What I Played Today: November 30

Zombicide, Cargo Noir, We Didn't Playtest This at All

I tried Zombicide, and I was not super impressed. It's a zombie game in which you run around and kill zombies, but it's ridiculously hard for no reason and the scenarios just seem unmanagable. You die in two hits, for example, and it's really easy to get jumped by zombies. Also the game doesn't scale, which is awful. I don't know, it just felt super hopeless.

Also played Cargo Noir, kinda half-assedly. It just kinda happened, nobody was paying much attention. We were mostly talking about possums.

Then a number of pointless games of We Didn't Playtest This at All. It is always pointless.

What I Played Today: August 3

We Didn't Playtest This At All, D-Day Dice, Grimoire Shuffle, Kingsburg, The Resistance

Game night was super packed with Magic players tonight. We had to convince someone to set out a table for us. To start, a couple of dumb games of We Didn't Playtest This At All, which has an unnecessarily long name for such a dumb game. Then after a group went off to play Core Worlds, I showed off the games I brought, D-Day Dice, which was...okay, and Grimoire Shuffle, a game currently in playtest that I made a print-and-play of. It's a neat racing game where people work in teams to get through a maze. The team leader chooses a "book" of moving options for their partner, while the other team chooses a book for the leader. It's an interesting dynamic, and it was a hit at the table.

I played Kingsburg, which I hadn't before, because there were dice involved and I hate dice. But it's actually pretty fun, especially since I invested in the buildings that let me change the dice as much as possible. I ended up able to roll an extra dice for the rest of the game, which helped me win because I could take the queen space often. It was almost unfair.

Also a couple of games of The Resistance, one that I lost as the spy because everything just went the wrong way, and the second game I flubbed by putting in the wrong card in the mission, and we had to just stop the game and everyone went home. I felt like a jerk for breaking it, but everyone assured me they weren't mad. I hope.

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.