What I Played Today: November 13

Thunderstone Advance, Lemonade Stand, Assassin's Creed 3

Played a fairly long game of Thunderstone Advance, in which things started off slow and we had a ton of trouble killing stuff. Mostly because the spells and villagers were worthless, so there were only about five cards worth buying. Also most of the monsters were just huge jerks. Some breached, killed some things in the village, and then fled to the back of the dungeon. Come on, that's ridiculous. Anyway, I may have won if I didn't accidentally misread one of the treasures I got, so I had to trash a lot of cards I didn't want to. Whoops!

Also a quick game of Lemonade Stand, in which the winner won by taking advantage of a cascade of dollar cards. Another player and I had a really good day, best day possible, when the third player threw down his dollar that was going to screw one of us really badly. So...I played a card to counter in case I got hit, and then the third player drew a card that REALLY screwed me, cutting my profit in half, and then he got hit with a bad card, and it just went poorly from there. Stupid cutthroat game of selling lemonade.

Played about three games of multiplayer, I did alright. There was this really great moment in which I had two dudes chasing me, they were super close, and I just make a loop around a pillar. They both miss their target, both stabbing a civilian, I stun one of them, and then bail out of there. It was pretty awesome how dumb those guys were.

What I Played Today: November 6

Thunderstone Advance, Assassin's Creed III

Someone has been begging me to play Thunderstone Advance with him, because I had been badmouthing Thunderstone the original. I went along with it, because yeah why not, and it plays pretty well! The game is balanced a lot better, and there's more chances to draw cards in the dungeon, making going in the dungeon not awful. The original always just felt more like a numbers game, so some hoping that you draw well is fun. Also, some guy is holding the Thunderstone, instead of it just sitting there for whatever idiot comes by to grab it, so that's a lot better.

Then I went home because people started talking politics, so I played Assassin's Creed 3 instead. I hung out with a really angry Frenchman. He was pissed. Then I dicked around in the wilderness. I don't know, the game just seems so big, and while the fast travel is okay, it doesn't make it easy enough to get from place to place. It's just taking this game more than a little while to feel like an Assassin's Creed game, because the setting is so different.

What I Played Today: April 13

Thunderstone

Hey, a game of Thunderstone, in which everything went perfectly fine. There were some neat combos going around, and while the Thunderwraiths were in play (I hate these guys because they hate magic attacks, making the most powerful attacks useless against them), we didn’t actually have any magic in the village, so it wasn’t that big of deal. I lost by a few points because I kept getting beat to the chase on the high-level monsters, and because the level 3 version of an archer who is most of the time useless is actually extremely powerful (almost broken). But, it was fun, a pretty chill session, where everything came together.

What I Played Today: March 1

9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors, Thunderstone

There has been a buzz about this puzzle visual novel, 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors (999), for a while now, so I got it through Gamefly and am giving it a try. Now, when they say that it is a visual novel, they weren’t lying, you spend a good deal of time reading paragraphs. I am not used to reading anything but dialogue in video games, so this is a bit bizarre. It also handles most of its puzzle aspects the same way as those crappy “get out of the room” flash games you find plastered over everywhere, which I’m not sure I like. This one didn’t take too many leaps of faith, though, as the game made specifically clear that whoever has trapped you here has done so on purpose, with the intent of you getting out. Sure, it’s bizarre, but it’s also the plot. I’ve managed to escape the first room, so let’s see where this goes.

Also played a rushed game of Thunderstone at the store, with very few surprises. There were a few cards that ruled the game, the trainer and the claymore, and I played with the intent to not own these cards, because why should I follow everyone else? Well, that was a crap idea, and I lost. I was the first to make some successful dungeon trips, but my steam ran out quickly. Also one of the players refused to show his cards, which bugged me.

What I Played Today: January 8

Famiglia, Thunderstone, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

Another round at the table with the new games. A couple of games of Famiglia saw some experimentation, and both times my opponent got stuck with a hand that he couldn’t use, once because he didn’t have the right colors in hand (and couldn’t get them) and the second time because he ran out of cards in his hand. It appears going overboard with the special abilities will drain your power faster than you can afford. I did end the second game with a lot of points, being able to clean up the deck after my opponent had to pass for good. It was kinda fun.

A game of Thunderstone with some new cards, include the bard, who is all badass for no good reason. It was interesting, if a bit slow, as the deck wasn’t shuffled well enough (a lot of cards ended up next to each other), and while we had some good spells in play, a third of the monsters were immune to magic. I think I lost? I can’t remember.

Also played a crapton of AC: Brotherhood, shooting from level 30 to level 34. I was doing pretty well most games, getting on the podium about half the time, and completing some nice achievements that boosted the experience. There were also a lot of real dummies about, I must have gotten a lure over 20 times across a dozen games.

What I Played Today: January 3

Familgia, Thunderstone, AC: Brotherhood

I went to the game store today and somebody bought me some games! So we played them. The first is a two-player game in which you are trying to get the majority of the cards in the deck into your hand. In order to do this, you need to match up two like-numbered cards to pick up a card of the next highest-number from the table. When you do this, though, you have to leave one of the cards on the table, which takes them out of play. Some sets of cards have special abilities, that reduce the number of a card on the table, or let you swap cards into your hand. It’s a cool idea, if only they hadn’t gone stupid with the graphic design. Each card has a stereotypical mobster on it, with Italian mobsters with last names like Linguini and Pesto (and the Godfather looks exactly like Don Corleone) and some mercenary thugs who all look like Mexican gang members. It’s…a bit bad, but the gameplay recovers it a bit.

I also got the new expansion to Thunderstone, and it’s better than the first expansion. The new monsters are fun to fight, the new heroes provide some neat benefits, and I really like the mercenary villagers, because they actually help in the dungeon, as opposed to most villagers. There’s also a neat mechanic that counts your EXP and uses it in interesting ways, which is cool. But it doesn’t include any traps or monsters that are impossible to defeat under certain circumstances, so that’s great.

I also played some more Assassin’s Creed, because I just…can’t…stop. I started using some poison, which is fun, but not as effective, because you need to be closer than usual to apply it somebody. But when you do, oh boy, it is a hoot. My game keeps falling apart, though, as once I’m on a losing streak, I have a hard time bouncing back. I really should consider moving faster, because I keep getting killed while I’m staring down my target, but incognito kills are worth so many points. I wants all the points; quality, not speed.

What I Played Today: December 16

Space Hulk: Death Angel, Dance Central, Thunderstone

Games with friends this evening, which was a good time. Space Angel hit the table again, because I hadn’t played in a while, and although the game seemed to be going pretty well, it started going downhill pretty fast once we plodded towards the last room, in which we lost when the broodlords appeared and sliced through the remaining six members. We managed to last longer than we thought we would, but it still was a matter of six on one, which never goes well for the Space Marines.

Then a marathon session of Dance Central to get the Dance Battle badge, which requires 10 dance battles in one session. I realized about 8 songs in that I probably could have done this alone, but we were too far in as we matched 1-for-1 on wins. I eventually flagged late in the game and started losing more than winning, but it was a fun time, if a bit exhausting.

And onward to Thunderstone, which hasn’t been played in a while. It was fine, featuring some neat cards, but it also got really awful at points because of the inclusion of death traps in the deck. There are two kinds of traps included in this little addition, pit traps, which might kill a hero from your hand if you don’t have a rogue in your party, and boulder traps, which will unequivocally kill three heroes at random from your deck. The difference in severity between the two cards is a huge fault in design to me, and the fact that there are three boulder traps included means that without a doubt, you are going to lose nine heroes. In a five player game, that is 45 heroes DEAD, in an environment that only supports 78 heroes in total, assuming no one levels a hero. That is nearly 60% of all available fighters killed by this horrible, horrible card. It also makes no sense from a flavor point of view, how is the boulder rolling into the village and slaughtering great warriors who weren’t even involved in tripping the trap. I’m sorry, but I really hate this card; in the wrong environment, it makes the game impossible to win.

What I Played Today: November 14

Thunderstone, Star Wars Roleplaying Game

Sorry folks, we’re going to skip the past few days, just because I can’t really remember what I played, nothing really impressive, I guess. So, I’ll try to keep it up in the future, sorry. Let’s talk about game day today.

I went over to an apartment a block away for Sunday Roleplaying, and before we started, we played a game of Thunderstone. It was the first game for a lot of people, and while it went alright, with enough light to go around and fireball (FIREBALL!), the game went to the one who could actually kill the Archduke of Pain. As is right, because he’s worth 8 victory points, and I ended the game with only 13. Yeah…

Then we played the Star Wars Roleplaying Games, D20 style. I’ve never liked this game, it’s really sloppy, and the Jedi are so overpowered, but we were already rolling with it because I missed a session, so I played. I decided that I didn’t want to play a Jedi, because screw them, so I made a noble, also known as the bards of the Star Wars universe. To further buck trends, I made him a hammerhead, who according to the lore abhor violence. (Seriously, why is this an option?) I made him a detective to make the job easier, who happened to be investigating the same disappearance that the team of Jedi were going after. They show up at the bar that I was hanging out in, and immediately start a fight with the band. It was pretty funny to see an Ewok JedI beat the crap out a musician with a data pad. Eventually it turns out that some guy we knew gets killed in the bathroom, and further attempts to find any information about the missing people ended poorly.

So we wait until the next day, and I use my influence with the local PD to get them to investigate the death of the guy, only for that to end very poorly for the police, when they get in a shootout with some thugs in the same bar. The Jedi run in and kick ass, while my character, in search of The Truth, goes in and hacks into the surveillance system to find proof that the guy we knew was murdered, and the two people we were searching for had been there as well. So, after the fight, we take this vital information and once again confront the band, who tell us about a nearby werehouse that should be of interest.

So we sneak into the werehouse, and in the attempt to shut down the cameras here, we accidently set off the alarm. Someone comes running up the stairs to see what’s going on, and in an awesome moment, one of the Jedi turns to him and mind tricks him into going away. We then sneak downstairs to see that the guy’s friends really want an explanation to what’s going on. But the Jedi sneak down and kick the six guys down there around, while my character keeps an eye out. Then, after the damage is done, we switch places, as I watch over the missing people while they kick the crap out of a lady with the whip. It got tense, especially when a grenade is thrown, but they succeed.

This is when things quickly turn south, as we call the police to round up the thugs we found, only to find out that a) the guy I had been hired to find has never heard of the woman who claimed to be his girlfriend and hired me to do the job, and b) the senator who hired the Jedi had been kidnapped, and nobody could be bothered to help. We were without a lead, and the rabbit hole was just getting deeper, and so we called the game at that point.

I really appreciate the DM giving me stuff to do, because I was being a bit stubborn with my character here. I liked playing him though, as a bit of a refined, sure-talking but completely harmless PI, who tries to keep out of dangerous situations and avoids dealing with the police directly, at one point silently standing in the corner at a crime scene hoping not to get spotted. I had fun with this guy, even though whenever a fight broke out I just sat there quietly. Hopefully it works out.

What I Played Today: August 24

Defenders of the Realm, Thunderstone

Got a chance to play Defenders of the Realm, and not sure if I like it. It definitely apes a bit from Pandemic, with the 3 or outbreak mechanic and the slowly rising tide from the darkness deck, but it also changes a lot to make it more fantasy like, including dice rolling and boss fights, as well as individual character classes. But the game seems to do too much, and not in a predicable way. The colors on the map are strewn haphazardly, and the ways in which monsters can spawn is anything but obvious. Also, there are way too many cards in the hero deck, with wildly different abilities. Plus, the graphic design is not the most subtle.

We thought we were going to do okay, being told that the game is quite easy, but we got hit hard in one region that soon catapulted out of control, and a few unlucky rolls and the inability to properly return cards to the top of the deck after we took a look at them (they were all really bad for us, any one of them would have lost us the game the way they were), did us in. It just seems pretty random. At least in Pandemic you can gauge what to expect.

Also played a round of Thunderstone with the new expansion with a couple of new players, one of which wasn’t at all enthusiastic, but did pretty well, catching on quickly. I condensed the game quickly, and was surprised that everyone caught on as well as they did. There was a bit of confusion about rank and light, but it was sorted easily. I won by bagging a monster whose point value was a bit inflated, in my opinion, especially since he forced everyone else to trash monsters when he is fought. Also, creatures that are magic attack only are damn annoying, especially with no wizards. We had to depend on Goodberries.

What I Played Today: August 20

Thunderstone, (to be reviewed)

Played some late night games, broke out the new expansion for Thunderstone, which improves the game greatly, mainly because it provides a means to store all your cards in a convenient space that is smaller than the original box. The new cards are also pretty cool, and while I disagree with their suggested first game list, because it creates a huge amount of dissonance with cards that only work in the first dungeon spot and cards that explicitly don’t work in the first spot. When you end up with both in your hand, you just feel like a jackass. Including the brutal Elemental * Nature monsters in the dungeon is also a bit of a dick move; there was a monster that flopped in the first dungeon that we never had a chance of killing, because it’s only able to be defeated if you have an elemental in your hand. Of course, all of the elementals are unnecessarily brutal. But it has got me excited about the game again; the traps are neat, if a bit eclectic (seriously, half effect all players, while the other half effects either the player who triggered it or all the players who didn’t trigger it), and while the expansion baiting with the single guardian we were given is a bit of a dick move, it provides a lot for its cost.

I also played the game to be reviewed, explicitly the multiplayer, and while the levels don’t change at all, each of the obstacles are reworked to require cooperation, which is a nice touch, because they feel much headier. It worked well, although the fact that there is a struggle for points means a bit of unnecessary rivalry. We also forgot what abilities we had, when we got stuck at one particular part for a good half-hour, and because the game is so new, there was no help online. It was a bizarre moment of revelation when we figured out, oh, that guy can do this, and we managed to get through the next quick level, but not before my morale was drained.

What I Played Today: August 11

Arkham Horror, Thunderstone

Finally, Arkham Horror has hit the table again after a few years of not playing for a while, and I had forgotten everything about it. I knew that there was a lot of running around, and a general sense of dread, but I couldn’t remember why. Now I remember, because nothing good ever happens to the investigators.

We played one and a half games, one with three players, where we tried to figure out how the game worked, and another with two after the third player had to leave. There was a lot of confusion, trying to figure out what was happening, and the fact that there were two expansions just haphazardly thrown in after we had decided we didn’t want to play with them, well, it made playing the game a bit tough. The second game went a little better in terms of rules, although horribly in terms of gameplay. We were playing against Yig, who rushed to the table quickly, and we were unfortunate enough to lose the stronger player before the fight even started. We just got slammed by bad dice rolls and bad options.

Then there was a game of Thunderstone, which went a lot better, for me anyway. I played with the intention of fighting for the most points, grabbing Goodberries when I couldn’t think of anything better to get, destroying the monsters with the worst side effects because they were worth more points, and managed to almost lap the other player. One thing I don’t like about Thunderstone is how difficult it is to tell if someone is winning, because the points are variable each game, but it was still fun. Once you know how to play, the game moves at a nice clip.

What I Played Today: February 27

Dragon Age: Origins, Chibi Knight, Professor Layton and the Diabolic Box, Thunderstone, Pandemic

I started playing Dragon Age, mostly because I’m stuck on Mass Effect and I just couldn’t wait anymore. Apparently human rogues can only be nobles, which is weird, and the noble family has a really stupid name. These observations aside, I haven’t gotten very far, but I found some things mighty odd about the introduction. For one, whenever you get in a fight, you are suddenly, inexplicably covered in blood, even when fighting rats, RATS, whose splash radius has to be about six inches. How did the blood reach my shoulders, exactly? And, of course, nobody even blinks. “So, what was up in the larder? Have any trouble? I noticed you’re covered in blood, as you do. Would you like a sandwich?” More later when I get in the mood to play again.

I also played through a flash game called Chibi Knight. It was pretty standard, a bit of jumping and swinging, and a rudimentary leveling system. The only really interesting thing about it is its adherence to cuteness. Of course it’s chibi and silly, with a tiny little protagonist without legs, but all the voicework was done by the developer’s 5-year-old daughter. It almost sounds sickeningly sweet, but it’s turned out to just the right amount of cute. I wouldn’t recommend it, I just found its adherence to silliness endearing.

I finally got back to Professor Layton. It’s what it usually was, just wandering around and solving puzzles. I finally got to the big plot twist, when it turned out that something ridiculous happened, and we just went along with it and then walked outside and kept solving more damn puzzles. I keep getting stuck with the peg puzzles, and the game seems to think that they are the easiest thing in the world. They won’t give me any hints! But I’m still trucking, should get through this is a couple of days.

A few friends came down into the area, and we played a few games. We introduced them to Thunderstone, which everyone liked, except me. There was a lot of downtime during a 5-player game, and your plans often get spoiled by the time the turn get around to you again. The thunderstone also came up early, and a lot of heroes were tossed because of some jerk called the Archduke of Pain, so...it wasn’t the best game ever. But they seemed to like it. I still like Dominion a lot better.

(There was a great observation made by someone tonight about a completely different game, Munchkin. It was said by a great man that Munchkin can’t get out of its own way, that it tries to hard to match theme that it makes a crappy game, and I completely agree. That’s...all I got to say, but thumbs up.)

We also played Pandemic, and we lost again, even though we had everything completely under control. We ran out of time, which is completely arbitrary and is a bit of a problem when you are playing with 5 players. We just couldn’t get five cards of a color into someone’s hand, and we didn’t draw a scientist or a researcher. There’s a particular role that we draw EVERY TIME, the epidemiologist, which is not a great card, and yet we’re constantly stuck with her ugly mug, and we always lose. I almost want to toss the useless role out, because it never ever works.

What I Played Today: February 10

Warhammer: Invasion, Space Hulk, Thunderstone

I got a chance to play a few two player only games today. The first was a game of Warhammer: Invasion, one of the Living Card Games. It’s a fine idea, having all the elements of a collectible card game while having the low budget of a board game. The only problem I find is the fluff they keep trying to take onto the games, stuff like alternate game modes and big, expensive components. It could have been done for a bit cheaper if it was run by anyone by the kings of expensive damn components themselves, Fantasy Flight.

Anyway, to incorporate the newest “Chapter Packs” I had gotten since we last played, we played the draft variant, which...isn’t that great. There are a lot of cards to get through, and you only end up with 40 of them, so we didn’t even get a chance to draft half of the cards. And it is tough to draft when the cards aren’t as simple as Magic: The Gathering. Most likely it’s an experience thing, but the costing system of Invasion is just a bit too complicated to know what’s good or not.

The game was fun, though, as having the balance the three factions in your deck adds a unique problem in the game. I managed to get a good resource system going, but was unable to keep the rampaging army at bay. And just when I got my strong defensive unit on the board too.

So, we transitioned to Space Hulk, an old game that got a small low-run reboot last year that the other player just couldn’t resist. It’s a small army game with very different playstyles per side, as one player handles the cocksure but limited Space Marines and the other plays the weak but endless Genestealers. Have you seen Alien? it’s a lot like that in a completely copyright independent way. My friend always plays the Genestealers, who have the advantage of winning pretty much every damn time.

The mission we choose has the marines trying to get from one end of the map to the other. Simple enough, as well as having plenty of tricks to cut off the ever approaching aliens. It was a lot of fun, even though I knew I was screwed from the beginning...because I’m always screwed from the beginning. But I did get in a good groove, managing to cut off his huge Broodlord a couple of times and able to rip apart a lot of his little broodlings with my Wolverine-inspired lightning claw Space Marine. (On a note, why would you send a soldier equipped with 1500-pound, extremely expensive battle armor armed only with his cosplay foam weapons? No idea.)

But eventually I got surrounded in the middle of the map, and the lack of a marine with a regular damn gun prevented me from being able to gun down the approaching mob, and in a last ditch effort I was down to one man, my Wolverine, who proceeded to jump straight into the maw of a waiting alien. Game over, moving on.

We played a quick game of Thunderstone to finish up, which we finally are really comfortable playing. It’s still a lot crunchier than Dominion in a bit of a negative direction, but we managed to pull just the right number of cards that we got into a good groove and were able to wipe up a lot of monsters, a problem that we had in the first couple of games. It was probably the easier time we were having, but I enjoyed this session, and finally felt what the flavor of the game was trying to do. If only the presentation was better.

What I Played Today: February 2

Finca, Maori, The Good, the Bad and the Munchkin, Thunderstone

Of course, I would start this great experiment on Board Game Night, probably the nerdiest night of my week (as opposed to all my other nights, banging chicks and downing brewskies). On Tuesdays, when I’m feeling it, I sneak out of work early and drive down the local gaming store, Black Diamond Games, and play board games with a usual crowd. Usually pretty fun, and fairly good socializing, even if there are elements that make gaming a little difficult.

Anyway, I walk in tonight to find that an 8-player game of RoboRally had been started...which pretty much locked down the majority of the players for the whole evening. RoboRally can be entertaining, but man does it take forever. So I instead sat in for a series of short games with another couple of latecomers.

We played a game each of the two latest from Hans im Gluck, a Germany publisher who’s known for small, crunchy games and is typically distributed in America by Rio Grande. These two came practically packaged together, so half the people in the store own it.

The first, Finca, is a resource management game that involves a really simple resource collection system and basically a test of hoping you get what you need before someone else does something to screw it up. When I read the rules, I was intrigued by the anti-monopoly rules that forced your resources back to the pot if too much was taken, but disappointed that resources were so plentiful that it never came up. In all, a fairly easy game that I’m not terribly interested in playing again.

The second, Maori, is a tile-laying game that involves trying to create a small archipelago that provides the most points, through managing how many trees or huts you have in your region. The tiles are taken from a 4 by 4 grid that a small boat circles, and you can take tiles based on where the boat ends up. The rules are simple, just make sure the islands line up, with a few variations to increase the difficulty, and it played really quick and easy to pick up. A little fun, although there’s a lot of luck involved and it was frustrating to watch one guy’s plan completely fall apart because the pieces he needed just did not come up. I imagine it would flounder after two or three more games.

After these games, the steam of the group had fallen apart. I was waiting for a friend to show up, and he was due in fifteen minutes, and wasn’t ready to jump into a longer game. The others were a bit fatigued, and so we eventually settled for a game of Munchkin, a game that I actually dislike a lot. It was slow going (one player didn’t know how to play and wasn’t being taught), and we weren’t really into it. I practically begged the game to end after half-an-hour, when it was clear that nobody was having that much fun.

The group I was with called it a night, and my friend arrived, and he wanted to get in a game of Thunderstone, the recent Dominion clone that changed the setting to the fantasy realm and tried to change things just enough to make it clear it wasn’t Dominion. The RoboRally game had broken up and we pulled another willing to learn, and played a fast-moving game. I’m still on the fence about this one, just because it seems too concerned with changing things and not enough with making sure things work. It’s hard to get a hand to work for you, because there are so many different cards you need to acquire to get some victory points, and there’s a lot to track. But I do know it enough now for it to run smoothly, and it certainly has more flavor and aesthetics than its inspiration...my friends like it, though, so it’ll probably see a bit more play. Should have more coherent thoughts about it after another play.

In all, a bit disappointing in terms of selection but still fun in terms of socializing. Being able to play games without having to buy them upfront and be disappointed later was good; I now know I don’t need to get either Finca or Maori, so that’s a load off my mind.