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