'Twas brillig and the Game Club did gyre and gimble in the wabe...

August 28th, 2oo6

This was the last meeting during summer, and what a meeting it was! A total of six people were present, making for some intense games of Trans-America and Kuuduk!

Not sure what I'm talking about? Read on and you will see!

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Primordial Soup
A game all about eating and pooping. No, seriously - that's all you do. Well, there's a little more to it. You assume control over a group of amoebae, hoping to guide them through their little protozoan lives without watching them ie horrific deaths at the hands of starvation or the brutal...blob-fists of other amoebae. The catch? You don't get to decide where you move. The wind just sort of carries you around. A card flipped over in the centre of the board dictates the motion of the wind. Die rolls can change your direction...but you have to pay for that.

Pay? Amoebae have money? Not quite. They have "biology points", which take the place of money. You pay these BP in order to purchase "upgrades" (evolutions) for your amoebae, or to dictate their direction of drift! Every square you go, your amoeba must feed and excrete, but you can never eat your own excrement...and why would you want to?



Only Steven, Chris and Sean were present at the time that this game began, and so were the only ones who played. Traditionally, the game goes on longer, but with the arrival of TJ and the return of Cathy Wilms, the game ended at a minimum of 25 points. Sean was declared triumphant, as is reflected in the scores:

Sean	Chris	Steven
26	23	18

Space Beans!
If you've ever heard of Bohnanza, this game is very similar. It's all about planting beans---but in SPACE. There are also many other differences, one of which gives it a very...communist feeling. You'll see what I mean later.

The point of this game? The most points. Points are tallied based not on the value of the beans...but both on their value and on how many are in a stack. For example, in the image to the right, the yellow bean stack is worth five points, even though there are higher valued cards in the stack. Why? There are five cards in the stack. Until there are seven, those two sevens are effectively worthless.

You can only have two bean fields at one time (just like Bohnanza), except you can't get anymore. One remains face-up, on remains face-down. You must cash in your face-up field before you can do so with the face-down field.

My favourite rule of the game is what you do at the end of your turn: You pass your entire hand to the next player. There is one shared communis-...community hand that everyone plays from. If you don't take the good cards....you leave them to the next player to steal from you. I really like this concept, since it forces you to make tough decisions without the luxury of waiting until your next turn---you might not have a next turn.

First to 30 takes a three point bonus, as well as bonuses based on anything else he can cash in. Chris F. easily dominated this game, showing that his bean-farming prowess doesn't even require things like gravity, or oxygen! His 37 points crushed TJ's 24, Sean and Steven's 21, and Chris K's 16.

Trans-America
There were six people present at last: Chris K., TJ, Sean, Steven, Chris F. and Cathy. Never before had a full six-player game of Trans-America (one of Chris F's newest purchases) been played at the Game Club. It was time.

The idea behind Trans-America is...well it's pretty clearly stated in the title of the game. You assume the role of a railroad constructor, and it is your job to cross the country by way of rail. You choose a starting location, and based on five differently coloured cards you try to connect five different cities in the Union. It's like a very simple (yet very speedy) version of another train game we play called Ticket to Ride.

Every turn, you lay down two tracks that get you closer to your goals. Once your tracks are connected to another players', you may start laying track off of their rails as well. It's impossible to win without another person's help, but using them to help you will also help them...

Each player begins with 13 points, losing points each round based on cities they did not reach by the time one player had finished. Once a player has lost all of their points, the game ends, and whoever retains the most points out of them all takes the win.

The manual states very clearly, however, that if there is a tie, the players "share in the joy of victory." This is a direct quote.

The map, and the scores:

Chris F.	Steven	Cathy	Sean	TJ	Chis K.
9	8	7	5	3	0

Kuuduk was a fun game that took very little time to learn. The objective? Spell Kuuduk. How? Pick up a card. Put down a card. That's it. There were very few different kinds of cards- k's, u's, d's, Swipe Right, Swipe Left, Swipe Any, and Reverse/Draw Again. When you pick up a card, you either play it (or another card in your hand), or put it into the discard pile. You hand will never go above 3 cards in this way. The swipe cards allow you to steal any letter from your adjacent (or in the one case, any) opponents. The reverse card allows you to switch the direction of play, and basically gives you an extra turn, as it allows you to draw again.

After much swapping and swiping and swooping, Chris won his third game of the day with 15 points. Steven left the game, although he had been in no position to take victory in this game. A three-way tie at 14 between Chris K., Sean and TJ left poor Cathy in last with 11.

The smug face of the victor, proudly holding his Space Beans box for proof of further humiliation of us all.

How very evil indeed!

Shortly after this game, it was told to us that the Student Centre would be closing. Why? The dreaded Jabberwock, with eyes of flame was said to be approaching. The brave Strategic Gaming Club laughed in the face of the JubJub Bird, and giggled with glee at the Frumious Bandersnatch. No Jabberwock was going to get in the way of our fun!

Sean calmly explains strategy for fighting the Jabberwock with slings and arrows, while mere mortals flee out the door. TJ looks on in disgust, knowing that the only way to defeat the Jabberwock is with a vorpal sword.

Oodles of Doodles

In lieu of arguing over Jabberwock combat, we decided to play a game. That game was Oodles of Doodles. It's like Pictionary, but instead of one drawing, you're drawing eight. Basically, your team is told a category, and you draw the eight things on the card. If you team guesses one, they get a point. First to 30 (if memory serves) is the winner.

Team 1 was Cathy, Sean and Steve. Team 2 was the Two Chris' and TJ. The second team, basking in the glory of Chris F.'s winning streak, took the win with 35 points. Team 1 struggled behind with 26.

The game day ended...but the danger of the Jabberwock remained at hand. The ravenous beast crashed through the SCC and snarled at our gaming heroes. TJ quickly leapt into action, revealing nothing other than a vorpal blade! Snicker-snack, it went, and dead went the Jabberwock. It was quite the frabjous day, with everyone chortling "calloo, callay!"

Sean and Steve gazed on in amazement.

The Jabberwock slain and order restored to Randolph, the gamers went home for another week.

...all mimsy were the borogroves, and the momerath's outgrabe.

~ TJ

PS: Actually...that Jabberwock stuff? Never actually happened. : It was all a fabrication. Sorry.

What Games May Come?

Since I last posted here, there have been two gamedays. As you can guess, it's durn well time to catch up! These were the last two gamedays of the summer. Hopefully tomorrow (or Saturday) the most recent gameday (with pictures!) will be up. Sorry for delays, but much has happened!

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August 22nd, 2oo6

A very wide array of confusion surrounded this meeting, which very well may have lent to the fact that only four club members ended up coming. That doesn't mean we didn't have a mess of fun, though! There are plenty of games for four players, and Chris had just recently bought five new games, most of which made their club debut at this meeting. You could call this the game-test meeting, as the majority of it was spent explaining, giving feedback on and of course, playing new games.


Buccaneer

A game of piracy on the high seas! What could go wrong? Actually, nothing. This game was one of Chris' new ones, and since only three of us were present, it was the first one played. Your turn consists of exactly one thing: Moving one of your five pieces. End of turn. It's remarkably simple, and as such the game can move pretty quickly once all the players are familiar with it.

Each player receives a "hand" of five tokens. These tokens are valued 2, 3, 4, 5, and "?". Each token represents a pirate, and the number value on it is the cost of that pirate during raids (we'll cover that in a moment). The cost of the "?" token depends on the ship that is raided. So, as explained before, one turn consists of moving one of your tokens. Where do you move them? You move them on top of another token for some hot token-on-token action. Well...actually you do so to form a crew. The player on top is considered the captain of that crew, and as such can move the entire stack anywhere he wishes- either on top of other players' pirates, or onto a ship in order to raid it. There is, however, nothing to stop another player from placing his token on top of a ready-made stack, and assuming control of the ship.

Play continues as such until someone decides to raid a ship, during which time play stops. The captain of the ship receives a particular treasure (of four different kinds; there are generally one or two different kinds on each ship) and money from the vessel. However, he does have to pay his crewmen. So a stack consisting of a red 2, a blue 3, and a black 5 will earn the red player 2 gold, the blue player 3 gold and the black player 5.

The game's explanation is rather complicated due to the scoring effects, but the game itself is immensely simple. New gamers need not fear the longevity of the above description- it's easy.


The Final Scores

TJ	126
Chris	108
Sean	101

Intrigue

Old friend and gamer Erick arrived, and we switched to the classic game of screwage, Intrigue. A description was posted in the last blog, so I won't bore you with the details. In this particular game, the President and Vice President forged an Unholy Alliance in order to dominate the match. Sean could have easily trounced TJ at the end, but instead allowed him to take the win by letting his entire castle be populated by TJ's minions. In the end, this alliance brought great wealth to both of them. Chris and Erick teamed up too late, however,

The Ending Cash

TJ	$128,ooo
Sean	$120,ooo
Chris	$119,ooo
Erick	$108,ooo

Cleopatra
and the Society of Architects
Guest-starring www.wikipedia.org! :)

This game, simply put, is incredible. Words really are insufficient to describe it, but I'll give it a shot. The game mechanic is so similar and yet so unlike to so many games that it throws so many curves. And yet, at the same time, it's remarkably simple.

The goal of the game is to have the most talents of silver. A talent is the unit of measurement they're referring to. Basically...it means one unit of silver. In laymen's terms: Five talents = $5.

You gain these talents by building certain structures up towards and into Cleopatra's Temple, including two massive Obelisks and six Sphinxes. These structures are built, and you earn money based on their value, among other factors. For example, building many buildings in one turn will yeild more points. However, it becomes difficult to do so because of hand limits.

On to that hand of yours! It will contain resources of five types. Stone, Marble, Lapis Lazuli, Wood and Artisans. Yes, artisans are resources (slaves=property, I suppose). These resources, in various combinations will allow you to build certain buildings. Seems straightforward enough. Your hand is replenished in a very strange manner however. First of all, the deck is cut in half, and one half of the cards is flipped upside down. Only then is it shuffled back into the deck, leaving about half the deck visible, and half the deck invisible. Then, three cards are laid out onto the table. On your turn, you have the option to take cards or to build. If you take a card, you add a card from the draw pile to each stack; as such, the stacks will grow, and more cards will be picked up by each successive draw.

Another added element is Corruption. Certain cards that will provide with advantages throughout the game (such as extra resources, certain building advantages) will corrupt your soul! This means you take a corruption token and put it into your pyramid-shaped bank, where you will not know how many of them there are (unless you can remember, which in all honesty is not that difficult). At the end of the game, corruption is the first thing looked at. The player with the most tokens automatically loses the game, or, in the terms of the manual, is fed to Cleopatra's crocodiles. Another event adds corruption that involves five dice that are rolled every time a structure is built. One side has an Egyptian Ankh. The rest are blank. Once all five show the Ankh, a blind auction happens with the talents you have. The player who bids the most removes three corruption tokens from their bank. The player who bids the second most gains a corruption token; the third-most gains two, and the fourth, three.

Corruption is a very big part of the game, and it reflects heavily in the scores. For example, Erick's focus was accumulating wealth with wanton disregard towards corruption. As such, his final score was 57 talents, well above the rest of the players. Unfortunately, he ended up with 15 corruption tokens, causing him to be eaten by crocs. Damn shame. TJ's approach was exactly the opposite- his goal was to remain pure, hoping that a modest income would let him win. He did have the least corruption by the end with 5, but a meager 34 talents. Sean and Chris both had 38 talents, but Chris had 9 corruption while Sean had 6. Sean for the most of the game had NO CORRUPTION, and it wasn't until the very end that he began to hit himself for the extra talents. It paid off, and he was declared victor by purity.


Senator

A very simple game based on blind bidding. All players are bidding for tokens with certain specific effects. Some remove tokens, some give you the power to stop your own tokens from being removed. All count for points. One token with a fasces (a bundle of sticks and an axe; A symbol of Ancient Rome before it became Mussolini's symbol for Italian Fascism. But enough of the History lesson...) on it will make all of your collected tokens permanent, so that nothing can happen to them.

Bidding happens by cards, numbered 1, 1, 2, 2, 5, and one with a bloody dagger. The dagger is the Assassin card, which kills everyone. Normally, if you do not win a bid, you take your cards back. When the assassin is played, all players cards bid that round go out of play. Unless the assassin is played, the highest bid wins.

A special effect also goes into play at the beginning of each round, which may disallow permanence of tokens, or limit your bid to only two, or other such effects.

Play goes very quickly.

The final scores were incredibly low, as the game is played through five hands, and that's it. Chris and Sean tied with 2, and Erick and TJ tied with 1. Chris had a special token, however, the Imperial Seal, which breaks ties. Because of that, he won.

Quiddler

Because this game is so popular amongst the gameclub, I really shouldn't have to explain it. A brief synopsis, though, for the benefit of newcomers:

Each hand consists of one more card than the last. The first, four example, is three cards. The next is four, the next five, and so on up to ten, the final round. Very rarely is a game of Quiddler finished, but we managed to in this meeting. Basically, players swap cards with the draw pile a la gin in order to form words. Once one player can use all his cards, s/he goes out, and all other players get one more turn to form words. Points are added or subtracted based on the rarity of the letters used ("vex", for example, is a huge point-earner, despite only being three letters long). 10-point bonuses are given for longest or most words. Most points after ten rounds wins!

Chris trounced the rest of the group with 275 points. TJ's 226, Sean's 215 and Erick's 207 cowered in the face of such adversity.

With that, the game club departed for another week; a very short day as compared with last time.

Until next time ladies and gents, play on!

~ TJ

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.

Good summer game day.

Well, it has been raining for more than a week around here. Good weather to sit inside and play games!

Tuesday, June 27th was a game day that had us playing new games and meeting new people. We played for our usual 7 hours...

Some of the regulars were not in attendance, which was unfortunate. But we will chronicle what we've done, so they can see what they missed...

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Deflexion

Players: Mike and Chris



I was setting up for game day, and Mike got there before anyone else. So, Chris and Mike dove into the 2 player games while waiting for people to show up. Deflexion is a good one with which to start!

I don't know why I like this game. I am such an anti-fan of games like chess, checkers, or backgammon. Abstract strategy games are rarely ones I likely, and I am always bad at them. But, if you throw in a laser, somehow that makes it all OK.

Deflexion is interesting in many ways -- first of all, your pieces are somewhat scattered all over the board; both players' bits are intermingled around the board. Also, the laser is unconcerned with whomever's mirror it hits -- you can use your opponent's pieces against him (or her)! You have to be careful not to eliminate yourself from the board. The game shares a few elements of other games, but it has a real personality all its own. The fact that the game is designed with pieces that look ancient and modern at the same time is brilliant! Ancient Egyptian forms together with metallic-colored plastic, mirrors and lasers -- it looks wild.

Mike and I played 2 games. Mike won the first game nicely. In the rematch, Chris managed to pull off the win.

We were comfortable with one win each, so after those 2 games, we moved on.

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Quarto!

Players: Mike and Chris

This is a fun, simple, two player game. It's really a tic-tac-toe variant... you are trying to get 4 pieces in a row that share a common attribute. The twist: the other player chooses what piece you play. It's a tiny little change to most games, and it's enough to make the game have a personality all its own.

We played a sort of practice game so that I could show Mike how to play.

Then we played 3 actual games. Chris won twice, Mike won once.

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Quivive

Players: Mike and Chris

We knew people would be coming soon, but we decided to get in one more game before the crowds arrived. I picked up the game Quivive (not exactly sure how to pronounce that -- I make it rhyme with 'survive') over the weekend, and hadn't gotten a chance to play it yet.

It turns out to be another simple/clever game. The game board is made up of circles. Each player has a token to control (you can play with up to 5 players -- with just 2 players, each person controls 2 tokens). A move consists of moving one of your tokens, and removing a circle from the board. If you are unable to move at the beginning of your turn, you are eliminated from the game. You want to be the last one left. Very simple.

We played one game. Mike won. In fact, Mike shut Chris out -- removing BOTH of Chris' pieces without having any of his own removed!

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Gemblo

Players: Mike, Christine, Laura, Chris

By the time we had finished Quivive, an old Game Club friend, Christine, had come by. And she brought her friend Laura. Now we have 4 people!

I remembered Christine being a fan of Blokus, and since she had been there, I had picked up a copy of Gemblo, which shares a lot of rules with Blokus -- the main difference: Blokus is based on squares, Gemblo is based on hexagons. The hexagons provide a MUCH wider possibility of moves. The hexes are supposed to represent different colored gems, and it's obvious.... It is one of the most beautiful abstract strategy games I own.

Laura was out first, but she did really well for her very first game at Game Club ever... Christine and Mike battled it out for second. Chris had paved the way to make sure he had room for most of his stuff...

Final Scores:

Laura	Chritine	Mike	Chris
-21	-15	-13	-8

Chris wins!!

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Quiddler

Players: Sean, Christine, Laura, Chris

Mike had to go, but Sean was arriving at this point, so we jumped into a game of Quiddler. We've played Quiddler so much, there's likely no need to explain how it's played here. Let's go right to the scores:

Laura	Christine	Chris	Sean
184	201	219	249

Sean wins with a comfortable lead!!

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Quo Vadis

Players: Sean, Christine, Laura, Tom, Chris

Right near the end of Quiddler, Tom came by. Tom is an avid game player who heard about our game club, and decided to come check it out. We have a lot of overlap in the games we know, but there is certainly a lot we can teach each other.

One of the easiest and craziest games we play is "Quo Vadis?". I know it is one of Sean's faves, and certainly one of mine, as well. We were the only two to know how to play, but we quickly brought Christine, Laura, and Tom up to speed. The main rule: be a politician. You need help to get ahead. Make promises to others, and then decide whether or not you'll actually keep them. It's wonderfully back-stabby.

You collect 'laurels' as you go throught the game. The person with the most laurels wins. If there is a tie, the first person to make it to the end of the gameboard takes the win.

Here's the laurel count at the end of the game:

Tom	Christine	Laura	Chris	Sean
14	16	16	21	21

So here we stand with a tie between Sean and Chris. However, Chris was the first one to make it to the last room -- Chris wins with the tie breaker rule!!

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Oasis

Players: Brian, Sean, AJ, Tom, Chris

Christine and Laura had to run, but they were replaced by Brian and AJ.

Another newish purchase I had made was a game called "Oasis" by Alan Moon (the Ticket to Ride guy). It has been out for a couple years, and has lots of little wooden camels (not as many as Through the Desert, but still a bunch). You also have little followers with which you can claim an area (in a tiny little way, that's like Carcassonne). When the game ends, each area on the board has a commodity or product that is associated with it. You multiply the amount of those products you have with the size of its associated area to get a score.

The clever part of the game is that it begins with each player offering cards with areas and products to all the other players. You don't get to keep your own cards! But, if you are chosen first, you get to pick first the next round. SO, in order to get the best place in the next round, you often have to give up great things THIS round. It's an amazing game mechanic that I am surprised has been picked up in other games.

It was as fun as I'd hoped.

Here's how the scores came up:

AJ	Sean	Tom	Chris	Brian
42	81	96	110	148

Brian wins with a giant margin! Tom noted that on the scoring track, Brian actually LAPPED AJ!

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Deflexion

Players: Don and Chris

Don and I (Chris) have had an ongoing Deflexion rivalry for a while. I am in a big slump, though, losing the last 5 games in a row.

Today did not grant me any relief at all. Don won 3 more games in a row. Sheesh.

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Ys

Players: Tom, Sean, Brian, AJ (later replaced by Chris)

As Don and I were playing Deflexion, Tom pulled out Ys, one of the games he had brought to show us.

It's a bit hard to describe -- there's a lot going on on the board. It is sort of a blind bidding game, but it has market-demand elements, like in Queen's Necklace. You bid on gems, but can also bid to change the value of gems. The gems most in demand are worth the most points... but their value changes throughout the game.

Another interesting bit is that it's a SEMI-blind bidding game. You make two bids per turn, one is blind, the other is visible. So people have a little inkling of what you are doing.

There are a lot of intricate rules, as well as cards that allow you to make some interesting changes to the game play. You really have to go through the game once to get a flow of the action. Once you do, you'll see that the game is remarkably clever, without being too cumbersome.

AJ started playing, but had to split. So, about 1/2 way through the game, Chris pinch hit for him.

After the final gems were scored, this is how the score track stood:

Brian	AJ/Chris	Tom	Sean
64	73	79	84

No one was running away with the win, and we really didn't know who was going to come out ahead until the very end.

This may be a good way to review the game: the day after we played it, I bought it. It's really that good.

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And then we broke up for the day!

Summer means fewer posts

Hey there! OK, we haven't been keeping up with our posting. We actually have just been meeting weekly with less recording of data and picture taking. But we are still playing!

Actually, on June 20th we had a little twist. Instead of sitting and playing, we decided to go a little more kinetic. I (Chris) dragged in my Dance Dance Revolution mats. And we did a little of that. But I also brought in my Guitar Hero stuff! That was were the fun was. We had some new people come by, so it turned into a recruitment gimmick, to some extent!

Here's just a couple pics from guitar playing...

This is Sean and Ben rocking out to Ozzy Osbourne.



As is this.



Here's Rich and Jake.


And this is too...



Guitar Hero: Best Game EVER.

Cheers!

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.)

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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.

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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!!

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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.

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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!

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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...

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Blokus. We love Blokus.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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And here is me with Challah bread in my mouth.



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



CHEERS!