What I Played Today: June 10

Android: Netrunner, Gunpoint

A friend had been begging me for months to come play Netrunner at this game store on Mondays and I always just want to go to Trivia instead, because being constantly hassled about something tends to make me one not want to do that thing. But I had built some decks and was a little excited, so I went, and left the store HATING the game. Because I kept losing. Just crashing and burning so hard and so frequently that even against a deck that I should have won against, I could not pull off a win. It was frustrating, and I didn't have fun. I was told it's because I've got to learn how to play before the game gets fun, but nah dog, I've fallen for that one before.

There was a cool moment where I ran into an agenda that I couldn't steal because I had to pay additional money to do so, and instead of letting the corp player keep it, I used a program to trash it, thus allowing me to acquire it at my leisure later on. That was neat.

Also played some more Gunpoint. Magic jumping pants.

What I Played Today: April 17

Netrunner, ???

Some guy was trying to figure out if he might like Netrunner. So I played Netrunner with the guy, with him as the corp. I managed to win as the Runner because I got really lucky plucking agendas from his hand. What were they doing in there, buddy? But he apparently liked it enough to buy it off someone.

And then I'm pretty sure I played something else. But by golly if I haven't completely forgotten about it. Guess it wasn't that fun. Man, I should really do these write-ups less than a week after they happen, huh?

What I Played Today: February 6

Netrunner, Noir, Blades of Legend, Nanuk, Avalon

I played a game of Netrunner with my awful criminal deck. This deck is not good! For one thing, it's too expensive, and my icebreakers are garbage. The corporation was able to hide all his good stuff behind this one server that was just way too difficult to crack, and my last ditch run to get back there just...didn't work. I don't know, I need to start over, try again. Might just skip that tournament, because I am not ready.

Then I got to crack that Minigame Library. We played a game of Noir, which is a deduction game. There's a 5x5 grid of characters, one player is an killer, who can murder people, and the other is a sleuth, trying to find the killer and not get killed. The player can slide a row or column as well, it's just a matter of trying to figure out where the other person is. The killer won each time, because while the killer can change identities if he gets in a pinch, the sleuth cannot, so if he is found out, he is pretty screwed. But fun! I want to try some of the other modes.

Also Blades of Legend, which is weird hidden role game. There are two teams, each lead by a master, and everyone else is a wielder, who have special swords. Everyone is trying to break the seals in front of the master, either their own, so they have a more powerful weapon, or the seals that belong to the master, to defeat the master. It was slow going at first, because nobody really understood what they needed to do. But once we started understand, the teams became extremely obvious, and it was just a matter of burning things down. The weapons didn't really get used, which was kinda sad. But people ended up liking it regardless, so I have a chance to get it to the table again.

Nanuk is a push-your-luck game where people get eaten by a bear! I did pretty well, able to call when the hunt would go well or not, and some poor player guessed wrong every single time and did not collect any cards. But there was a tie for first, and it was not me.

We had a game of Avalon at a bar that went well until some poor knight put in the wrong card and we had to crash it. It was funny that the new player didn't quite understand how things worked, and didn't put herself on the mission as a leader because she thought she couldn't, and when she was on a mission, she immediately threw down her card and shouted "Success!" Of course, she was the only spy on the mission and it was the last mission for good, so I don't know WHY she threw down a pass. But yeah, at least we stopped the game immediately when a mistake was made, because getting to the end when the game is broken is frustrating.

What I Played Today: February 2

Netrunner?

I did not get a lot of sleep, and I had a party I had to go to, and I really wanted to watch this anime, so not a lot today. I was talking to a guy and he was telling me about Netrunner, he really likes Netrunner, so he made me sign up for this deckbuilding thing, so I guess that counts.

What I Played Today: October 17

Nanuk, Smash Up, Dixit, Netrunner, BattleCON, Avalon, Dungeons of Dredmor

Lot of games today! First Nanuk, which is a bit of liar's dice. I've talked about it before, I'm sure. I didn't win, although I did pretty okay. I don't know, middling.

Then a game of Smash-Up. It took forever for the game to actually get going, because everyone was playing minions, but was spreading them out. Come on guys, break those bases. The game ended pretty quickly when the robot pirate player managed to dump a full 10 points onto a base into a turn, so that was cool.

A quick game of Dixit, that I somehow ran away with. Well, whatever.

Then a couple of two-player games while a full ton of people were learning Battlestar Galactica. I lost in Netrunner because man on man, there has got to be a better way with slowing down card snatching from the HQ. I have no control over what's there! I also lost BattleCON, because I chose the doppleganger character, which I hate, and my opponent was not easily copyable. We managed to go to time, probably past, in fact, because we weren't paying a lot of attention.

Then we went to a bar and tried to play Avalon, which was a bad idea! Some people missed the rules, some spies didn't see each other, some spies didn't even open their eyes, it was a disaster. Don't play games in bars if all players aren't within five feet of each other, everyone.

Then I was at home, and thought to myself, "Dungeons of Dredmor. That's a thing, right?" So I played that for a bit, looked around online, apparently a lot of people have made their own skill mods for it, that sounds cool. So I might play it again!

What I Played Today: October 9

Smash Up!, Magical Athlete, Netrunner

Some game called Smash Up! is finally out, and I bought it, because that's how I roll. It's an interesting idea where you shuffle together two distinct piles of cards (a gameplay idea I've been toying with for literally years), and that sets your group. Each player takes turns playing minions on bases. When the value of the minions exceeds the bases break number, everyone gets points. Of course, all cards do something, so the game isn't nearly that straight-forward. I like how each faction has a very specific feel, and how the factions in your deck can occasionally combo off each other. One player had robots and dinosaurs. Robots specialize in dumping a lot of guys on the board, while dinosaurs are all about being huge, which allowed from some interesting "little guy summons huge guy" plays. I like it, it's pretty clever, and I hope to play it more. Although...already want more expansions. Being able to see all the cards in a standard game leaves me cold.

Then a goofy little racing game called Magical Athlete, in which you roll and move your little guy, and each guy has special rules. Whatever, it's short enough, and enjoyable, and I placed in every race, so get over it.

Also a couple of games of Netrunner, one where I tricked the runner to go straight for a Junebug that had been advanced four times (FOUR TIMES!), and one where I managed to snag a winning agenda from the top of the deck. A couple of mistakes were made, but I like the criminal a lot. His general playstyle is pretty fun.

What I Played Today: September 29

Hey, That's My Fish, BattleCON, Starcraft: The Board Game, Skull and Roses, Netrunner

We got a bunch of people together to play board games and jaw about how there were too many people to play board games. I don't know why we invited so many people if that was a concern, but whatever. While waiting for people to get there, a game of Hey, That's My Fish, which continues to be adequate. Then while people were standing around being people, I forced a guy to play a game of BattleCON. He was unconfident in his abilities, and that proved to be his downfall, because really? Some of it is kind of chance. So I won.

Then there was a bunch of just hemming, and I may sound like I'm making a huge deal about this, but it kinda got a little annoying how we couldn't just sit down and play a goddamn board game. So eventually we got it sorted out and three of us played the Starcraft board game, which is very crunchy. The zerg player managed to carve off half the board all to himself, and it screwed the rest of it. The terran got into a sore spot, and I could have knocked him out of the game if I really wanted to, but...it was his game, so. We had to give up halfway through because he just kinda forgot he was going to a thing with his girlfriend, but I enjoyed it a bit. Pretty fun.

Then everyone was standing around again, and I said, "Let's play Battlestar Galactica," because it was Saturday and we still had five hours. So most of the people said sure, I walked over to grab the game, and when I got back we were suddenly playing a bootleg copy of Skull and Roses. Now, I didn't get mad, because I like Skull and Roses, but it was weird. The game of Skull and Roses was fun though. The guy on my left was a master bluffer, it was impressive. I managed to win the last game with only one card left, which was pretty awesome.

Then we all split off and played two-player games of Netrunner. I played one game as the corp, and I got mad stupid and put some key agendas out without protection early in the game because I was hoping my opponent would think they were traps. It was a dumb idea. I managed to recover a bit and finally got some ICE in my hand, but the runs against my deck managed to net enough points for the runner to win. I do like how smash and grab Weyland is. "Oh, you know what's in front of this server and it's not a threat to you? Sell it to a contractor, install something else instead." It was pretty fun! I adjusted the deck so it had a bit more ICE in it, and threw out some pointless tagging cards (my deck tagged enough as is), and hopefully I'll get to test these decks against some experienced players soon.

What I Played Today: September 11

Eminent Domain, Android: Netrunner

I played a game of Eminent Domain with four, and it was a bit better than the last time I played. I won because I went full trading (always go full trading), and sure, that's a deckbuilding game alright. Although every time I saw the name of this game, I think, "Really? That can't be the name of the game. What the hell does that mean?"

Then after a lot of hemming and hawing, we played a couple of games of Android: Netrunner, to figure out if we'd like it. Yeah, it's okay. I lost the first game by accidental brain death, made a run against a trap. Then we switched and I was the corporation and it went a lot better. I was able to build up a bit of defense, although I kept on leaving holes and it almost lost me the game when the runner managed to snatch a high-point agenda just right off the top of my deck. But eventually I managed to install a good agenda in a fortress server I had built up, and won the game. Hurray! Now I have to go buy this game! Boo!