned the bases after a while. The bad part about this, is that one of the things that you keep track of with the base is the health, which can fluctuate every turn. We ended up having to use other means, which was annoying. The other thing you keep track of with the base is the round that the character can next play. This worked well, we just set the base next to the card for the character, but still would have been better if it was attached to the fig!
The round, and counting the round is the most unique thing about this game. Most of the other parts reminded us of Battle Lore, or other games, but we've never seen this technique. The BFF pointed out that this makes the board game more like the MMORPG. What happens is that when your little dude does something, anything, he has to 'pay' for it by clicking ahead on the round counter, and then he has to wait until that round to do anything else. Did that make sense? Well, it took me a few times to hear this before it sunk in. There are spaces marking 1-10 across the top of the board, telling you which round you're on. When you use a weapon, it would cost 2-4 'clicks' (depending on how powerful it is), so if you used the weapon on round 3, and it cost 2 clicks to perform the action, you move it to 5, and that character cannot do another action until you have gotten to round 5.
And remember to click it before you do the action! It's way too easy to forget, but it was our first time.
Our game went well, we both enjoyed the game play of it. Like most games when we're trying out the starter set, I wished for more choices of cards and characters, but I really see the potential in this. The BFF let me play Monsters, because he thought that would be the stronger team (he always wants me to win the first time we play to make sure that I want to play again-which is funny, because him winning just makes me want to play again more so I can beat him!) The Monster team should have been stronger, but my Legendary Drunken Panda couldn't roll for crap, and gave the other team double points when he was killed. '<
Overall, it's a keeper. Even though I can see it getting expensive with buying more boosters! At least each booster has the same team, which helps grow the troops. I want to figure out how to get another board without having to buy another whole starter set, I want that iced fucia!!!

Edit 2-4-9: I confused myself with the title, but I figured it out, this is the game we played during the Super Bowl!

GEW9

2009-02-01T10:22:00.006-06:00

The BFF twittered* this week: "Declaring '09 "Games Every Weekend 09." CoC CCG, Gametap, Zombie RPG's, party games, L4D, game convos, and other sorts of extreme nerditry." To which I whole heartedly agreed! Being this is only the fourth weekend of the year, I think I/we have successfully gamed every weekend so far, especially since he's adding computer games in there. With also the added bonus, that since he only works four days a week, Monday is still officially 'the weekend'. ;p
So thanks to a couple '$10 off a purchase of $30 or more' coupons, we each purchased a game yesterday at our local Big Box Hobby and Gaming store. (I don't need to give them extra advertising by mentioning their name, I do prefer to support local shops, but you can't turn down a free $10) The BFF picked up World of Warcraft minis, and I bought Humans!!! in my never ending quest to own all games Zombie related!
We plan to game this afternoon, or as he put it, play a game during the stupid-bowl, so we'll have to see whose game gets played first!

*Yes, I twitter too, but not as well as he. Feel free to follow either of us if you are in the twitterverse.

Party on, Gayme!

2009-01-17T15:40:00.001-06:00

About exactly a year ago, the BFF suggested we make a gaming resolution for the new year: to refrain from making any game purchases in 2008. Guess how long THAT lasted??
Well, we actually did pretty good for a couple months, maybe even four or five, but we HAD to get Zombie Clowns!!! And, yes, we've picked up a few more than that.
But between the holiday game buying, gift received, and after-holiday sales, I would be comfortable making THIS year's gaming resolution not buying more party games, we are pleasantly well stocked.
The latest in the collection is Gift Trap. I fell in love with this game maybe a year and a half ago, when I saw Scott (Board Games withScott) review it. The game play sounded pretty good, nice family party game. But what really excited me were the awesome BITS! Every player (3-8) gets an adorable little gift bag filled with their game pieces, two plastic "gifts" one to represent gifts you gave, and one that looks open to represent the gifts you got, and several cardboard markers.

I finally like Risk

2009-01-07T13:11:00.002-06:00

One of the cool things about my new iTouch, is the game apps that are available. Many are free, and a lot of the pay-for games have a free component to try before you buy. Since the BFF has had his iTouch for a few months, he had already downloaded several games and lots of other apps that all put themselves on my Touch when I first plugged it in, and now I'm sorting out which ones I will actually use.
One app I found on my Touch was Lux Touch, and the first time I opened it, I could't figure out what it was. I'm glad I gave it another chance before deleting it, as I discovered it is a solo Risk-type game.
Ask anyone who's ever played Risk what is the worst part about the game, and I'll bet they say the length!! It can take forever for it to get back to your turn, not to mention how long it takes to do all the die rolls!
Now imagine there are a mere seconds between your turns, even with four other players. The computer invisibly rolls all the dice, and destroyed armies just magically disappear.
I've only beat the computer once, but isn't that the case with solitaire? I have to say, when I'm just wanting a quick time-killer, I often click on this one. The whole game of Risk in just a few minutes, and no worry of someone tipping over the board in frustration.

Best...Calendar...EVER

2009-01-02T19:01:00.002-06:00

So I realized I've been remiss in plugging the BFF's new blog! He is always finding cool free things out there on the interwebs, and on his blog, he posts one or two each day!
His 'thing' today is an awesome meeple pdf calendar!

Farming in the New Year!

2009-01-01T20:01:00.007-06:00

I welcomed in the new year with a solo game of Agricola today. It's odd to not have to work on a Thursday but have to go back in on Friday, so it is going to be an early night, and I'm all to myself, so what better way to start the year?!
I've really been enjoying the Agricola posts over on the blog Playing with Myself (and loving the blog name too), where the writer tells of his solo gaming in the Adventures of Johan.
In a tiny tribute, I present the story of:
Renee and Ayesha
Renee and Ayesha started their life together on the farm with many path choices. Clay did appear to be a good possibility for Renee, and Ayesha was going to manage the farm itself, plowing and gathering grain as much as possible. They set their sites on building a larger home, and fill it with many children, so the idea of working outside the home delivering clay was replaced with carpentry classes for Renee.
While taking classes, Renee decided to also take up brewing beer, a quick easy way to feed the upcoming family. In addition to the planting of the grain, Ayesha saved up for the baker's oven, after trading in the fireplace they had bought earlier. They were blessed three times with young'ens, and the kids were glad to help out around the farm!
They added enough rooms on to the house to hold all the kidlets, and even had a room for Mr. Wooley, their pet sheep. Even if their home was only clay, it was homey. The growing of grains was very successful, and all were fed with bread and beer. Thanks to their oldest child's interest in hedge keeping and mini pastures, they were able to build two small pastures at no cost to them at all. They were even able to save up for another fireplace, and then build it up into a cooking hearth, for cooking of the animals to go with the bread.
In the end, they realized they could have turned their clay nook into a stone mansion instead of letting a couple of the youngsters race canoes, and they had way more reeds saved up than they would ever need, now that the chillins' were heading off on to their own lives, but they had a happy life, and now Renee and Ayesha are ready to retire.

X-mas Game

2008-12-29T22:46:00.004-06:00

A few weeks back, before Thanksgiving even, I had a notion to make up a game for the family to play on Christmas day. The idea started also as an excuse to make gingerbread people (meeple?) or houses. Maybe points would be counted with M&Ms, and at the end of the game everyone should have a pile of candy, and then I'd bring out the cookie making stuff. And after we baked the cookie people, we could use them in the second part of the game, where we would take damage by eating our cookie (that part completely stolen from Run for Your Life, Candyman!).
But that game plan was a bit too big, and as most ideas do, it went through many various incarnations, and ended up being an idea about asking questions. Maybe Christmassy/Holiday type questions, maybe family trivia, maybe a combination, but I really didn’t want to ask family members “what was your best (or worst) gift you received” that could cause unnecessary hurt feelings, so I started thinking of maybe a more generic question answering type game.
And then I listened to The Speil holiday podcast, where they talked about Say Anything, and Good Question, and I realized that I didn’t need to make up my own game, one of these party games was going to be just what I was looking for, and much less work on my part.
I had already heard some buzz about Say Anything, we’ve played Wits-n-Wagers many times, and Cluzzle once, all three designed and sold by North Star Games, but I really wanted to get Good Question for Christmas gaming. (I figured we'd buy Say Anything later, too) So I started looking, and realized it wasn't one I was likely to find in town. Of course, I waited until almost the last minute to realize this, and more importantly, what this meant, which is that if I wanted it, I would have to order it online!
The big online stores didn't have it, and the game stores I checked out (sponsors of my favorite gaming podcasts) didn't ship quick enough. I told you I waited until the last minute! Then I saw an ad on BGG for Boards & Bits, and it appeared that their shipping would get the game to me in time, but fed'ex disagreed. (I think in my haste, I misread their shipping times)
So finishing the last minute shopping Monday night (I was really behind on everything this year!), we found Say Anything, and since I figured I'd eventually buy it anyway, I picked it up for our Christmas game. It was great fun, and was easy to teach, just like the box said. Plus, my parents got us Imaginiff, which we also played. The two went well together, both party games, both with some crazy questions or answers.
And Good Question came today! So now my Christmas game is three!

Other gifty-goodness: my kids each got D&D 4.0 books and minis, which they loved; they also got some Hero Clix, and my little munchkin got The Good, The Bad, and The Munchkin; we got my folks Family Fluxx, which I hear they've already played; and I got a very cool old book called The Boardgame Book, which appears to be part history, part rules.

Birthday Farming

2008-12-21T07:23:00.002-06:00

I did go ahead and buy the iTouch program Score yesterday after posting about it, it's such a great little program! And then, of course, I had to use it! So we played a three player game of Agricola, with the basic cards, and we used the variant that we would be dealt 10 cards of each Occupations and Minor Improvements, and pick the 7 of each that we wanted to keep.
You see here the final score, which I shouldn't even document because the BFF, in a rare feat, beat me! ;p Rawk Star did really well building his farm, and had more spaces covered in the end than either I or the BFF did, but he mis-managed his food, and ended up with a couple begging cards, which messed him up.
I'm excited to score more games with this great little app!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-12-20T12:22:00.005-06:00

Am I too old to be excited about my birthday? Maybe. I am the answer to the universe and everything PLUS the second number in the Fibonacci series old...is that too old to care?
Maybe it's because my birthday is so close to Christmas, I've always promoted my birthday, so it doesn't get lost in all the holiday cheer.
What does my birthday have to do with gaming?? My birthday gift from my wonderful BFF (that's Boy Friend Forever) is an iPod touch generation 2 (which is actually better than his, because his is only generation 1), and there are some great little games and applications that are exciting!
I've been playing a lot of Poker Quest (yes, I opened my gift early!), and trying out all the free trials of games that I can find. On The Spiel podcast, their recent holiday gift guide, they mentioned a couple cool apps, including one to score your game (scroll down to Technology/Gadgets) that I want to try out.
Now, I can be cool like the BFF and bring dice to any game right on my iTouch!

SSG@B&S: December

2008-12-16T07:09:00.003-06:00

We had a full house this month, as the BFF’s son, Yehaw McK, was able to join us for the first time, both of my kids were home, and my parents came down also. That makes a total of seven. And boy, do we need a bigger table!
Other game days we've played a longer, geekier game and a party game that's maybe short enough to play a couple times, and this month's game day was no exception.
We started with Killer Bunnies and the Journey to Jupiter the board game, which says it plays up to six, but there weren't specific pieces for the six, and there are lots of cards, so we figured we could do seven. We have been late to the KB extravaganza, and have only started collecting and playing Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot earlier this year. The card game, we have blue, yellow, red, and violet so far. On the new board game, only the blue and yellow, ie, the starter. Not being experts on the card game, with the average plays around the table being maybe 2, and the rules for the board game being the same as for the card game for the first part, we got off to a slow start. The BFF had asked me to also read the rules, but unfortunately, I hadn't had time to. Having more than one person understanding the rules, and not having to actually read the rules at the table would have been nice.
Now, I know that a lot of game teachers say not to read the rules at the table, and I would definitely agree for teaching at a con. But sometimes at our house, the reading of the rules is part of the fun, especially when it's just the BFF and I learning a new game.
So Killer Bunnies board game didn't go so great on the first play, but I attribute that mostly to us all learning at the same time, there were too many stops to look things up and too many little things we got wrong along the way. We also wondered if just the blue and yellow together was a little defense-lite, we remembered that in the card game, the red deck brought more defense.
I'll definitely play this again, after more thorough read through of the rules, and probably a few less people.
After eating, we went for a much lighter game, also new from the big box, Zombie Fluxx. We actually did a few hands of Zombie and a few more of regular Fluxx, without mixing them together. Fluxx is the perfect simple game for this sized group. We laughed a lot playing this, and the earlier grumpiness was wiped away! Especially with the Zombie version, when the rule came out that everyone had to moan when they drew a Zombie Creeper card!

SophistiGames

2008-12-14T12:51:00.001-06:00

After Shock: No Agricola

2008-12-14T11:06:00.004-06:00

So I waited until the deadline day to volunteer to teach Agricola. at the Nuke Con After Shock 2008.3, which was Tuesday, and the rest of the week found some free time to reread some of the rules, dig through the cards as there were still some I hadn't seen before, type up some notes, and Friday night re-watched the Board Games with Scott video on Agricola.
And no one signed up.
I even for a while put my cool jars of bits up on the sign up counter for enticement, but no takers. Oh, well.
I joined a few others in a cooperative game of A Touch of Evil, The Supernatural Game instead. We played cooperatively, and we creamed the bad guy. I even got in the last punch. But, honestly, the other three really, REALLY weakened the monster before my puny dice rolls got into play. He had twenty-two wounds to take, and by the time it was my turn to charge, he was down to just a couple wounds.
I also played Pandemic, three player, twice. We lost big time first, and won big time the second time. Both games seemed really unbalanced, but in opposite ways. It just depends on where the cards lay.
Also learned and played for the first time la Harve, created by the same designer who did Agricola. Very nice game, like Agricola in many ways, resource gathering, planning ahead, many steps to some things you want to do or buy, and victory points. Different in that there are way more resources, each resource can 'level up', actions are played on buildings that you or the town buy and then anyone can use (usually for pay) the building to do the action the building provides. The three guys I played with had all played together a few times, and were very kind to the beginner. I got a score that they said was in par with their first plays, so I wasn't too disappointed, and their scores were the highest they'd ever gotten, which I'd like to take a little credit for. ;p There are many buildings to come out, and since every building had victory points, I was trying to buy as many as possible, and the guys didn't mention 'till the end that usually all the buildings don't get bought, I just assumed we all try to buy the better buildings and keep buying 'till they're gone! Very fun and intricate game. The resource refreshing is random every game, and the number of players definitely would change how the game goes. There's only seven total actions in each round (and you feed after every round), so in a four player game, someone only gets one action per round. Some of the things that happen at round end, ie how much to feed, when buildings and ships come out, if there is a harvest or not, these things all change depending on the number of players as well. I do think it had 1-5, so it must have a solo element as well. I don't think I need to buy this one, yet, but only because I think we have many more games of Agricola in store at home before bringing this one home. I would like to play it a few more times though! I'm not sure if it's out in the US yet, we played from an Australian version picked up at Essen.

A Nice Stack

2008-11-24T17:29:00.003-06:00

So here is what came in the mail last week starting at the top of the stack:
Zombie Fluxx
Race For The Galaxy; The Gathering Storm (expansion)
Cthulhu Rising
Killer Bunnies and the Journey to Jupiter (the board game)
Mutant Chronicles
A Touch Of Evil, The Supernateral Game
The BFF (that's Boy Friend Forever) ordered this fine stack o' games with birthday money. Yeah, his birthday was the end of August and he ordered these just a coupe days after. But one of the games hadn't officially come out at that time, so we knew the games wouldn't be shipped until that last game had come out.
We've read through some of the rules, and yes, we've played one already! That's a post for another day.

Dumping Out The Box

2008-11-23T12:21:00.001-06:00

Big Box

2008-11-22T19:27:00.000-06:00

A big box came in the mail this week....what could be inside??

Rapid Recall

2008-11-20T18:02:00.006-06:00

The other game that we played at this month’s family game day was Rapid Recall. This game is definitely in the Party Game category, playing with two teams of at least two, and could have many more. One thing we like in a party game is something that doesn’t HAVE to have even numbers on the teams. Since we’re mostly playing just for fun, we don’t get bent out of shape over teams, and always try to mix up who’s on which team.
Rapid Recall is one of the variations of Password, as in “Everyone loves Password, how can we change it just enough to make a new game of it?” Taboo is a good example of this. Rapid Recall is not.
In Rapid Recall, one team member has a list of words, and gives clues to his/her team, but the team doesn’t shout out the answers, they instead throw a chip into the chip bowl when they think they know the answer. After the timed period of clue giving and chip throwing, there is a separate timed period (and second timer) for the team members to rapidly recall all the answers they thought they knew, and take a chip from the bowl to signify they got the answer. If they miss any, then the other team also has a timed period to try to remember the answers, also taking the left over chips. The game is won when one team has enough chips to fill up their side of the board.
I think the concept is actually kinda good, but I think the execution is what kinda breaks this game. Team members tried to coach each other to remember the answers they had thrown their chip in for, which works in theory, but when others start listing words, it’s easy to forget what words you were trying to remember. Sometimes different team members thought of different answers for the same chip, and the rules say only the first answer counts (like if the answer was supposed to be flower, and they answer rose instead), so there was a little scuffling if someone answered quicker and wrong. It was also very difficult to get momentum back if it was lost, especially for the second team to try to venture guesses. If there was any discussion at all, we’d all get off track, then you can’t remember anything!
I would rearrange the concept a bit and try it again. Here’s my idea of better mechanics to the good concept:
Everyone plays for themselves. Players take turns around the table reading the clues, and everyone has a turn giving clues (once or twice around depending on how many people you have). All other players are the guessers and like in the real rules, they throw in a chip when they think they know the answer, and the giving of clues and throwing in of chips is still timed. Then on to the guessing of clues, which will not be timed, but will go in turn around the table, starting with the player on the clue giver’s left. Each player makes a guess or passes, and if they got one of the words, they take a chip, and play continues around the table until either all the chips are gone or all players pass in turn. You don’t have to only guess the answers you personally put in, and similar answers can still be guessed. How many chips each player gets each round is added up, and after everyone has had a turn (or two) giving clues, the winner is whoever has the most chips, representing the most correct answers. You’ll have to make sure to keep guessing chips and scoring chips separate, which could be done using the two different colors that came with the game, or after each clue giving round, the number of correct answers everyone has is just written down. That might be easier.
I think this would be fun in the guessing and remembering parts, and there will definitely be a benefit to being the person on the clue giver’s left. The most recent answer will probably be on the tip of the tongue, no matter who threw in the chip. Or players might try to only remember their own answers, but by the time it gets to them, their answers were already given. It could be a fun party ruckus.
I picked up this game at a thrift store, Extreeme Artist and I love to go thrifting, and I always look for games. Unfortunately, the one brand of thrift store we usually go to because of it’s better hours, is the one that prices games a bit higher than the others. But I guess $2 or $4, a game for under five bucks is a good bargain even if you end up only playing it once. That being said, I still want to get my money’s worth, and besides playability, I’m usually checking for good bits.
This game has very interesting bits, two colors of plastic chips (which do rather resemble a puffy Dorito); three cups to hold the chips, two triangle ones that are the same colors as the chips, and one larger one to throw the chips into; the board with triangles of the same colors with a hole in the center to set the larger cup into; two sand timers of different time; the box of questions; and the device to put the question card into, which has a handy sliding arrow to mark which words have been guessed. All these bits would have many uses, counting games with little ones, markers for other games, guitar picks, cups for actual chips, you get the idea. And another box of words for whatever other Password-like game you like to play.
Hmmm, you could use the sliding arrow card holder to check off your grocery items…

Agricola: Family Photo

2008-11-17T21:25:00.004-06:00

So here's the photo of us playing Agricola on game day.
Sorry, I'm not in the shot, someone had to take the picture. ;p

Update: The comments are now corrected, Dad, so you can post anonymously.

Agricola: Family

2008-11-14T20:13:00.000-06:00

On our family game days, I try not to be too bossy about what we will play, and just see who shows up and what they want to play. I was hoping to play Agricola, so I was glad when Dad asked about it. Since both of my kids were home this time, along with both of my parents, me and the BFF, that's six and Agricola only plays up to five. I offered to just be the teacher, and let them all play, and that way I could help anyone with their turn, but my folks opted to play as a team. This worked out great, I think, because while my Mom is a great gamer, she is a bit of an unconfident player with new games, and playing on a team with Dad gave her someone to confer with about each turn.
I wanted to introduce the game to the new players with the Family way to play. This was the first time playing Family for the BFF and I, so we were all trying something new. The Family way to play mostly means no cards, no Occupations and no Minor Improvements. The first board piece for possible actions is turned over, with a couple slight changes on actions that involve the cards; Starting Player has one food instead of a Minor Improvement, Occupation is changed to Build Stable &/or Bake Bread, and the Day Laborer is changed from two food to one food, one building supply (not sure why the change on the Day Laborer). Playing five player gave us lots of great action possibilities as well, I think I like playing five player best, lots of wood and clay available!
We had a good time playing, and ended with most of the scores pretty close, the BFF excited that he beat me by one point! Team Mom & Dad got a somewhat slighted, since there are only four stoves/ovens to be able to cook animals in, and they didn't get to buy one. They ended up having to take a couple begging cards, but if they had been able to get an oven, they wouldn't have had to beg, and would have had a comparable score. (BTW, the BFF only beat me by one point because I forgot that I had to have TWO plowed fields to get a point.)
I thought it would be fun, since the game or version was new to all of us, to do a bit of a survey about what everyone thought of the game. So here are same questions I asked everyone:

1)What did you think of the game? (BFF and I-What did you think of the Family way of playing the game?)
2)On the BGG scale, please rate the game.
3)What was the best part of the game?
4)What was the worst part of the game?
5)What’s your favorite game right now?

And here are everyone's answers:

Rawk Star Age 17

1)It was ok, pretty good
2)6
3)The little sheeples
4)First player system, I didn't like how it worked. It wasn't an incentive at the end, and if you're the last player, you're messed up
5)D&D 4.0

Artist Extreeme Age 15

1)It was fun.
2)7
3)Having to decide what to eat
4)The length
5)Munchkin / D&D

Grandpa Retired and Loving it

1)I thought it was fun, took a little long to get into.
2)7
3)I kinda liked the way it related to agriculture, to reality. You need to know that you have to eat.
4)Takes a while getting into it the first time.
5)Pegs & Jokers-depends on who you're playing with. With our volunteer friends: card games; with you guys: a board game.

Grandma Retired and feisty

1)I guess I enjoyed it, I think I will enjoy it more the next time I play.
2)8
3)Learning a new game.
4)Not understanding the rules to begin with.
5)The card game Golf / Pegs & Jokers

the BFF Forty-Something

1)I thought it was harder because getting things like grain was harder, not more than one way. was it more fun? no.
2)7 for Family, 8 for regular
3)Playing it with the family, almost a gateway game
4)Waiting between turns
5)Race for the Galaxy

ME A little older than the BFF, and he never lets me forget it

1)Not as much fun without the cards
2)6 for Family, 9 for regular
3)Playing a three generation game
4)Not having the cards
5)Agricola (did you even have to wonder?)

SSG@B&S

2008-11-10T21:38:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was the second Sunday of the month, so time again for SSG@B&S (Second Sunday Gaming At Bryan And Shell's).
I started this family game day a couple months ago, it's not just about the gaming, it’s about the family and close friends. With the BFF’s son already a legal adult, and my two getting closer to that age every day, I wanted to set up a tradition, something that will give them an excuse to come home every once in a while after they have moved out. And the bonus is it gives my parents and brother the excuse to come over, too. My folks are retired and do volunteer work in different parts of the country, and are gone about half of the year on their trips, so it's nice to see them when they are in the state. My brother lives in the same city as we do, he actually lives across the street from the parking lot I park in for work, but just like in any busy family, we really don’t see each other that often. But since gaming was always a part of our life when my brother and I were growing up, it's still something that can bring us all together.
Yesterday was this months game day. My parents and my children played Agricola for the first time, with the BFF and I. We played the Family rules. My brother got here after we had started, but was happy to play Spore on the computer while we were farming. We also played a party game called Rapid Recall that I had picked up at the thrift store. I'll write more this week about each of these games.

Can You Hear Me Now?

2008-11-03T12:58:00.002-06:00

One of my favorite gaming podcasts, Garrett's Games & Geekiness, holds contests pretty regularly, where you answer a question or two in order to be put into a drawing.
The new fun thing is that you get two entries into the drawing if you send in a recorded entry. Well I couldn't pass that up!
You can hear my voice and silliness on Episode 138 of this great podcast.
Spoiler Alert: I didn't win ;p

Game Memories: Gruen

2008-10-31T12:42:00.002-05:00

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

2008-10-28T21:19:00.005-05:00

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

2008-10-25T15:19:00.005-05:00

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

2008-10-18T12:01:00.003-05:00

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...

2008-10-17T21:04:00.002-05:00

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!

2008-10-13T18:30:00.003-05:00

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

2008-10-13T12:30:00.003-05:00

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

2008-10-11T12:34:00.002-05:00

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

2008-10-10T17:38:00.006-05:00

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

2008-10-09T21:58:00.000-05:00

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

2008-10-08T22:46:00.000-05:00

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