August 15th, 2006: Jake's Last Day

Truly an epic gameday, Jake's farewell meeting was not without a great deal of fun. Some new games were played, as well as many oldies-but-goodies. An appearance by club favourite Guitar Hero was also made later in the evening, assisting to make this meeting the longest meeting in Game Club history, and one of the most fun.

Sword and Skull
There were a LOT of people at the meeting, so two games ran simultaneously at first. Mike 1, Chris, Sean and Steven played an epic game of Swords and Skulls, yet another "lively game" involving pirates. Many pirate games are played by the game club, not the least of which is Loot, a simple card game. To my knowledge, this is the first board game on the subject that the Game Club has yet played.

I didn't get a chance to play this game so I don't know much about it. It's a boardgame that seems to touch on the economic, political and idealogical complexities of being a pirate locked in a seventeenth-century struggle between life, death, and the Pirate King.

That, or it's an excuse to shout "Arrr!" while battling opponents for treasure.

All in all, Mike 1 claimed victory, as both Chris and Steven had to leave.

Christina, Cathy Wilms, Jake, Mike 2 and TJ all had time enough to play three games while the pirates went about cavorting and capering.

Beat the Buzzard
A very simple card game, Beat the Buzzard is a favourite along with Zeus on the Loose as ways to pass time when waiting for larger games to start. So we began with this fun little game. It's easy enough to learn in moments. Players have cards numbered 1 - 15, and are competing for cards that range from -5 to 10. No matter what card you're bidding for, high numbers are good, as in the case of positive numbers, high card wins. In the case of negative numbers, however, which take points away from your score, the low card "wins", and takes the card. It's a game of double-super-secret-reverse psychology, and one that can muddle the mind of the most nefarious bidder.

In the first game, Mike 2 captured many small numbers, leading to his triumphant victory over the rest. In the second game, TJ's capture of just a few high numbers lead to a narrow win.

Intrigue
According to Sean, this game is "all about the screwage." Soon, we would all learn exactly why. Each player has four rooms in their Castle, valued at $1ooo, $3ooo, $6ooo and $1o,ooo each. These rooms pay money to whomever's specialists are located in them. Each player has four different specialists at their disposal, and two of each of them, making for a total of eight different workers than can be employed by their opponents. The ultimate goal, of course, is to have the most money. Each castle, however, MUST have one of each of the four specialists under its employ, forcing you to make deals in order to secure a good spot in the castles, while also not giving away your prized 1o,ooo to someone who will end up betraying you later.

According to the rules "everything is allowed." And that means everything. For instance, if one were to apply to a castle, and offer that castle's owner $2o,ooo for the room that pays $1o,ooo, there is no stopping that castle's owner from taking the money and then throwing the other person's opponent to the wolves, if his castle is already full. Payment is received each turn for the rooms you control, so as is often touted, the key to this game is location, location, location. As well as a lot of betrayal, betrayal, betrayal.

In the end, Christina took victory with a whopping $14o,ooo. Trailing her were TJ and Cathy with $138,ooo and $121,ooo respectively. Jake and Mike 2, sadly remained far below with $98,ooo and $49,ooo each. Mike 2 had been evicted from every player's castle by the end of the game, so for the last few turns he earned no payment, clearly spoiling any hope of victory.

Continuo
Continuo is an interesting game with similarities to Aquarius and even Blokus. Your goal is the most points. To do that, you lay cards out in a particular fashion so as to connect a lot of similar coloured blocks. Each card consists of patterns of blocks of different colours, of which there are plenty of variations. Points are scored based on the grouping of colour each round.

In the end, TJ walked away the winner with 151 points, well ahead Jake and Cathy's 125, Mike 2's 119, and Chrissy's 115.

With that, the game of Sword and Skull came to a close. Chris left to retrieve his car, and Cathy, Steven and Chrissy left to celebrate the latter's birthday.

Wayfinder
Upon Chris' return, a game of Wayfinder began. Wayfinder is like Mancala on several types of pure Colombian cocaine. Four differenly coloured resources begin on each square, and the ultimate goal is, in effect, to have the most *stuff* of your colour on each square. The way this is acheived is movement akin to Mancala. From your starting position (chosen at the end of a previous round), a player picks up every gem-like resource token in the square, and makes a straight-line or right angle away from it, in any direction he is able, and drops one in each square he passes. For example, If one square has five tokens, it can only move five spaces.

Additionally, if any square ends up with only one different colour, that colour becomes the only colour that can ever go into that space. Once five of the same colour control a square in that way, that colour is allowed to replace them with a hut, which is counted for points at the end of the game.

All in all, a very fun game, but very difficult to keep track of what's going on all over the board all at the same time. Jake wo with 129, Sean took second with 118, TJ held third with 110, and Chris wept from last place with a mere 84.

Infinity
This was a game that Chris had bought from the dollar store a long time ago, but had apparently never played. The idea is interesting: form the Universe from the Beginning to "Destiny", by laying tiles on different arms of the Galaxy, creating planets and moons and eventually Life.

Many aspects of this game intrigued the players, including one rule allowing you to freely draw from your discard pile, or from that of the person to your left. Infinity is also the first game with an instruction manual to include "Black Hole" as a verb. (ie Black Holed)

A very interesting and very fun game that will probably find its way to more meetings in the future.