Author: Kyle Dickerson

Did a fair bit of game playing in August.

Played Heat a couple of times. One loss, one win. I'm enjoying this game much more than I expected to. It's pretty straightforward to play and there's no adversarial interactions, but the competitiveness pushes me to play more aggressively than I normally do in games.

I got tagged in to Apiary take over for someone two-thirds through a game at the board-game group. I did not win. It was not what I was expecting from the few times I've seen it go by on the Internet. It's not about being a beekeeper. It is about a far-flung future where bees have evolved sentience and you need to manage a bee spaceship to out-compete the other bee species. I'd play again to at least get the full experience.

Jess and I played Quest 19 of Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall and got drubbed by a dragon. We limped back to town to lick our wounds.

Later we played Quest 9 which went far more successfully. We caught and defeated an illicit arms dealer as the mystery of his customer network deepens.

Played a game of The Guild of Merchant Explorers at a board-game group. I lost.

Got two of my crowdfunding games this month. The first to arrive was Defenders of the Wild. Which in my head is "Everdell goes to war." You play cooperatively as a confederacy of woodland creatures defending their homes from marauding machines. Played at the board game group with experiences gamers--we lost. And what's more is none of us had a clear idea what a winning strategy looks like. We were really close to winning at one point though. Need to give it a few more goes to see if I can "figure it out."

The other crowdfunding game that was delivered in August was Peacemakers: Horrors of War. This one, in my head, is "Everdell tries to stop a war." You play cooperatively as a team of woodland creatures trying to stop battling tribes from destroying each other. It's a very unusual game. Your ability to influence things is subtle. You're looking for opportunities to nudge events just a little in one direction or another in order to create conditions for the warring factions to negotiate a peace.

I played the first scenario two handed (two players, but only me playing) and was able to eek out a victory and get the ocelots and macaws to stop fighting.

The family continued our time-traveling adventure in Escape the Crate: Escape from Sherwood Forest. We successfully completed both chapters and rescued Robin Hood and Little John from the sheriff's jail.

Before Peacemakers: Horrors of War the publisher released another game Lands of Galzyr which takes place in the same universe. This is a purely story-telling game however. You take on the role of one of 4 woodland creatures making your way through the world. You have a personal quest you're embarking on but can engage in any number of side quests and narrative vignettes along the way. It's not a game you win or lose--it's a game you experience for the joy of the journey.

We played through one session as a family, but with 4 players I think it moves a bit too slowly. I think it would be significantly more enjoyable for everyone to play with no more than 3--and preferably just 2--players.

And finally, on the last day of the month, we played Ex Libris with friends. Jess won again, as usual.

Played several games of Turing Machine over the course of the month. I won 1 game outright and tied for the win on 4 more. I brought it to work one day for a team activity and it was significantly easier to teach to a team of computer scientists.

Jess and I completed Quest 8 in Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall. It was a fierce battle which came right down the last couple of chit draws. But we prevailed in the end.

I played a new game at the board-game meetup this month: ARCS. It's been bouncing around the top-5 of the BoardGameGeek Top-50 Hotness chart since it was delivered to crowdfunding backers earlier this month. It's a game I wasn't expecting to like very much--direct adversarial play, zero-sum aspects, but without being narrative based to counter some of that pain. But I enjoyed it and the guy who owns it says the campaign mode (which adds narrative) is spectacular.

Something I found very engaging is that because of the randomness of dealt hands you have to have a very adaptable play style to be effective. So it's not a game where people pick a strategy and play it. If you are an aggressive player, you might be blocked from making aggressive moves due to the circumstances of a round. If you persist in an aggressive play style you'll just be ineffective. So that aspect of finding an effective path forward for the hand you are dealt keeps things interesting and fresh.

It is a fairly complex game which is somewhat necessary to support the level of flexibility it requires. There have to be enough routes you might pursue to have room for players to shift strategies. But it can be a lot to take in as a new player.

I played twice over two meetups. I lost the first time and won the second time.

The family played a session of Castle Panic with The Wizard's Tower expansion. The balance on this game is very well done. Our games often come right down to the very end and this was no different.

Our castle was down to a single tower which was on fire. We managed to get to the end of the monster bag and then kill all the monsters on the board, but we couldn't finish off the last imp before it got into our castle and toppled the final tower. A real nail biter.

I finally finished designing and printing my box organizer for The Guild of Merchant Explorers. I'll get to the details of that in my 3D-prints post for the month, but here's a sneak peek:

Jess and I played after I completed the organizer. The organizer is great. The longest part of getting ready to play now is just shuffling the cards. and clean up takes seconds. I'm very pleased with it. Jess won our game. Then I brought it to the board game meetup to show off the organizer and after ooh-ing and aww-ing we played--which I won.

Amazon's Prime Day has usually been pretty disappointing unless you really want lots of cheap houseware crap or cheap jewelry, but this year actually had some decent deals on things I had on my wishlist. So I picked up a copy of Heat: Pedal to the Metal. It's a racing board game which I had been hesitant about. But it's been bouncing around the BoardGameGeek Top 50 Hotness charts for months. So after reading some reviews I decided to put it on my watch list to grab if the price was right. And during Prime Day it had a solid discount well below its lowest previous price so I nabbed it.

While a racing game is nominally adversarial this one's really not in practice. You don't attack other players or anything. It's kind of a sneaky "group solitaire" game. You're managing your car to perform around the track as best you can with the hands you're dealt. You can't block other cars or interfere with their actions. So it ended up being right up my alley.

Jess and I played the basic rules to introduce us to the concepts. I enjoyed the game and am interested in getting into the advanced rules and grand-prix mode (in which you play a series of races and obtain vehicle upgrades in between). I won our game.