Saturday, May 13, 2006

More pics


Here's some shots from Monday, May 8th. This was a day of gaming during finals week. It was not an official meeting, just a brain break. A couple people had just finished some tests, so they were pleased to get in some games. Jake even left early because he had to study for a test on Tuesday.

BIG CITY




This is our Big City.




Here's a closeup looking down a road.


This is the scoreboard at the end.


This is who won.
(You may call him "Erick". It was his first time playing and he SLAUGHTERED Sean and Chris.)



Monsters Menace America



This is a pretty fun game. Each person controls a monster and uses it to ravage the United States. Each person also, inexplcably, controls a branch of the military. It isn't super-strategic, but it has a little bit of strategy. There is a lot of luck in rolling a bunch of dice... The dice rolls remind me a little of Risk.

The best part of the game is the bits! There are great models of the monsters, and the miltary units have nice detail. The board is HUGE, the cards are high-quality with amazing illustrations, and the cardboard hexagons that indicate that a city has been 'stomped' are top notch.

The board near the begining of the game...


A couple monsters with some military units...


The giant Eyeball nervously peers at approaching military units...


Godzilla prepares to fend off the army...


This is the victor! Notice that the two planes are IN MID-AIR when it was taken. That is not Photoshopped -- I counted to three, the planes were thrown, and the pic was snapped. A one-in-a-million shot.






Quicksand



Quicksand is a silly little game, quick to learn, and quick to play. The basics are this: each player controls a game piece which, through playing cards, gets moved through the game board to the end. First player to the end wins. Sounds simple, and it is.

But there IS a couple twists -- first, you have a small hand of cards, and you HAVE to play at least one card per turn, which may move your pece forward, or may move an opponent forward. Next, each person's pawn remains secret! You only know who you are playing as -- you don't know who your opponents may be. You try to keep your identity secret by not being too obvious about which pieces you are trying to move.

It's a cute, speedy little game!


Here's a part of the game board...


Green wins!!





Quo Vadis?



Quo Vaids? is a wonderful game of strategy and politics. You need to move your pieces into strategic places, but, possibly more importantly, you have to sweet-talk the other players into helping you win. Sound like a difficult task? It is. But it's a fun one. This is one of my favorites -- I knew nothing of it when I bought it and was amazingly surprised at the simplicity of instructions, but depth of strategy and creativity.


Players manuever and manipulate their way to the top...


These are the players who made it to the final room of the Senate.




Ticket to Ride: Marklin edition



Ticket to Ride has been winning all sorts of awards for a couple years now, and a couple spin-offs the original have come out. This map of Germany is the newest version. The authentic-looking German map (the German names of cities are used) is huge and beautiful, and the small plastic trains are beautiful and plentiful. It probably has the most bits of any game I own.

You try to build trains that fulfill secret goals of train routes. You get points for each train made, as well as for completing those routes. You can also get points for sending a passenger along one of your routes.

You build trains by playing sets of cards.

At first glance, the sheer size of the board, the number of pieces, and variety of choices seems daunting, but the game is really simple to learn, but has many choices to give it plenty of depth.


This is the board with a few trains built...


The red player was the winner!


Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Some pictures from last week

Hey there! We haven't updated the blog in little a while... it's been a busy time here as we end the semester.

Last Monday (May 1) was our last official meeting of the semester. We didn't even record results, we just took a few pictures. We did start playing around noon -- got kicked out of the Student Center around 10:30 -- moved to the local diner, and kept playing until midnight. TWELVE HOURS OF GAMING. We are sick.

Anyhoo... here's some pictures from the game playing on May 1st...

This is the first time we've played a game called Big City. I've had it for a while, but the rules seemed kind of daunting. It has some of the coolest bits of any game I have ever seen.



You all add building to a city and get paid for building it. Buildings next to parks get bonus points. Commercial buildings in the City Center get bonus points, whereas Residences at the outskirts get bonuses. There are a lot of rules like that which seem confusing at first, but each player gets a quick reference guide to help remember them. It's really not very hard...



There is a nifty sort of twisty in the strategy. You see, there are many buildings that can't be built until City Hall is built. Many bonuses are provided by placing Streetcars. Parks improve value of adjacent buildings. New neighborhoods may be placed to extend areas on which to build. Placing these items provides the gamer who places them ABSOLUTELY NO POINTS. So it is a bit of a struggle -- you want to place those to help yourself, but it costs you a turn to place them, AND they can potentially help the other players as well. It's a tough choice.



At the end of the game, you have a very satisfying city layout.



The below picture shows a cool street-level view. Alas, the streetcar suffered minor derailment right before the picture was taken...






Blokus. We love Blokus.








I do remember this game of Dvonn. Erick shut me (Chris) out completely. I had NONE left. He made me take these pictures to make it permanently recorded on the Internet.








Settlers of Catan rocks. We all love it. The above picture is my Windows Wallpaper.



It has an awesome board layout.



It is strategic and fun. Just the right blend of strategy and luck.








Zeus on the Loose is a game by Gamewright. It is sort of the like the first half of a round of Cribbage. It's kind of nifty and very fun. And has a very cool Zeus figurine.






And here is me with Challah bread in my mouth.



And here is TJ wearing a hat celebrating Steven's birthday.



CHEERS!