Tag: games

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.

With new games for my birthday we had to get to playing!

Made Mom & Dad play Turing Machine, Camel Up, and The Guild of Merchant Explorers while they were here. I lost Turing Machine, won one and lost one of Camel Up, and won The Guild of Merchant Explorers.

Turing Machine is an interesting little game. I received it for my birthday. A set of punch cards is used to define the behavior of each scenario. The coolness of that implementation isn't really relevant to the actual gameplay mechanics, but it's a triumph of design. The gameplay is like an advanced form of Mastermind/Wordle/Clue. You propose a hypothesis of the solution and then obtain information about how much of your hypothesis is correct which you then integrate with your existing information using deductive reasoning to arrive at the correct solution first.

There's no story or narrative behind the game, the theme is "Punch card 'computer'!". A straightforward mechanic which also means it plays quickly. For players familiar with the rules the 20-minute play time is accurate--and the rules are not complicated.

Camel Up I've covered previously. Still silly fun running camels around the track.

I'm still enjoying The Guild of Merchant Explorers, which is good as I received a copy for my birthday. I've been working on designing a 3D-printable organizer. I think it's done, but I'm letting the design sit a bit before I print it so I can look at it again with fresh eyes. Also it's 100+F here all week and I'm avoiding adding even more heat to the house that needs to be removed.

Played again with Jess and I won then too.

Went to a board game meet up and played another round of Faraway (previously discussed), then Call to Adventure, and Turing Machine. I won Faraway and lost both Call to Adventure and Turing Machine.

Call to Adventure is a simple and fairly quick story-telling game. I like to call it "short-story generator." The idea is that you're developing the narrative of an epic-story character. On your turn you attempt to advance your story in some particular way and to do so you consult the soothsayers and cast the bones in the air and read the result to determine whether you are successful in that endeavor.

The rulebook has one major omission that would ease learning the game, though, which is a simple diagram of card anatomy. Instead you have to read a bunch of text and then attempt to match what it's talking about to the cards you play with. A picture would resolve all the common questions that come up when learning it. I guess I should just make one and stash it in the box.

The family finally advanced our Mechs vs Minions campaign by successfully completing mission 4 with a flawless victory. Our mechs arrived at the target location without a single minion alive to tell the tale. But boy was it an emotional rollercoaster for some members of the family--I guess that made the victory even sweeter.

And to finish the month Jess and I continued our Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall story by successfully completing Quest 7, "Red Sky at Night". We escaped the fire, defeated a foe who we thought was a friend, and gained access to the next part of the city. I'm still mostly happy with the organizer I designed. I'm starting to think that were I to do it over I'd just have the cards sit vertically instead of angled. Room is a bit tight. Or maybe go through the effort of making adjustable dividers.

I managed to get a fair bit of gaming in this month and did fairly well over all.

Started out by going and playing games at a friend's house on May 4th.

First played a quick game of Faraway (which I lost). It has an interesting mechanic. You play cards that earn points based on the other cards you play, but you score them in reverse order of play. That is, you start by playing a card which will only score points if you play other cards to fulfill the conditions. You're acquiring a new card each round, so rather than building on what you've already done, your kind of playing backwards. You've done something and now you need to acquire and play the cards that make it useful.

After Faraway, we played a long game of Star Wars: Outer Rim in honor of "May the 4th be with you." Choose a character and then explore the Outer Rim on your way to fame and fortune. Take on jobs as a bounty hunter, smuggler, or mercenary. Upgrade your ship. Bring on new crew. I enjoyed the game--probably better the second time around once you have some idea of how things play out and how to run your character. I lost.

After finally wrapping up Outer Rim, we played a much-shorter game of The Guild of Merchant Explorers. Though I was the only one to have played previously, I did not win this game either.

As a family we finally got around to playing the second half of the Escape the Crate Sled Race mission (we played the first half back in March). We were thoroughly victorious and brought the diphtheria antitoxin to Nome.

Jess and I played Wyrmspan on Mother's Day. I won that one. And we played another time with friends and I won that one too.

At a board-game meetup I played Concordia. It's a game about establishing trade routes in ancient Rome. Decent theme, competitive but not particularly adversarial. I lost.

Jess and I continued our adventure in Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall by completing Quest 5. It came down to the skin of our teeth, but we survived. We got to play using the new organizer I designed and printed, but we'll get to that in another post.

Jess and I played a game of Everdell (the base game) with friends. I won that. Which I was surprised by because I started out with a pretty lousy hand and went in to autumn with a single green production card in my town.

And, finally, I played a game of The Wolves at a board-game meetup which I also managed to win. It's effectively a wolf-life simulator game. You have a wolf pack and need to expand your pack, hunt food, and defend your territory from other packs to earn the most points.

Jess and I continued our campaign in Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall successfully completing quests 17 and 4 with Feyn and Roland making their way to the great city of Din'Lux.

We played two games of Wyrmspan while in Arkansas for the eclipse (of course we brought a suitcase full of games, do you not when you travel?). I won one (by 1 point!) and lost one.

Also while in Arkansas we played Ex Libris, which I lost.

I also played a few rounds of Cobra Paw (have the fastest paw to collect the tiles) and Exploding Kittens (be the last one standing after all the kittens have exploded) with the girls in Arkansas.

Back at home we introduced friends to Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle by playing year 4; we lost. This is a game some friends introduced us to years ago. I was skeptical at first because there are so many money grabs where a crappy idea is skinned over with a popular theme and they sell a million copies just because. But it actually is a solid game at its core and the theming generally only enhances the mechanics.

It's a cooperative deck-building game which increases in complexity and difficulty as you move up the years (representing the years in the books). You must enhance your deck with more powerful cards to defeat a set of villains before they take control of a set of locations. My biggest complaint is that the difficulty can vary wildly depending on the ordering of the villains.

At a board-game meetup I jumped into a game of Millennium Blades--which seems to be as post-modern as you can get in gaming. It's a game in which your characters are collectible-card-game players (e.g., Magic: The Gathering). In the game as your character, you buy/sell/trade cards to form a deck and then you play tournaments of the inner-game card game against the other players.

Points are awarded for how you rank during the inner-game tournaments. The game alternates between these inner-game tournaments and a buy/sell/trade/deck-build phase until you've held three tournaments. We didn't have time to finish the whole thing. We did 2 tournaments and one buy/sell/trade/deck-build phase. I lost. It was a bit of a strange game.

At another board-game meetup I played another game of Mystic Vale. I lost. I still find the core mechanic interesting from a technical perspective, but the game doesn't really speak to me.

After Mystic Vale, we played The Guild of Merchant Explorers which I really enjoyed. It's a quick game with simple mechanics, but I found the core concept and theming to be very engaging and fun. It's the first game in quite a while that I played and then immediately put on my wishlist.

It's a "group solitaire" kind of game played in 4 rounds. In each round you build out trade routes on your map (everyone has their own, identical map--no resource contention with other players). Everyone can play each turn simultaneously which keeps things moving. With your trade routes you score points in various ways (connecting cities, exploring ruins, building villages, etc.). Most points wins.

The game comes with 4 different maps to play and several different objective cards (3 used per game). There's randomization of how you can build your trade routes and players get asymmetric special-building powers that really drive differences in play between players. So there's some decent variety built in. With 3 of us playing for the first time I think we completed a 4-player game in 30-45 minutes.