Splurge

Liz and I started out the day by getting a vanity for the guest room. This was my birthday present to her. We followed this up with lunch in Sellwood. While we wait for our food we played...

Spot it! 2-8 players

This is a great game and it's a little mind boggling that the math even works out. It's a matching game with cards, but this is not Memory. It's a deck of 55 cards and each card has 8 different symbols on it. The unique thing about the deck is that between any two cards in the deck, there is exactly one matching symbol. No more, no less, one match. I did the math once and found that they could have made a deck of 58, but they probably cut out 3 just so that when the cards get divvied out, there weren't any extra cards. There are several modes of play, but most involve finding a match and yelling it out so you can move to the next card. Now, you would think that finding one matching symbol on two cards would be easy. It is sometimes. But often you are scanning the crap out of the cards cursing the company for sending you a set of misprinted garbage only to be out done by a 5-year old yelling "Candle!" And that is the real brilliance of the game. You can go head to head with a 5-year old and you're still on even footing. There are a hefty number of themes for this game you can buy, but I just stuck with the original.

We played two games, one where we were grabbing cards and another where we were getting rid of cards. We each won a game. Both of the games were blow outs.
This is a really cute game. If you have kids, there is no reason not to have this game.

After heading home and chilling for a while, I picked up Darrin. We don't get to see him much lately since his job has him working long and odd hours. We were all excited to play. Liz left to go get fixins and Darrin grabbed...

Khet 2.0 2 players
This is the another game Liz got for me this year. She thought it looked really cool. I mean it's got frickin' lasers!

It's a little chess like. Players take turns moving or rotating their pieces, most of which have mirrors on them. After a players turn, they shoot their laser from their sphinx and see where it goes. If it hits anything that isn't a reflective surface (other than the sphinx or anubis from the front) the piece gets removed from the board. If the laser hits a pharaoh, the unhit player wins. It's stated this way because you can hit yourself and essentially kill yourself.

I intended to set up the board in Classic mode, but accidentally set it up in Dynasty mode. It didn't really make things harder, just very cramped. It was very slow going at first, but once we started taking out pieces it ended very quickly. I took out Darrin with a crack-shot if you can call shooting something with a laser "crack-shot".
This is definitely one of those games where you have to pay a lot of attention to what the opponent might do. Since it's all mirror based, their options aren't very clear unless you plan them. I still think it's cool, but it would be nice to have a game where more than 3 pieces get shot.

We then moved on to a game I wanted to play with Darrin for a while.

Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game 1-5 players
This was another present from Liz. She's so nice to me. It's a cooperative deck building game set in the Alien (the movie franchise) universe. The game comes with everything to play through the first 4 movies.

The rules are like most deck builders. Draw cards, kill and/or buy better cards. In this game, the cards that need killing come out one by one and are hidden. On your turn, you need to pay attack to scan the complex. If the aliens advance enough, they start attacking. You win by completing the 3 objectives which get completed the deeper you get into the deck of alien cards. You lose if you all die. The cool thing with this game is you can use some of your cards to help players on their turn. This keeps everyone invested and aids in the theme of the game.

I set up the game to play the first movie. I was the medic and Darrin was the gunner. We started out okay, but not great. pretty soon Darrin was hit with 2 unhealable wounds in a row. We charged on and got to the third objective. It's then that we started taking a pounding. Our decks just weren't getting the synergy we needed to advance. occasionally we'd get enough to stave off the attack, but not enough to make progress. We each got lucky and stayed alive for longer than we expected. Soon enough Darrin was ripped apart and I was left as a dessert.
I love this game. I'm excited to play it as a 3 or 4 player game. I tried to get Becky to play it a few weeks back, but she was turned off by the theme. Liz would have played but she was busy making food.

Once I cleaned that game up we had some time before the tater tot hot dish was done so we popped out...

Yahtzee 2-10 players

I hate this game. I love the mechanic: rolling dice, 3 rolls and you're done. I hate this game though. It's dumb luck if you actually get a Yahtzee, but as soon as one player gets one it might as well be game over. Sure, there might be a chance that you'll get one too, but it's the same that they'll get another. It's mindless rolling and adding. It's got no flavor, even if you dipped the dice in ketchup. Yet, Liz really enjoys the game. She loves all forms of Yahtzee. I guess I just need more then luck out of a game.

We all got the bonus points from the top scores. Both Liz and I got a Yahtzee. I was unable to get a large straight and Liz wasn't able to get a 4 of a kind. Liz won. That's done.

We took a large break to eat and cool off outside. I decided we should play a simple game.

Fauna 2-6 players
I got this one recently with an Amazon gift card. It's a animal trivia betting game.

You each start with 6 tokens. half of a card is revealed giving you the name and picture of an animal. You all, in turn, place tokens on the board to make bets on where the animal lives, its weight, its length, and its tail length. No one can ever place a token on a space that has been taken, so you have to jump at the easy ones. Once everyone is done placing their tokens (you don't have to place all of them) the answers are revealed and points are scored. You get points for correct answers and less points for bets that are adjacent to the correct answers. If you got points for a token, you get the token back. If you didn't, you lose the token. At the end of the round everyone gets one of their tokens back or enough tokens to bring them up to 3 tokens. Once a certain point barrier is passed (based on number of players) the game ends.

I had a good lead for most of the game. Soon enough I started making bad bets and stagnated for a while. This let Liz and Darrin catch up. In the final round, it was really between Darrin and me. He brought it and scored more than enough to win.
I thought this game was pretty cool. You have to make a number of judgement calls. Sometimes you're dead on and other times you're way off. I love the token retrieval mechanic. It forces you to really toil over how sure you are on an answer. I see this being played a lot more.

Fun City 2-4 players
Liz got this game as an Xmas present. I had never heard of it. It's a game from her childhood and she was glad to have it added to our repertoire. It's a roll and move game. You are all residence of Fun City making your way through the streets and trying to make it to appointments before the places close.  There are 4 "appointments" on the board at anytime. Each is worth between 2 to 4 points. If you get there before the time limit on the card expires, you get the points. If not, it's discarded and a new card comes out. Each player always has three Crazy Cards to play as well to improve your rolls or hinder the other players. After your turn, you advance the town clock. Once the clock strikes 5:10 the game is over and the most points wins.

The game didn't come with any dice so I added some spare dice that I had laying around. We don't often play with those dice though. I got Liz a set of cat dice for her to use when she wants to "cat up" a game we're playing. They are normal dice, but for the 1 face which is replaced with a cat. This means when you roll poorly (low rolls often include a cat) you can vent your frustrations by yelling, "CATS!" or "DOUBLE CATS!" I say it with complete hatred towards the cats. I feel like Liz says it with disappointment and cheeriness. For her, it sucks that she rolled low, but at least some cats showed up to lift her spirits.

For what the game is, it's pretty fun. Darrin and Liz had a lot of cards to screw the other player over, which was fun to watch. By the end, it was a tie game between me and Liz. Since the rules didn't talk about ties, we shared the victory.

We rounded the night out with one of the stupidest games in my collection.

The Price Is Right Game DVD 1-4 players
Tara got this for me as a birthday present. It's not a great game, but it's is pretty entertaining if you take more of a meta stance on it: enjoying the hilarity of DVD technology gaming.

There really isn't much to say about this game. You throw in the DVD and punch buttons. Everyone also has a small dry-erase board to write bids and tally winnings.

It came down to me and Darrin in the Showcase Showdown. He over bid so I won. I left with a treadmill, a cappuccino maker, a kitchen set, and a NEW CAR! Liz left with a talking telescope, shampoo, and a NEW CAR! Darrin left with silverware. Poor Darrin.

There is a 2nd edition of this game that I've seen. It's got Drew Carey. Bob Barker isn't in my version, but he is mentioned in the opening sequence. I'm curious if Drew actually appears in the 2nd edition or if he is also only mentioned by name or maybe just has his image slapped everywhere.

Tally: 91/164  Bonus: 23/50