Back On

I has been a while since I've posted. I'm still playing games, but most of them have been games I've already blogged about or video games (Mario Kart Wii, Mario Party 9, and Rayman Legends). Liz  and I had some errands to run today and one of them was stopping by Cloud Cap to spend a $25 card bonus that had been burning a hole in my pocket.  We got two games. We played one of them at the nearby Jade while we at lunch.

Flip City 1-4 players
This is a push your luck deck building game from the same guy who made Machi Koro. I thought it looked cute and I'm always glad to have another small game to bring to a bar or restaurant.

Each player starts with the same 10 cards and there are 4 or 5 cards available to buy in the center. Every card has two sides, each which do different things. In this game, you don't flip over cards unless you pay to do so. On a players turn, they draw one card at a time from their deck. They can always see what the next card is and can stop drawing when ever they wish. The catch is that some of the cards have frowny faces on them and if you ever draw a total of 3, you immediately end your turn. You might think this is easy to avoid since one can always see the top card, but a number of the cards required you to play them if they are on the top of the deck. This is the push your luck aspect.  At the end of your turn, if you didn't bust, you either buy a card and add it to the discard pile, pay to flip a card in your discard, or develop a card (buying and then upgrading the card from the center). Each building card has it's own special effects. Some have coins to spend, some have victory points, others bend the rules. You win if you ever play 8 victory points or play 18 cards with a convenience store.

Liz and I each took different strategies. I was able to get rid of most of my bad cards and, in fact, threw them into Liz's deck. I was able to win with 8 victory points.
I really liked this game. I'm interested to see how it plays with more players and other strategies. It also includes another stack of cards you can add to be bought. It's a pretty tight game with a weird mechanic that leads to tough choices. I'm very curious if they plan on making expansions for it.

Later on we headed to the rancho to play with Becky and the rents. We started with...

Kolejka 2-5 players
This game is pretty weird. I mean, it's a good game and very interesting, but it's the fact that of all the things that this could have been, it was a game. That is because of who created the game. Milton Bradley? Asmodee? Z-man? Nope, the National Institute of Remembrance in Poland. In order to educate people about waiting in queues (kolejka is polish for queue) for basic household products during the Communist Era, the Institute made a board game about it. It's a pretty cool game too. It comes in Polish, but the box includes sticker for about 6 different languages, so it takes about 2 hours to get ready if you don't all speak Polish. It also includes a booklet for additional historical background.

In the game, you are all trying to get the supplies you need to provide for your family. You place your meeples in different queues of your choice for things like furniture, toiletries, and clothes. Once everyone has been placed, then the backstabbing begins. Each player has an opportunity to play at most 3 cards that will mess up people's plans. They might jump in line, force a dispensary to close, or reverse the order of a queue. That's pretty much the whole game mechanically except for the fact that everything is limited. Only certain stores during the day will have anything to get, and if so, not much. Each player only has 10 queuing cards a week (5 day week), meaning if you play 3 cards a day you'll be left with one card on Thursday. You could have no cards to play on Friday if you don't use them wisely. Near the end of the game, the trucks stop delivering when they run out of supply (cards), and they always run out. It's bleak, stressful, and a little mean, but it's exactly what it should be. At no time during the game do you forget the theme, so bravo National Institute of Remembrance.

We played a 4 player game including me, Carol, Becky and Liz. Becky was behind most of the game, but the rest of us were fighting for just one item at the end. I very nearly had it, but Liz was just a little wilier than me and grabbed the furniture out from under me.

At this point, Carol dropped out to watch some TV and Sarah showed up. We started with...

Jungle Speed 2-8 players

Spoons on crack really. You all start with a pile of cards. You all go around flipping cards into your own discard pile until two of you have matching symbols. The two people with a match must grab for the totem in the middle of the table. The loser has to take all of the flipped cards from their opponents pile and their own, putting it at the bottom of their hand. But be careful. Most of the symbols look very similar and if you mistakenly grab the totem, then you get everyone's discard pile. There are a few special cards that make everyone flip simultaneously, or grab for the totem at once, or change the rules to be matching colors. Once a person empties their hand and gets rid of their discard pile they win. If you want to take the steaks higher and increase the possibility for injury, you can place the totem in another room of the house.

It was a pretty even game for a while, but then Becky got stuck in an interesting situation. she played her last card and it was the "matching colors" card. She couldn't match her card with anyone, her only hope for winning was to see an "everyone grab" card or have someone make an error. After a good number of rounds, I was the fool to mistakenly grab the totem.
This a great funny party game, but make sure to play with people who have clipped their nails.

We had just enough time for one more game. We played...

Survive: Escape from Atlantis 2-4 players
This is the other game we got at Cloud Cap. Liz had heard about it and was excited. I'm always eager to grab a game if Liz wants to play it, unless it has cats.

In this game, everyone starts with ten colored meeples on the sinking island of Atlantis. The goal is to get as many of your meeples off the island and to the safe neighboring lands on the corners of the board. Each meeple has a value, meaning you care about some meeple more than others. Unfortunately, once the meeples have been added to the board, the value (which is is etched in the bottom) can't be looked at until the end of the game. To make this even harder, you have to avoid sea monsters, sharks, whales, and whirlpools. On a turn, you play a tile (if you have one), them make 3 movements, then remove a land tile (and play it if the flip side as the proper color), then roll the red danger die to move a random creature. The game ends when either there are no more meeples left for everyone to move, or (more likely) the volcano tile is revealed.

We all had a blast playing this. The whale had a lot of action and wrecked many a boat. I was able to get all my big point meeples to safety and came out with the win.
This game has been around for more than 30 years and still holds up. As soon as the big expansion box comes out in a month, I'll have it ordered and added to the box.

Tally: 103/169  Bonus: 26/50