Dusting Off the Oldies

Liz had the day off today so we were able to chill together for a while. He heard that Sarah was at the parents house, so we got our junk together and headed over. The ladies got to chatting and looking through old photos while I took a nap on the couch. I was soon woken up and we got to playing some games. We started with one of the parents games.

Sequence 2-12 players
This doesn't come out too often, but it's pretty good. If they didn't own it, I'd probably have gotten it already.

The game comes with 2 standard decks of playing cards, colored chips, and board with an array of playing cards printed on it. The board has every card on it twice, but no Jacks. Each player is dealt 6 cards. On a turn, a player plays one of their cards and adds a chip of their color to one of the matching locations on the board. If they remember, they draw a replacement card. If they don't remember, then they are down one card. The goal is to get two lines of 5 chips. One-eyed Jacks can remove an a opponents chip and two-eyed Jacks are wild. If you play as teams, then there can be no communication between players about strategy. If there is, then it's a one card penalty for all players on that team.

We played as teams. I was on Sarah's team and Thom and Liz were on the other team. Our first game went well. Thom made a few errors which allowed us to sneak in a win. On the second game, they were playing better and it was close, but Thom cheated, by showing Liz one of his cards. I enforced the rule to Liz's dismay. I kept up the defenses while Sarah gave us the second win. Wooot!

We then broke out another one of the parent's games, but this one hadn't even been opened.

Skip-Bo  2-6 players
I don't even know if I want to bother with the rules. Here's the short of it. Everyone is trying to get rid of their stack of 20 or 30 cards (number dependent on amount of players). On a turn, a player draws up to 5 cards in their hand from the draw pile and plays cards in the center piles that count up going from 1 to 12. Skip-Bo cards are wild. You can play cards from your hand or from the top of the stack or any of the four discard piles that you will eventually have in from of you. Once you have no more plays, you add a card to a discard pile and pass the turn. The first person to get rid of their stack wins.

It was the same players as last time. It was slow going. There is nothing interesting to say about the gameplay so I'll just say Sarah won.

I hate this game. It has, in fact, defined a new low for me. Of all the games I have played, this is now the worst. I would sooner play Golf, which I dread. It's a very long game and the time between turns its boringly huge. If the deck of cards doesn't go your way (which for me it did a number of times) you might have a turn where you play nothing and you wait for 3 other players to drill through their cards. I'm okay with games where the luck of the cards can hurt you. I'm okay with long games. I'm even okay with low strategy games, but mixing all three is a travesty. Just reminiscing over this game gives me a bad taste in my mouth.

Becky showed up in the middle of the game and we took a break to eat, but we soon craved the feel of game. I wedged in...

Tsuro 2-8 players
I picked this one up along with an expansion to Ticket to Ride when I heard that my previously nearest game shop had a run in with an idiot driver. Seemed like a great excuse to give my financial assistance. It's an easy enough game to learn and play. Everyone starts anywhere on the edge of the board and has 3 tiles with winding paths on them. On your turn, you place a tile in front of your token and move any dragon tokens further down their paths. If you're still on the board, you draw a new card. If you fly off the edge, you're out of the game. The goal is to be the last dragon still on the board. It's certainly not a very intense game. It's less of a game of attacking the other players and more of a game to find where the safest places to land are. Then again, maybe that's just my own gaming style shining through.

It went quick. Liz and Becky were the first two out when Thom was able to play next to them. I was able to play next to Carol bumping her out. Sarah accidentally committed suicide and Thom followed suit right after.

I enjoy this game. It can accommodate 8 players and plays in less than 10 minutes. Becky and Thom really dislike this one. This boggles my mind a little. It too short of a game to hate.

We didn't have any other games for 6, so Liz and Carol bowed out so we could play...

Rack-O 2-4 players
I had this game as a kid then got it again in college. It's pretty basic. You place cards into a rack. You draw a card (either face up or face down) and replace a card in your rack or discard the card. Once someone gets their cards in increasing order, they call "Rack-O" and the round ends. As a kid, this is where the game ended. Later on when I was looking for games Liz's mom would enjoy, I happened upon this game in my collection. We played and someone pointed out in the rules that there is a point system. You score 5 points for every card from the first slot that continues the increasing pattern. This explained the numbers on the side of the rack that had dumbfounded me for the longest time. You also score bonus points for consecutive runs and if you were the one to call Rack-O. The first to 500 wins.

I was able to call Rack-O a number of time in the beginning. This gave me a comfortable lead. Thom eventually dropped out, but Carol took his place. Becky and Carol started catching up and I wasn't making fast progress. In the last round, it was anybody's game (except Sarah). I needed to get a Rack-O or have Sarah (or possibly Carol) call Rack-O. I was rooting Sarah on and she came through for me. I finished with 505 and Becky close behind me with 485.

We all enjoyed this one. It's great blend of casual play and light strategy. A turn takes seconds and the game is divided up into rounds, which allows you to take some small victories even if you are losing overall. If you are playing for points, it can go long, but that time passes pretty quickly.

Tally: 99/166  Bonus: 26/50

Games Pilgrimage

I planned on playing games at Carl and Becky's, but I didn't have a car since Liz was using it. I got to walk there. Not that bad of a walk really.

Once there, Carl and I marveled over some new games he got at a Goodwill. He found some gems. We didn't play any of them though. We weren't keen on reading any rules today.
We started with a game of Star Realms. Carl had the upper hand most of the game. I just didn't have anything good going for me.

After getting pizza, Becky joined in and we played...

Splendor 2-4 players

This a great little engine building game. There isn't much to it, but that's part of what makes it great. The game has you mining for gems of all sorts or owning mines. At least that's the theme. You all start with nothing and on your turn you can either grab 3 different colored gems (actually poker chips), grab 2 same color gems (if there is enough in the pile), reserve a card (and get a wild chip), or pay for a card (on display or in your reserve). The cards you've purchased count as the mines you own, meaning you can use them as a permanent gem. The more mines you own, the fewer chips you have to grab. Some of the more expensive mines have points on them. If you get the right combinations of mines, you win the favor of certain nobles in the form of bonus points. Once a player gets to 15 or more points the game comes to a close. It seems quite splendid to me. It was a nominee for a Spiel des Jahres which is why I caught wind of it. Not much comes in the box, which made a few people complain. I always see this as an opportunity. I sleeved my cards so I needed to make an insert that would let the thicker cards fit. I actually had the forethought to put the chips down the middle so that the weight distribution wouldn't be all wonky.

This was a new one for both Becky and Carl. They enjoyed it a lot. Carl had a strong lead for a while and Becky was close behind him. After refocusing on my goals, I was able to get back in the game and take the win.

We followed this up with a game of Fauna, also new to them. They thought it was pretty cool and mentioned that Carl's dad (biologist) would kill at this game. I won this game too.
Becky was tired by now so she headed up. Carl and I followed up with another two games of Star Realms. I exhaustively won the first game and disastrously lost the second.

Tally: 97/166  Bonus: 24/50

Breaking Bread with Broken Game

We met up with our friend Spencer to see his new-ish living quarters. We headed out for pizza and played...

Geek Battle: The Game of Extreme Geekdom 3+ players
Liz got this for free from work. Some idiot opened it up and stole (or by her word "didn't replace") two of the player tokens and the 6-sided die. Stupid customers!

This is a trivia game, but with all very geeky questions. At the start of your turn, you roll the D6 and answer a question in 1 of 4 categories based on what color you landed on. If you get it right, you roll the D12 and move forward that amount. It's then the next players turn. There are 2 other special places. GB or Geek Battle spaces have you go head-to-head against another player or team of your choice. You mainly take turns listing things from a category like "Star Trek films" and the first person to answer wrong loses. There are also 6 black holes; When landed on, the player rolls the D6 and moves to the indicated black hole. The first player to get to the center space and win a Geek Battle wins the game.

I had a lot of high rolls and good answers. I won in about 4 or 5 turns. This is an okay-ish game. I wouldn't suggest anyone get it. The best part is the Geek Battle and there is very little of it. I would love it if the whole game was that. The movement is very odd, especially with that D12. I feel like they added it because D12s are geeky. The instructions could be a little bit more clear on what to do if you get a question right. It really just says you move the D12 spaces, but it doesn't tell you if you answer that question and continue until you get something wrong or if you stop there. It's a clunky game and pretty short. Usually, I say that being short makes the clunkiness more bearable, but for a trivia game to be this short, really just adds to the clunkiness.

Tally: 96/166  Bonus: 24/50

Trippy Cards

Liz and I went on a road trip to California for my cousin's wedding. We met up with my parents who flew out and then we drove out to Yosemite for some sight seeing. After we got there and made use of the upgraded room with private pool and had some food and drinks, we played a few games before calling it a night and resting up for the hiking tomorrow.

We started with Fauna. It was easy to teach and I knew my mom wouldn't hate it. We all had a good time and my dad won by a good margin.
Afterwards we had time for another game and I voted for...

Dixit 2-6 players
If you've ever played Apples to Apples or Balderdash, it's like that but not. It puts much more pressure on the player to be creative. The game has hundreds of cards with strange drawings on them. Each player has 6 cards in their hands. The clue giver puts a card face down from their hand and gives whatever clue they want for that card (e.g. word, sentence, noise,...). Everyone adds one card to that pile that they think could represent that clue. The pile is shuffled and revealed. The clue guessers secretly vote on which card was the clue givers card. Points are then scored for correct answers. The clue giver only scores if some but not all the players vote for the right card. This means the clue giver needs to give a good clue, but not an obvious clue. After a few games you have to get more creative, because if you give the same clue with the same group it's a giveaway. I've gotten expansion packs, so that isn't a huge problem. I tend to give clue where only Liz knows what I'm talking about. This makes the game really hard for me when Liz is already in the lead.

This game was no different, Liz got a really good lead. Once Mo and Tom got the hang of it, they were able to give clues that she didn't understand. Luckily I was able to pick up on a few of them. Near the end it was a close call and could have been pretty much anybody's game. Dad was able to make the most of it and won.

It has been a while since I played this and I really like it. It can suffer a bit if you get left out of the clues, which has happened to me, but as long as everyone plays smart, that should be able to be curbed.

Tally: 95/165  Bonus: 24/50

Games Instead of Games

Becky and Carl came over with the kids to play some games. I played some games on the Wii with them, but had to leave after dinner. I already had plans to play games with a coworker. When I got there, we played TSCHAK! until the other guy got there. It was good. He had a few tough calls at the end and still lost. Once the other guy got there we played a new one to all of us.

Dungeon Dice 2-4 players
This sounds a lot like and is very similar to Dungeon Roll. In this game, you grab a baddie die out of a bag and roll to see how bad it is. You then roll whatever equipment and experience you have available (also dice) to kill it. Well, you could. You could also get help from another player or simply run away. If the sum total you roll is higher than the sum total roll of the monsters roll, you win a small or large prize (also dice), and if the baddie was badass enough, fame points (dice as well). Whoever gets 4 fame points first wins.

I started out with a few really hard monsters and the other guy started out with a few easy ones. Soon enough it was the host and I doing what we could to not make the other guy win. He won anyway.

It's an okay game, but I'm not sold on it. I'd play it again if it was brought out and maybe I'd improve, but in the end it suffers from the fact that you can't really strategize much. If you pull and roll a real bad baddie, you either run or risk letting another player get some of the rewards too. I had a lot of dice in the game I never used. Other than gaining experience, I never really felt like I was going anywhere. I was really just treading water. Dungeon Roll probably suffers from this more, but it's a much shorter game.

We finished up with Legendary Encounters. We played the first movie like last time. I eventually had an alien burst out of my chest. With the medic gone, the other two did their best to kill anything before it could get them. They got to the 3rd objective before they met their demise. Aliens are mean.

Tally: 94/165  Bonus: 24/50

The Real Day

After work I was surprised by Liz being home already. She was able to get of work early. Since today was her actual birthday, she had pick of eats and games. She chose Bollywood Theater and...

Flash Duel: Second Edition 1-5 players
Have you ever tried playing a game by counting cards? It's really hard. I've done it and it takes me out of the flow of the game and I'm never that accurate. I'm also just estimating most of the time. In this game it's really easy. The deck only has 25 cards. Plus if you lose count you can look through the discards. Add on 20 different characters to play as and 7 modes of play and that is what caught my eye about this game when I saw a playthrough.

In the basic game, you each start on opposite ends of an 18 space board. There is a deck of twenty-five cards (five cards of each value 1-5). You each start with 5 cards. On your turn, you can play a card(s) to move(never past your opponent), push, attack, or make a dashing strike. If attacked or struck, you can play play matching cards to defend. If struck, you can play a card to back away. If you don't have matching cards, your opponent wins the round. If you get through the entire deck and both players are still on the board, the player that advanced the most wins. Best of 5 rounds wins the game. The advanced play allows you to play with character abilities. And there are 3 abilities for each character. Each ability can be used once per round.

It's an interesting game. You use what you know about your opponents abilities and what cards they could have to make smart moves. Or you could be daring and just hope they don't have the right cards. I've only played 2 of the 7 modes. I've only played with and against about 4 of the 20 characters, so I haven't gotten too deep into this. It can be a bit overwhelming to pick a character you like by reading through 60 cards. If I were 10 and I had this game, I would have read each card twenty times before having played the game once. I'm not 10 though, so I just pick my characters randomly. Overall, it's not an amazing game, but it does have some pep.
Liz picked some ninja monkey lookin' character. I picked some colonialist. I won 3 rounds and Liz won 1. She began to wonder why she picked this game. I reminded her it was because she liked me.

After finishing our food we played...

Pirate Fluxx 2-6 players

This is my favorite of the Fluxxs. It has only 2 creepers and both are quite easy to get rid of. It's also pretty easy to nab another player's keeper. Most of the keepers fall into a group type (ship, treasure) and the goals allow for a number of general goals. I feel I have the most control in this game even when the piracy involved can make it out of control.

It was a moderately quick game. We each were able to build a stack of keepers and had a bit of back and forth on almost reaching a goal. Liz eventual had a turn of playing about 10 cards and finished with the win. Yup! Still my favorite version.

Once we got home I suggested we try out...

Paperback 2-5 players

I almost kicstarted this game, but I was already in deep with other games so I didn't bother. We picked it up recently. It's the combination of deck building games like Dominion, and Scrabble. You each start with a deck of 5 wild cards and 5 consonants (R, S, T, L, N). You draw 5 cards and try to make a word with what you have and possibly using the letter from the common letter pile. Like in Scrabble, each letter card has a value. The total value of the word can be used to buy better cards. The better cards could have letters you desperately need, or powers that you want to use, or victory points. The game ends when 2 of the fame piles are empty or the common letters pile is empty. The player with the most victory points in their deck wins. There is also a number of extra things that can be added to the game to vary things up.

Liz really enjoyed the game, but played quite poorly. She spent most of her time making really cool words and getting cooler letters to make even cooler words. I spent the game making good enough words and scoring most of the points. She says she knows better now, but I have a feeling old habits may die hard.

Tally: 94/165  Bonus: 23/50

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

Pleasing The Little Ones

We were celebrating Liz's birthday early and had a bunch of people over at the parent's house. It took a while for things to get underway. Ida was getting bored and was dying to do something. She wanted us to play...

Apples to Apples 4-10 players
I own a different version of this. Technically I own 2 different versions, but only one has "Apples" in the name. The first time I played this was with Chuck and Shelley. It was a nice game to play with a small group. I eventually got a copy to leave at the Clubhouse since people were playing it a lot. The groups got bigger, meaning the games got longer. I don't play this much anymore since there are better implementations of the mechanic.

To play, everyone is given 7 cards with different nouns (or verbs) on them. One player, the judge, flips over a green card with an adjective. All the other players secretly turn in a card to match up with that adjective. The judge decides which noun best matches the adjective. The person who put in that noun gets a point. Once a predetermined number of points is reached, that player wins.
We were playing with 10 players. Most of use had learned that this could mean a really long game so we set the bar to win very low: 3 cards. By the 9th judge, I had won the game.

This isn't a bad game. I still kind of like it. As long as it's short, it's pretty enjoyable. They game really doesn't function so well as a game as it does a way to stimulate conversation. The real problem that most people note is that you tend to be looking at a lot of the same crappy cards for most of the game. There aren't to many adjectives to use "Discovering America" on. After about 10 rounds, you begin to loath your cards more that you enjoy being with other people. That is why it is key to end the game just before that point.

We took a short break then played a trivia game I had put together. This does not get added to the list since this is unique to me and I'm not playing; I'm hosting.

Following the trivia, we jumped into one more game: Formula D. We had a 6-player game going. We initially planed for 2 laps, but halfway through the first lap we knew to just to do one. Raeann ended with the win and went out in a blaze of glory by driving into a wall. Good fun.

Tally: 84/164  Bonus: 23/50