What I Played Today: October 5

Skull and Roses, Dominant Species, Dominion

Game store, there was a lot of hemming and hawing about how there was not enough space. So we all stood around and played a game of Skull and Roses, which I lost, because Skull and Roses.

Then I helpfully pointed out, "hey, dummies, there's an extra table over there, why don't we, you know, use it." And the problem was solved! So a group of us played Dominant Species, which was actually pretty fun when you give the heave-how to a third of the cards so the game is a reasonable length. I managed to run away with the game in the last turn when a quickly burst a bunch of dudes on the board and then spread them out quickly, which lead to some serious points in the scoring round. Felt good.

Then played a game of Dominion: Dark Ages, which was pretty fun. There were cultists which really dragged down everyone's deck, so that wasn't fun, but otherwise I like Dark Age a lot. It makes a lot of exciting choices.

What I Played Today: July 20

Alive, Dominant Species, Hey That's My Fish, Falling, We Didn't Playtest This at All, The Resistance

I went to the good game store again, just to see what was up. Apparently someone was showing off their prototype for a game about zombies (I know), but also it had this weird Agricola feel to it too, where you had to manage your territory and  handle your resources and trade and etc. It seemed clever enough at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more nonsense it seemed. For example, there are a couple of mechanics that will cause everyone to lose, and I can't figure out why. Whenever someone dies, everyone either loses outright, or you lose some hope, and if that runs out, everyone loses. I guess it's to encourage cooperation, but it feels more forced than anything. Everyone also gets a new action each turn, which doesn't make sense. But...I don't know, it seems kinda neat, and they aren't completely done yet, so...

Then a truncated game of Dominant Species, in which the owner just threw out a bunch of cards he didn't like and played the game normally, and I kinda like that it makes a much more focused game. I was playing pretty well, the birds are my new favorite because being able to maneuver quickly is pretty strong if you know how to use it. I went for survival again, because it seems like a decent strategy, especially when I dominate in those places as well. I thought I was running away with the game in the last turn until the final scoring bit, where each hex scores again, and the arachnids had this little corner of good lands all to themselves that they managed to sneak by with a single point and I lost. It was pretty close.

Then a bunch of screwing around. Hey That's My Fish is a game that exists. For some reason, whenever I made a move, someone made sounds like I was making a power play and someone would counter me for no reason, so I lost horribly. Falling is probably one of James Ernest's worst games, I said it, it's just so dramatically unfocused, at least with Fightball I know what I'm supposed to be doing. Here it's just madness. I haven't played "We Didn't Playtest This at All" in a long time (it's still just chilling in my car), but it sure is a fine game when you don't want to do anything else. Plus it's over in like two minutes, can't complain about it too much.

And The Resistance, which these guys like a lot. A few games of it, I don't remember a lot of the details, it was pretty late.

What I Played Today: May 28

Dominant Species, Descent

It was a full day of gaming! Dawn to dusk. A couple of long games. First, Dominant Species, which I had always wanted to try, and it is very well-designed, I like it! I had ended up early on in the tundra, which is worth crap for points by themselves, but if you manage to survive the hostile environment (the resources around the tundra are constantly in danger of being evaporated), you can make a lot of points at the end of each turn. Of course, my plan became quite obvious in the middle of the game, and the whole table turned against me and let the clear leader move into my territory. This turned out to be a bad idea when the leader managed to use a card to blow up most of my pawns and managed to jump to the lead, which was never met again. The game ended in a weird spread, with three players within a point of each other, while the winner was 30 points ahead, and I was 30 points behind. Obvious, I made a mistake…it was my fault. But whatever, it is a very strategic game and I like it quite a bit.

Descent was also played, and…my head wasn’t completely into this. I ended up with the magic user again, but the game just kinda stagnated for me after a bit. The overlord played quite well, managing to spawn and overload on us a couple of times, and when we were almost out of time (some players had a hard deadline that we were right up against), I accidentally triggered a trap that managed to drop a rock on our fighter, ending the game. It was…anticlimactic. I don’t know, I wait impatiently for the second edition, it promises to fix a lot of problems. Primarily the goddamn length. The game heavily favors the overlord making the game last as long as possible, and that just….wears on the morale of the party.