A Zargon Conclusion

I finally arranged a small get together to play the final game on my list. It's not an easy game to get on the table, but has such a special place in my heart that I couldn't bear not to play it. We sat to play...

HeroQuest 2-5 players
I got this game as an Xmas present when I was in middle school. I mean, with a commercial like this what boy my age wouldn't. It was one of those presents you added to you Xmas list but never really expected to get like a full gumball machine or a home computer (yeah, I got those too). The only problem was finding people to play it with me. None of my friends ever seemed interested in it. We did have a lot of other cool things to play with. I only played it once in my childhood. My dad played the moderator Zargon, my brother was the dwarf, I was the barbarian, and my mom played both the elf and wizard so that neither of us had to worry about how and when to use the magic spells. I don't remember much about the game other than we only got about half way through the first quest before having to go to bed. It never hit the table again. I think my parents thought it was too much of a hassle or a bit too advanced.

Even though it never got played, it didn't stop me from pulling it off the shelf every few months to awe at it. I planned my own quests and created new weapon stats. When the internet came along, I found the Armory reference sheet that seemed to be missing from my copy of the game. I made even cooler and plausible looking quest sheets using Photoshop rather than graph paper. Again, still never playing any of them. These were just passing fancy, or musings that kept my creativity alive.

Once I got back into gaming, I started to pine over my copy sitting in the basement half a country away. My parents sent me my old Xmas present as a birthday present (along with some other classic and hard to find games). I was ecstatic. Everything was there as I had left it. Even the old player stats from the only game I had ever played. I printed a better and closer to the original version of the  Armory. I used Illustrator to make my own exceedingly accurate quest sheets. I even started to dabble in eBay auctions to get extra dice and piecemeal together two of the expansions.

I am now Zargon, Liz is the elf and Sarah is the barbarian. We had Spencer fill in for the dwarf and Carl fill in for the wizard. We've gone through 4 of the base quests so far. I came close to defeating them twice. I probably could have killed them in the first quest, but I played a little bit easier on them so that they wouldn't get a bad taste of the game. They learned from their mistakes in the first quest and are harder to fool now. I don't hold back. They must die.

The Quest of Melars's Maze began. They all started out very cautious. The wizard got hit by hazards three times while searching for treasure. The dwarf was just too cautious and kept finding my traps before he could spring them.  The elf nearly got himself killed by jumping into a gang of orcs, but the wizard and dwarf weren't too far away and helped clear the path. Midway through the quest is when things got intense. My gargoyle, three skeletons, and a well placed pit had the larger party scrambling to stay alive. The dwarf was a little ways off in a heated battle with a zombie. They froze my gargoyle before I could finish off the wizard and the skeletons weren't powerful enough to take the barbarian all the way down to zero. After that fight, they drank their potions and cast their healing spells. The rest of the quest was a push over for them. The mummies I had in place were difficult, but posed no real threat. They had won again. I don't think they'll be so lucky next time. Hehehehe!

I cleaned up while Carl, Sarah, and Liz finished making dinner. Spencer had to take off. After dinner Carl had to get Jack home to get ready for bed. We played a game of CV before Sarah called it a night. She won and was a little surprised at how well she won.

And with HeroQuest, my quest of playing all the games in my collection (plus 50) is now complete. That is everything I have (or at least everything I'm willing to claim as my own). Over the year I went from having 147 games to 189 games. I'd say about half of those were given to me or Liz as presents, were giveaways, or were kickstarter games I had yet to receive . Another 4 or 5 of the games were purchased through Amazon gift cards. The other half were flat out purchases. So I only consider myself paying for about 15 of the games. And over a year, that is pretty low for me. The blog definitely had an effect.
As for getting to play all my games, It was really nice. I always got a little irritated when I had a game that would sit having never been played. Now I can proudly say I've played them all.
I know I said I'd get rid of the games I didn't play, and I was willing to keep up that end had it come to it (except for Fireball Island, Crash Canyon, and HeroQuest), but I am still going to get rid of some games. The games that no one liked or had nothing interesting to offer. It also includes game I received, but never intended to keep.

• Billionaire (Liz got me the wrong game of this name for Xmas)
• A Christmas Story: The Board Game (a bad trivia game I received from Liz's old co-worker)
• Fact or Crap (horrible)
• Hospital (a monopoly variant I got from a karaoke regular)
• Megacorps (a game a co-worker pawned off on me)
• The Price is Right DVD game (funny once, but ultimately stupid)
• Sentinels of The Multiverse: Shattered Timeline (the company mailed me the wrong game)
• The Simpsons: Bart's Trivia Game (to long and out of date)
• The Simpsons: Trivia Game (not as long, but still out of date)

I'm glad I did this, but I'm also glad it's done. It was much less of a hassle than Eat Me was, but was a lot more dependent on getting willing participants. I do not see myself doing any more blogs in the near future. Thanks for following this one if you did.

Tally: 189/189  Bonus: 60/50

Fox in a Box

We all got together to play games at the Rancho. We started with a game of Oh My Goods. I I can remember I one both games, but I was happiest with my second game where I finally broke the 24 point barrier I could never seem to crack.
After that we got to a game I had gotten Becky for her birthday...

Linko! 2-5 players
This is a simple card game. The deck contains cards number 1 through 13, eight of each, and 5 wild cards. players start with 13 cards. on a player's turn they play any X-of-a-kind. They set they play is compared to every other players top set in turn. If there set played is of an equal X value and of a larger card number, then the player can steal the set or pass. The target, if passed can take the set and throw it away or put it back in their hand. If stolen or trashed, the target then grabs card to add to their hand from the display in the middle of the table (6 cards and a face down pile). If a player empties their hand or the display gets completely emptied, then the game ends. One point is earned for a card played and one point is lost for a card left in hand. Greater score wins.

We played a 3-player and 5 player game. I one the three player game . The 5-player game was pretty close and nearly can to having the display be emptied, but Liz was able to empty her hand first and won by about 5 points.

At first look this game is a bit drab, but after playing it and getting into the groove, it was pretty entertaining. I'm just glad Becky ended up liking it. She even claimed she might like it more than Diamonds, which is exactly what I was going for.

We followed that with a 6 player game of 7 Wonders and then a 4 player game of Splendor. Each of which was won by Carl. The last one depressingly so.
We took a break from game to eat the food that nearly set the house on fire.
To cap off the night we played a number of game of Mascarade. It was a laugh riot. The expansion made it even cooler. Two of the guests got pictures of the game so they'd remember to keep an eye out for it or purchase it later.

Tally: 188/189  Bonus: 60/50

GR8 BTW

I had an Amazon gift card burning a hole in my work inbox and was holding off on using it for games until I was sure I'd have time to play it. I spent it on an expansion to Mascarde and...

Oh My Goods! 2-4 players
This is a card game about making effective production lines while doing ones best to predict the fruitfulness of the market. The key to the game is that the cards have multiple purposes. They can be used as resources, buildings, or goods/money. Each player starts with a building that can produce coal worth one coin each. Every round starts by giving each player 2 more cards (they start with 5). Cards are then drawn and placed in the middle to make a public market until two cards with a half suns appear followed by players deciding which building to working in, how effective to work, and choosing what building to build if any. Next, a second market phase occurs like the first. Finally, each player, in order, uses resources in the market and in hand to produce goods if possible on the building(s) they chose to work in and, if they can afford it, build their chosen building and/or hire an assistant. This continues until a player builds an 8th building. That round is finished and one more round is played. Victory points from buildings, assistants, and coins are totaled and the most points wins.

We played 3 games in total. In the first and last game, Liz was able to crush me with very lucrative production lines. In the second game, I did about as well as my other games, but Liz had a lot of lean years.

We really liked this game, but it would be nice if it was a bit longer to get more use out of some of the harder building to get running. It's possible, with time, that we'll figure out better methods which will make better chains.

Tally: 188/189  Bonus: 59/50

Run Away!!

I didn't have karaoke today, but Liz had set our house as the location for a make-up party tonight. Luckily Sarah had shown up early enough for us to play a single game...

Munchkin 3-6 players
A game you really love or don't care for. I'm in the "not care for" camp. I got it as part of a giant Xmas present. It seemed interesting enough, so I gave it a number of tries. In the game, everyone uses cards to kill monsters and advance through 10 levels of the dungeon. Other players can make things easier or harder for you by playing other cards. When you help, you share in the treasure. When you hurt, you give yourself more time to get your character to win. The game usually boils down to the same scenario. One person is really close to winning and everyone throws in everything they have at them to make that an impossibility. The next player then has a cake walk to victory since everyone wasted all their good cards on the last player. If the game only lasted 15 minutes, I'd be fine with that, but it's a game that feels like it never ends.

I started out strong. After my first turn I was at level 3 and had a combat level of 9. After my next turn I was level 2 and had a combat level of 3. I was trailing most of the game. Sarah was the first player to have a chance at victory. Liz and I threw everything we had at her. She failed her fight and lost nearly everything she had. A round or two later, Liz had a chance to win. Sarah threw what she had at her and it ended up killing her. Both Sarah and I were one level away from a win. We each just needed a monster to defeat. Sarah couldn't find one. I found a paltry Level 2 monster and laughed at my victory. It was a laugh of absurdity and disappointment.

There is pretty much no strategy to this game. You just see what the cards throw at you. In that respect it's a longer more complicated version of Exploding Kittens which, coming from me, isn't good.

Tally: 187/188  Bonus: 59/50

And It Comes To A Trickle

Ah, the last day of Gamestorm. I dropped Liz off at work and went straight to the convention center. I looked around for a while and didn't see anything I wanted to play. I also wasn't up for sitting alone with my games waiting for someone to join. I was hungry so I jumped out for a bit to pick up a sandwich. On my way back in, I was roped into a game of...

Riftwalker: A Storm Hollow Card Game 2-4 players
This is a Kickstarter game (that as of now has met it's goal) that the designers were trying to get buzz going for. You play as riftwalkers that use the elements of the land to their will to... make stuff. I didn't pay too much attention to the theme in order to understand how to play. In the game, there are two things to pay attention to: a 3 by 3 array of element cards and a hand of three cards that use the elements. On a turn, a player flips one of the element cards over (this always reveals a new element since the cards are double sided) or replaces and element. Then they use that element to play or "shift" one of the cards they have. In doing so, they get to use that cards special power which could do many different things. Things like adjusting the array, or adding more cards to your collection, or shifting other cards you have. It should be noted that when the cards you have get shifted they start to be worth points (3 point after the first shift and 7 for a second shift). The points aren't scored yet though. After playing or shifting, the array is checked. If the array has three in a row of one element and the player has a shifted card in play of that color, then they can burst that card to put it into their scored pile. The first player to have 5 scored cards triggers the end of the game. Everyone else gets one last turn and the player with the most points wins.

I was playing with 3 other newbies to the game. The person who taught us wasn't playing but was keeping a watchful eye on us. I was doing okay, but not as good as the guy to my left. I was continually getting frustrated with the other two players who didn't seem to understand that the element they flipped needed to match the card they played or shifted. My annoyance may have been due to the fact that I hadn't actually eaten the sandwich yet. I finally figured out a good strategy near the end, but didn't get to use it. I'm pretty sure I ended in third place.

This is a cool game with lots of interesting combos, but I think it's a bit much for me. To play it well you need to be able to order your moves very precisely. At one time you might be keeping track of powers on 5 to 10 different cards. That's not even considering keeping track of your opponents cards. I don't really want to keep track of that many things.

I took a little time to eat my sandwich before gaming again. As I was getting up to look for games to play, I saw my friends from yesterday (Isle of Skye people (yeah, I suck at names)) playing a game on my wishlist. They weren't too far in so they started over and let me join in on...

Burgle Bros. 1-4 players
A.K.A Oceans 11 in a box. Well not exactly Ocean 11. There were only 3 of us, none of whom was called Ocean, and we were stealing from a 2 story office building, not a casino. You each play as specialized robbers infiltrating a building. You must find the safe on a floor, determine the combination to the safe, find the stairs to the next floor, repeat, and eventually get out from the roof. And you must do all of this while avoiding guards, alarms, and random events.

We started pretty good. We found the stairs to the 2nd floor and the roof right away. The first safe was found pretty quick too. The camera placements in the building got a bit annoying at times, but we were able to manage. I scoured the 2nd floor while the other two worked on cracking the safe on the 1st. Pretty soon we had cracked that safe and they had caused two explosion already. One to distract the guard, giving us time to evade him, and the other to give easy access to the safe on the 2nd floor. We were running low on stealth tokens near the end. We eventually cracked the second safe and, through some very strange pathing, were able to reach the roof for the win. Again, this was a win with an asterisk. We realized a bit late in the game that we had forgot to raise the guards alarm level after opening each safe. Oh well.

I think I want this game even more than before. I love it when a game lives up to my expectations. I love the theme and mechanics. I also love the 1950's cartoon/architecture magazine art style. The Kickstarter had an add-on which allowed you to actually stack the pieces in a tower. I'm not sure I'd go that far. I'd hate to store it and it may make the game a bit to intimidating for a tepid gamer.

At this point I had to make my way over to the PAW (Play And Win) giveaway. Liz had won a game and I had to proxy for her. I showed up just in time. As I entered the room, they were calling out her name. She had won Dimension, the game we played Friday. Pretty cool.
After getting my games reorganized in my bag, I found a table trying to get a game started. I sat down to learn...

Space Cadets: Dice Duel 4-8 players
This is a team based dice rolling dog fight game in space. Each team of players is controlling a ship in space in an attempt to destroy the other teams ship. Like on the Starship Enterprise, each player only controls parts of the ship: flight, shields, missiles, and guidance/jamming. Each player is rolling dice to try and get the right symbols to build or earn the necessary things. Now, players can't just roll whenever ever they want. They need to be given an order die from the captain. He can't just give it to you either. He needs to roll the proper number that matches your job to be able to give it to you. A single order die only lets a player roll one die. Once the job is completed, the order die needs to be returned so that more orders can be given. The captain starts with 6 order dice. If the other team successfully hits you with a missile, your team loses an order die. The first team to lose 4 order dice loses the game.

I was assigned guidance and jamming. I didn't think I could handle the responsibility of flight. I had to keep in constant communication with the team to know if we were going on the offensive or defensive. I also had to keep a watchful eye on the other teams guidance officer to see if she was already ready to jam my guidance or visa versa. We took the first hit, but they started to make poor firing commands and lost a lot of missiles to our front shield. We were able to hit them 3 times with them only getting us once more. We just needed one more hit. Every time we fired, their guidance officer was able to get just the right roll as the command was called. It happened 3 times in a row. She was getting really lucky and driving me insane. The few times we did get locked and fire, their shields blocked us. Eventually the tables turned back. I was able to pull off a last minute jamming myself once, but they did catch us off guard soon, evening the score. After two more attempts and some insane flying, we were able to break their shields and reign triumphant.

This is a pretty cool game. I'd never own it myself since I don't think I could ever get enough people together to play it properly, but it is easily and experience I'm glad I didn't miss. I know there are other similar games that involve team management, but are cooperative. They might be a better fit for my collection if I wanted something like this.

Things at the convention were dying down so I headed home a little earlier than I expected. I was able to pick Liz up from work and after she got settled, she decided on Bollywood Theater for dinner. I brought a game to play...

Caligula 2-5 players
This was another game I got from a co-worker who was trying to reduce his game collection. I had never heard of it, but looked up a review and saw that it wasn't complete shit. You are all secretly playing tokens with different values to take actions indicated by Civitas cards. Each Civitas card indicates the value needed to pass the action. Each Civitas card is resolved in an order determined by 6 Sequentia cards. The Civitas cards do a number of different things like gain you cards, gain you tokens, permit you to move tokens, permit you to move Sequentia or Civitas cards, etc. In between Sequentia cards players have the opportunity to mess with who is the emperor (once per round that is). This is where the gained cards come into play. This is also how the majority of points are earned. If you back the current emperor and they stay, you'll earn points each round for as long as they say in place. If you back a new candidate and can assassinate the old emperor, you get points for the assassination and points for each round they stay in that position. They game ends as soon as the Civitas cards or Emperor cards run out.

I started out with some sneaky moves which immediately made Liz hate the game. She plodded through the game anyway while becoming ever cross with me. After a lot of rules double checking, the game became much smoother. I ended up winning the game, but our memories disagree on how much I won by.

This game has a lot of good things going for it, but almost none of them are things that interest Liz. It's "too mean" as she would put it. I'm on the fence with the game. The random order of all the cards is cool, but can lead to some boring rounds if the cards come out in certain sequences. It's also really irritating to have Liz correct my pronunciation of Latin words. I'm sure the irritation is mutual.

Tally: 186/188  Bonus: 59/50

Storm of Games

The next day started with much more focus and also with us bringing games as back-ups. We sat at a table and started playing Deep Sea Adventure. After barely getting started, we were joined by 3 different people and we started over. Things began well. Most players made it back to the sub on every trek. One of the other players had a very good strategy on the last run, but I was able to foil his plan and win. He revealed to me later that it wasn't his first go-round with the game.
After that, one of the players had to leave, but the other two still had time so the guy set up and explained...

Space Colony Hex 3-7 players
This is a three team hexagonal tile laying game. Players are given one of three secret roles at the beginning of the game. Engineers are trying to make a good space station, the government is trying to make the most expensive station, and the con artist is trying to blow things up and collect expensive scraps. Players take turns placing tiles so that the hazard lights line up. If this causes a tunnel to meet with a hazard light, parts of the base will break off and be added to the players collection of tiles. If after a player's turn one of the winning scenarios is met (4 connected hallways, a base worth 15 trillion space bucks, and/or the con-artist with 9 trillion worth of tiles), the game ends. Who ever met their goals wins. This means multiple teams can win.

We played two games. Liz and the other girl had some trouble getting the hang of how to properly place tiles or at the very least how to place them effectively. At the end of the first game, the engineers and government won. Liz and I were the engineers. At the end of the second game, I believe the con artist won which was the guy who owned the game.

This game was supposedly on Kickstarter and failed and is only available from the designer by special request. The guy who brought it and his friend seemed to be very big on having absurdly niche and unknown games. It was alright, but isn't for a player who likes lighter games. The overall idea is cool: a hidden role team tile-laying game. The mechanics can just be a bit hard to grasp.

We tried to play another one of their games, but time ran out on the table's availability after them trying to half-explain it for a third time. Liz and I found a new table and played a small game with each other from the library...

Roll For It! 2-4 players
This is the full version of the solo variant I own of Roll For It! Express. Players take turns rolling their available dice and then assign them to any of three different cards to try and match the indicated dice combo. Players only get one roll a turn and dice are locked on cards until some one matches the combo and wins the card or unless the player decides to re-roll all of their dice. The first player to collect cards worth a combined value of 40 points or more is the winner.

Liz had some really good rolls and took a tremendous lead. She even snaked a few of the cards I was trying to complete away from me. I then had to change to a strategy of big points and it worked in my favor. I won by 6 points.

This is an okay game. There really isn't much to it. I'd play it if someone was dying to try it out, but other than that, I would probably suggest they play a different game. There are much better and richer small short games.

We took a break for lunch and got some burgers from the restaurant in the hotel. We got the food to go, found a table, and started to play Isle of Trains. Just as we were about to start the game, a random person got drawn into the game's small form and unique art style. I played very poorly, Liz and the other guy were doing quite well. Liz had the win.
After her win, Liz took some time off from game to check out the brewfest going on nearby. The other guy noticed I had Fleet in my collection and asked if we could play that. He owns it, but doesn't get to play it ever since his wife was soured on the game. As I was remembering setup conditions, another player joined in. I setup a game to make use of the Arctic Bounty expansion so that they could get a taste of it. It was a very close game. I lost, but not by nearly as much as I though I was going to. We were all within 6 or 7 points of each other. They really dug the expansion and I enjoyed not having to constantly explain the rules this time.
I packed up and started looking for Liz. She had perfect timing because she was already back from the brewfest. We found another table and started to prepare TSCHAK!. One player joined the game. He had a few missteps in the beginning, but caught on quick. He ended up winning by nearly double my points.
We packed up again and we ran back into the guy who we played Isle of Trains with. We saw a game of Ca$h 'n Gun$ 2nd Edition about to start and joined in on the fun. I liked the changes that were made. It streamlines the game a bit more, adds room for two more players, and makes game variants really easy to explain. We played two games (I mean we as in the group, Liz left after the first game to use up the rest of her brewfest tokens.) I nearly won the first game. In the second game, I didn't come close to winning, but it was fun since I was able to use the twin guns the whole game.
As I was leaving that game I ran into Liz and she spotted two people just starting a game I had been trying to get on the table for a while. They were more than willing to let me join in, since I had a greater grasp on the rules. They handed me a random ship and I started playing...

Xia: Legends of a Drift System 2-5 players
A Kickstarter that I backed. In fact, anyone who backed it got their name on the box so if you got a retail copy, my name is on there. Had this not been a Kickstarter, I probably would have never gotten this. I'm glad I did. It fills a spot in my game collection that needed to be filled: a space themed sandbox game. So much better than Solarquest. I'm sure I would have be gaga over this game as a kid. It's really beautiful. The spaceships are sweet and as you play, your ship only gets cooler.
Each player is the owner of a ship trying to earn fame through out the galaxy. Fame is earned a number of different ways: exploration, trade, aid, missions, titles, ship tier, etc.  It's a players choice as to what kind of ship to build and what path to victory to take. Players agree on what fame level to play to and then get to flying, selling, and blowing things up.

We were playing a short game to 5 fame points. I started my game with the intent of exploring for fame. It did me well, but then I switched tactics to a trade route strategy. With some extra cash I was able to upgrade my ship. Eventually there was an open title to gain for the first ship to get stranded in a nebula and make is safely back to a planet. The player to my left to up the challenge and got stranded, but needed a few more turns to get to a planet. On my turn, I foiled his plan by flying up to him and saving him. He had considered this as a possibility and had intended to blast me to kingdom come since I was without shields, but my engines were to good and was was able to fly away before my turn ended. I was one point away from victory and didn't know what to do next. Since I had the engines, I went back to my exploration plan. I found some credits, but no fame. I was, however, able to pick up an easy mission. Unfortunately, it required a deliver a package to a place that hadn't been discovered yet. As I was jumping into new areas of space, I found a special warp gate that, once travel through, earned me my fifth fame point and the win.

I nearly forgot how awesome this game is. You can play it so variably. You can adjust the length of the game, how you play, or what modules to include. The only downfall is that it requires other players understand most or all of the rules. to enjoy the game. That might be a tough call for Liz and Sarah. I know they could eventually get it, but I don't know if they'd want to try.

Liz still wasn't up to play any games yet, but she was willing to watch. I saw the fellows that I played Mascarade with the day before about to start playing Mysterium and joined in, along with two other new players. We all did pretty well in the first phase of the game. In the final round of the final vote, two of use voted for option 3 and three of us voted for option 5. The correct option ended up being option 1 so we all lost.
Liz was up for playing one more not-so-heavy game before we headed home. Our friends from the day before (they played Terra and Dimension with us) saw me looking to play and invited us to join them for a game of...

Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King 2-5 players
This is a tile laying bidding game. Over 6 rounds, players earn income on tiles placed and score ranking, get tiles, secretly price those tiles, buy tiles from other players, place the tiles gained in their town, then score their town based on one or more feature dictated by the current round. After the final round, any bonuses are scored and the player with the most points wins.

I had a very poor strategy of trying to get a lot of points in the beginning. It worked, but because different things are scored in different rounds, I failed to make big scores in the end game. I ended up in third place. Liz was surprised to find that she won (with an asterisks of course). Nearly all of us kept accidentally breaking the tile placement rules.

I liked this one. It was a lot easier to learn than I thought it would be. The most interesting aspect is the pricing. As the rounds go by, players tend to have more money, so you have to adjust your prices for what you how much you think inflation has changed since the previous turn. Liz really enjoyed the game. She not sure if it's because she won or not, but I'm pretty sure she'd like to own it.

We headed home after this but not before filling our bellies from the nearest Taco Bell.

Tally: 184/187  Bonus: 57/50

It Keeps Rainin' All The Time

Raining games, that is. Liz had off work so she was able to join in this time. After we took a large detour for breakfast we jumped in. We got wrangled into a game right away.

Skull King 2-6 players
This is a trick taking card game with a pirate theme. It consist of a deck of cards with 4 colored suits (black is the trump suit), 5 escape cards, and 5 pirate cards. It plays over ten rounds and each round deals each player cards equal to the round number. Players look at their cards and bid on how many tricks they think they'll win in the round. It plays like a standard trick taking game with the card in suit winning the trick unless it's in the trump suit or unless it's a pirate. The escape cards count as no suit and no value, so they are played when you are trying not to win a trick. If you meet your quota of tricks bid exactly, you earn points based on the tricks won (and based on any of three bonus cards won) or based on the round number if you said you'd get no trick. If you fail to met your quota, you lose points based on how much you missed it by or based on the round number if you said you'd win none. Best score after ten rounds wins.

We had a 5 player game going and the designer watched over us halfway through the game to make sure we didn't miss some of the bonuses and less obvious rules. I was doing okay at the start, but in the later rounds it gets really hard to judge what trick you can win. My score fluctuated a lot. In the end, neither Liz nor I won, but Liz ended with a better score than me.

We both really liked this one. It's a nail bitter most of the game. I don't see it playing as well with a smaller player count, but I can't see getting people to play this as a problem. It plays fast and isn't hard to learn.

We joined up with one of the other players and grabbed one from the library...

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival 2-4 players
This is a newer game of making pretty lantern displays on a lake (or river). It's a tile laying set collection game. Players take turns placing tiles and earning colored cards based on any matches they make with other tiles. Also, all players earn a card based on what color from the newly placed tile is facing them. If you have enough of the right colored cards you can trade them in before placing a tile to get a scoring token. The tokens can be traded for 4-of-a-kinds, 3 pairs, or one of each of the 7 color. The sooner you get a token, the more it tends to be worth. There are also special card swapping tokens that can be gained by matching tiles with specially labeled tiles. After all the tiles get played, all the players have one last round to trade in cards. Most points wins with the trading tokens as a tie breaker.

We had another random player join for the full 4-player game. I made a lot of good plays to get cards, but usually not the best cards for my situation. I earned most of the 3 pairs tokens. Near the end we noticed that there was a tile missing, but altered the end for the player who missed their additional turn. The tally was close. Liz and I tied each other, but the other two had a little more than each of us.

This was a much more relaxing game than the previous one. It's nice to earn cards on other players turns. It give you hope that even if things aren't going too well, that things could turn around in a tile or two. There is still a chance to play a bit cutthroat too. Since cards are limited, players can hog cards or they can play their tiles in a way that the color that is pointing to you is an empty pile. So it's a little breezy, but also a bit thinky, and, as I said above, pretty.

Liz took a small break and I joined up with the other two Skull King compatriots to play...

Terra 2-6 players
This is the follow up to Fauna. Instead of placing bets on animals facts, bets are made on facts about other mostly non-living things on Earth. Things like where is the world's fastest roller coaster, how fast is it, and when was it build? Or where can you find the blue agave plant, how tall does it get, and when was it named? Most of the rules are the same, but for a few. Play only last for 6 rounds instead up until a certain number of points and there is only ever one location (or at least as far as I saw) so there is not a variable number of points to earn for bets on the map.

I didn't start scoring until the third round. I wasn't looking good for me. I had a comeback in the last two rounds. I was able to take second and was just 3 points away from first.

I liked the game well enough, but I wan't a fan of the precise facts. I like having a range of values and I also like the variable number of rounds. It allows players in the back to have hope of winning the game. In Terra, if you get a number of questions that you don't have any starting point to work from, you're kind of screwed. It was nice to play, but I don't see myself buying this one ever.

Liz joined in for the next game we picked out...

Dimension 2-4 players
This is an abstract logic and spacial relation game. Everyone has their own set of 15 colored marbles (3 each in different colors). Each player also has a board with seven divots in it to make stacks of marbles. It is played over 6 rounds and at the start of every round, 6 rule cards card flipped over. The rules dictated how things can get stacked. Thinks like, there must be exactly 3 orange marbles, or every white marble needs to touch a black marble and visa-versa, or no marble can be placed on top of a green marble. All players then race to make a stack within one minute. At the end of the time, all players earn a point token for the marbles used (max marbles is 11). Players lose 2 points for each rule that they didn't abide by. If all rules were followed and one of each color was used, then they score a bonus token. After 6 rounds, the points are score and the bonus tokens add or subtract from that depending on how many you got. Most points wins.

I did good, but made a few errors in the first couple of stacks. There was one round where the rules made it impossible to follow all the rules, making it a battle to try and match the most rules. I ended two points shy of the win.

Both of us got a kick out of this game. It's easily nothing like we have in our collection. I'm not sure I'd add it to a wishlist, but I could see getting it in BOGO type deal. It'll easily make my list of suggestion for mathy or abstract games.

Liz and I were starving, so we took a food break and order pizza in a nearby brew pub. We had time to kill until the pizza made it there, so I ran across the street and bought a game to play...

Pick-a-Dog 1-5 players
I nearly got this for Becky for her birthday, but didn't see it anywhere. It's cute game of matching dogs with mostly similar features. Each player is given a face down card and an array of 30 face up cards is placed in the center. On "Go", all players flip over their starting card and attempt to grab mostly matching cards in a mad dash. You see, all the cards have  a cartoon dog on them with varying characteristics. The dog is brown or pink, big or small, glassesless or glassesed, popcorned or popcornless, and paw up or down. When a card is grabbed and added to the top of your pile, it must match your current dog exactly or be off by only one characteristic. If a player has no "matches" to make, then they can call "STOP". This ends the round. The stop is verified and so is everyone's stack. Any errors cause the player to lose the cards they got that round. After all the cards run out, the last round is played and the player with the most cards accumulated wins.

I started out good. I called "stop" incorrectly once and Liz started to gain on me. She made an error in the next round evening out the score a bit. The next few rounds were high scoring for both of us. I won the game by about 5 or 6 cards.

This is a pretty cute game. We tend to make a story line as we check the stacks. "He got a tan then dropped his popcorn." I think kids would like it. It also has another game that can combine with it: Pick-a-Pig. I might pick it up if I want to add more players to the game.

Once back in the hall, we picked up a game from the library and found a table...

Qin 2-4 players
I nearly purchased this game a few years ago during a half-off sale. I think I ended up getting diamonds instead. This is an area control tile laying game. Players take turns placing domino shaped tiles on a board. The tiles all have 2 of any three colors (red, blue, and yellow). Double colors like double red also exist. A player may place a tile adjacent to any colored region on the board that doesn't overlap with a feature. If an unclaimed territory of size 2 or greater is made, that player claims it with their color pagoda. If it merges two same color territories, the larger of the two territories takes ownership. Any claimed territory of 5 squares or greater gets two pagodas on it. There are also a number of villages marked on the board. If a player has a terry adjacent to one of them, they can place a pagoda on that. If another player can get their territories adjacent to it in such a way that they have more pagodas adjacent, they can seize control. The first player to get all of their pagodas on the board wins. If the board fills before that happens, the most pagodas on the board wins.

We left an open invitation to other players for this one while we read the rules, but no one took us up on it. I took a very fast strategy of getting as many of my pagodas on as possible. Liz took a strategy of trying to engulf everything. She took a few of my territories away, but I was able to spread quickly and won.

This is an okay game. I'd gladly play again if someone asked, but I'd still be on the fence if it was half price. It does have a double sided board which is nice, but I think I'd rather play one of the game I already own.

Liz was boardgamed out for a while so when we found another open game to join in on, she just watched and drank her beer. They were playing Mascarade. I have this game already, but was excited to play with people who might be paying attention to other players. We were able to get 4 games it. I lost the first two but won the last two. I'd like to say it was my cunning that won the games, but I got pretty lucky on the last claim of each game. I was always very tense while flipping over my card to prove my character.
It was getting late and we had time for one or two more small games. We found and open table with a couple who had some games that peeked Liz's interest.  We started with...

Buccaneer Bones 1-4 players
This is a dice rolling game with some mechanics that are a bit similar to Viva Java: The Coffee Game: The Dice Game. You all have six ship tokens that can go plunder treasure. Every one starts their turn by rolling 6 dice and they have 3 re-rolls and can alter two dice by one pip. Any pair can move a ship out of harbor one space, Any three-of-a-kind moves it out the full two. From there, it needs another three of a kind to bring it back with treasure. Ships do not move until the player is done manipulating their dice. If nothing is accomplished after the rolls, the player has a token they can place to add missing abilities or steal someone else's treasure on their next turn. At the start of the player's next turn, they may have lost some of there abilities. If a ship isn't in harbor in the 1 or 6 space they lose a die, in the 2 or 5 space they lose a pip manipulation, and the 3 or 4 space they lose a re-roll. This means you don't want too many ships out at one time. The player that makes it to three treasures after an equal number of turn wins with ties broken by most ships out.

None of us did that bad. I nearly had a chance to tie for the win, but just couldn't roll any more 3's. Neither Liz nor I won.

It does play pretty fast and was kind of interesting, but I know I like Viva Java: TCG: TDG better. It's got a bit more meat and is a bit less fiddly.

We were about to head for home when they handed us a game in a zip-lock bag. He was apparently a game designer and he had given us a free print-and-play version of his game. We decided to stay and play a round of...

Stranded: A Quick Card Game 2-5 players
We played this as a team game, but this can also be played every man for himself. You are all survivors from a plane crash. You are scavenging the area for tool and material to help you survive. The game starts with a face down draw pile, an empty discard pile, and players with a small hand of cards (the amount determined by number of players). On a player's turn they draw a card, then either play a card, build a card, discard a card, or, in the case of a team game, pass a card to their partner. Partners can feel free to look at each others hand and discuss strategies. The cards mostly have resources and tools like wood, tarp, or matches. Some have ways to get more cards or steal cards from other players. Some of them have things to build like a tents or a med pack. The things to build indicate was resources must be played to build it. They also indicate how many points it is worth. The first player to five points or, in a team game, the first team to a combined total of seven points wins. If the deck runs out, then the player/team with the most points wins.

Liz and I were teamed up and were doing okay. The other camp of survivors kept invading and steal our stuff which got frustrating, but we persevered. We eventually built a bow and arrow and laid siege on their village. They recovered and built a tent. We showed them up by building a cabin and won the game.

This was a pretty cool game. I'm not sure I'd ever notice it in a store, but if a store attendant played a game with me I'd consider it for the right price. They also included a survival bracelet in our baggy. It was very nice. Now I need to get some color-backed card sleeves and make a box to put this in.

This was the end our day since I still had to work karaoke, but tomorrow is all ours.

Tally: 183/187  Bonus: 54/50

Gamestorm

For my birthday, Liz got me and her registered for Gamestorm, a gaming convention in Vancouver, WA. I took off from work today and tomorrow, but she still had to work today. After I dropped her off, I headed out to get there at noon when it opened. I've never been much for socializing on my own, so it took a few hours before I got a game in. The first one I got around to playing was...

Condottiere 2-6 players
I had heard good things about this one recently from Shut Up & Sit Down so I wanted to check it out. It's and area majority card game. Players start with 10 random cards and bid to control regions of old Italy. Most of the cards are numbered 1-10, but a few have special powers when played, like making all numbered cards worth 1, doubling the value of your cards, or returning a card you played to your hand, etc. Once all players have passed (or someone played a bishop or surrender card) the player with the highest total wins the region and the right to choose the next region to contend for. No one gets a new hand until only one player is left with cards, so if you run out of cards first, you may be out for a few rounds. The first player to win 3 adjacent territories wins (or else the player who controls the most if the map is filled with no winner).

We had a four player game going. I started with a horrible hand. My highest card was a 6. I did have a lot of cards to work with since two players went through half of their hands on the first territory, but it still wasn't enough to earn a territory before we got new hands. I actually had a worse hand the next time, but I did get on region. By the third hand I was doomed. I still had yet to get anything over a 6 and I pretty much had no chance of getting 3 adjacent regions. Red won, I lost.

I like the idea of this game, but I was kind of screwed the whole game. If you get three hands with out a card over 6 and everyone else has a hand with two or three 10s, all you can do it resign to defeat. I'm a little more hesitant to buy this game, but I'm willing to give it another shot.

I went for lunch and moved my car, but came back for another game...

Favor of the Pharaoh 2-4 players
I had seen a play of this game recently and wanted to try it out. It's a dice game with a mostly Yahtzee mechanic. All players start with 3 dice to roll. On a player's turn they have no roll limits, but must lock at least one die per roll. If you can get certain sets (pair, three of a kind, all evens, etc.) you can earn powers that can give additional dice to roll in future turns or special abilities to alter dice, like flipping dice, or adding pips to dice, etc. The more dice you have, the better powers you can earn. Once a player earns the "Queen" power, which is earned by getting a 7 of a kind or better, the end of the game is triggered. Each player then has one chance to try and beat the "of a kind" that the Queen has. The Queen also has only last chance to beat any player who beats that. After that, the biggest of a kind wins.

I joined into to this one to make a 3 player game. I went with a strategy to get as many dice a possible. That strategy combined with good rolls moved me swiftly up the latter. I was able to get the Queen with a 7 of a kind in sixes. The player to my left didn't even have 7 to try and beat it, and the other player only had 7 dice which wasn't enough to do better since dice don't go higher than six. I won.

I liked it, but it it went by pretty fast. As a lot of people indicated, it's a twist on the game To Court the King. The other player owned that game and said they liked this game, but couldn't see spending the money to get this one. I prodded them to see which one a player who owned neither should get, but they seemed pretty on the fence and didn't give me an answer.

By this time, I needed to get home to get ready for karaoke. I still have the next three days to enjoy too.

Tally: 181/185  Bonus: 48/50