Chonkeys. Oh, yeah. Chonkeys.

Before we begin... a word from our sponsor.

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That's right, Chonkeys™, an official sponsor of the CCM Strategic Gaming Club.



Monday, September 22 was a good day for games. "Why?" you ask? "Were the games EXCEPTIONALLY good?" No. I mean they were fine, but we had a HUGE tray of cheese nearby to nom on. MMMmmm. Cheese. There were some grapes and delicious crackers, too. It was sheer decadence! (At least for us easily impressed members of game club.)

We did have people play, play we did. I'm going to make a quick post again of just the players and games, to make sure we keep the blog up to date as much as possible.

THE PLAYERS (there were 20!)

• Alicia
  
• Ashlei
  
• Brad
  
• Brian2
  
• Cassy
  
• Cathy Willms
  
• Cengiz
  
• Chris
  
• Dylan
  
• Eden
  
• Fenwick
  
• Harper-Dylan
  
• Jen
  
• Jess
  
• Joe
  
• Justin
  
• Krysta
  
• Paul
  
• Pete
  
• TJ
  

THE GAMES

• Blink (which we played, very dangerously, with 3 people for a bit!)
  
• Continuo
  
• For Sale
  
• Great Dalmuti
  
• Hey! That's MY Fish!
  
• Incan Gold
  
• Intrigue
  
• Oodles of Doodles (which we just sort of played for fun at the end of the day...)
  
• Quiddler
  
• Quo Vadis?
  
• Speed Scrabble (a Scrabble variant introduced to us by Paul!)
  
• Wise & Otherwise
  
• Zeus on the Loose
  

Fun was had. Cheese was 'et. We play more on Wed, Sept. 24.

(Once again, today's Blogisode was brought to you by Chonkeys™ brand cheese snacks. Remember, when it's got to be little cubes of cheese, it's GOT to be Chonkeys™. Be sure to try our new "little triangles" shape!)

Two week lump dump.

Hey all! We've been playing like crazy the past couple weeks. I've let the blog drift by the wayside, and I don't have time to do as detailed a report as normal. But I did want to put down AT THE VERY LEAST, the games we've played and the people who played them over the past 4 game sessions. Here goes...

The Players...

• AJ (?)
  
• Alex (n)
  
• Alicia (n)
  
• Ashlei (p)
  
• Ashley (n)
  
• Becky (p)
  
• Brad (n)
  
• Brian (n)
  
• Brian2 (n)
  
• Caleb (v)
  
• Can't-Stop (n)
  
• Carlo (n)
  
• Cengiz (p)
  
• Chris (p)
  
• Dan (n)
  
• Dylan (p)
  
• Eli (n)
  
• Fenwick (p)
  
• Harper-Dylan (p)
  
• Heather (v)
  
• Jay (p)
  
• Jeff (p)
  
• Jess (v)
  
• Joe (p)
  
• Krysta (p)
  
• Maxine (p)
  
• May (p)
  
• Patrick (p)
  
• Pete (p)
  
• Phil (v)
  
• Ryan (p)
  
• Sam (n)
  
• Sandy (v)
  
• Sean (p)
  
• Sergio (n)
  
• Steven (p)
  
• Victoria (n)
  

OK, that's 37 PEOPLE. THIRTY SEVEN! Not too shabby...


And now... the Games people played...

• Bull in a China Shop
  
• Citadels (3x)
  
• Cityscape
  
• Elk Fest
  
• Farkel
  
• Flea Circus
  
• For Sale
  
• Give me the Brain
  
• Go
  
• Great Dalmuti
  
• Igloo Pop
  
• Incan Gold
  
• King of the Beasts (3x)
  
• Lascaux
  
• Lost Cities
  
• Mall of Horror
  
• Man Bites Dog
  
• Pit
  
• Quiddler (6x)
  
• Rage
  
• Samurai
  
• San Juan
  
• Shear Panic
  
• Spacebeans
  
• Super Showdown
  
• Transamerica
  
• Treehouse
  
• Zombie Fluxx
  

And, if you count each game session, included repeated games, that comes out to 37 games, too! Amazing. Same as the number of players. And average of one game per player. COINCIDENCE?!?! Well, yeah. Of course it is.

And here's some pictures for your viewing pleasure...

WE HAVE A NEW SCORESHEET! I like it. Well, that's not saying much, I made it...

We had some themes...




(That was supposed to say "CONSTITUTION DAY". I can't spell.)


The game Aquarius. Look at all the colors, man. The colors. Whoa.




Brian2 had a blinky reflector to represent his ever-beating heart. Aw. (the camera makes the room look much darker than it was!)


Sam tried them on his eyes. Buggy.


Citadels has become quite popular...




Dylan introduced Ashlei to Go...


Harper-Dylan DESTROYED us in Igloo Pop.


Krysta and Ashlei worked on their Rubik's Cube solving skills. And they have those skills, let me assure you. Nothing near setting world records, but they can kick that cube's butt.


One of my all-time favorite bidding games: Lascaux. Cool art, awesome bits (get a bowl, trust me), painful decisions, lots of frustration and laughter.




Mall of Horror! Why are they all holding their voting discs and smiling...??


...oh, I see. I'm pretty sure the yellow player (I'm pretty sure it was Jeff) was thrown to the zombies after this vote. Looks like he even voted for HIMSELF.


Zombies win this room.


Ah, the random terms and phrases that come out of Quiddler...


Treehouse always makes for interesting arty photos with its pretty plastic bits...






TransAmerica. CLASSIC.

Announcing the officers of 2008! [insert fanfare music here]

We appointed the new officers for this semester. And here's how it is:

PRESIDENT: Ashlei


VICE PRESIDENT: Brian


TREASURER: Krysta


BLOGGER: Sam said he would help out when he could! Fenwick will probably continue to do it, too.


We have many other members of game club. Many wanted to hold offices, but were not intrigued by the standard offices held. So some new ones were created - their abilities/responsibilities will be called upon as needed...

OVERLORD: Brian2


SECRET AGENT: Paul


VIZIER: Cengiz


TRUMPETEER: Ashley


EDIT: We have a couple I forgot!

MASCOT: Cassy (she doesn't actually play, but she is often there to cheer us on...)


HISTORIAN: Philip


MAGUS: Joe


STRATEGIST: Brad

Sept. 3. Back in a big way...

Hello!

We're back. Old faces and new. Same old energy.

Here's the attendance list with their (pirate/ninja [possibly victim] affiliation):

• Ashlei (p)
• Ashley (n)
• Becky (p)
• Brad (p)
• Brian (n)
• Brian2 (n)
• Can't-Stop [aka Alex] (n)
• Carrie (p)
• Cengiz (p)
• Chris (n)
• Fenwick (p)
• Jess (v)
• Joe M. (p)
• Joe V. (p)
• Krysta (p)
• Paul (p)

And now the overview of games...

• Citadels
• Farkel
• Quiddler
• King of the Beasts
• Knights
• San Juan
• Settler of Catan (actually Simply Catan. Same thing, really.)

---

We had a theme day! It was "Gaming Royalty". The poster looked like this...

We never are all that strict about the theme. It's just a little guideline to help us decide on some games to bring out of the vast library.


Since I am already a day behind on reporting, I'll try to make this one quick...

Knights

Ashlei and Fenwick played a game of Knights, a sort of Yahtzee with a twist. You have a set of dice to roll to try to capture castles, win tournaments, and get special powers in the game. It plays quickly, so it seemed like a good thing to bide the first few minutes as people arrived.

There are a few ways to win. One is to capture 4 different castles, which is what Ashlei managed to do for the win!

King of the Beasts

A very popular Game Club game involving politics and luck. It is a Rewiner Knizia, who is ever-popular in Game CLubs everywhere. We are all investing and voting for who will be the next King -- Fiery Salamanders, Manticores, Dragons, Gryphons, Krackens, and a remarkably beefy Unicorn are in the running, and the great art really helps to make this game one we play a lot.

Paul, Krysta, Becky, Ashlei, and Fenwick were playing. After all the intrigue, Becky managed to end up with the win!

San Juan

This has become the staple of game club. It really has every game mechanic we love most: role drafting, limited resources, building, tactic adaptation due to game randomness. It's all good.

Ashlei, Brad, Can't-Stop, and Fenwick embarked on a mission to build up San Juan. Fenwick managed to just squeeze out the victory over Brad's very close second.

Quiddler

A huge game of Quiddler ensued... Brian, Cengiz, Joe M., Brian2, Brad, Krysta, Chris, Ashley, Jess, and Joe V. got their wordsmithing muscles working.

I wouldn't be game club without a nice game of Quiddler. After this marathon session, Ashley managed the win!

Citadels

With early observations, it looks like this may be our game of the year. Constantly requested over just two game days (remember, I'm a day behind...), I think this will remain popular throughout the semester.

Ashley, Brian, Joe, Brian2, and Cengiz went at it. Cengiz was the King for 94.2% of the game, but it was not enough to stop Brian, who managed to win with a respectable score of 37!

Settlers of Catan

Worldwide, it's the third best selling game of ALL TIME. You are not a gamer if you haven't tried this one. You don't need to like it, you just need to know it. We all, for the most part, like it.

Ashlei, Brian2, Cant-Stop, and Fenwick attacked the island of Catan.

Ashlei got to the 10 victory points first! (It should be noted that she got a buttload of help from Can't Stop... and BOTH Brian2 and Fenwick were most likely one turn away from winning. It was a close one.)

Farkel

Nothing gets the blood going like a nice round of Farkel. Lots of cheering and coaxing of other players to risk their hides. It's the best thing to happen to six dice.

We were about to head out, but decided to finish off with a semi-game of Farkel (5000) points.

Ashlei, Brad, Krysta, Brian2, Carrie, Can't-Stop, and Fenwick were playing.

Ashlei wins! (Especially helpful was the fact that she had 3150 pts in her first roll...)

---

So it was a great first day. SIXTEEN players, some new, some old. It's good to be back. Stay tuned...

A new blog for a new year.

Whoa. The updated Blogger template editor is sickly powerful. I mean, I am used to slogging through HTML in notepad, no biggie. I usually like that way over a WYSIWYG editor. But the Blogger template editor is pretty slick. Easy to add stuff, and rearrange stuff, and make everything look purty.

And much easier for non-HTML peoples to understand it -- making it easier to get more help on the Blog, I hope!

Meeting #1 is tomorrow afternoon (Wed., Sept. 3) in the student center.

Be there!

Gearing up for Fall.

Hey all. We've got some nice responses with our new e-mail, which is nice. Been getting some club requests as well as suggestions from outsiders for other games. AND, it seems, one of my old middle school students has tracked me down! That's pretty wild.

Anyhoo -- keep check on things. There are some template changes coming soon, so keep an eye out for our great new look.

Notice that the meetings for the Fall semester will be on Mondays and Wednesdays, back in our old location -- lobby of the student center.

We are looking for officers, too! This shall certainly be discussed on Wednesday. ESPECIALLY (he, oh, so selfishly explaims) folks who want to help on this very blog.

Cheers!

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...)

---

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.

---

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!

---

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!

---

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!

---

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...

---

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...