What I Played Today: January 16

One Night Werewolf, Zombie Dice, Pig, Poker

It was my sister's birthday, and we went out to a pretty nice restaurant and had some very good meats. I had a seafood dish with the best risotto I've ever tasted. I barely mind that the meal took over two hours for some reason.

After that we came home and shared games with each other. I taught One Night Werewolf to them, which they actually quite enjoyed and really got into, so that's cool. A couple of the games did come down to "Oh, we are all villains, so we win," or "Oh, we are all villagers and have completely screwed each other in a way that nobody wins," but that's just a problem with the three-person rule set. The game is best with five, frankly. Got to have at least five.

Then a round of Zombie Dice, because Zombie Dice is mindless enough. At this point my sister wants to show me a game she plays a lot, Pig, which is a push-your-luck game as well but also more specifically cruel in not allowing you to score points. You play to exactly 10,000, but you have to get 1000 points in one roll in order to actually start playing the game, which seems needlessly cruel. One person spent until the second to last round just...not scoring. It was definitely a bar game, but that's fine.

Then we had to teach Poker to someone, so we played for quarters, and I managed to steal six dollars from my sister. Well, it was money she wasn't using anyway.

What I Played Today: September 12

Deck Building Game, Lost Legacy, Rocket League, Two Rooms and a Boom, Tsuro, Hydras in Hats, One Night Werewolf, Sushi Go

I went to a game party, and I love going to game parties, because I get to play games. The first was a quick game of Deck Building Game, which is weird and kinda dumb. It's perfectly serviceable, but it's just a weird joke, made as a weird joke, and it in fact remarkable easy to end the game so that you win immediately. Odd design that.

Also a few games of Lost Legacy, which I continue to love, because it's a remarkably clever design? A few games with the Staff of Dragons, then we mixed that with another set, and...yeah! Even though I continued to be kicked out of the game, I like what is going on in this space. More please.

Then a few matches of Rocket League, which has gone from bizarre well-loved anomaly that I didn't get to something that makes a bit of sense, but still not worth getting into. It is a lot of fun with eight people in the match, but the game space is...too small? Somehow? Like, there were a number of lucky shots, and it would take forever to fully get the physics of this. But I did get a couple of fun assist goals. Those are always great.

And then I pulled the whole party into Two Rooms and a Boom, because that's the kind of influence I have. We played several games; the most rewarding of which was when I ended up in a room with three others, and through a series of just blatant as shit lies, got literally everyone to card share with me, which was good, because I was the Tuesday Knight, and I found the Bomber in Round 1. I win immediately, ha ha ha. The most interesting game was the five-round game with spies and such. I love the spies, I wish there were always enough people to use them. Of course, the one real problem is when it comes down to who the last hostage is, which happens too often to be useful. There must a cancel to this, somehow, but I'm not sure what it is. A neutral set of roles, probably, but again, that requires some many people. I wish I had clones.

Then a couple of games I haven't played before. Tsuro is a game of placing tiles and following paths. You are kicked from the game when your path leads off the board, the last to leave the board wins. It's a very pretty game. I like it as a nice filler.

Also, this group has a couple of amateur game designers, and I tried one of their games, and I...didn't like it. It's a match game, I guess? Each players has a secret objective, which they want to replicate on the gameboard, which is a hydra with various heads wearing various hats. Each turn a player places a card over a head, then all players check for victory. But it's...sloppy; the art forces gameplay choices that shouldn't be, there's a deduction component that is ultimately pointless, and any random action can cause an end of game condition. Also, the secret objective is a bet tough to figure. I don't know, I feel bad for disliking it, but I do, you know?

Then I wanted to play One Night Werewolf, and because I have godhead-like powers, so we will all play! This ended up with three 12 (!) player games of ONW (the night phase is ridiculously long with twelve players), of which I lost every time. Hahaha. I was werewolf for two of the games, and was unable to lie my way to victory (primarily because I was assumed to be lying, the penalties of a godhead), and then there was a great game in which the tanner just completely confounded all of us with a seer claim, and managed to get killed to his delight. I love the tanner.

And then I learned to play Sushi Go! It's alright! My main issue is that nearly half the cards you choose to play are worthless. That's not fun. I'm not having fun. But it's cute and simple and a fine filler.

What I Played Today: March 6

Speedrunners, One Night Werewolf, The Last Banquet, Avalon

There was a game night! I went and ate some pizza and had fun. Speedrunners was being played pretty much throughout the evening. The game is fine. You run. Although now that the game is more popular, there are user-made levels you can choose from, and guess what, they are all terrible. Just universally not very good. And of course the most popular one involves a dick joke, because gamers are the worst.

A couple of games of One Night Werewolf, one of which I lost because a revealer saw me and I happened to be a werewolf, and one in which I THOUGHT someone was definitely a werewolf, only to find out that the robber just kinda lied their way out of the whole mess. I did manage to find the Tanner pretty easily though.

Then I finally got to try The Last Banquet, which everyone except me ended up liking! The Last Banquet is a large party game where everyone splits up into two teams and tries to position their assassin next to the king using any number of powers that move people around. For what it is, the game is fine, a fun party game with a lot of movement and some goofy roleplaying. As a game, there is not enough substance. There's very little that the king can do to prevent getting killed, every person can take at most one or two actions, and everyone seemed to take a long time figuring out which one of two actions they were going to do. It also is a pain to play at a real table, since there is so much motion. I think it's best suited to be played with a circle of chairs, so that motion through the middle is easily handled. But, for people who don't play a lot of games, this is a really good bet, I think. If you happen to run icebreakers for a company, consider The Last Banquet.

Then a fretfully stupid 5-player game of Avalon. I figured out what the badguy pairing HAD to be to make sense, but for some reason didn't act on it in the final turn, because I got confused, so the spies won. As they always do in a five player game. Never play Avalon with five players.

What I Played Today: January 3

Screencheat, Speedrunners, The Resistance, One Night Werewolf, Coup

I went to hang out and play games today! Console games plus lying games is good for all!

Screencheat is a shooting game in which all the avatars are invisible, so you need to look at other people's screens in order to figure out where they are. It also features a number of goofy weapons, such as a laser crossbow and a hobby horse. I like this game because the maps are bright and colorful (so you can tell what quadrant someone is in) and it's just kinda silly. I managed to figure out the best way to win King of the Hill. Because nobody knows where I am, the best strategy is just to trundle into the hill and swing your arms wildly, hoping you kill whoever wanders in there. Works wonders.

Also played Speedrunners, which is a...racing game? In which the avatars run as fast as possible around a circular obstacle course, and anyone who doesn't keep up with the lead player eventually gets eliminated when they fall of the screen. Last one who managed to stay on the screen wins the round, best to three wins. You have jumping and ducking and a weird grappling hook at your disposal, as well as any items you pick up Mario Cart style. Once we figured out how to play, it became really fun, as the level design is really good, providing a solid catch-up mechanic that doesn't feel forced with alternate paths with better resources and tons of obstacles that fade the first time they are hit. Plus, once someone is eliminated, the screen starts to slowly shrink, making death that much closer. It's pretty clever, a real hit at the party, although the music can get a little annoying.

There is an expansion to The Resistance, which basically adds a bunch of stuff that is in Avalon, but ALSO some new stuff, like the Hunter module, which adds a chief player to each side, and a hunter that is trying to find the chief, as well as a few new rules, which adds a ton of information to be gathered and hidden. We stumbled through a couple of games, trying to understand what exactly these rules mean, and see what everyone should lie about. I was a spy in the second game, and I bungled it up pretty severely when, in an attempt to try to secure the special victory condition because it sounded fun, I let the second mission pass and ended up outing myself when I had to fight to get on the team during the third mission. Whoops. Next time I should just play normally.

Also played some One Night Werewolf, which is fun! We didn't play with a lot of new roles that came in Daybreak, because we had several new players, but the new roles seem really fun! The witch is fun, as they force one more role change, and the Prince is a nice odd variant that offers a good cover role. I managed to blow the game wide open in the second game when I revealed that I was no longer a werewolf, that guy was, and we bagged both wolves. There was going to be a third game, but then pizza showed up. Boo pizza.

And a few games of Coup, which I guess I have never spoken about! I have played so many games of it that I thought it was out forever! So, there is a deck of five roles, three copies of each, and you are dealt a hand of two cards. You are trying to eliminate all other players by revealing their hands. There are a number of actions, most of which you are only allowed to do if you have a certain role in your hand, but there's nothing stopping you from trying to take that action, and if nobody challenges you, you do it anyway. However, IF they challenge you, you lose a card, but if you were legally allowed to do it, they lose a card instead. So it's all about bluffing what's in your hand and figuring out if someone starts lying. Short and sweet, pretty clever. I had a really good last game in which I was stuck with two Contessas (the Contessa is only good for blocking the assassinate action, a cheap action that can force someone to lose a card, but requires the Assassin), and so instead of trying to use any old action, I just gained one coin a turn, an action that can't be blocked or challenged by anyone. Because I wasn't claiming to have ANYTHING, everyone ignored me until the end, where I had enough gold to kill without being blocked and only one opponent I needed to eliminate. At this point he changed tactics and starts stealing my money, and I was almost done for until I realize that he probably doesn't HAVE the role that allows him to steal, and finally challenges him to win. I almost let him win too. Man, that was dumb. I am dumb sometimes (all the times).

And We're Back

Oh hey. Didn't see you there. I was just over here playing...Desktop Dungeons? That game's over a year old? Bizarre. Yeah, that's what I've been doing for the past year.

Okay, so I've fallen off and even let my domain name lapse, but over the holidays, I realized that I really wanted to start talking about games again, I really wanted to start writing again, and I kinda liked having a record of what I did every day. So I retrieved the domain name (for SOME REASON, nobody bought it) and we're going to do this again. Every day, I promise. (Well, until I get on a boat in a month, but shush.)

But what have I been doing this past year, you might be wondering? Did I really give up on playing games? Of course not. So, as a catch-up, here's an incomplete list of what I've been playing in 2014 based on my terrible memory. Ahem.