What I Played Today: September 20

Touch My Katamari, Chaos in the Old World, Forbidden Desert, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Grand Theft Auto V

I remembered that I bought a new Katamari game! Like a while ago! So I booted it up on my Vita, and it's definitely a Katamari game! There's this weird currency system in which you get candy to buy clothes, but otherwise, it's Katamari. You roll a ball. It's great. Also the software does have its faults...once you get to some of the larger areas, the draw distance just tanks. Oof.

Finally made it to board games. I played a game of Chaos in the Old World, which was about pretty standard, although Khorne rolled horribly. I wish the game didn't feel like Khorne Vs. Everyone at times, but the MO for three-fourths of the table is "just live in peace" while Khorne exists merely to screw everyone up. I wonder how a game of everyone but Khorne would work out....  Anyway, I basically gave the game to Nurgle, because I accidentally ruined two regions that gave Nurgle more points. It's all my fault...

Then a game of Forbidden Desert that went well, although one player was worried the entire time, and another wanted to just start screwing around when victory was in sight. Coop games are hard with this group...

Also a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse, which was easily won, because it was versus Plague Rat, and that guy is easy. Although his infections are stupid. Screw his Infections.

And I'm just getting ramped up in Grand Theft Auto V, despite all my attempts to slow it down. I went to the movies, I rode a shitty rollercoaster. Hey, maybe I'll do the triathlon for some reason. But no...I guess I will do crime...

What I Played Today: January 11

Chaos in the Old World, Agricola, Ugh

I played a game of Chaos in the Old World at the Horned Rat. The Horned Rat plays weird. It is remarkably unclear what the objective is, except to show up with someone else is ruining stuff and kinda scavenge points from them. So...makes sense. Anyway, Khorne won because that's what Khorne does when the other players mess with each other instead of with Khorne.

Then a game of Agricola, which I won because I own the game. There was, as there always is, a small refrain of "man nothing is going my way I hate this game," but I don't know, I liked it, I had a good time.

Then a weird not fun trick-taking game that is easy to make fun of. It's called Ugh. Come on guys, it's almost too easy.

What I Played Today: November 16

Chaos in the Old World, Skull and Roses, Avalon

I got to play a game of Chaos, as the magic dude, because I'm always the magic dude. This game was weird and terrible for Khorne because he couldn't do all the murder he wanted because the event cards just shut battles down at certain locations, and he had some crappy rolls. The rat managed to win because nobody had any interest in killing the rats, so they sat around and joined the ruining party and got all the points that way. Good for them.

Then played a couple of games of Avalon, which people were really liking, which is good, because I like Avalon. The plot cards from Resistance require way too much explanation, so this adds some cunning elements that are easy to understand. Good! The first game went well with six, in which I managed to trick some the bad guys into thinking I was Merlin, even though I wasn't. And then a game with 10, which was an unmitigated disaster. You see, I was a bad guy in that game. I completely forgot to open my eyes. Just...completely forgot what my card was. I was playing for the good guys the entire time. Also, another spy didn't open their either, so only two of the four spies were actually playing for the right team, and Merlin only knew two spies. And for some reason, NOBODY SAID ANYTHING, so we played all the way to round 5, in which, despite the fact that it makes absolutely no sense, the spies won. Good job, spies. Sorry for being awful.

Then a game with some more roles, and that was even better! I like more roles!

Also played Skull and Roses, which is fun and not really worth mentioning.

What I Played Today: July 9

Chaos in the Old World, Smart Ass, Funglish, The Resistance, (Star Trek)

Gaming and parties, bros! Gaming and parties. I started my morning off with a five-player game of Chaos in the Old World, with the new Horned Rat expansion. I like the new content, the Horned Rat has an interesting playstyle, dropping tons of dudes on the map and trying to rack in the points, but can’t actually force the huge scoring opportunities to occur, only allowed to scavenge off someone else’s hard work.

I was playing Khorne for what I think was the first time, and I knew the best strategy for Khorne, which was to try and kill everyone. The new cards didn’t really help with this strategy, as they are balanced to allow Khorne to have a chance winning with points. I used a quick opportunistic play to score a ruined region and leapt on the point count, and was spinning that dial as fast as expected, so that by the start of turn five, it was assumed a foregone conclusion that I was going to win. But it was not so, while I spent the last turn using my new bloodletter ability to pull in two points for every kill (holy moley), I wasn’t watching the board and Slannesh was able to use some tricker to score over 25 points and beat me to 50, winning the game. It was an out of nowhere win, very impressive.

Then I went to a party and played party games! The first was Smart Ass, a trivia game in which clues are slowly revealed for a person, place, or thing, and the first to guess it gets to move ahead. It’s competent, and there are a lot of clues, but for some reason there was a house rule saying that in order to win the game, you have to answer two difficult questions in a row. The only effect this had was extending the game an extra half hour, especially when the winner was a “team,” meaning we forced them to answer twice as many questions.

Funglish was next, a word guessing game in which you have a set number of adjectives you can use, and you place them on a board saying the object is definitely X, or kinda Y. You try to get all the other players to guess the six words on your card within the time limit. It’s pretty fun, especially having to work in teams and guess what’s going on. I’m amazed at the number of times the clue “Asian” ended up on the board. My only concern is that there are only 50 clue cards, and the materials are a mess to work with.

I kinda played the Star Trek board game, as I didn’t feel very gamey, so I just sat by and told them the rules. It eventually broke up after everyone was finished eating and they wanted to play a game everyone could participate in.

Then people were starving for a game that everyone could play, and with an odd number of players and a refusal on my own silent part not to bring out “Time’s Up” again, I gerryrigged a game of The Resistance with a deck of cards. I couldn’t find an English copy of the rules, so I stole the information I didn’t know from a Polish translation and I think I did alright. I ended up being a traitor both games, although I completely blew it the first game when I had started making decisions before I knew who my fellow traitors were, so I did the eyes closed eyes open routine, and then instead of just sticking with my first decision, passed the leadership to the next player while fumbling over my words so that it was obvious I was a bad guy. The villains still won both games, however; the second game with all failed missions. It was interesting, although I imagine it was a lot harder to figure out who was what, because of the small amount of time discussing things and the possible traitors about. I think it was okay, although I want to check out a real copy of the rules to make sure I didn’t misremember the game, because as someone commented, the traitors have a real easy job, because they know exactly what to do.

What I Played Today: September 28

Back to the Future: The Card Game; Chaos in the Old World

Game night; and this one was interesting. I arrived as a couple of games were breaking up, and sat down and cracked open Back to the Future, which took a while to explain, for some reason. But once everyone got the hang of “draw a card, play a card, and try to change the timeline so that the cards you want are visible,” it went poorly for me. I got my hand stolen from me a number of times, every time I tried to change the timeline, it was either instantly reversed or quickly fixed, and my last ditch effort to save Marty McFly the III crashed and burned when I received a Memo from my Future Self that said, in essence, “No, you don’t get to win.” So, that sucks.

Then I got a lot of interest in Chaos in the Old World, so I placed that down with some hardcore players. They caught on to the rules pretty quickly, and even overanalyzed them something fierce. The winner was the one who seemed to have complete understanding of his actions, although he took a while to form them. But the game is always interesting, because there is so much going on, yet it all makes sense and each player, despite having such vastly different strategies, has a chance. I almost feel bad because as I found myself firmly in last place, Nurgle, the player who had assumed he was going to lose, had a shot to win, but he didn’t catch it in time, and I wasn’t going to play Kingmaker. But it was fun, even though it took a bit too long, and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

What I Played Today: April 14

Chaos of the Old World, Fairy Tale

Played some games after some BBQ tonight. Got the old Chaos in the Old World board out tonight, got absolutely creamed by Khorne this game, I just couldn’t get out from under his bloody fist. I was Sleenesh, and got a lot of opportunity to move to another place with nobles, but for some reason I stayed focused on Britannia, and had to spend a lot of points trying to prevent battles from my region, while he kept sweeping up the other player’s character and got a dial victory on turn five. Just awful.

I also got a chance to play Fairy Tale with more than two people, and found out that I had gotten the rules completely and utterly wrong. Most of the cards don’t actually interact with other cards, but rather affect your own tableau, and hunt really isn’t all that powerful either. It changes the whole dynamic of the game, and made it a lot more interesting. It’s also so short and sweet, that we managed to get two games in, one played incorrectly, and another played right. I lost both times, mainly because I could not get any points on the table that actually mattered. I think it will continue to rock with more people where you are seeing more of the deck (the math says you’re using all cards in a five player game), but who am I going to convince to play a five year old game with me nowadays, amirite?

What I Played Today: March 26

Diner Dash, Dungeons and Dragons, Chaos in the Old World, Pandemic

Just a really quick update because I need to be getting to sleep so that I can do the same thing tomorrow. Got to PAX after getting some pastries about 1, where I got to stand in the queue room. The queue room is this great experience where you get to stand and wait. It actually can be really fun; there's a big board that has a lot of stuff happening to keep you entertained, and the energy of the crowd is great.

After that there was some wandering, a quick dash into the exhibit hall. I got quickly waylaid into playing the new console port of Diner Dash, and it controls pretty well, considering. My friend won an apron for beating me and getting the high score.

Then I played D&D Encounters for a few hours. The D&D Encounters model is neat, supposedly short sessions every week, in which you do a single encounter in an adventure. The encounters thrown at us were tough, but I was playing a heavy resist battlemind and was able to shrug off the majority of the damage. It was pretty neat, even though I spend a good 6 healing surges.

After that I went down to the board game rooms to see what was about. I walked past a game of Chaos in the Old World that was just starting up, and jumped in to play Nurgle. I thought that I was doing pretty well for most of the game, but a penultimate round slaughter of all my cultists kept me from getting a fair number of points, and the Sleenesh player had been killing peasants for fun all game, only for the last card to reward her 7 points for them, enough to jump her to 50 points and the win. But it was a good time, helping them learn how to play and playing this real tight tactical experience.

Afterwards, I played a game of Pandemic with them. Even with 4 players we lost. It was all time limit, we had the majority of the disease in the bag but we ran out of time. I'm starting to dislike that aspect of it, because that's a problem we really don't have any control over.

More planned tomorrow, including running an adventure with some new players.