The day after my games arrived, I got sick. I've had a really sore throat, been feeling weak and achy, and quite sleepy. For the first couple of days I thought it was the beginning of a cold, but it has just continued the way it started making me feel like crap, yet still able to do the mundane daily crap I have to do. Sadly, it meant I had to cancel all my weekend plans (except my part-time cleaning job, because I'm the only one who does it so I have to go). The worst part is that I haven't done any exercise for over a week and have been eating a bit more ice cream than I should so I feel pretty yuck. Now that the whinging is out of the way, on the upside: I enjoyed opening up my games and getting all the pieces punched and assembled. It's actually relatively common to have pieces missing in these games, so I always count everything, and while I was at it, I decided to set up Poseidon's Kingdom to see how it looks. I haven't played it yet, so I'll leave any commentary until I have. It took me most of a day to assemble and punch the pieces to Krosmaster Quest. On Saturday, I thought I'd be up to running a few tutorials for the family so we could learn the game.
I think this is a game to pull out with my adult gaming friends really, but I hope to get another game in sometime soon and take some pictures so you can see how cool it looks.
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The courier has just turned up with my two new games! I haven't got a game in ages so I'm a bit excited. And here they are: Poseidon's Kingdom is a family game with quite a bit of strategy (it's heavier than Ticket to Ride and similar). I've known about it for years, and it has a reputation as a good game. It's also known for it's amazing components (the actual pieces you play with). I would never buy it normally - the component quality puts it way out of my price range, but when I saw it for half price I jumped on it. Nobody else has bought it from the sale, which surprises me quite a lot - maybe because it's an older game?
I don't know as much about Krosmaster: Quest, but it's an RPG/Dungeon Crawl with 3D pieces (you know, like Heroquest has), gorgeous art and the amazing Krosmaster pre-painted miniatures. Krosmaster is a collectible system, probably most known for their fighting game Krosmaster: Arena. This game has elements of Arena but is more sandbox-y. Sadly, most of the Krosmaster characters are out of print, so although you can expand this game with them, I'm highly unlikely to get them. That's okay for me though, as I don't tend to expand most of my games - I'm usually happy with what comes in the core box. I bought it mostly because of the toy factor, and looking at reviews and information this just screams that it's my type of game. It is apparently quite complicated though, so I'm not sure the younger ones will handle playing it properly and might have to stick to D and grown-ups. I'm really looking forward to delving into it, and this one was also half-price, so worthwhile even if it ends up being just average. :) I hope to go into a bit more depth once I've played these and will show you what they look like in future posts. A little less to ramble about today. I had a mini-sleep in (8am yeah baby!) and then pulled myself together to get to my job before the day was half gone. It's just a cleaning gig but it's a job, and that's helpful. I spend this time catching up on podcasts. Today I listened to a Hidden Brain episode about the #metoo campaign, specifically about the psychology of when and why women feel comfortable to speak out about sexual violence. Then I changed gear and listened to the latest Dice Tower podcast, which is probably my favourite board-game related podcast. Today they listed a Top 10 "cute" games and one of the games I bought yesterday is on the list, and deservedly so! Of the games I already have, I think only Takenoko was mentioned. After work, I made chicken stock (as mentioned in the previous post), and again, I'm not sure it's worth it - having the element and rangehood on for that many hours? All those veges? I'm going to use it for a chinese chicken and corn soup later this week, so I'll report back on whether it was worth it or not, since last time I used powdered stock. Wow, these daily posts are getting exciting! Z requested to try Roborally this afternoon, which Brad and Devon are not fans of. They dislike the lack of control players have in what happens to their pieces. In Roborally, each player acts as a computer controlling some robots racing on a factory floor. You have to pre-progam the robot's movements by placing cards with instructions in front of you, but during their turn they can get pushed around by hazards, conveyer belts or other players. Then they all shoot each other! The robots must stop on checkpoints in a certain order and the first robot to reach the final checkpoint wins. We hadn't played this in ages, so even though it's quite a straightforward game it took me a little while to get up to speed with the rules. This made for a slow start and K got bored and left the game. D and Brad looked generally unhappy as they didn't really want to be playing, but I was actually quite enjoying it. Z said he liked it too, and took his hits like a champ. It also took him a while to understand how to use the cards to move where he wanted to go - he spent most of the game in the starting area. Thankfully Z is patient and doesn't mind sitting there and figuring things out. D eventually won, despite me making a sneaky move and backing into D to push him out of place. We played a simple and fast board, so it actually wasn't a long game. I recommend this one, as long as you're willing to accept that you're not always in control! Dinner was jerk chicken on the BBQ and leftover salads. I spent ages trying to think of a title, and this is what I came up with. Pretty creative, no? Saturday was our monthly payday, so it was time to get... IRRESPONSIBLE! Unintentionally, of course. But when paydays are spaced out so far, and you've been soooo thrifty for so long, it's kind of impossible to completely contain sometimes. I may have bought some headphones for when I'm running, since the two sets I owned both broke within a week. Since I'm doing the C210K app, I needed headphones for the prompts and honestly the music I listen to contains about 70% of my motivation. Thankfully my mum spotted me an advance so I could grab a pair of these while they were still on sale at MightyApe. I needed headphones that wouldn't fall out of my ears all the time, nor tangle my arm up in cords (Have you seen me try to run and untangle earphone cords about myself at the same time? Not pretty.) but with an acceptable audio quality and affordable price. The biggest sacrifice has been the ineffective bass - and I LOVE my bass - but you can't have everything and these do what I need them to. Okay, I'll be honest. I LOVE these. They make me very happy. Do you know what else makes me happy? Yes, you do. I did buy a couple of board games on super-excellent special that I had never planned to buy until I saw them at said special price. This is what happens when you restrict yourself from buying anything for too long. It's unhealthy. (I haven't bought games in months). I will tell you what they are when they turn up. I had heard about one of them before. So that's a start. Sorry, Castles of Burgundy, once again you thought you were next on my wishlist and got beaten by pretty colours and awesome components. At this point I felt super guilty and thought that we would be eating a lot of soup this month to save money, which is actually great because soup is very healthy. I even spent all day today (which is Sunday when I'm writing this) making stock. Not worth it, by the way. But I digress. Our family hit town to buy some much needed things. The littlies got socks and talked me into buying them a piece of crappy junk each (Ask me about the latest craze: squishies, which are basically overpriced dog toys for kids). D has committed his pocket money for the foreseeable future into paying for a new mobile phone, which he did actually desperately need. If his pocket money dries up, he'll have to get a job. He got a Motorola G5S which is apparently the best value budget phone around. He's excited that he can download games, I'm excited that he can download productivity apps! He also got some jeans. We had lunch at the Golden Centre food court, where Brad paid way too much at the chinese shop for the kids to fill a plate with plain noodles and hot chips, and we were again reminded why it's not worth eating out as a family, like, ever. After we got home we had a quick dinner on the BBQ, I made this really tasty broccoli salad (and then added bacon, which felt a bit blasphemous since I got the recipe from the vegetarian society). Then I took myself off for a walk and proceeded to dirty the car which we'd taken through the carwash for the first time in about a month. This is why I don't usually bother. Since I had less than an hour until I was due somewhere else, I went up the quick Flagstaff track (from the bullring) which is only 15 minutes. Then I figured I had enough time to find the loop track that takes me back to the carpark but which I had never actually explored. I found a track in the right place, but it was pretty tense for a while because I wasn't 100% sure it was the one I wanted. It was headed in kind of the right direction so I assumed the best. I definitely prefer the main track as this one is more of a 4wd track, but it still had some lovely views, which I subjected my instagram followers to also. I managed to find my way back to the car in time to get home for a quick change and then it was time to try my friend's new board game: The Expanse. It's based on the TV and book series. I'm always keen to try a new game, although when I heard the word area control I was a little concerned as it's one of my least favourite mechanisms. Area Control refers to a game where you put items (such as armies, or wooden cubes, or tokens) on spaces on the board, and the person with the most in each space is in "control" of that area, with the benefits that come with that status. An example is the game "Risk". It turned out that I actually enjoyed the game, even though I struggle with strategies in this kind of thing. It was card-driven, so on your turn you chose a card from a row of five which were increasingly costly to use (you pay in your victory points). You either just followed the text on the card or you used the number on the card to do that many actions which were listed on your player board, but the twist is that the other players then get a shot at doing that card's action. I had an early advantage which led to the other players ganging up on me, which is quite rude really. ;) However, I believe I had the simplest faction (United Nations) to play as a beginner. Each faction had different special powers. I would play it again but I imagine I would get my butt kicked - it's still an area control game after all. I was pretty exhausted when the game finished, so that was my Saturday wrapped. We have recently moved house to a nicer place in the same area. It was just impossible to heat the old place and it had enough issues that when this house came up we jumped at the opportunity. We are super happy with our move, but I have had to sacrifice my dedicated gaming space (ie. the conservatory). This wasn't such a bad thing - the conservatory leaked badly when it rained so I ended up moving my games collection into our hallway instead. You couldn't be in there when it rained anyway, if not due to the risk of being leaked on then the absolute racket on the plastic roof. Also, it was either freezing cold or roasting hot. Instead, we now play our games at the kitchen table, and I have my gaming shelves set up in the lounge, thanks to my incredibly tolerant family!
Sadly, many of my games don't get played enough. I realise that it's just too hard to get a number of them on the table with my current gaming commitments. Between the large number of games some of my friends own and sheer exhaustion from the barrage of constantly learning new games experienced by others, I think if I want to get my picks played more often, I'm just going to have to arrange it! That's easy to say but harder to do between balancing my house, family, health and current gaming commitments. The other big change is that I have been putting a lot of effort into exercise and eating right. I am currently training for a 10k, which should complete in two weeks all going well. I completed 5k last year, but then injured my knee which put me back a couple of months as I had to stay off it. I love running though, so I got back to it as soon as I could. I also regularly join my friend's group - the Wellness Walkers. I've always enjoyed walking in the outdoors so these guys get me outside and I can go on walks with them that I might be uncomfortable going on alone or not even know existed. As a bonus I've met some pretty lovely people. I also do a lot of walking by myself and I have made a new buddy, who likes getting oudoors as much as I do and comes with me occasionally. To support my energy levels I've had to start making better choices with my eating and with the help of MyFitnessPal and just doing the classic "calories in - calories out" formula I've managed to lose 20kg. Please don't recommend your no-sugar/no-carbs/paleo/whatever popular diet you're into, I'm pretty down on fad diets and it'll just piss me off. A real upside to getting outdoors so much, is I get to see some pretty gorgeous views and wildlife most days. Well, those are the two major changes in my life, on to the next post. Yes, I'm still here. I spent over a year with this site on hiatus, wanting to get back to this site but not quite sure how. I planned an entire redesign but honestly I don't have the energy to do so, and I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do. So in the interests of actually moving forward, I'll stick with what I've got!
You may have noticed I had a wee blurb up on the main page for a while about a change of direction. After realising just how overcommitted I am already, I had to let go of the idea of providing a gaming resource for the public. My site needs to change to reflect this. The great thing is that there are several great open game groups in Dunedin: I always recommend my regular group - NextGen games on a Wednesday night. I understand that Megazone runs a game night on Thursday, although I have never attended this one. You don't need to own any games or know how to play them to go along. With this in mind, I guess this will become more of a vanity site where I can blog about my daily life, with games of course, and maybe just stuff that interests me. I also hope to update and maintain my games catalogue, and other random gaming stuff like I have in the past. |
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