I've managed to catch the nasty cold-thing going around which put me on the couch unable to do much for a week. Since I couldn't make it to anything I decided now was the time to jump in and try out an online board-game platform. I chose BoardGameArena since it seemed to be the easiest to use. I really like that I can choose whether I want to play a whole game at the time or just take a turn once or twice a day. Among other places you can play games online are Yucata and Boiteajeux. (My username is "Kyanite" on both of these also.) On Tuesday I went to my friend's dinner and game night. After enjoying the delicious lamb dish she prepared we introduced her two friends to Lords of Waterdeep (with expansion, naturally). They seemed quite uncertain about it at first, but they ended up really enjoying it. I suspect I may be bringing that around again! The only sad thing is that we forgot to eat the pineapple upside-down cake we whipped up as emergency dessert! It was a quiet evening at Mark's on Wednesday, and most of us played Railroad Tycoon (also known as Railways of the World). I am always quite intimidated by this game but I'm not sure why. Maybe because of it's sheer size. Mark had a bad start after overbidding for being first player, which he was unable to overcome through the rest of the game. Michael won (just) followed closely by me, then Steve. Railroad Tycoon is a pick-up-and-deliver game. That means that you must take goods from one location to another, where you will earn money for them. In Railroad Tycoon you also need to build your own railroads and upgrade how far your trains can travel. You want to invest wisely so you can maximise your income, and you get points for delivering goods - the further you take them, the more points you earn. You can only deliver goods to specific locations that are marked as wanting them. Finally, on Friday Devon's friend came over for a game of HeroQuest. They played 2 characters each and beat my evil wizard easily. Next games night date has been set: Saturday, 25th June at 7pm. Hope you can make it!
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So, Zac was in a bad mood last night and decided to stomp on my copy of Hotels that he was playing with, damaging one of the buildings for the first time in the 26 years I've owned it. :( I know it's not a big deal, but I'm still sad!
I've had a very busy and tiring couple of weeks, with a few opportunities to play games. May 4th was Devon's birthday so Mark gave me permission to bring him along to our regular Wednesday night games as a birthday treat. We played Kemet and Devon showed how he is as competent at gaming as anyone else. In Kemet you basically have troops that score points by winning battles or hold special areas of the board - it's very fighty! It was the perfect game for a boy his age, so he had a fantastic time! (Although the late night took it's toll.) The next evening a new friend invited me to join her and a couple of her friends for a girls' game night (including dinner!). I was exhausted because I'd had a full-on week, but it was lovely and I had a nice time. She cooked some delicious chicken and we played Dominion, followed by my favourite carrot cake for dessert and then Star Trek Catan. I hadn't played ST: Catan before (and honestly haven't played Catan all that much in general), and the different pieces combined with my overwhelming tiredness meant I was completely useless. Thankfully the other players were helpful. It's really hard to judge since my brain wasn't co-operating but I think I prefer regular Catan because I had difficulty seeing what was going on with the board and pieces due to the space theme. Finally I attended games group last Wednesday and was stoked that my friend Matt (who moved overseas recently) was back in town and could come along. We played a few games for higher player counts since there were a lot of us - Colt Express, Codenames and The Resistance: Avalon. Colt Express is certainly some table candy, it has a model train that your meeples literally move about in and shoot one another. It's fun enough but I don't think it'll ever be a game I'd request. It also feels that we seem to be quite over The Resistance. We used to play it all the time, and we pulled it out half-heartedly as an end-of-the-night game. It's fine but it certainly doesn't shine like it used to.
I really want to play something this weekend but I don't think it'll happen as I'm currently too broke and sore/tired to host. I will update with a date for the next games event at my place soon. (Sorry about the lack of links - BoardGameGeek's search function is currently down.) Attendees: Angela, Martyn, Jeff (and daughter), Mike (and family), Lhizz (and family), Emma, Devon, Amelia I thought it would be a quiet one this year, and even had to change my plan due to so few people able to make it. The invitation was to turn up this afternoon and join me and Devon for some gaming, super casual, and family friendly.
It turned out really well! The adults played games, the kids played nicely together and some of them tried a couple of the kids' games. Games played today (all pretty light): Love Letter No Thanks! Settlers of Catan Summoner Wars (Devon and his friend Amelia) Pictionary Escape: The Curse of the Temple Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Kudos to Brad and Lauren for hanging out patiently in the lounge with the kids while we did our gaming. Thanks to everybody who came! :) This evening we (minus Brad) played my new copy of Ticket to Ride I simplified the rules since I was playing with the kids. Zac, Katie and I played with our hands laid openly on the table, but Devon chose not to. I gave everybody a single face-up destination ticket to work towards, and encouraged them to place trains in connections that helped them complete their ticket. If they completed their route, they got another one. I also discouraged them from blocking each other on purpose to keep the game friendly. Zac(4): Although he could sort of understand the rules, Zac got tired after a bit. He most enjoyed placing the trains and felt a bit let down on turns where he had to pick up cards instead of getting to use his trains. He struggled with the idea that the coloured cards related to the routes on the board, not his own player colour. Zac had the job of passing cards to people from the deck. Katie(7): I had Katie in charge of keeping score. I showed her how to work out the points using the little chart printed on the board. She would count out the points and then I would show her how it worked as an equation. "See, Devon was on 7 points. You added 7 more points and he is on 14 now. So, 7 + 7 = 14 which also means 7 x 2 = 14". Games are great for maths skills. Katie decided that if there was a face up rainbow card she would take it. Unfortunately she spent rainbow cards even when she didn't have to, but it made her happy and that's the whole point of playing. Devon(12): Devon was our most reluctant player as he was scared the game would go into his computer time. He also likes more heavily themed games like Marvel Legendary, Summoner Wars or Android Netrunner, so Ticket to Ride is a little bland for him. We didn't play until the end, but stopped the game at an agreed upon time, and the winner was a very pleased Katie! It is exciting to see Katie reach an age where she can enjoy and engage in these games, make her own meaningful decisions and see where they lead her!
Today I was very excited to receive my copy of Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary edition. I'd been wanting it since I played a friend's copy, but couldn't really justify it and put it in the "sometime" box. Then, late last month I was window-shopping local board game sites (as you do) and realised that just about all of them had stated that the 10th Anniversary edition wasn't available, for the very worst reason. It was [dun dun dunnn] out of print. Out of print means that they are no longer printing copies of the game. When it comes to board games, that's a concern - modern board games are a niche hobby and often don't have very big print runs. Even when there is high demand amongst board gamers, it's often not worth it to the company to make another print run, so sadly many games become no longer available to buy. I hadn't actually planned to buy a game this month (because of, you know, finances) but I really wanted this copy. The kicker is that my best friend's birthday fell just a couple of days before pay day and he liked Ticket to Ride, so that gave me an affordable gift option in time for his birthday that was awesome (I also got him the 1910 expansion to make it better) AND gave me an excuse, once we got paid, to buy a copy to replace the one I gave him. Luckily, I tracked down a copy at Amazon. So. Why the love for the 10th Anniversary edition? Basically, I'm a sucker for aesthetics, to the point where it makes a real difference to my enjoyment of a game.
What is Ticket to Ride Katie, Zac and I also played a game of Coconuts this afternoon. It's their absolute favourite game. Katie still needs to work on not getting upset when things aren't going her way - she is still a very poor loser. What is Coconuts? Also, I have finally run out of shelf space!
It's been a long time since I've played a game. Brad has quit agreeing to play games with me now - I think giving him a pass on playing during games nights has put ideas in his head! So, this evening I had to rope my eldest son into playing something and he chose Dominion. (Dominion is in fact one of the few games Brad likes as well, probably because I get caught up in filling my deck with "fun" cards and it ends up completely non-functional, so they both beat me more often than not.) What is Dominion? Devon went with a Duke + Duchy strategy. Dukes give you a medium number of points, but each duchy card increases it's value. When you multiply them at the end it can give you quite a high score. I did a similar thing, except buying a lot of Gardens cards which give you points for every 10 cards in your deck. They were easy for me to acquire as I had an action card that allowed me to get one for free. Both our strategies were terrible because they bunged up our decks with points cards, but since we were both doing it I guess it evened out! (As I said, I'm terrible at this game. But I still enjoy it.) Devon focused on buying Torturer action cards, simply because it was called Torturer and he loves going on the attack. Look at his smug little face. I bought a large number of Tribute cards which made Devon flip cards over in his deck - the cards he flipped gave me stuff. Lots of stuff. So his Torturer can suck it.
The game dragged on while we got handfuls of points cards and nowhere near enough money, but it finally ended when Devon emptied the third pile of cards. This may have been motivated by our game going over the start of his scheduled time on the computer.... We were both convinced we'd won, but I took it out with 77 to his 69 points. Good always prevails! I've skipped my Wednesday games group the last couple of weeks. This week I was just too exhausted.
Today I've got the family started on a game of Merchant of Venus, taking a chance that it might interest the kids with it's spaceships and dice rolls. We are having to play it a bit at a time but they are actually enjoying it. We have left it set up so we can come back to it tomorrow night. We'll see if their interest holds... Yesterday morning we watched The Amazing Spiderman, which motivated Devon to ask for a game of Legendary - one of his favourites.
We successfully stopped Scythe with his plot to overrun the town with Goblin Demons (Devon with mostly Hawkeye and Deadpool, and myself with Iron Man and Cable) and saved the day I got Brad and Devon to play Mysterium with me tonight, although Brad wouldn't let me put on the ambient soundtrack provided so that was a downer. He said something about not wanting to fall asleep?
It took a while as I'd never played it before, so had to check the bits and pieces in the rulebook. I played the ghost, Brad and Devon played 2 psychics each. It's a co-operative game, so we all win or lose together. It was pretty difficult to find "visions" that matched what I was trying to point out, and when I found the perfect card they would fixate on the wrong thing!. I gave Devon a picture of a large saw and knife but he couldn't figure out I was trying to say the murder weapon was a razor! In some ways it reminded me of Codenames, in that you were trying to get them to think about one part of the picture, but they would notice a different part that you hadn't seen and it would send them in the wrong direction. We figured it all out in the end, and the ghost got his (her?) closure. Did I like it? Yes Why? Awesome components. Exercised my lateral thinking skills. I enjoyed the weird art. Lovely collaborative feel. It felt really cool saying "I have a vision..." at random times. Did Devon like it? Yes Why? I forgot to ask him why, but he didn't want the game to end. Did Brad like it? No Why? He doesn't think it's very interesting. He says he's not a fan of Dixit either so it wasn't surprising. |
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