What I Played Today: June 26

Dungeon Petz

After three months of carrying this game around because people kept mentioning it in passing and I like it, I finally forced people to play Dungeon Petz, and it was fun! I lost pretty horribly, because I just didn't have enough pets to sell and send to exhibitions. I also keep forgetting the rules, and learned a rule that I didn't know was a thing! Apparently one of the placeholder workers will eat some of the food from the cart if they are standing in a certain place.

Anyway, Dungeon Petz!

What I Played Today: March 26

Dungeon Petz, Jabberjay, Carcassonne, Power Grid: The First Sparks

Old friends at the gaming store, so I went to hang out and play with them. A quick game of Dungeon Petz, in which I tied for last place by 43 1/2 points, which is a bizarre coincidence. But it was at least entertaining. Then I tricked some poor guys to try out Jabberjay, the crappy Hunger Games tie-in game, and as I suspected, it was not very good! The decisions you make are kinda dumb and pointless, and it's really hard to trick people into thinking you are or aren't something. The district team won in the third round, because once someone is accused or exposed, it's really easy to force someone to flee, and there is no reason not to.

At a different location, a game of Carcassonne, which is never worth commenting on, and then got to play Power Grid: The First Sparks. Pretty much all by myself, because everyone else at the table decided to get falling down drunk instead of playing! I pretty much ran the game, pointing to people and saying, "Hey, make a decision," and even then, I didn't manage to win the game, being one food short of victory. I do like this game a lot though, the decisions are simple but compelling, and the bidding mechanic is actually pretty neat, as the first player says what new tool he wants, and it goes down the line, letting anyone else interrupt and take the tool instead. That and the way you collect food is also pretty good, but I imagine this game would be better with less people, somehow. I would like to try it with sober people.

What I Played Today: March 12

Sentinels of the Multiverse, Dungeons Petz, Death Angel

For some reason, people tend to really like Sentinels of the Multiverse. It's a pretty fine game, and every time I show it off, people like it. This was a two player game, with each of us controlling two heroes each, and we just happened to pick the two of the fiddliest heroes there are, Visionary and Absolute Zero. Now, Zero can do a lot of damage if you give him a chance, and we did alright. It got a little rough near the end, in which Baron Blade started swinging like mad, and I thought three heroes died in one volley, until I realized that he had been hit with a debuff. This game needs tokens or dice or something. There are not enough materials.

Then a game of Dungeon Petz, which I lost the heck out of. It got bad when during round two, a player managed to win both the exhibition with a fun pet, then turned around and sold it for 18 points, and it just went downhill from there. I think I just start allowing the variant in which a card of a specific color will always provide the resource attached to it if you want, because when you go all in on a particular monster hoping to sweep an exhibition and don't get any of the icons you needs? Blows.

Then I played a game of Death Angel, in which we lost, but only by one die roll! That's a victory in my book. We started losing guys way too early, and one of my teams was knocked out by round 2, which was not helpful. There was a great bit where we traveled twice in one turn, first into a room with an artifact, then into the final room almost immediately when the genestealers spawned. "Hey guys, there's an artifact over there that might help -" "NO TIME! RUN!"

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 2

Eminent Domain, Dungeon Petz, Endeavor

I spent a lot of time at the game store today, watching people play board games, and also playing board games. Both of these things happened.

After a bit of waiting, played a two-player game of Eminent Domain, which is a deckbuilding game that I am indifferent toward. It just adds a bunch of stuff that feels really unnecessary, with planets and little plastic ships and resources? I don't know, if I want all of this nonsense, I'll just play Race to the Galaxy, which it is very similar to, but a lot more focused.

Then I played a new board game I got, Dungeon Petz, which has a ridiculous theme but is actually a lot of crunchy fun. Each player is tasked with caring for some pets, and to do this you spend some time gathering resources, then draw need cards for each pet and assign them. The bigger the pet, the more needs they have, so the more resources you'll need, but also the more points they are possibly worth during an exhibit or to a potential buyer. I messed up around turn three, getting caught with a crap hand full of disease, which will drop a lot of negative points on your pet, and managed to accidentally mutate one of my pets out of existence, so that was a waste, and I lost. But everyone seemed to get what was going down pretty quickly, and I like the crunchiness of this a lot.

Then a boring old game of Endeavor. I won again, because I always win Endeavor, because I'm just that good. It's all about the cards, guys. You need to get those cards.