Monday, the 16th of June.

Hey! This is the first real entry of game sessions we've done in a while!

We played a bunch of games on Monday... mainly quick, fun ones. Here they are!

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Fjords

This was played by Brad and Fenwick (me!). This was Brad's first time playing, but the rules are fairly straightforward, and can be explained in a few moments. I love it when I can explain a game in terms of other games -- "The tile placement is a lot like Carcassonne." So we were up and running quickly. It's not surprising, this is a game by Franz-Benno Delonge who made TransAmerica/TransEuropa two of our favorite games in Game Club. We also pop out another of his -- Big City, a somewhat more obscure offering, but is amazingly beautiful and fun. (It's TOTALLY out of print, but Valley Games is in the process of making a reissue with new buildings! Oh, man, I'm probably going to have to buy that...) Unfortunately FB Delonge lost his battle with cancer last September. He was 50 years old. He's a great game designer -- makes me wonder what great games are now lost to us...

But I digress! Fjords gameplay takes place in 2 phases. Phase 1: Building the fjord. It's a simple "draw a tile, add it to the play area" mechanic. You have the option of placing one of your 4 starting houses on the tile you place. Your territory will be radiating out from those during phase 2.

Phase 2: You take turns placing small discs showing your territoty spreading out. Once a tile is claimed, it cannot be claimed by your opponent, and can block his/her ability to spread further. Careful planning, and careful claiming of territories is crucial to winning.

At the end of the game, Brad controlled 18 tiles, and Fenwick had 14. Brad wins! AND he only used 3 of his 4 starting places to do it.

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Zombie Fluxx

This is turning into one of our new favorite fillers. Good near the start of game club as people are wandering in. People can join in or drop out (joining in is easier) basically at any time. The gameplay is rather chaotic and random. And there are Zombies. And, occassionally, you are forced to groan like those very Zombies.

Just like any Fluxx game, the rules for winning change as people play different cards. It often causes people to imagine that it is a hard game, when it is one of the simplest and silliest games we play. One of the niftiest things (in my opinion) of this Fluxx game is that the Zombies are a sort of NPC in the game, and they can actually win!

This was played by Brad, Sam, and Fenwick. Any of the three of us would be just as happy winning, or having the Zombies win. The Zombies did not, however, as Brad made his escape. Brad wins again!

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Elk Fest

Cathy Willms called to say she was coming with Steven, so Brad and Fenwick (me!) knew we had a few minutes to kill. Elk Fest is perfect to fill that space.

This is a dexterity game where you flick 'stones' to allow your moose to get across a 'river'. It is definitely reminiscent of high school cafeteria tabletop games involving quarters and paper footballs.

The bits are remarkable -- beatiful wooden pieces. The gameplay is OBVIOUS -- just one look at the bits, and you know how to play. It's funny and frustrating and tense. It's amazing how much you have to adapt to how your opponent plays. I hate to attribute any kind of strategy to a game based on FLICKING, but it sneaks in.

Fenwick would have won if he'd had the opportunity for one final flick, but, just in time, Brad wins yet again!

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Pecking Order

We had a few more minutes, and I suggested a new one to Game Club: Pecking Order. This is one by Richard Garfield, famous for created the massively popular Magic: The Gathering CCG. It was also published by Immortal Eyes games, which is a spin-off of Winning Moves -- an American game company. Immortal Eyes is an attempt to make more Euro-style games (less random, more resource management). Pecking Order is their first game.

This is a two-player game. Each player has an identical set of cards: birds valued 1 to 12, and a Jaguar. There are spaces on a board placed between you with different values. On your turn, pick a card, and put it face down next to a space on your side. If there is a bird opposite it, a challenge occurs. The bird which was there first is revealed. If it's number is less than or equal to the bird just placed, it is removed from the board. Otherwise, the new bird is removed. A jaguar instantly removes both himself, and the bird in conflict.

Once all the pieces are placed, the value of the perches is added up -- higher total wins.

Fenwick had 26. Brad had 37. Oh, look, once again Brad is the winner!

I see me playing this game quite a bit, if I can talk people into it -- quick and tense. There's a decent balance of luck and psycho-strategy.

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Bull in a China Shop

This is a BIG Game Club game over the past few months. It's another simple and quick game. This game has the PERFECT blend of elements that make Game Club happy: 30% luck, 30% strategy, 30% screwage, 10% painful, very painful, choices. And it's done by Michael Schacht, a game designer I am growing to REALLY enjoy.

We can get a new person up and running on this thing in 2 minutes, but mostly we don't have to because so many of us have played it.

Each person has a shop of fine china. On your turn, if you have money you can buy china from the table, if not, or if you choose, a bull can come through and trash your store. You get money for that, so you can buy new china on later turns. Four times in the game you score in different ways -- you have to plan for those different scoring schemes.

At the end it came out like this: Steven had 44 points. Brad had 48. Cathy Willms had 70. Fenwick had 71, eking out the win by a point!

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Incan Gold

Kaylin and Rachael came by, and requested Incan Gold. This is Game Club classic gold. It takes little effort to convince us to play this game. The accidental interaction between players is wonderful -- you are always trying to outthink both the other players and the cards. Each of you are adventurers wandering into dangerous temples. Each turn you can decide to go forward or not. Every step can bring treasure or danger. Every one of those steps makes the decision to take another step more and more painful. The more people that bow out, the greater the possible reward, but the risk of dying in that temple rises, as well. Ever card that gets turned over is a thrill.

Six of us ventured into the temples...

Kaylin left with 12 treasures. Rachael had 14. Steven had 19. Brad had 22. Fenwick had 34. But Cathy Willms easily ended the richest with 52 treasures!

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For Sale

For Sale comes out quite regularly. Again, it follows the theme of the day -- simple to learn, quick to play, tough decisions.

It has 2 parts -- an auction round, where you buy properties, and a blind bidding round where they get sold. 20 minutes, and this game is done...

Here's how the real estate moguls fared... Steven had $33,000. Rachael had $37,000. Fenwick had $40,000. Brad had $41,000. Kaylin had $49,000. Cathy Willms wins with $50,000!!

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Cartagena

OK. Just kidding. This didn't get played. Cartegena II was accidentally grabbed, and was quickly put back in its box.

I forgot to mention to Kaylin and Rachael that they could just play it the old fashioned way -- you don't need to play with the new crazy rules.

There is a score card filled out for this, so I figured I should still mention it.

OH! On the back of that card is also written the following...

Kaylin is pretty awesome I think! Also she has really small handwriting!

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Horochsen

This is new-ish, but will definitely be a keeper for a while. The anguish of Rage, the simplicity of Yummy, and the excitement of Incan Gold. All in a game that can be learned in a few minutes, and played in a few more. It scales perfectly for 3, 4, 5, or 6 people. We played with 5.

There were a couple new folks for the game, and it really takes one full game to get the hang of it... we played 2 full games.

After the two were tallied: Steven had -28 (Not as bad as it sounds, it can be hard to stay positive in this game!). Cathy had -7. Brad had 5 (that's surprising -- he usually does a LOT better). Sam had 24 (a consistent "12" in each game). But Fenwick won with a ridiculous 116!

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Farkel

We finished up with a classic -- Farkel. Sam had to go, so it was down to 4 of us. WE knew time was a little tight, so we decided to play to 7500 instead of the classic 10000.

Farkel brought me bakc to enjoying dice. It should be a casino game somehow -- I would go to Vegas. It's all about pushing your luck, and feeling the excitement!

We were all destroyed by the deft hands of Steven.

End scores: Brad had 3000. Fenwick had 3650. Cathy Willms had 4250. And Steven crushed us with 7600.

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Another good game day. This one seemed more about quantity than quality, but there shall be other summer days for the lengthier strategy games...

General catchups...

OK, I promised to keep up with this better. Apparently I lied.

We have been playing games! Even up through the summer. And we will continue to do so.

I thought I'd blast down some of the games we have been playing -- some old faves, and a few new ones.

The list of games we've played in the past few weeks... and some notes... it'll be a bunch o' stuff. I put the games in alphabetical order, because the score sheets are all scrambled up, and there are even some games we played which we didn't record, but I had made a note of. So this is more of some quick game reviews as opposed to actually session reports. But it's something! And something a little different than usual. Different is often good. Anyhoo -- here goes...

Bohnanza

This is one we come back around to when we're in the mood. It can lead to anger and impatience and annoyance when the trading is not going well. Egos need to be put aside, but you still need some real shrewdness to get by. One of the hardest parts of this game is remembering that you can not reorder the cards in your hand -- it's painful sometimes. It's one that, in the right crowd, can be quite a bit of fun. In the wrong batch of folks it can turn into a bloodbath. It's amazing that a game based around bean farming could EVER be fun, but this actually is, most of the time (see above).


Bull in a China Shop

This is another unlikely themed game that turns out to be quite a bit of fun. I'm really glad I stumbled over this gem. I'm not surprised, really. It's made by Michael Schacht, who has made such wonderfulness as California, China, Zooloretto (described later in this blog entry!), and Fist of Dragonstones (together with Bruno Faidutti, who is another game genius). Each player runs a China Shop, and during your turn you can buy new china for that shop. If you have no money, or chose to not purchase, your shop is invaded by a bull, which may destroy some of your fine porcelain. You do gain money from this (I suppose you submit an insurance claim), so you'll be able to buy stuff in the future. 4 times during the game, the play is paused and scoring occurs. There are four different ways to score your shop, and you can use each one just once (the system is very Yahtzee-esque). Timing is crucial, buying stuff too soon, will almost ensure its destruction, but waiting will allow other players to scoop up the good stuff. The rules are simple, it plays VERY quick with players who know what they're doing. We'll play this one a lot.


Cranium: Cloodle, Humdinger, Letter Line-Up & Sculptorades

Cranium games have never been my favorites, really. They really are the ultimate games for non-gamers. I mean, they are good for some silliness, but the enjoyment gets kind of thin after a while. These MINIgames are actually a good way for me to get over this. Each game takes a MAXIMUM of 5 minutes. That's the time everyone has to work together to guess words by describing, drawing, sculpting, or humming. The only new thing to Cranium is the "Letter Line-Up", which is sort of like one of the elements of Hoopla -- in that you have to describe something using words starting with only one letter. In this you roll six letter dice, and you have six letters to choose from (maybe less, if there's a repeat). They're good, quick, cooperative games. And you can mix and match them together to make whatever you may be in the mood for. It's just a tiny little bite of Cranium, and that's perfect.


Elfenland

I do like this game. Designed by Alan Moon. He has probably sold more of his "Ticket to Ride" games than any others. Funny thing: those are my LEAST favorite of his -- I've actually come to avoid playing them whenever I can help it. I love his 10 Days... series of games. Incan Gold (which will be mentioned again below), is a super-simple super-tense wonder of a game. So, I suppose liking this would make sense. The ENTIRE game takes place in 4 turns. Each turn consists of a few steps -- you gather 'permission' tokens, than allow you to plan your path. You then place those tokens, possibly being thwarted by others placing theirs. Lastly you use cards to actually move along those paths. You're trying to visit as many cities as possible -- most cities visited wins! The board is gorgeous, the wooden bits are satisfying to hold, and the cards and tokens are solid and colorful. Pleasant to look at, and pleasant to play. I'm glad we've finally moved this into regular rotation.


For Sale

This one is by a fella named Stefan Dorra, who has also done Intrigue and Turn the Tide, two of my favolrite games ever -- both are quite different in style. Intrigue is completely about negotiation. Turn the Tide is a trick-taking game with painful twists, every point is hard-won. For Sale is also one I enjoy immensely, and is different still. It uses 2 VERY basic game mechanics: Auction and Blind-bidding. These two are often confused or lumped together as the same thing, when they are NOT at all. The game For Sale helps clear up the difference. The first round is an auction round -- some real estate is placed on the table, and the auction begins... the bids go up until everyone drops out, and the best property gets purchased by that person. Once all real estate is purchased, the second round begins: selling off those propereties. This time some money is put on the table. Each player secretly picks a property they've purchased... the highest valued property fetches the most money. Most money at the end wins! Another quick and wonderful game.


Hamster-rolle

This is a dexterity game, sort of in the land of Jenga-style things. But this one uses a wheel! Every person is trying to get rid of a variety of wooden blocks by placing them on the wheel. Each placement disturbs the delicate balance of the wheel, possibly dumping pieces on the table -- those go back into your collection of things you need to get rid of. First one ridding themselves on those pieces wins it all.


Heave Ho!

This is just a two-player game, where you are trying to win a tug-of-war game in Scotland. You win barrels of whiskey after each round. One of the wildest twists is the first part of each round is a furious sorting of cards -- each player gets a little less than half the deck. And then each player decides which half to keep and which half to give away. Then you play along playing cards to try to create a heartier team of tuggers than your opponent. Winning gets you a whiskey barrel -- most barrels wins!


Hornochsen!

This is relatively new to game club, and may be turning into one of our favorites! It's a card game with a deck of numbered cards (1 to 98). A bunch of seed cards are placed on the table, in order. The order determines what cards can be played on what cards. Each turn players can play one to three cards. When 5 cards in a set are played, it is claimed. Some cards are positive, some are neegative. There are also some +5 and x2 cards in the mix that can help or hurt. Points can be hard to come by. It's simple and fun, and has a really good "One more game!" factor.


Incan Gold

This one requires little explanation or description, because we play it often. This was an instant favorite due to its fun bits and theme. You are an Indiana Jones-style archeaoadventurer (the CLASSIC Indiana Jones, not the new piece of trash), and treasures and horrors await you in a variety of ancient temples. The bravest adventurers can get quite rich, but also risk losing it all to mummies or giant spiders. It's great fun, and there is is much yelling and cheering during each game.


Lost Cities

Reiner Knizia's best 2 player game. Don't just take my word for it -- besides Magic: The Gathering, this game has the MOST plays logged on Boardgamegeek. By quite a bit. Settlers? Puerto Rico? Power Grid? ALL PALE in comparison the number of plays of Lost Cities. And it's clear why -- the game is simple, portable, quick, strategic and beautiful. I will play this whenever anyone suggests it. The game is easy -- once you've played a card of a certain color, you can only play numbers greater. At the end, add up all your points, subtracting 20 (to pay back your investors), you get a 20 point bonus if you have 8 or more cards of a single color. Shuffle cards. Play again.


Odin's Ravens

Another 2-player game. You are each try to race a raven through an obstacle course of territories. It actually has a feel of being somewhere between Elfenland and Candyland. You have a route you need to take and you play cards to manuever through that route. You also can call on the power of Odin to help you, or thwart your opponent. It's simple and fun, with enough levels of things to do that it is fun every time. The narrow cards are well illustrated, and allow you to fit a lot of cards on a smaller table.


Quiddler

It's Quiddler. Far and away the most played game here at game club. It's rummy meets Scrabble. It can be played with 2 people or 10 people. It is easy to learn, and can be played however you may be in the mood for -- helpful, or cutthroat. I am on about my 5th Quiddler deck, I play this game so much -- I either make it so the cards are too grubby to be usable, or give a deck away to spread the joy that is Quiddler.


San Juan

Over the past coupl of months, San Juan has turned into a real regular for Game Club. It's definitely a "gamer's game", with strategy seeping out of every pore, but it is light enough that we can rope in new people fairly easily. It has turned into one where the regulars like to play with regulars, but we can still drag a new person into the fold now and again. This game has a clever use of cards. The single deck is used for everything. The cards have buildings on them, and you play them as buildings. You use the other cards in your hand as payment for those buildings or as products produced by those buildings. It makes for wonderfully painful choices as to which buildings you discard to build others. With hand limits in effect, the choice is required -- you can't just sit there and hoard cards to build whatever you like. This is based on the smash hit game "Puerto Rico" which I've never successfully played. That one seems to have to same unneccessary and unsatisfying complexity of Power Grid. San Juan is a lovely, lovely game. And the last time we played I actually won. This never happens.


Spy

This is a fairly weak offering from the game giant Reinere Knizia. I mean it IS fun, but it is mostly filler. It is just a set-collecting driven game, quite a bit like Ticket to Ride. BUT, each set made (there are twelve different "suits") increases the number of cards needed the next time. You make a set of 4 "Europes", the next person is going to have to have 5 to cash in. That difficulty increase really saves this otherwise simplistic game. I will play Spy as a filler, but it is certainly not my favorite Knizia game. (At least it's not Blue Moon. BLECH.)


Ticket to Ride

I have really come to avoid playing this game whenever possible. Its set collection is tedious, its unintentional screwage of others is annoying, its scalability is ATROCIOUS (2 or 3 players, and the game is too spacious, 4 or 5 and you can accomplish nothing), and its length and pace is just ponderous. The bits are tremendous -- hundreds of plastic trains, gorgeous oversized map, nicely colored and illustrated cards. It's not enough to save this otherwise broken game. His other offerings are so much better. I'd rather play Clocktowers... I am clearly alone in this regard, though. Ticket to Ride has sold, I dunno, billions of copies, I think. It's current number 43 on boardgamegeek. I cannot understand it.


Tongiaki

This is a fairly quick strategy-filler of a game. WAIT?! Strategy-filler?! It can't be! It's either a strategy game OR a filler! Not anymore. Tongiaki does them both quite well. You each play a group of explorers of the South Pacific, sailing through uncharted territory. The strategy is in how you expand your boats and at what times. The problem is that when an island fills up, your opponents can sail you right off the island without your permission. This potential expansion of your folks can help or harm you. And even though you are not actively participating, you feel involved in the game when it isn't your turn. It makes the downtime feel a lot less 'down'. And there is often groaning and screaming as an opponent forces your boats into dangerous waters to their demise. I really love this game. The bits, the action, the tension, the strategy, and the brevity of this game make it one I come back to often.


Word Blur

A new party game has been added to Game Club! This is a word-guessing game. It's a little tricky to explain for a really simply game, but here goes: Imagine Pictionary, but instead of DRAWING the word, you need to grab words from a head of Magnetic-Poetry-looking bits and arrange them so they describe to word. Every play is an all-play, so there is no down time at all. There is a card with modifiers on it, to help you better use the words you pick from the pile (plurals, 'sound like', opposite of). You have to be fairly clever, and have some real mind-melding going to be successful at this game. It is fun, and hilarious. There are some real "OH WOW!" moments when you finally figure out where someone was going with a cleverly wacky description. I see this one being played fairly often...


Zombie Fluxx

I've never been a big fan of Fluxx. I liked it when i first played it, but it got a little tired after a while. I think part of the problem is that new people tended to complain about its complexity. The simplest game on the PLANET, and people would whine, "This is TOO HARD." Then they'd go sit down and play Power Grid. ALL THE RULES ARE ON THE CARDS. READ AND DO. NOT hard. And everyone else will help step you through this monstrously easy game! That aspect always ate away at me, so Fluxx disappeared for a while. But now there's Zombie Fluxx. A little more complicated because ZOMBIES are involved. I think this could help... I amagine this conversation: "YOu know Fluxx?" "Yeah, that's too tricky." "Well, now it has zombies in it." "ALL RIGHT THEN, let's play!" Zombies make everything better. And it has definitely worked for Fluxx. This is FAR from a perfect game, but the hilarity of the Zombies (especially with the card that forces you to groan like a Zombie whenever one appears) gives it a nice edge. This is some fine, fine filler. And I just love the "Zombie Jamboree!" "Let's Shamble!!"


Zooloretto

This is a game designed by Michael Schacht, who I have learned makes very, very wonderful diversions. Bull in a China Shop (described above), California, China, Fist of Dragonstones, have all turned out to be ones I enjoy immensely. Zooloretto fits in with those very nicely. Each player owns a zoo and is trying to fill their zoo pens with a set of animals. FILL is the key, incomplete pens net you less points. You can also put vending machines around to help attract folks. Each turn starts with people loading up trucks with random stuff (animals, vending, money). During the loading process you can use your money to upgrade your zoo, move animals around, or buy animals from opponents. Endgame comes sooner than you'd like -- it's easy to get stranded with stuff you wouldn't like. Planning ahead is important, and unfortunately sometimes impossible. You have to keep an eye on everyone else's zoo, and see how they interact with your own. Each play reveals more subtleties in the gameplay. I couldn't possibly say enough about the bits -- the animals are adorable, and the wooden "trucks", though they don't look truck-ish are perfect. There are plenty of add-ons to this game, which I haven't tried, but would like to. Although, the base game is tremendous alone.

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PHEW. That was a lot of reviewing. But hopefully it adequately filled in a huge gap in blog sessions...

Off to play some more!

The Game Squad puzzler.

We should get some of these for give-a-ways...

Make your own!

Pictures and info coming back to the Blog soon! Promise!

Last Wednesday -- posted a bit late

Hey!

We played last Wednesday, and we logged all of the playing on our logging sheets. We took pictures. I hadn't had a chance to post stuff, so I will do it now. It will likely just be a list of people who played, and what we played and maybe some photos, because MONDAY game day time is swiftly approaching!

Here goes...

The PLAYERS:

• Alex "Can't Stop" (n)
  
• Ashlei (p)
  
• Brad (p)
  
• Brian (n)
  
• Fenwick (p)
  
• Griffin (n)
  
• Harper-Dylan (p)
  
• Jared (p)
  
• Rich (n)
  
• Sara (p)
  
• Steven (p)
  
• Victoria (p)
  

The GAMES:

• Beat the Buzzard
  
• Cowabunga!
  
• Fiji
  
• Snorta
  
• Tutankhamen
  
• Whoonu
  
• Wise & Otherwise
  

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I'll just put some pics and captions real quick...

Beat the Buzzard...

A starting hand in Beat the Buzzard. Notice the meticulous ordering.

Brian played that 7, and had to eat the -1, because the rest of us tied. There was much cheering and yelling.

This is Cowabunga, which was a new play for Game Club. We played with too many people, but made some nice mods to the rules that still made it quite fun. And, I'm pretty sure that box of Burt's Bees was unrelated to game play.

This is a game of Fiji -- all bids are in!

Fiji again, and all bids in, again. Look at all that green and red -- looks like Christmas!

Here's a shot of the shrunken heads you play for in Fiji.

Snorta: starring a mouse...

...a duck...

...a rooster, AND MANY MORE! It's a noisy, silly game. Another new one for Game Club. We ended up smearing a lot. "Moooo! $#@+!, I mean Baaaa! $#@+!ing BAAAA!" It's really kind of supposed to be a kids' game. Keep those kids away from us.

Our lovely Tutankhan path -- Tah-dah!!

Tutankhamen bits on the march...

The Wise and Otherwise box. AND IT'S A PUZZLE! Sara is hiding somehwere in this picture... can you find her?

Here's a set of answers from our game of Wise and Otherwise. Rich's answer has been slightly obscure by the Office of Standards and Practices.

Fenwick ponders a Wise and Otherwise answer. And there's a game stack behind him!

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AND NOW!! I NEW GAME CLUB WEB SITE FEATURE!

It's our "MAKE A CAPTION" contest (from an idea by Rich, actually. Gotta give the credit.)

Today's features an image of Victoria...

This one:


Make a caption for this and put it in the omments section, or e-mail it to sgcofccm@gmail.com! The winner wins a mystery prize...OOOH. Mysterious.

Here's my idea (more of a LolVictoria than a caption)...


Now, I am off to play!

The Geek is down!

BoardGameGeek has been down all day today! I can't log on to log in the games I played yesterday.

I feel lost and alone.

*--shiver--*

We're back to posting!!

April 7, 2008

OK. It's been a few months since we updated. It's not for lack of playing -- we've kept the club going steady on. There has been plenty of fun, and some serious drama, that I'm sure some readers would find, at the very least, interesting (my Rage game was ruined!). And instead of trying to catch up with all of that, I figured I'd just try to jump back in here and move forward. The game was good, as is usually the case, today.

I've also decided on a slight format change. We have gone thrugh many changes -- the most recent has been to list all the players at the top of the Blog entry. We will now follow that by a list of the games played; now we have both of the most important aspects of Game Club summarized at the start. And then, the game day will be more of a narrative.

Also, I got a new digital camera, so actual pictures of the games played will be included! No more Lolgames. (Although, I really enjoyed those.)

We'll try to keep up with this as we go forward... sorry for the session report gap.

On we go!

Here's the summary for today...

Players:

• Ashlei (p)
  
• Ashley (n)
  
• Brad (p)
  
• Brian (n)
  
• Cathy W. (p)
  
• Cengiz (p)
  
• Fenwick (p)
  
• Harper-Dylan (v)
  
• May (p)
  
• Phil (v)
  
• Sandy (v)
  
• Sean (p)
  
• Tyler (p)
  
• Victoria (n)
  

Games Played:

• 10 Days in Europa
  
• Bull in a China Shop
  
• Coda
  
• Cribbage
  
• Fiji
  
• FJords
  
• Quiddler
  
• Samurai
  
• Settlers of Catan
  
• Wallamoppi
  

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While we were getting ourselves together, Sean and Harper-Dylan grabbed Wallamoppi at around 2:30. They did some stacking... this was Harper-Dylan's first run-through of the game, and had some trouble as he buried his own pieces in the stack. He couldn't hold it together, and knocked it down, giving Sean the win. They attempted a second round, but gravity, and a slightly rickety table didn't allow the set-up to complete. The game was abandoned.



Around the same time as Wallamoppi, a game of Coda was being organized. It's a favorite by Phil, and Brian and Cengiz were summoned to join. After a bit of confusion as to how to organize the tiles, the game proceeded. It was a very close game of detection... but Cengiz emerged victorious!



After the original short games for warm-ups were done, Bull in a China Shop was pulled out. This clever game has been a staple of Game CLub since its introduction a few weeks ago. It is a strategy card game with lots of psycho-strategy -- you really need to pay attention to what others will likely do. There is some screwage factor, and strategies can often backfire. AND, a game usual takes about 1/2 hour -- that counts a Game Club quickie. Brian, Cengiz, Harper-Dylan, and Ashley were the competitors here. I think Cengiz wrote the session report, and I will copy the relevant info he wrote from that here: Cengiz raped, pillaged, and plundered with 67. Harper-Dylan had 50. Brian finished with 48. And Ashely took it in the end with 35. So, if you made it through that report without being offended enough to change the web page you would have learned that Cengiz wins!



As that was going on, Sean and Fenwick went off to one of the smaller table for a game of Fjords. Fjords has everything we need for a hotgame: Tile laying, continent building, area claiming, and area dominance. OH! And hexes. Those are always wonderful for gaming. A beautiful island was created -- Fenwick was easily thwarted. He had 10 areas settled, and Sean had 18. Sean wins!

Another game of Coda was being played at this point with May, Cathy W., and Brad. No results were recorded... but some kind of game of Coda occured.



After that, May recruited some folks to play a game of Turn the Tide. I know the game was played. I'm not sure who played, or who won, but it happened! I saw it!



Knowing Fenwick would be down for it, Sean suggested a game of Samurai. Oh, what a glorious game. Territory control. Hexes (did I mention I like hexes for some reason? Cuz I do.). GREAT bits. Geographically wonderful. They would have been fine with a 2 player game, but the call went out for 2 more players -- Cengiz and Tyler answered the call. So, the 4-player game of Sean, Cengiz, Tyler, and Fenwick began. The screwage began quickly. Tyler elimanted a few pieces, each time making a gaming enemy. We will now refer to him, affectionately, as "Eliminator Douchebag". The strate
gy worked well. Sean and Tyler each had dominated a category, but you need TWO to win. The tie-breaker goes to the non-winning category pieces each had. Sean had 4, Tyler had 5. Tyler wins!

The Bell-Bottomed Buddha

Sean and Fenwick wandered back towards game central and grabbed 10 days in Europe. This is such a classic Game Club game. Using the game mechanism pioneered by Rack-o, joined with geography, you get a happy, happy game. We played 2 games. First game: Sean wins! During this game, Tyler watched, and got the hang of it by observation. He asked to join, and we obliged -- for game 2, Tyler joins. Apparently he got the swing of things nicely, because for game 2, Tyler wins!



The next table over was sporting a game of Quiddler. This is THE quintessential Game Club game. It doesn't get a high rating on Board Game Geek, which is completely inexplicable. This is a quick, clever, compact, easy-to-learn word game. And everyone we've ever played it with is a huge fan. It's no Scrabble or Boggle, but it is close, and possible even MORE accessible than those. I rant about the beauty of Quiddler a bunch, so I'll stop now. Brad, May, Cathy W., Brian, and Ashley were the participants. After the full game, Cathy W. emerged victorious!

And now, a new game for game club! Fiji has been toting to Game Club a bunch of times. We've never dragged it out, until today, due to some prodding from Fenwick. Not sure how everyone else found it, but I really enjoyed it. It goes quick, and here is some SERIOUS psycho-strategy. I am a huge fan of Fist of Dragonstones, an occassional Game Club feature, and this has some similar strategy. Or at least a similar game mechanic: Grab a fist of gems in an attempt to outwit your fellow players. Differring from other games of this type: There are FOUR different win conditions which you are attempting to fulfill (or NOT fulfill depending on the situation) with this single bid. You have 3 tries to make good on this... but the obvious choices may not always pay off -- a tie is cancelled out (Beat the Buzzard-style, anothe Game Club regular). OH! And the best part: you're bidding on SHRUNKEN HEADS! For this game, it was Victoria, Sean, Sandy, and Fenwick battling it out. Sean got kind of shafted by the others playing similar gems, and him getting forced taking things he did not want. He ended with 3 heads. Fenwick had 4. Sandy was close to the win with 6. But Victoria wins with 8 shrunken heads!



Earlier in the day, Ashlei requested a game of Settlers of Catan. That was brought out, and we wanted a small game of Settlers veterans. So the call went out for an intimate game of folks who knew Settlers. It turned out that Sean, Ashlei, and Fenwick were the ones to answer the call. It was a fairly freindly game -- the robber robbing only when necessary, roads and buildings played generously, and trades made in a friendly way. There was little yelling, and mostly in joy, and mostly by Ashlei whenever her 3-sheep number was rolled. Sean was having trouble getting resources besides ones to give him Development Cards. He upgraded his 2 settlements to cities fairly early. He had 8 soldiers, easily earning him the Largest Army bonus. After building one more city and having some bonuses in his development cards, Sean wins! Ashlei had 7, and Fenwick had 6. It was actually a quite satisfying game of Settlers, one of the best in a while.

Sean's first city (I was pronouncing it wrong the whole time, and probably actually have it wrong now, too.)

As we were winding down, Ashlei and Fenwick dove into a game of Cribbage. Yes, Cribbage. Probably one of the few "classic" games we drag out. I hate regular card games, EXCEPT for Cribbage. It is a wonderful blend of strategy, set building, and math. Ashlei took an early lead, and she cheered loudly nearly every time the shared card was revealed. She was on her way to skunking Fenwick soundly, but he snuck a few points in at the very end -- Fenwick had 92 points, when Ashlei exceeded her 121 points for the win! Fenwick escaped 2 points away from a skunking -- he was still beaten rather soundly.

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There were a few other games run here and there, but this was the vast majority of those played. And whatever we record for the blog is good! It's good to be back...