What I Played Today: April 6

Hey That's My Fish, Andromeda

I ventured out into the outside world and went to a board game night that was downtown, because I can't just spend the rest of my life skulking in my room. It was okay, although I didn't really make any instant connections with anyone. But I never do, so!

I played a game of Hey, That's My Fish on an iPad, which I won because I had played before and I knew how to play. For some reason the placement wasn't snake-style, which means I got to choose all the best places to start. Not quite fair.

I then played a set-matching game (I guess) called Andromeda, where there are a bunch of planets and a deck full of pictures of those planets and you play sets in order to potentially score those planets. It took us a while to figure out how to play the game, and even then we didn't have it right, and for some reason the rules just didn't stick either, so the last turn the other players were making illegal moves, but because I was at the point of wanting to be done playing, I just...let it happen. I wasn't that invested, and I'll probably never play that game again, so! Yep, that's about the statement of the night: so!

What I Played Today: January 30

San Juan, Hey That's My Fish, Karaoke Karaoke Revolution

I almost played Artemis today, but then I didn't, so there's that. Instead I played San Juan and Hey, That's My Fish, which was something, I guess.

Then I got to sing songs! Karaoke Karaoke Revolution: American Idol edition. It was ridiculous. But, I like to sing, and there were some great moments, like the girl who nobody knew had perfect pitch who aced a song right away, and myself almost acing a song except that while I was singing, someone was screwing around on their phone and somehow managed to connect it to the TV, and the guy who could not sing breaking down while singing "Sweet Dreams," or the singing battle in which I and my opponent did perfectly until the last phrase, so it ended in a tie. What I'm saying is, a great time was had by most! Except for people who refuse to sing songs. Why are you so anti-song, you people?

What I Played Today: October 24

Battlestar Galactica, Hey That's My Fish, Lemonade Stand

A night specially for Battlestar, pretty good. Okay, first, a warm-up game of Hey, That's My Fish, but then Battlestar!

Because it was mostly new players, it was the base set, and while I missed some of the things I was used to (Treachery Cards, 0-power cards, etc.), I had included some crises from the expansion and I don't think it was too terribly unbalanced. We were doing alright to the halfway point, when someone I thought might be a Cylon used his power to effectively clear another player. Then, the game was cut in twain to me, and I figured the Cylons were among two groups. Of course, I was wrong, but I was able to say, "Hey, don't give that guy an Executive Order, he's going to reveal if you do." And then I was right!

The lone revealed Cylon continued to act like a jerk to most everyone, and the other players all acted human. However, most of us were acting more human than the others, and it became clear that the other Cylon was doing a bad job of fooling us, and the revealed Cylon was getting angry because he thought the human team was doing quite well and he really wanted help. Eventually the last Cylon revealed, right when the thought the humans were home free, and then...we just never drew any jump cards. Like, five or six crises with no jumps in a row. It was poor luck, and the humans lost. Phooey. But luckily, our compatriots at the other table managed to pull of an unlikely victory for the humans, so at least it was evenly split.

Then I played a game in a bar, which went as well as it usually does, but the game was kinda fun, Lemonade Stand. It's a simple press-your-luck game involving selling lemonade. You prepare your lemonade and hope it doesn't rain. During the game we played, it always goddamn rained.

What I Played Today: September 29

Hey, That's My Fish, BattleCON, Starcraft: The Board Game, Skull and Roses, Netrunner

We got a bunch of people together to play board games and jaw about how there were too many people to play board games. I don't know why we invited so many people if that was a concern, but whatever. While waiting for people to get there, a game of Hey, That's My Fish, which continues to be adequate. Then while people were standing around being people, I forced a guy to play a game of BattleCON. He was unconfident in his abilities, and that proved to be his downfall, because really? Some of it is kind of chance. So I won.

Then there was a bunch of just hemming, and I may sound like I'm making a huge deal about this, but it kinda got a little annoying how we couldn't just sit down and play a goddamn board game. So eventually we got it sorted out and three of us played the Starcraft board game, which is very crunchy. The zerg player managed to carve off half the board all to himself, and it screwed the rest of it. The terran got into a sore spot, and I could have knocked him out of the game if I really wanted to, but...it was his game, so. We had to give up halfway through because he just kinda forgot he was going to a thing with his girlfriend, but I enjoyed it a bit. Pretty fun.

Then everyone was standing around again, and I said, "Let's play Battlestar Galactica," because it was Saturday and we still had five hours. So most of the people said sure, I walked over to grab the game, and when I got back we were suddenly playing a bootleg copy of Skull and Roses. Now, I didn't get mad, because I like Skull and Roses, but it was weird. The game of Skull and Roses was fun though. The guy on my left was a master bluffer, it was impressive. I managed to win the last game with only one card left, which was pretty awesome.

Then we all split off and played two-player games of Netrunner. I played one game as the corp, and I got mad stupid and put some key agendas out without protection early in the game because I was hoping my opponent would think they were traps. It was a dumb idea. I managed to recover a bit and finally got some ICE in my hand, but the runs against my deck managed to net enough points for the runner to win. I do like how smash and grab Weyland is. "Oh, you know what's in front of this server and it's not a threat to you? Sell it to a contractor, install something else instead." It was pretty fun! I adjusted the deck so it had a bit more ICE in it, and threw out some pointless tagging cards (my deck tagged enough as is), and hopefully I'll get to test these decks against some experienced players soon.

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: July 10

Risk Legacy, Hey That's My Fish, King of Tokyo

I hunted out another gaming shop, which gave me bad vibes for a good thirty seconds until I actually got all the way inside and say that it was actually pretty large and clean inside; a bit cluttered, but there was a whole separate gaming room, so that was pretty cool.

Some people had started a game of Risk Legacy two weeks ago, and their fifth man was apparently not around, so I subbed in and made as little impact as possible. I plopped down in Egypt and just kind of existed. A lot of action happened when a player spread themselves too thin in South America, which allowed someone else to get in and lose too many of their forces, which allowed a third player to field a ton of reinforcements and win the game. And I was there! I added a coin to a card and will probably never get to play that game again.

A quick game of Hey That's My Fish (it is always quick), and I didn't win. I don't know, game is cute enough, good for it.

Then a couple of games of King of Tokyo, which is apparently kaiju Yahtzee. You roll a bunch of dice which determine your action, and you deal damage to other monsters. I thought it was alright, there's some interesting cards and such, but in the second game I got eliminated way early and then the game went for another 20 minutes, which was difficult to sit through. I don't know, that colored my impression of the game, I'm sorry everyone.

What I Played Today: June 16

Zombie Dice, Mystery Express, Hey, That’s My Fish, Halo

Yeah, I’ve been slacking, I apologize, I’ve been doing stuff, and frankly I’ve got no excuse. So let’s talk about what I played today!

Got together with the dudes to play some games, playing a couple of quick rounds of Zombie Dice, and no real comment here, there were some crazy improbable rolls, but otherwise a good time.

Then, after over a year and a half sitting in the back of my car, I finally got a chance to play Hey, That’s My Fish, and found out that it’s actually a simple but deep area control game about penguins. There’s a small playing field with each hex providing a resource of 1 to 3, and whenever a penguin moves, he takes the space with him, so nobody can move past him. So, it becomes less about getting the hexes worth 3, and more about blocking off regions so that only your penguins can access them. Pretty good for what is disguised as a family game.

Also got a chance to play Mystery Express again, and I think it doesn’t play nearly as well with three players, because you keep seeing the same cards over and over. Each turn, I was able to narrow down one category, and a couple of missteps by my opponents made it easy for me to quickly determine what the M.O. was, or the motive, and I got lucky when counting the times, so I was the only one who caught it. The only thing that I couldn’t narrow down was the location, and that’s because the player to my left had all the location cards and couldn’t possibly look at them all. But I would like to try the game with more. It also went a lot faster than the first time, mainly because we had a good idea what we were doing this time around.

Also Halo, which I have gotten both better and worse at. I completely failed on the one level I usually do great at, the grenade joust, but I was on fire in the rocket level, being able to pull off some hits that I never was able to do before, some lucky, and some just plain skillful. I had a great shot where I was in a one-on-one close ground fight, and traced my opponent’s jumppath and shot at where his feet would be in a second, and down he went. I am inexplicably proud of that, for some reason.