What I Played Today: April 6

Dominion, Witch of Salem, Small World

Game night at the store tonight, got to play some new games and some old classics. The one game I’ve been hounddogging to play, Mystery Express, was started about five minutes before I walked into the door, so instead I played the co-op game Witch of Salem. Despite the name, this one is actually about Cthulhu, which surprised me. It’s a light game comparatively, only taking about an hour and giving a very light set of options. You try to close off all the hidden portals to the other world, using a small number of items, while under the clock by a mysterious cultist and the monsters who are constantly draining your items. Your only real help is the titular Witch of Salem, who provides a very narrow amount of helpful events. We were unlucky enough to have to close four portals, a fact we didn’t know until the end of the game. We were one turn away from finding the last portal when some monster managed to cycle them all, leaving us in the lurch. The team wanted to make sure we got the job done, but the cultist soon got the job done and we were eaten by Yog-Soggoth. Hurray. It’s a tough game to be sure.

I then played a couple of games of Dominion: Seaside. The first game went quickly, mainly because I forgot to check if we had enough Provinces. The second game was a huge to-do, with a lot of duration cards and a whole lot of extra actions. With an embargoed Gold buy, there were a lot of actions each turn, and people were dependant on the Tactician to get their provinces. It was an interesting game, although one that was hard to track.

Then I played a game of Small World. I completely swamped the field with some early ratmen, and then quickly switched to some other fast-acting creatures. It helped that the second place player completely ignored me for the first few rounds, so that I could keep a majority control of the board and pulling in double-digits coins per turn. I also completely abused the flying type on the last two turns to cement my victory, swooping in on recently vacated spaces. I was 40 above the other two, and I wish I knew what I did right. Otherwise, a good time.