What I Played Today: December 14

Core Worlds, Avalon, Two Rooms and a Boom, Lemonade Stand

We had to go to a different game store this week, because our usual store was setting up table or something, I don't know. Once we all got together, everyone played Core Worlds, because Core Worlds. I was at the non-expansion table, and it was pretty good. I didn't win. That's all.

Played a game of Avalon, it was a five-player game. Five-player games always end badly for the Resistance. The spies always managed to pull it off, and they pegged our Merlin as well, so it wouldn't have mattered.

Then I forced them to play a game I read about on the Internet, Two Rooms and a Boom. It involves two even teams, with each having a special member. One team wants both of these members to end up in the same room at the end, the other doesn't. Every round, a player switches rooms. I thought it was interesting, although it eventually devolved into chaos at one point, as I wasn't regulating it as well as I should have, and we ended up with half the group hating the game. Well...whoops.

Then a game of Lemonade Stand at a bar, which is always a mess. The pizzas arrived during the last round, we had to play around pizza. PIZZA.

What I Played Today: September 21

FTL, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Core Worlds, Skull and Roses

I may have played FTL while I was supposed to be working, shh, don't tell anyone.

At the game store, a couple of games of Sentinels of the Multiverse, since I had just gotten the expanded edition and the new expansion. Guys, the expanded edition is really good. Everything now fits in one box, like, on purpose, and some of the new enemies are supercool. There's a giant boss with all of the hit points, and a zombie guy, and a full team of supervillains, which is kinda awesome.

We faced off against Ambascade, who has a dumb name and a dumber gimmick. He can go invisible to avoid damage, except when he doesn't, in which case you can take him down pretty easily. In a second game we found the team of supervillains, who have this cool thing where their abilities trigger based on an icon on the played card, and if you are really unlucky, you can end up fighting all of them. But we only ended up fighting four. They would occasionally heal themselves, which was annoying, but not too bad.

Then a game of Core Worlds, which I kinda slept walked through. I didn't get the core planet I wanted, but I did manage to get two of them somehow. Also, something happened at the end of the game that caused some confusion and someone else might have won. I don't know why we rushed there, I guess we were just done with the game.

Then a game of Skull and Roses, which is a neat bluffing game that took me forever to understand! In it you put down one of your four tiles, one of which has a skull on it, and then you have to wager how many tiles among those on the table you can flip over without revealing a skull. At first I just threw down my tile randomly and didn't look to see which one it was, then I put it down randomly not realizing there is supposed to be some strategy here, then I finally understood and realized how bad I am at liar's dice. I managed to get fully revealed near the end of the game, so everyone knew that I didn't have a skull anymore and was not a threat. Eventually the person who still had three tiles left won just by sheer numbers. But it's a cute little game, I like it, and the tiles look super sweet.

What I Played Today: August 7

Risk Legacy, Core Worlds, Werewolf

I got to play in that game of Risk Legacy that I tagged into a month ago. For some reason, someone named a city Thor's Butthole, and people occasionally tell horrible jokes for what feels like ten hours straight. But the game had a lot of interesting back and forth, where each player in turn kept on having a chance to win the game, and then fails, and then the next player takes a try, and then fails. Eventually I won the game by quickly skirmishing a couple of bases real quick, and I got to sign the board. And then, because I'm a huge jerk, I decreased the value of Australia by 1. Mwahahaha!

Then I kinda sleptwalked through a game of Core Worlds. You would think, not paying too much attention, I would not win, but you would be wrong, because I'm pretty great. I started with an early thin deck strategy, and then just started buying planets worth victory points, with a few minor good drafts. It went pretty well.

And in that Werewolf game I'm hosting...so...the hunter decided to claim Werewolf. It was a bold move, but one that required...attention, which wasn't given, when it happened that the player accidentally killed the seer, the most important role in the game. It was...kind of insane. I am kind of in over my head!

What I Played Today: August 1

Core Worlds, Descent

I managed to go to the same store and play the same games with the same people. Weird. Weird thing.

The second encounter of that quest we started yesterday in Descent, which went...poorly for the Overlord. The Overlord had to kill this dragon, and instead of doing that, he decided to have the only character who could hurt the dragon to turn around and hit with a sword. That's definitely an idea...but then we tore his minion apart in a turn and stole his sword and ran away. It was sad to watch.

Then a game of Core Worlds, which I did not win. I don't know, I'm pretty cool with Core Worlds. Of the deck builders that decide having a whole lot of extra bullshit is a good idea, it's probably the best; tight game play, varied execution, lot of means to victory. Much better than Star Trek Deckbuilding Game, which the other table was playing for a good two-and-a-half hours. Man...screw that game.

What I Played Today: July 31

Core Worlds, Descent

Apparently Core Worlds is a really popular game in this group that I have latched onto, and they finally showed it to me, and it is officially alright. Not super great, just...alright. It's a deckbuilder where you build up an army to take planets, and as the game progresses you get better and better cards in play from a number of decks. Eventually you get to the final deck and it has some specific planets that give specific amount of points based on what you bought. It's interesting, especially considering I never had a deck to speak of, since I buried most of my deck and kept most of the cards I bought in play.

Then an encounter in Descent. We had to find a book and run away. There were zombies. Not sure what I think from the player side. I can see this being fun...but I'm just not sure. The conversion kit is amazing though, since everything is compatible with the new stuff.