What I Played Today: October 30

BattleCON

I managed to convince my roommate to try out BattleCON, and it turns out he liked the game a lot, because we played for a good two or three hours. But it was good to play, we had some really interesting match-ups. I managed to completely ruin him with Lixis once, and there was a tense match with Magdelene. I also remember just getting beat to death by Cadenza, because that brother just hits like hell. Anyway, I hope he wants to play more and convince him to sign up for BattleCON online so we can get some points. POINTS.

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: 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: May 27

BattleCON, Star Trek: Fleet Captains, Ora et Labora

Early morning gaming! I’m going to miss this. First a game of BattleCON, which I won using my finishing attack (mostly), which was pretty cool. I played as Luc, the time traveler, and while I maintained advantage throughout, it was still great to activate that special action. Also, to be fair, my opponent was not very well balanced, so not a fair fight.

I had purchased Star Trek: Fleet Captains, because I hear it was great, and it is very thematic and I like it. I managed to lose quite badly, because the Federation had multiple missions that cared a lot about a killing a single spaceship, so he bum rushed me and took out my smallest scout, and got half the necessary victory points for it, it was ridiculous. I also didn’t know which decks were good for the goals I was attempting, so I ended up with a bunch of cards I didn’t need. So…not great, but very fun. I like how them combined four whole series into a single game.

A game of Ora et Labora, which I lost, even though my opponent was sure that he would lose. Again, having a ton of settlements is no much to a well-oiled machine. I once again leaned too heavily on whiskey making, which I always do, even though victory point wise it isn’t really worth that much. I managed to trade in my whiskey for some good buildings, but it just wasn’t enough. Should have build one more settlement with the castle.

What I Played Today: March 4

Ora et Labora, BattleCON

I woke up at God Knows Why and went to play board games! First was a two-player of Ora et Labora, which went pretty fast, considering. After a while, I realized I should focus on getting victory point goods, converting all the resources I was able to pull in into books and stuff. My opponent went for an aggressive settlement route, getting the castle and surrounding hugely important building with encampments. He made a mistake when he closed off his monastery, meaning there were four buildings remaining that only I could build, so I controlled the pace of the end game, and kept building up items until I easily swept him. But it was fun.

Then a few rounds of BattleCON, two of which I lost horribly, and a third where I managed to squeak out a slow victory. It’s weird, because while I totally understand all the different aspects of the game, I just kinda blow chunks during play. I just suck at mindgames, I suppose.

What I Played Today: February 23

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Quarriors, BattleCON, Mario Kart Wii

I ran one quest in Reckoning, in which some guy who is apparently a jerk sent me to find the guy who brought me back to life and then sent assassins after us. A lot of assassins too, like twenty or so. That's overdoing it a bit. But they are all dead now, and that guy who I thought died is apparently alive and well. Hurray!

A not super-involved game of Quarriors, with the new tainted dice expansion, which bothered me so little that I barely noticed. The game ended quickly because of some cheaty monsters who give 4 VP per score for some reason. Also a three-way match of BattleCON. I played the assassin guy, and I like his style a lot. The way he flies around the board is fun. But someone was playing the leveler, and since that game went into extra innings, of course she won, because she was swinging for five damage a turn there in the last few turns. You cannot ignore that character.

Then a couple of rounds of Mario Kart. I did okay, although that ghost house level can suck it.

What I Played Today: February 2

BattleCON, Dungeon Petz

Went to play games, played plenty of games of BattleCON, and I still think it's great, even though I totally suck at it. Like, so bad. Someone in fact felt sorry for me, that's how badly I was playing. But it was enjoyable, got to try a lot of characters, seeing how different players worked, and how absolutely madcap the multiplayer is. I died within three turns, getting hit, bounced to the other side of the map, and then hit AGAIN, which was ridiculous. But it was fun.

Also played a game of Dungeon Petz, which went well. I like just how easily crunchable this game is; when I tried to describe any of Vlaada's other games, there has been a lot of headscratching, but here, I can clearly state what will happen each round, what each space does, what each need does, what you need to keep track of, and everything is on board by the beginning of round 2, when stuff starts to matter. It makes playing a lot of fun, and it's also ridiculously fast, considering. If only set-up didn't take what felt like hours.

What I Played Today: January 29

BattleCON

Man, I'm glad I set up a time to play this with someone, because I might just keep taking it out and having little mock battles with myself, like a huge dork. Good thing that didn't happen today. Nope, don't even know why I mentioned it, really.

What I Played Today: January 26

A Tale in the Desert, BattleCON

I found a sheep today! Well, okay, someone told the chat where some sheep were, and I ran over there and looked at them. I picked one up, which was stupid, because they weight 300 pounds and you need a pen to keep them, and killed one to get some leather and mutton and stuff. Also, because I'm a monster. Eventually I did set down the sheep I was holding and killed him too, so, yeah, I'm pretty awful. There was also something called a carrot wave going on, which apparently greatly increased the amount of carrots you would get with one pull, so...I grew a bunch of carrots. Yeeeeep.

I will not apologize for playing BattleCON by myself! I had forgotten how the game had played in the nine months since I last touched it, and there were a lot of characters with new abilities, and I wanted to try it. So I choose two characters, set them up, and played each, trying to decide the best move based mainly on what was on the game board without remembering for sure what I just had to the other player play. It kinda worked, and it taught me a lot about the game. Mainly, one of the guys I choose was not great at long range, while the other was, and I don't think I was using his special ability quite right. So...I lost, but I also won! So good for me!

What I Played Today: January 25

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, (BattleCON)

I downloaded the demo for this new game that promises to be kinda like Skyrim, a fantasy game in which fantasy stuff happens, and there's a lot going on and so forth. In it, you die for some reason, but get brought back to life by some magic or whatever. It turns out the mortal races are fighting against the fae, immortals who just decided to kill them all off, which is bullshit. How can you fight an army you can't defeat? So some gnomes have been trying to even the odds by making their own immortals, and you're the first one, and probably the last, so good luck, dummie.

It's okay. The combat is pretty smooth, with dodging, blocking, magic and ranged attacks all being very well timed and I like that feel a lot. I didn't get a real sense of how indepth this would be, since it was just a demo of the first tutorial level, but it feels more Fable than Fallout, you can say. But...I'll probably pick it up when it comes out. Because lord knows I need more video games to play.

(OH! Also, I didn't play it because there was no one around, but I finally got that game I helped Kickstart back in April, BattleCON, and it looks amazing. Such great clean quality graphic design, the only complaint I have being that there are chips with sensitive game information that is printed ridiculously small. Like, 4 pt font. But still, I didn't expect it to look so good, and I really want to play it with someone. I want to play three dozen games of it (it's okay, they're short.))

What I Played Today: April 6

BattleCON, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

Tried BattleCON again, and I think I made a good decision, although I cannot win this thing. In this one, I was Mr. Elemental or whatever his name is, and I got my pants kicked by Cadenza, who is slow but hits really hard, a fact that was impressed upon me when I did a pittance of damage and he came back and hit me for as much damage as I did plus 4 more. It hurt, and I lost. BUT, I want to play the real thing. This is neat.

Also finished up the DLC for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Got into a huge fistfight with an idiot who could not keep his mouth shut, stole some paintings, found Leonardo and a secret temple that somehow had coordinates in it rather than something that was actually useful to the people who found it. Makes sense, but a nice interesting clue to what the next game will be about, one that may be neat. We will see…

Also started working on achievements, did a lot of the fun ones, like beating up the harlequins and killing a guy with a broom. I’ve lost all sense of danger, as I spent a good twenty minutes just flatout running around the city and pissing off every guard I could see, because I needed to have a certain notoriety in order to complete one of the objectives. They really aren’t that tough when you got the best armour and an awesome mace.

What I Played Today: April 5

BattleCON

I have been following this weird Kickstarter project for a couple of days, and I finally pulled the trigger after I got a chance to try the game through the free preview method. BattleCON is a game that purports to simulate a 2D fighter game, which is a lie I’ve heard before, but this one does a better job of making it interesting. Each character is only about 7 cards and some chips; each turn you pick a style and a base, activate a special ability if you have one, and then you compare. The fastest person checks to see if they are close or far enough away to hit, deal damage, and then the other person is either stunned because they got hit, or circumvents the damage somehow and counterattacks. This keeps going. It’s really simple, but there is a lot of complexity to it, and the designer really put a lot of thought into it, so I have decided to support him, even though I won’t see the game for six months.

Oh right, actually playing the game. So I took it to the store and showed it off a bit; and then lost badly. It was quick to learn, but I didn’t know the strategy well enough to really play the system. My opponent played with the good ranged fighters, so I couldn’t get close enough to deal any damage, and in one match I just got floored by one of the damage dealers, not able to control well enough to even get close. But I liked it. It’s interesting, and it can only get more interesting with more characters and better production value.