Wow, I am glad we had such a good turnout because Jen and I are out of town next week for my cousins wedding!!! Good old Columbus Ohio. So, the next game night will be the 20th of May. I wouldn't mind making it a "cook-out". Anyone interested? I should manage to have a working GRILL by then at least.

Saturday, Ed called me and said that this was his "on" week and he had a new game he bought at Riders Hobby (Alcove closed by the way). Tim & Beth finally got to see the new house, albeit with no central air. (This should be fixed in the next few days.) We had a discussion about "Formula De", the hot racing car board game in Europe. Think of Mississippi Queen, only instead of just "coal" and "Speed", you have "tires", "gas", "speed", and "gears". I love the old Speed Circuit game, but it is too long for a social game night. It dominates a playing night, although it can handle up to 30 players. I think we'll reserve this type of game for special pre-determined nights and stick to our 4 pages or less of rules system for normal nights.

We decided to start with a new game with a high reputation, "RA". This Medici type game is slightly more complex, with 2 or 3 more ways to score using combinations of things. Plus there were some penalties for ending a era (day in Medici) with a lack of certain things. The other difference was that you do not bid with your score but rather with "sun chips". When you buy something, you pay your chip to the center of the board and get the chip from the last bidder from the center of the board. This way, you can't win every bid and you can not really just bluff up the price. It is more "cold". I won the first game and later we played again. Tim really liked the game, Tom did not like it at all (he played in the second game). He thinks that Medici has wrapped up the auction type game category for years to come. The others liked it as an alternative to getting sick of Medici (although no one has gotten sick of it yet). Nevertheless, it was a good game. Personally, I like the "I invoke RA!" chant to start the auction round instead of one person determining the "booty".

Next, we tried Ed's new game "Canyon" while others played... Medici! Canyon is "Wizards" with no penalty for missing your "guess bid". You get a point per trick taken, plus 1-2 bonus points for hitting your prediction. You then move on the scoring track. If you like Wizards, it is worth a try. I liked Wizards better, even though I like the scoring track in Canyon over paper scoring in Wizards. (I do not know who won the Medici game.) I was so far in last in this game, I could not see who won!!

-Ed taught Pete "Katzenjammer" (the cat game) while the second game of RA played.

And that was that. Ed brought and made his own "spritzers". Scary. It must be more than just wine and 7up, eh Ed? Man, did we eat a lot of Easter candy!!! I also acknowledge that it sucks not having a bar sink. I'm working on it...

Now it was about 12:30 am, and only Ed and John remained, so we opened up the theater and watched "Dogma". I liked the movie very much, although I see Ed's point that it drags in subsequent viewings. So, only see it once!


 

Wow, Sorry for the long delay, but I was in San Jose all last week and this past weekend was a holiday (in case you hadn't noticed).

Great turnout for the cook-out, including Pat and his "snooty friends", that cooked a mean sesame salmon (at least it looked mean). Pat bailed out on game night, but it was great to have them just the same. Lots of food and chaos. After a trip to Cosco, we had an endless supply of food, condiments, and the worst cole-slaw ever. At least the label said "cole-slaw". Must be "Kole - slaw (with a k macro). Big thanks go out to Ed and Alias Johnny who had to return the "wrong" gas tank and come up with a new one after 5pm on a Saturday. (and got to watch a car flip over!)

Game night consisted of Democrazy, Rage and Pete's Margaritas.

Democrazy is a nice card game similar in style to "Fluxx". But, rules changes are only adapted when a majority of the players vote "yes". This makes Democrazy succeed where Fluxx falters. No one can be dealt a winning hand, nor can the game degraded into total chaos. Great many laughs and we all gave it a big thumbs up. As with many of the card type games, non-hard core games people (like Steve) really enjoyed this one. (Could it be that Steve has been "fixed"?)

Rage is a cool card game, but hardly new. This is packaged as new, but is actually a reprint. Ed had this one years ago and wore out the cards (playing). It is VERY similar to wizards, only there are 6 suits with cards 0-15. There is a change trump card and a kill trump card. This makes the game more of a party game than Wizards, but I see that as a big plus. There are also a few +5 bonus and -5 bonus (bonus?) cards which throw some more fun into the mix. We played 2 full games of this before we retired.

Did we play anything else that week?

Game night (Memorial edition) included Wongar*, Rage, Medici, Bean game, Pete's Whiskey Sours, and "big-ass" liars dice. This time, Steve brought the entire clan!

First was a encore presentation of Rage. Please note that in Rage, if you lead a "special" card of any type, that does NOT count as a lead. It is in actuality a "throw off" which passes the lead to the next player. Towards the end of the game, John led a -5, Pete followed with a -5, Steve placed the THIRD -5, passing the lead of the trick to Tim with 3 poison pills!!!. Then, much to the shock of the players Tim played a NO TRUMP card. This insured that no matter what I played, I was probably going to be stuck with all the poison. As each card was played, we howled louder and louder until it came to me and I pulled ANOTHER NO TRUMP card out of my hand (ass) and Ed ate the entire trick by playing the only real card!!! I laughed so hard I cried!

I don't know much about the bean game played, accept that there were women playing... a lot of women.

We decided that 7 people was a goofy number for games and it was here that I made a MAJOR mistake for which I so profusely apologize. I said, "I feel like playing Medici". Medici is a 6 player game. Then Ed compounded my error by saying, "I want to play this NEW game". Well, starting a new game after midnight (shame on me for allowing this situation to arise) is a BAD thing. Steve offered to stay and play Wongar. This game took so long to set up and play, that Tom and I just kept cracking jokes about it as Steve got more and more frustrated. As our game of Medici closed, they had really only started and Steve then ask to resign. Tom at one point., made me laugh so hard that alcohol came out of my nose! (Thanks Pete.) Maybe Tom can remind me of some of the better ones.

We wanted to play a game of "Quo Vadis" (Hail Caesar!), but it was too late at night. Instead we played "big-ass Liar's Dice". What is the Big-Ass part for? Well, each player played with TWO cups of dice. Ridiculous if you think about it. As the gap widened between players, Steve was the only players with his second cup. He cruised to victory. I take SOME small solace in the fact that after realizing I could not win, I actually changed my strategy to try and place SECOND. And it worked! Like kissing you cousin as the expression goes... big deal. This is NOT a good way to play liars dice. Although I DO want to try 10 PLAYER liars dice.

* Wongar looked interesting enough that Jen and I invited Ed and John over on Sunday night to try it. We liked it a lot. This game is HARD to pick up. Not hard (the rules are only 4 pages), but HARD to UNDERSTAND until you've played it (or watched it). By the end of the game we were experts in manipulating the "elder" and the "ancient" to our own benefit. It sort of goes like this: You have 3 token types (squares, ovals, and cylinders). Each turn you can trigger a scoring battle or add pieces to the board for future battles (somewhat like the dilemma in a turn of Union Pacific). If you choose battle, afterwards the highest quantity of each of the three types gets points. You battle mostly by having the most pieces there already, but you can also play cards which move more of your pieces in and more of you opponents out of a given type. Sounds simple? It actually is!!! Just overwhelming at first because it has no "theme concept" to it that makes any reference points available. The game took almost 2 hours, but we expect that it should take 90 minutes. A bit long for game night any ways, but fun four a group of four.

My final take is that we should stick to the more silly, card type games and classic favorites when we have a good turnout and save the meaty and new games for early and evenings where less players show. That way, there is always a reason to attend. Even if there are only 4 or 5 people, there are some great longer games that can be readily enjoyed!!

Ed still has a few games that we never broke the seal on, I still want to play Mississippi Queen again, there is a great new "Medici" type game out this year that is winning awards that I will eventually pick up, and the future of parlor games looks overall very bright!

PLEASE NOTE: I have been informed that Ed and John want to go to Mackinaw Island next week and Jen told them we (I assume that meant me) would be glad to join them. For this reason, I would expect there to be NO game night this coming Saturday. On the following weekend, I will have Jacqueline all to myself as Jen is going to a wedding in North Carolina. Please have pity and mercy on me that weekend and include me in your dinner plans, child amusement plans, and prayers. Thanks!

(oh yes, in case you did not hear... Jen is pregnant)

from Ed:

>You missed one of the new Games, "Web of Power", I liked this one a lot. It
>plays very fast, it's a cross between Settlers and Union Pacific. I don't
>remember who won, I only know I came in last or second to last. This game
>and Carolvs Magnvs have been getting great reviews, the big selling point,
>45 minute play time!

Yeah, Web of power reminded me of "Camel Game" with different scoring options. I liked the game, and it is sort of like this:

Ra is to Medici as Web of Power is to Camel Game. Slightly different mechanics and scoring, similar in principle. Nice change from the same old thing. The nice thing about Web of Power is that there are two "halves" of the game, like a half-time. After the first half, the strategy changes slightly towards "alliances" or links instead of just colonies.