Tuesday, June 24th

Hey there.

We DID do some gaming on Monday, and I'm sure the info is around here somewhere, but my desk is a mess. I found Tuesday's stuff, and we played a few games, so I thought I'd post a little blurbish thing. There was only 3 of us playing. I'll try to be brief... (oh, who am I kidding, we all know I'm gonna blather on like an idiot...)

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Brad a Fenwick played a few round of Pecking Order. It's a perfect two-player, waiting-for-other-people-to-show-up game. A round takes about 5 minutes, and you can play as little or as much as you like. The manual calls an "official" game 4 rounds. That's what we ended up playing! Brad won the first two round, Fenwick, the second two. When the scores were totalled, Brad had 118, and Fenwick had 123 for the win.

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Still no one else around, so we pulled out Fjords, another 2-player one, which is strategic and fun. It's sort of somewhere between Carcassonne and China, but MUCH MUCH lighter than either. But, it has enough teeth to keep it ranked around 400th on BoardGameGeek. We only played one round (an "official" game is actually 3), and it ended with both of us placing 16 tokens. I'm going to grant Brad the win, though, because he hadn't even placed his 4th house, so he managed to cover that ground with less starting places than Fenwick. Brad wins!

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Alex "Can't Stop" came by, so it was time to get a 3 player game going. Brad has been itching for some Citadels, so we decided to give it a go. 3-Player Citadels can be less exciting, so we decided to try it sort of as if it was a 6-player game, with each of us choosing 2 roles. Each person would still be building one set of buildings, though. Which means the game moves quite a bit quicker, building twice each round (maybe being able to build as many as FOUR in a single round, using the Architect. Theoretically the game could end in TWO turns!). It was a nifty little variant. I'd rather play with 6 actual people, but it was still fun, and still had the heart of Citadels, which is what we needed. Turned out Fenwick started as King, and remained King for the ENTIRE game. End of game: Alex triggered endgame with his 8 buildings. Brad had 19 points. Fenwick had 18 + 3 (5 different kinds of buildings bonus) = 21. Can't Stop had 25 + 4 (first to build 8 bonus) = 29. Can't Stop wins!

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We needed a similar strategy game to follow: job drafting + territory building. Of course that means we play San Juan. It's funny that San Juan has similar basic game mechanics but has a TOTALLY different vibe to it. Now, I'm guessing some of you are asking "Who's the dude in that photo you chose?" Well, I'm glas you asked. That's Franz Vohwinkel, not the game designer (you're thinking of Andreas Seyfarth), but the illustrator of the game. Franz is an artistic genius. He's done the art for so many amazing games, and he has a huge diversity of styles. Let's see, he's done the art for Metro, Elk Fest, Big City, Torres, Sunken City, Oasis, Amun Re, the Catans, Hera & Zues, Evergreen, Samurai (so gorgeous)... and those are just a few of his that I own. I really enjoy a game with good style -- it draws your eyes to it, makes you pull it off the shelf more often, and just lends itself to happier playing time. If Vohwinkel is involved, you know it'll be eye candy. Anyway, about the game -- it was Brad and Alex's first time playing. It doesn't take much to get into the swing of it, though... Alex had 27 victory points, Brad had 28, and Fenwick had 36 VP for the win!

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Now onto a COMPLETELY different-styled game: Hornochsen. It's all focussed about numbers, no theme, even those there's 'horned oxen' on the cards they have nothing to do with the game. There's certainly strategy, and a lot of trying to force everyone else to take bad stuff so you don't have to. Timing is crucial; being stuck with cards at the end is almost always bad. Anyway, after two rounds, Can't Stop had an impressive showing with -188 points (yes, that is a negative sign, and it is supposed to be there). Fenwick had 46. Brad ended with 137 points, earning a mind-numbing 120 of them in a single round. Not bad for a game in which we're usually happy to just be positive...

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Brad headed off to class, and Alex and Fenwick went to return the games to their home. Alex started fiddling with TetraTrax, and Fenwick urged him to play a few game. TetraTrax is basically a cross between Tetris and Connect 4. When you drop a piece, for each of your opponent's pieces it touches you get a point. But creating a hole gives you MINUS a point. Using all pieces gives you a 2 point bonus (neither of us managed to do that). We played 3 games. Fenwick won the first 2 by a point. Can't Stop won the last one by TWO points. I'll do the math for you: after 3 rounds we were tied.

And we thought that would be a perfectly apt way to end a game day...