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.

What I Played Today: November 2

Endeavor, Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, Minecraft

At the gaming store was a special night for one of our group who was returning to the UK, there were Settlers of Catan cupcakes and everything. I didn’t stay long, but I did play a game of Endeavor. I spread myself a bit thin and focused too hard of getting cards with victory points of them, and came in second. It was fun though, although the one guy who never seems to know how to play any game ended up at the table. That may have been part of it too, I was playing his board as well as mine whenever he asked “Is there anything I can do here?”

Also put in about 20 minutes into the Dead Rising prologue that came out a while ago on Xbox. It’s basically a bite-sized version of the gameplay, in a small town that is inexplicably overrun with zombies, even though not an hour ago it was absolutely abandoned. There’s also an adorable little girl in this one, who needs constant injections of Zombrex or else she will become a zombie! I kinda want her to become a zombie, because she’s a bunch of 1’s and 0’s, so what do I care? But there’s not a lot to the game; it’s only about 13 in-game hours long, and I completed half the objectives already. Maybe I’m not giving it enough credit.

Also some Minecraft. I don’t understand why spiders don’t die anymore. Shouldn’t the lifegiving sun cause them all to explode, instead of sit outside my house waiting for me to come out so they can bite my face and neck? I died twice this game; luckily the penalty for dying isn’t severe. You are just sent back to the respawn point and all your stuff is dropped in a big explosion around where you bit it. So if you’re quick, you can pick it all up again.

What I Played Today: July 24

Three Dragon Ante, Pandemic, Endeavor, Dixit

I played a lot of games today, mainly because a friend was in town after a long while and we had the whole day free. There was a lot of board gaming, interrupted by a nap and dinner, followed by even more board gaming.

We played a lot of Three Dragon Ante, my friend’s favorite card game that was released by Wizards for D&D about five years ago, and recently received a stand-alone expansion (which is mysterious in itself). It’s a clever game, with a lot of luck involved though, and has a lot of fun elements, even if you can potentially get screwed a bit. The game can end pretty fast too if you’re not careful, as it ends when someone is out of money, and if there a few high rollers on the table, that happens pretty quickly. But I feels like a fantasy tavern game, if a bit complicated, which is nice.

There were two games of Pandemic, one we lost horribly when the Far East exploded, and the other we won pretty decidedly...even though we weren’t playing quite right. We had forgotten to move up the infection track after the third epidemic card, which means the game was going a little too easy on us. We did go out of our way to make sure that we got the killer combo of dispatcher and medic. I played the dispatcher, and I was awesome, moving everyone exactly where they needed to go. It was kinda neat, I wish we were playing perfectly.

There was a game of Endeavor that I lost by one point. I tried a slightly different strategy, quickly ramping up my culture to get more dudes and “considering” war, but I didn’t follow through, and ended up losing by one point. My moves were pretty forecast too early, and a player went out of his way to steal points from me by declaring war on my interlinked colonies. But he didn’t win either...so...

Also, I had a very interesting experience with the Spiel de Jahres winner, Dixit. I introduced the game to a few relatively non-gamers, started the round, only to have everyone guess the image I used. Then...I was completely and utterly ineffective, able to score only 1 point. I never guessed the correct image, and only once did someone pick my image, it was miserable. The second game we played went better, I’m getting better at how to make a decent sentence, but man, this game kicked my ass, and I have a bit of a vendetta against it currently. Stupid, lousy, blood candle.

What I Played Today: June 1

Dominion, Endeavor, Fairy Tale

Game night at the store, and I stayed at pretty much the same table and played some of the stuff that’s just been hanging out in my car. There was a new player, and we introduced him to the likes of Endeavor and Dominion, as well as got a chance to play Fairy Tale the way it was meant to be played.

Endeavor was an interesting game, went exactly as it always does. I was a bit low on the brick count, but made up for it by maxing out the other lines and being able to take a lot more actions. Everyone seemed to enjoy this game, even though most felt a bit being the whole time, and I think if you’re playing, you’ve got to assume that someone is going to abolish slavery. It’s almost inevitable.

We played two games of Fairy Tale, and for a simple game, it’s actually a bit tough to figure out. The flip mechanic and the fact that the majority of the time it effects you makes it a difficult one to understand, and some mechanics seem pretty useless, like hunt, but it can be a bit fun. Playing with five people made it obvious that there’s a lot more to this game when you are guaranteed to see every card and try to get the ones you want. In the second game, I got both the lone hero of both the kingdom and the dragons, and got the matching book for each, but it couldn’t stand up against five Mischievous Fairies.

Then a game of Dominion happened, with some new alchemy cards to show them off to someone who wanted to see them, and it actually wasn’t a great game for the new player. He seemed a bit confused, and the constant stream of tributes and saboteurs just made a game that you couldn’t quite track or control. The game ended oddly with three piles down instead of provinces, just because with the constant threat of saboteurs and the action-heavy purchasing process to take full advantage of the vineyards made this an odd game. I definitely wouldn’t want this one to be my first game of Dominion.

What I Played Today: March 2

Dominion, Revolution, Endeavor

It was game night at the store, and a lot of people were late in coming, so those who were there started up a couple of games of Dominion. I was at a table with a couple who just started showing up recently, and we played in a very aggressive game, with both torturer and swindler, two of my least favorite cards. I ended up with 4 curses in the end, even after trashcanning about 3 or 4 of them. I still managed to win because the most aggressive player didn’t get much of an engine moving to make enough money to buy any provinces. We also ran out of curses about halfway through, which made life a lot easier, but it was a bit of a lowscoring game.

We moved onto the next game, and I grabbed the lightest thing I had, because I wasn’t feeling very intense. I picked up Revolution, a bidding game where you’re trying to get the most support before the flags are unfurled. I had played this game a number of times before and found that the rich will get richer in this game, as it’s tough to get the resources you need if you don't have them to begin with. I...wound up on the havenot side, as I lost by just over 25% of the score of the winner. It...went badly, and I have no idea what I did wrong. Probably underestimating my opponents, who picked up on it pretty quickly, but I wasn’t getting my units into the buildings in time. But...I also wasn’t getting in points during the game proper...I’m going to add it up to just being pretty stupid for about an hour.

My usual friends showed up by then, and we got Endeavor on the table. It’s a very trim resource management game, balancing your resources to get the best and most actions as you try to extend out of Europe to the new worlds and gain the most cities. It’s very quick for a game of its complexity, with a lot of limited abilities and a lot of second-guessing, as well as a great deal of interaction. It’s a great game, and I’m glad I got a chance to play it. Not that it went very well...I feel apart early on and couldn’t pick up enough to do anything about it. One of the players went out of his way to abolish slavery, which caused negative points for two players, something unheard of in a five-player game. Of course, those two players tied for first, so...yeah. Go slavery. But a fun night overall, all things considered.