Simple goodness

I found a copy of Yummy in the back of a HomeGoods store a few years ago (yes! HomeGoods! I look for games EVERYWHERE. Never know what you might find...). It's a VERY simple game. It has little strategy, but enough that it isn't boring. At least that's what I think.

There is a large deck of numbered cards. 3 is the lowest, 7 is the highest. The entire deck is dealt out to the players, providing each player with his/her own draw pile. You begin each turn with a hand of three cards. You must play at least one, but can play up to all three is you wish.

The cards are played to a common area in the center of the table. There is space to play the 3's, a place for the 4's, etc. Whoever plays the third 3 to the table takes all three. Whoever plays the 4th four takes all four.... etc.

SO, as you play, you are trying to not make it too easy for the next player to finish a set, while holding cards that can allow you to pounce on a set when it gets to you. With only 3 cards in your hand at a time, planning ahead can be difficult.

When one person's cards are all used up, the game ends.

Your score is simple the number of cards you've claimed.

You don't want to play cards too quickly, since you will likely make it easier for opponents to finish sets. But you can't play too slowly, because someone else will finish the game before you've managed to claim very much.

Cathy, Jake, Chris, Danielle, and Erick played a 5-player version of Yummy.

Here are our scores:

Cathy	Jake	Chris	Danielle	Erick
16	7	20	21	17

Danielle wins!

I like this game for its simplicity, but I didn't feel a lot of enthusiasm from the rest of the crowd. I'm glad I own it (it seems hard to find!), but it probably won't come out in the Strategic Gaming Club very often.

Turn your brain inside out

Jake bought a copy of Fire and Ice. I had heard of it, and had seen it on display at The Old Game Store in Vermont a couple years ago. I knew it looked nifty, but had never played it. Jake bought it on a whim, and after just reading the directions, he knew it would be a hit.

And he was right.

On Monday, February 13, he and I both got to the game table early. After grabbing a bite to eat, Chris and Jake played a game of Fire and Ice. It's just a two-player game (well, there is a solitaire variant on the game, which is very clever). Here's what I wrote in my review of the game for funagain.com:

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Fire and Ice is like Tic-Tac-Toe on crack. Instead of the traditional tic-tac-toe board, Fire and Ice is based on a Fano Plane. In tic-tac-toe, the middle square is more valuable than the rest, in a Fano Plane, no space is more valuable than any other. There are 7 ways to make 3 in-a-row, and no possible way to tie.

The entire board is a set of Fano Planes, each one of them being on a vertex of a larger Fano Plane.

(Does your brain hurt yet?)

In order to control one of the mini-boards, you simply need three-in-a-row (or 3-in-a-circle). In order to win the game, you need to control 3 of the mini-boards in a row (or in a circle). This all makes more sense when you have the board in front of you.

The BIG twist is that you never put your own pieces on the board. On your turn, you move one of your pieces (either to any place on the same island, or to a corresponding place on another island). The place that was vacated gets filled by one of your opponent's pieces.

We've been playing at a lot lately -- it has a great "OK, just one more game!" factor. The game plays fast, and it's tough to see who will win until close to the end.

This game has the simplest of rules, with the deepest of strategy. You'll find something strategically new every time you play.

The board is solid, with felt-lined bins which hold the elegant wooden playing pieces. It is a game that is suitable for display -- some people leave a chessboard out as decoration; Fire and Ice would make a gorgeous addition to any decor.

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Did actually finish my game review with "...gorgeous addition to any decor."??!

Yipes.

Anyway, we got in a game before people started arriving. Jake was Fire, and Chris played as Ice.

Chris managed to eke out the win this time.

(We have played the game numerous times at random intervals since this time. We have both had intermittent success. It is NOT getting old by any stretch of the imagination. It is a WONDERFUL game.)

Space Party!

After Blokus, Eugene had to go. Jake and Matt drifted by to fill in the gap. Rachel still had the Gnumies on her mind from the last time she came by, and it's a game I like a lot. So, we brought Christine, Jake and Matt up to speed quickly, and dove right in.

The Gnumies has a little bit of a learning curve. Most of the game is straightforward, but there is a couple of quirky twists that add some nice complexity. You have to get through the game a time or two before you get the idea. It really is quite simple to play, but deciding what cards to play when can really bunch up your brain.

The most charming aspect of the game is the artwork. You will smile.

The most basic part of the game is collecting cards. Each time you get a card that is the same as one you already have, your score increases dramatically. SO, as the game proceeds, you are trying desperately to get more cards that match what you have, and your opponents are trying to prevent that. Balancing offense and defense is key.

Rachel, Chris, Christine, Jake, and Matt played a 5-player game of The Gnumies.

The game ended up this way:

Rachel	Chris	Christine	Jake	Matt
86	101	74	83	80

Chris wins!

The 1st Game Meeting of Feb. Starts with a Classic

I (Chris) got to the game table right before 1:00 pm on Monday, February 6th, and loaded it up with about 24 games. I perched behind the stack of games, and waited to snatch up anyone that I recognized that drifted by.

Once I pushed Blokus into the middle of the table, a bunch of regulars drifted out of the woodwork...

Christine, Rachel, Eugene, and Chris played a couple 4-player games of Blokus.

Christine	Rachel	Eugene	Chris
-14	-16	-9	-8
-5	-39	-12	-5
Grand totals
-19	-55	-21	-13

Chris won the first game, and he and Christine tied for the second. That was enough to keep Chris in the lead overall! Except for Rachel's unusually flukey bad second game, it was all quality Blokus.

True, deep strategy

Another new game! Cabale is one I stumbled over, and was immediately attracted to the muted-colored wooden pieces and hexagonal shaped board. As a game collector, I was also pleased to find a game I had never seen before.

Each player has a large colored piece, a bunch of small colored pieces, and some small black barrier pieces.

Each player's turn consists of moving the big piece along a straight line as many places as desired, and then making a turn, and moving again as many places as desired. The originally vacated place gets filled with a big black piece, and the place where the turn happened gets filled with a small piece. The final score for each player is the sum total of points under that player's small pieces.

But wait! There's more! After the move, a player can jump over other players' pieces, checkers-style, and remove them from the board. Also, one of the little barricades can be placed, making an impervious wall (can't be jumped, can't be moved through).

You need to think far ahead during each move... Every time you take a turn, you are setting yourself up for your next one, and you have to be very conscious of that. Careful use of the walls and jumping can provide an advantage; careless jumping and placement can backfire.

Tommy, Jake and Chris played a 3-player version of Cabale.

Chris managed to block himself into a corner rather quickly. Tommy and Jake were all too happy to make sure he remained in his little corner, nicely trapped.

Chris sat back and watched Tommy back himself into a corner not too far away.

Jake had the run of the board, and did a few more moves, but it turned out to not be enough.

Score:

Tommy	Jake	Chris
72	68	54

Tommy wins!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

Yeeps. We had been really good about keeping up with the gameplay blogging. But, we've been playing so much that there's no time to blog! AND, the more we play the more we build up our gameplay sessions, putting us further and further behind!

It's a snowball effect.

I am about to try to take some time to catch us up a bit. Some of these game session reports are a couple weeks old...

Beautiful and Tricky

Jake, Tommy, and Chris played a couple games of the 3-player version of Ido.

Ido is a clever game, with elements of many others, but with an incredible twist -- the game board CHANGES, as players see fit.

Pieces can only step on places that are the same size as the piece they are moving -- as the grid changes, the pieces switch between being movable, and immovable.

As I've browsed around, I've read many bad reviews of this game, some of them suggesting that the rules are incomplete and difficult. This is just WRONG. On each turn, the current player has a choice of 3 moves -- (1) introduce a new piece onto a legal space, (2) shift the grid to change the board, or (3) move your current pieces a number equal to the number of pieces on the board.

Once you've played the game through a time or two, you get some of the flow. It is a wonderful abstract strategy game -- everyone starts with the same pieces, and the shifting of the board adds a strategy unlike any other game I've ever played.

It's a great game -- if you don't get that, you haven't tried hard enough. And honestly, you don't have to try that hard -- there's a lot of common sense in regards to the rules.

The first time I played (Me, Jay, and Don), we had a couple questions. As we were searching for a possible answer in the rules, we came up with a logical conclusion, and the rules always ended up supporting that result.

Let's see how the games went:

Game 1: Jake got a piece off the board first. Tommy quickly followed, with Chris right after. Tommy got his next piece off. Then Jake did.

Tommy got his third piece off -- Tommy wins!! Chris only had one piece off, Jake had 2.

Game 2: Chris got his first piece off first. Jake got a piece off quick after that, and Tommy Next. Chris got his next 2 pieces off before anyone else got one off. Chris wins! Jake and Tommy each only had one piece off.