Every Realationship Has It's Fights

While Liz and I were just waking up, she mentioned she was tiring of playing Super Mario World and that she wanted burgers. With nothing to do for the rest of the day, I knew where she wanted to go: Stanich's. Once we got dressed and we were ready to go, I made sure to grab...

...and then, we held hands. 2 players
This is a game that I got interested in early. It was getting some high praise, but was only available as a print and play. It was on my wishlist for a while and then a few months ago it got a publisher to back it and they put it on Kickstarter. I was able to secure my own copy of the first run.

This is a game with the theme that both players are in a relationship and are in an argument. The players need to move around the board and land on different colors indicated by the current goal card. Each of the four colors represents a mood: calm, happy, sad, and angry. The players move by playing emotion cards that have two sides. You use the side (perspective) that is the same as the side of the board you are on. You also need to make sure that the cards you play don't take you out of balance. Green and blue each add one to your balance and red and black each subtract one. You are never allowed to be more than two out of balance in either direction. Every eight goals that are completed allows the players to move to the next inner ring. Once all twenty-four goals have been met, the tokens may move to the center, but once one player moves in, the next player must move in the turn after.

The rules also indicate that you can't talk about the game, but do allow it for the first game so that you can both become familiar with how to play. We played three games in total. It took a while for our food to show up. We failed miserably in the first game. We made it to the middle ring on the second game, but stalled out soon after that achievement. The third game went well. We made it to the inner ring, and finished all but 2 goals, but we ran out of emotion cards to draw and then got cornered into defeat.
Both of us really enjoy the game. It will take a while to really get the proper moves down. I'm glad it finally got a publisher and I hope to see the game in stores so that more people can enjoy it.

Tally: 148/178  Bonus: 39/50

Hunger Games

Before all the food got started, there was a bit of down time to fit games into. We started off with...

Roll for the Galaxy 2-5 players

One of my "newer" lovelier games. It's a pretty easy game to play, but a real bitch to teach. I can literally see people's brains turn off as I teach this one. That's because to really understand the game you need to see how everything interacts. It's all about synergy. Here's the basics. You all simultaneously roll pretty dice and use those dice to do a variety of actions. These actions include ways to get more money or tiles, develop science, settle worlds, produce goods, and earn victory points. The more money you have, the more dice you can put in your cup. The more science and planets you have, the more powerful you become. Once the pool of points is exhausted or a player "builds" 12 tiles, the game ends and the most points wins. It's a game where you have to see what you're good at and capitalize on that. It also helps to know what the other players might do in order to make the most out of your dice. The last game I played included 4 new players one of which was Liz's dad. I was scared to play with this group. My brain would melt. Luckily, Sarah showed up and gave me a huge helping hand by aiding the other players. Lots of aid since her dad ended up winning.

This time it was Liz, Sarah and me. It had been a while since we played so I had to recap some of the rules. Even with a recap, I was losing people. Once the game got under way, Sarah started with a good lead. She always had lots of dice in her cup and she was developing and settling like crazy. Liz was close behind. With the tiles I was dealt at the beginning, I had more of a late game strategy. I spent most of my time producing goods then consuming them for points. Liz ended the game by build her twelfth tile. I had beaten Sarah by 3 points. We agreed to put an asterisk next to this game since Liz was transferring dice to her cup incorrectly. This gave her a large disadvantage for the first half of the game.
I'm excited to get the expansion for this game. It's too close to Xmas now so I can't go buy it myself, but it will be mine before the end of the holidays. How can one say no to more pretty dice?

Some of Liz's family started showing up, but we continued on with games. I set up...

Via Appia 2-4 players
Another game that just too interesting to pass up. You are paving the road to Rome. You spend your turns getting resources, money, going to the quarry, building road, or travel on said road. The quarry is the cool part of the game. You add the stones you have at the top of the quarry and see what you get out. It like those coin "games" you see at arcades and carnivals. Push in at just the right area and get all the riches, but in this case you get all the best stone tiles. It's strategy game with a little dexterity added.

One of the family joined in to play (Jess?). Sarah had a very travel oriented strategy. The rest of us were more focused on building the road, but we still kept tabs for the best times to travel. Sarah's tactics had puttered out near the end. She was left with a lot of bad choices.  I was left with some good choices, but difficult ones. I new Sarah had control over when the game would end, so I went with more of a 50/50 move rather than an all out ballsy move. In the end, Liz won by 2 points over both Sarah and me. I should have gone ballsy.

This is a pretty nice game that rarely hits the table. It does take a while to set everything up, but it's really easy to teach so that makes up for it a little. I enjoy the game, but fun-wise it feels like it's missing something. The end just sees very abrupt I guess. I'm glad I have the game. I mean, that hopper mechanic is so cool, but it's probably going to continue to not hit the table a lot.

The feast followed directly after that game. I, as usual, had my plate of turkey, mashed potatoes, and baked beans. After most of the dishes got cleaned and people got to mellow out, I pushed in one more game. I went with the party game Concept. Sarah, Liz, a foreign exchange student, and I played. We all had a laugh out loud good time with it. I still have yet to use the Pictionary cards with it.

Tally: 147/178  Bonus: 39/50

Not Far From The Treeo?

Sarah had a day free so we planned a family get together for food and games. Liz and I got there early for the Duck game. I got bored in about 10 minutes. Since Thom had been taking about getting a new gaming console I put myself on the project of modding his Wii to play old school games. It took a lot of tinkering, but I got it to work in time for the kids to be distracted. We then moved onto tabletop games.
We started with King of Tokyo. It was Carl, Thom, Liz and I. Liz died in Tokyo and was out early. It was a battle mostly for points between the three of us. Carl got the victory point win.
We ate after that, but Becky was eager to play Alhambra. While we (Carl, Becky, Liz, and I) got going on that, the rest of them started playing Rack-O. I'm not sure how Rack-O went, but Carl took and early lead in Alhambra that he never let go of. It made the game a little boring. What made it irritating is that Carl was complaining about not doing well.
After a little more Nintendo and Becky, Carl, and the kids left, we broke out some more tabletop games starting with...

Sour Apples to Apples 4-8 players

Liz spotted this game at Target and was intrigued. It had a cute little apple spinner that you could push and it would spin a wheel and show a random icon. She just had to have it. It plays a lot like the original game, but with a few improvements. Every card has a red and green word. This gives the players options when it's their turn to be the judge. They get to pick the word that they want people to vie for. This means you can get rid of a crappy red word without wasting a turn. Also, the judge not only votes for the best but also the worst match. The worst card player spins the apple of fate and suffers the penalty. This could mean they only have 4 cards the rest of the game or they have to play their next card before they know the word. See, so much better than the original.

It was a pretty entertaining game. It wasn't laugh out loud great, but it made the time enjoyable. Carol had a long streak of being judged as the worst match. Thom was the victor by far.

We still had time for another game so I pulled out...

Wordie Wars 3-8 players

Another game that Liz got from working the home goods department. It's a trivia based game. The questions are all obviously word based. A player rolls two dice. One die gives you a category for the question and the other die determines who your partner is. Every question you get correct wins you and your partner a random letter. The first person who can get enough letters to spell a 5-letter word is the winner. I'm okay with this one. I still get my ass handed to me most of the time.

I started out well. I was able to get 5 letters first, but GLOUV wasn't a word. Sarah and Liz each got a 5th letter, but TREEO and HIPIB also aren't words. I can't remember exactly when it happened or what word it was, but Sarah was deemed the nerdiest of words.

I like this game a lot more with 5-players than I do 3. It lengthens the game and makes you feel like you have more opportunities.

Tally: 145/177  Bonus: 39/50

Home Field Advantage

I came to Minnesota for a work related conference. Over the weekend, I've been spending my time in Wisconsin with Ben and my parents. To make use of our time, We've been digging through the basement to play some of the forgotten games. We started with...

Ready! Set! Spaghetti! 2-4 players
In this game, players try to spin their spaghetti (string) in before the other players can. The only thing preventing all players from doing this immediately are the pegs that get added to the board during setup which represent the toppings. On a turn, a player rolls the die then removes a topping (meatball, tomato, bell pepper, onion, mushroom) of that type from the board. Each player can then spin their spaghetti in as much as possible. The first person to spin theirs in completely and yell Ready! Set! Spaghetti! wins.

The last time I played this game I lost 6 times in a row to Ben. I needed a decisive win this time. I was being very careful with my topping picks and got lucky with my string a few times. I had the clear win.

Both of us had a good time with this game. We were twisting so strongly at times that a pepper nearly popped off. I'm leaving this one here for now. It wouldn't fit in my luggage anyway.

Bed Bugs 2-4 players
In this game, players race to remove plastic bed bugs from a vibrating bed. The rules state that all of one one color must be removed at a time before moving to a new color (each new color being called out by the youngest player). The player with the most bugs wins. We played with our own shorter rules. We just saw who could remove their designated color first.

Once we got the C batteries to work in the bed, the game was on. There were a number of bugs that jumped out on their own. Ben had the lead for most of the game. I caught up when is seemed like 4 yellow bugs jumped out in a row. When I was down to one bug, Ben switched to a defensive game and messed with my tweezers. I still won!

It's a fine game for kids, but there are better kitchy games to play. It's annoying to put bugs back in the bed when you're busy trying to tweeze your way to the top.

Bumper Cars 2-4 players
This is a roll and move game with a Backgammon feel. A player rolls two dice and moves two of their cars (if possible) across the board towards the parking lot. When moving, the car may not move backwards and may not retread over a space. If the car ends on a space with another player's car, then that player's car is bumped back to is starting spot. A car can not be bumped if is on a space of it's own color. Each die must be used to move a different car. If doubles are rolled, the player gets another turn. The first person to get all of their cars in to the matching parking spaces by exact count first wins.

Mom joined in on this one. I had a lot of doubles and got pretty far. There wasn't a lot of bumping until mid game because we all played it save and were able to move to our colored spaces. Even though I started strong, I still finished last. Mom was the champion.

This isn't a great game, but there is something about it that I really like. It doesn't play well with 2 and plays best with all 4 players. It's a backstabbing game that no one takes personally.

The Barbie Game 2-4 players
This is an old one from my Mom's collection. Another roll and move. Each player is trying to get a steady boyfriend, buy a dress, and become president of a school club. The player to do all this and then make it to the prom is the queen. The second is declared the princess.

It was a very random game. Much like Mall Madness, the fun is really found in committing to the theme and the role of a 1960's Barbie girl.  I was crowned queen being president of the Music Club and with my boyfriend Bob. Mom was voted princess having her boyfriend Tom and being president of the Drama Club. Even though Ben did have everything needed to win (Ken, Scholarship Club) he kept getting stuck in school.

I would have loved to take this one home with me, but it's too long to fit in my suitcase. I'm hoping my parents can bring it out on their next visit.

Quizzard 3-7 players
This is a trivia a game, but with one awesome addition. It has it's own set of buzzers that tell you who buzzed in first. There are 3 modes of play, but we went with the standard, whoever buzzes in first get to answer. If they are correct, they get two points. If wrong, they lose a point. The first person to 20 points wins (each player starts with 2 points).

We played 3 games in a row. I was the Quiz Master each time, so I didn't actually answer any of the questions. The first game was between Mom and Ben. The last two games included Dad too. All of the games were won by Ben. Dad nearly had the last one, but lost his mojo when he got to 18 points.

I love this thing. This one is definitely coming home with me. It can fit, so I'm counting this as part of my collection.

Tally: 143/177  Bonus: 39/50

Passing Time With __________.

Today was game day! The game wasn't until 7:30 so we had some time to kill. Liz and I went to some restaurant to meet up with her parents. While we waited for them to show up we played Zombie Fluxx. I won both times.
Once the rents did arrive we needed a new game.  They seemed eager to play...


Cards Against Humanity 3-10 players
My brother got this game for me just before anyone had ever heard about it. It's a great game. I even got an expansion to boot. I'm not as huge a fan as I used to be though. (No to say I was a huge fan to begin with) People keep playing in groups of like 10 or 12 and it slows the pace down and gets tired fast. The worst part is people seem to love to call back to previous times they played and the silly answer they saw before. It's not really funny if you weren't there and/or you've played the game more than 5 times. I find the game is at its best when I play with people who really work with the answers. It's one thing to read and answer and laugh; it's another to read the answer and play off of it. That way answers never get old.

 

We played two games of it, one before the food and one after. I won the first game. I tied for the win with Carol in the second game. Thom really liked the game, but didn't do very well. He'd often get irritated at the card czar's pick. That might sound bad, but the fact he was engaged speaks volumes.

 

The games did elicit a few comments from the crowd. Mostly along the lines of how it's their favorite game or how we should join up tables to include them. These comments made me a little sad. It's an okay game. With the group I was in, it was a fine game. I wasn't really laughing to much, but I found it entertaining. I have trouble seeing how it could be someone's favorite game. It's a little like hearing an adult say their favorite food is PB&J's.

Tally: 142/176  Bonus: 35/50

You Genius

Liz and I headed to Eugene to see the Ducks game the next day and to meet up with some friends of hers from college. We were a bit lazy in finding a hotel room so we were relegated to AirBnB. We ended up in the large furnished basement of a nice house. We had time to kill so Liz popped Mary Poppins in the BluRay player and I set up...

MindTrap II 2 players or teams

I got this game in high school as a present. It's pretty much a trivia game where all the questions are logic puzzle or lateral thinking questions. It was a good present, but it's a pointless game for me to play. I know the answers to nearly every question since I've seen or heard most of the puzzles or puzzles like them. Some people remember a bunch of jokes to tell at parties. I tell riddles. The last time I played this game with Liz it was a complete blowout. It stays hidden behind the better games on my shelf.

Liz started and got the question wrong. I then proceeded to answer every question correctly. This made Liz pretty grumpy. Grumpy because she didn't get to do anything but read questions. Back to the cubby on the shelf behind Firenze and Istanbul.

We needed another game to kill time and to get the sour taste out of Liz's mouth. We looked around the room and found a copy of...

Jenga 1-8 players

This was the A Nightmare Before Christmas version of the game. This changes no rules, but does feature Halloween colored blocks. We don't actually own a version of this game ourselves. We have something similar and weirdly stupider that we haven't gotten to yet.

The tower got pretty high. I had a few close calls, but it was Liz that toppled the giant.

Once we finally met up with Amanda and David, we had a nice meal then headed back to their place for more games. I tried to pick out games they'd like. The information I was given about their tastes was that they like Settlers of Catan and hate Ticket to Ride.
We started with Codenames, We played guys against girls. The guys started strong with the first win, but fell apart on the next two games.
We followed that with...

Sheriff of Nottingham 3-5 players
I preordered this one. It may be the only board game I've preordered, if you don't count Kickstarters. It seemed like a bluffing game that I could get people to play. I have other bluffing games, but they never seemed to work for people.

Each player is a vendor trying to get goods through the city gates. They must get them past the sheriff. If you're an honest vendor you've got nothing to worry about. If, on the other hand, you are trying to sneak contraband through, you had better have a good poker face. During a round, one of the vendors will play the sheriff. Every other player swaps out some cards of there hand of 6 cards. The sheriff can watch over this to see what that vendor is getting rid of and some of what they take. Every player, other than the sheriff, loads their bag with goods and hands it to the sheriff. After everyone tells the sheriff what's in their bag, the sheriff has some work to do. He can't just look in any bag. That would be to easy (and thematically a waste of the peoples time). If he opens your bag and you were lying, you keep the stuff you were honest about, but pay a fine and lose the things you lied about. If you were honest and he opens your bag, then the sheriff owes you a penalty for wasting your time. He also has the option of not opening your bag and letting you pass. If this were the whole game, it would suck. What makes it awesome is you can bribe the sheriff, you might say, "Um... Kind sheriff. I've got a shiny 5 piece here with you name on it if you open the baker's bag and leave mine alone."  All sorts of deals can be made. Once a deal is agreed on it is binding and must be followed, unless it is for future considerations. After all the bags have been settled then it's another players turn as sheriff. After everyone has played sheriff 2 or 3 times, then everything is counted up. Contraband tends to be worth more than goods, but there are bonuses for players that have the most of each type of good. Richest player wins.

I played with a mostly honest strategy, but acted like I was lying the whole time. This worked out really well. I was banking so much. I finished in the lead by more than 30 coin.
I like this game a lot, but the 3 player game kind of blows. It's not because the gameplay is worse, but because it requires you to remove certain cards out of a giant deck of cards.

Amanda was devastated by coming in last place and wanted to play another game to make up for it. She picked out Diamonds. I had a lot of crappy hands, but flew under the radar for most of the game. It didn't matter because, true to her word, Amanda got her victory.

Tally: 141/176  Bonus: 35/50