Tag Archives: GamerChris

This Week In Games – 28may12

June 3, 2012 – 1:24 pm

This Week In Games

This is the inaugural post for This Week In Games. In it I will recount what games I played in the past week as well as cover any gaming news that I thought was neat.

What I Played:

So as far as gaming goes I missed game night at Hypermind so the play list is kind of short. Z and I got a quick game of Omen: A Reign of War in. Omen is a card based battle game from Small Box Games. It has beautiful art and plays smoothly. I’ll get a full review on it as soon as I get a couple of more plays in.

Liv and I played a couple of Gamewright games. We traded wins on Zeus On The Loose and then she beat me twice at Castle Keep. Both of these games are great for families. Zeus is good for kids because it reenforces addition skills and quick thinking. Castle Keep is good for pattern recognition. And they are just fun quick games.

Liv and I also got a game of Hemloch in. Hemloch is another Small Box Games game. Can you tell I really like Small Box? This is another card game with a bit of a board game mixed in and has a dark fantasy theme. I enjoyed it. And will get a review in soon.

Cool Game News:

From BGG:

-Queen Games – reprints of Arena: Roma II, a Lancaster expansion -The New Laws, and the Alhambra Family Box featuring the base game and expansion – The Vizier’s Favor plus Granada. I’m a Stefan Feld fan boy so I’m glad to see Arena coming back. Lancaster was one of my favorite new games of 2011 so an expansion is cool. I like Alhambra and the family box is a good compromise between just the base game and the Big Box.

-Cubicle 7 – Cubicle 7 mostly does rpg’s. But they just announced that they will be doing a Dr. Who card game designed by…Martin Wallace! I’m sold. And Z will love it.

-Z-Man – Goa is finally coming back. I’m very glad because this is a great game. It is a definite buy.

From Game Salute:

    • Days of Wonder just announced a new expansion pack for Memoir ’44. The Equipment Pack will have tons of new stuff – figures and vehicles from different countries, new cards, and new rules. Another must added to the huge Memoir ’44 want list.
    • Z-Man – Alcatraz: The Scapegoat is on the way. This co-op with a twist sounds like a lot of fun.
    • AEG – AEG has released the Thunderstone base game as a free print and play. All cards are updated to work with Thunderstone: Advance, the upgraded version of the game. Thunderstone: Advance streamlines the game and gets you to the dungeons faster. It sounds like AEG has big plans for this game with expansion ‘modules’ being released on a regular basis. I have an interview with AEG Senior Brand Manager Todd Rowland that should drop this week.
    • WizKids – The Lord of The Rings: Nazgul is on the way. This one is a co-op where you play the Nazgul and must complete missions before the One Ring is destroyed. It’s co-op with a competitive twist and sounds intriguing.

From Google Reader (blog watch):

    • my friend Daniel Solis has some cool ideas porting the Risk: Legacy of changing the game as it progresses to other games. My favorite is Scrabble: Legacy – Keep a Legacy document in the game box. (This can simply be the game board, the inside of the game box or a proper sheet of paper.) At the end of each game, each player writes one of the words currently in play. Any words on this list are worth half points in any future game.Winner’s Privilege: Add a DL, DW, TL, or TW to any empty space on the board. A single row or column can only have up to three of each
    • I Waste The Buddha With A Crossbow – interesting article on the Indiana Jones RPG.
    • Friend of Go Forth And Game Seth Jaffee has some updates to some of his current in progress designs and an announcement that he is contributing to the book Why I Design. Check them via the link.
    • The Opinionated Gamers have some interesting reviews of Talat, Upon A Salty Sea, and Ora & Labora.
    • Board Game Reviews by Josh reviews Nemo’s War by Victory Point Games and Kingdom of Solomon by Minion Games. Both are games I want to check out.
    • Father Geek – Cyrus posts his webcomic, Senor Tex-Mex!. It’s fun and brought back memories of El Espectro, the comic Micah Harris and I did for The East Carolinian back in college. Maybe I’ll post some of those soon.
    • Little Metal Dog – posts a review of Legend of The Lost Dutchman by Crash Games.
    • Speaking of Lost Dutchman, Dice Hate Me also posted a review. I played this with Chris and enjoyed it. It needs some polish but is a solid game. It is currently on Kickstarter.
    • Speaking of Dice Hate Me, Chris and Cherilyn are at Origins (or rather have just returned from Origins when this posts) and should have their report up soon. Meanwhile recent posts include: a Ground Floor from Tasty Minstrel review ( I played that one with him too.), a review of My Happy Farm from 5th Street Games (We played that too.), an announcement that DHM Games has signed Compounded, a game by Darrell Louder.
    • GamerChris – a session report including Catacombs, Walnut Grove, and Lords of Waterdeep, a picture of the week, and…his first podcast, Exploring Games with GamerChris, Congrats to Chris for jumping into the pool.
    • Kickstarter roundup: Ground Floor by Tasty Minstrel Games, The Legend of The Lost Dutchman by Crash Games, Deadlands Noir by Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Ace of Spies by Sprocket Games, Tsuro of the Seas, Tammany Hall by Pandasaurus Games, Tahiti by Minion Games, Hoplomachus-The Lost Cities by Josh & Adam Carlson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s all the news for this week. Join me next week for some more. Until then leave a comment and check out some of the sites and games that I mentioned.

Go Forth and Game,

Tomg

All Photos are copyright by their various authors/publishers.

By tomgurg | Posted in Gaming | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Gameathonapocaloozafestacon! 2

February 13, 2011 – 1:37 pm

WOW!  10 gamers!  13 straight hours of gaming!  It all happened this past Saturday, February 5 at my house.

The festivities started about 11am when Chris Norwood (GamerChris) arrived with games in tow.  While I tended to getting the chili started, he set up a game of Catacombs for Barry and Z.  I joined in as the wizard when I could.  That game ended rather quickly when a crypt spider stunned the party.  As no one else had arrived yet, they started another game of Catacombs. 
Kenny showed up soon after with lots of games and jumped in.  Not much later Chris Kirkman (dicehateme) and Cherilyn were at the door with arms full of games.  Jeff was right behind them.  So that left Chris, Cherilyn, Jeff, and me open for a game.  Chris had mentioned wanting to try some Tasty Minstrel goodness so we broke out Homesteaders. Everyone else was new to the game so I taught them pretty quick and off we went.  It was a close game.  I managed to eek out a questionable win by one point while Jeff and Cherilyn tied for second and Chris in a very close last.  I think Cherilyn actually won but I didn’t explain scoring well enough and her score got muddled in that.  Homesteaders was a real hit.  It continues to surprise me at how much is there in such a quick game.

Terry had arrived by now.  He, Barry, Chris N., and Kenny started a Masons game a little while before the Homesteaders game ended.  It was going well and I needed to step out for pizza.  When I got back, Z was teaching Forbidden Island to Jeff, Cherilyn, and Chris K.  I’m pretty sure Chris and Cherilyn had played before but they were going along with Z.  He was doing a good job.  After Memoir ’44, Forbidden Island is his favorite.  Their game ended with a close win for the explorers.  The Masons game ended about the same time.  So it was lunch time.  After pizza it was RPG time.  I had prepped two Dread scenarios and Chris N. was ready with Gamma World.  Kenny, Terry, and Z opted for Gamma World while Chris K., Cherilyn, Barry, and Jeff joined me for Dread.  Cherilyn was an rpg virgin and Jeff and Chris K. had not played Dread before.  The group chose the ‘Breakfast Club’ scenario.  They were playing high school students in detention on Saturday.  When one of the NPC students disappeared, the game really kicked in.  The teacher went to look for him and ended up getting eaten by the janitor.  Unfortunately for the kids they happened to see the event and the chase was on.  From room to room, from the roof to the basement, Ivan the janitor chased the kids.  By the end, the freak had beat up the jock, the good girl had confessed her love for the geek girl, and the bad boy had slit the jock’s throat.  In a surprise turn, the bad boy sacrificed himself to blow Ivan the creature up.

There were lots of scary pulls.  But the tower didn’t fall.  There were some close calls.  Chris dropped a block twice.  But instead of his character dying I decided to give him some consequences.  This worked out well and added some tension at the end.  Chris had a countdown timer on his iPhone that we used for the last five minutes as the boiler built up pressure toward an explosive end.  That worked really well.   Everyone had a blast.  We all agreed that Dread is a great rpg and the Jenga tower personifies tension.  Cherilyn did a fantastic job as Lucy The Geek Girl.  She kind of took the leadership of the group and had excellent ideas.  I think she’s hooked.  Jeff enjoyed the game a lot too.  He always makes his characters real and fun.  Barry’s Talon the Freak (with the freaky girlfriend) was a hoot and added a good dose of cynicism.  I’ve been criticized for not making the players pull more often.  This is probably true.  And in retrospect I should have made Ivan more menacing.  But I decided to go with the ‘unknown terror’ idea.  I think it worked well.  Dread is such a well designed game.  It will be a regular fixture at game day.

The Gamma World game ended with a TPK.  But all said they it was fun.  It was Z’s first rpg and he had a super blast.  It is one of the two things he has talked about since.  The other is a set of mini’s Kenny brought him.  He’s worked on assembling them since Sunday.  I’m so proud.  What a good geek dad I am.  And Kenny, thanks again for the minis and starting Z down that road.

By this time we were hungry again so Z and I dropped out of the gaming to make some cornbread.  The gang broke out 7 Wonders.  I believe it went well.  It seemed that everyone had fun.  Several people had not played it before and Chris N. did his usual excellent job of teaching it.

After chili, the games started up again with Jeff, Cherilyn, Kenny, and myself breaking out Pandemic.  Alien Frontiers hit the table for Chris N., Terry, Barry, and Chris K..  Jeff was new to Pandemic so Kenny and Cherilyn explained the game to him.  The game was tight at first but we got three of the five diseases cured and were going after black and were two turns away from the win when red had a double out break and we ran out of red cubes.  Oddly enough, though we were playing with the mutation expansion, no mutation cards came up.  Pandemic is such a blast.  It’s my number 2 game and we found out that it is Cherilyn’s number 1 game.  And she’s really good at it.  I was very appreciative to her and Kenny teaching the game to Jeff and reacquainting me.

Kenny had to take off and Alien Frontiers was still going so Jeff, Cherilyn, K (who had just gotten home from work), and me decided to play Settlers of Catan. This was one we all knew so it went well with K taking the game.  The other game had not finished yet so we started another Settlers game.  Once again K took the win.  She is really turning into a good gamer.  By now the Alien Frontiers game was over.  Jeff needed to leave so we bid him goodbye.

The next game on the docket was Dixit.  We were two people too many so Chris N. volunteered to sit out and Cherilyn decided to play on Chris K.’s team.  Chris K. taught us all the game quickly and off we went.  Barry pulled out the win.  Dixit is a fun game, a very good family or ‘party’ game.  Beautiful if quirky art and simple rules make it a must buy for me.

Dixit closed out the night.  It was about 12am by then and though we could have probably played a couple more we decided to call it.

What a blast of a day!  It was a big thing for me.  Potentially 15 people, some of whom had not met.  I wasn’t worried about a fight breaking out or anything.  But I wanted everyone to have a ton of fun.  And I think we did.  We had a ton of games.  Several people learned new games that they asked more about later.  New friendships were forged.  I think this was the start of something good.  I announced the theme for the third Gameathonapocaloozafestacon – Big Ole Games – those 3 -4 hour games that you never have time to play.  So bring on Descent, Arkham Horror, and Twilight Imperium.  We’ll have the time.

There will not be many pictures.  My camera failed me.  But GamerChris has a bunch on his post of the event.

It was such an awesome day.  Good friends and good games.  I can’t wait for the next.

By tomgurg | Posted in Gaming | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (5)

GamerChris’ Best of 2010

January 7, 2011 – 2:15 am

Check out Chris’ newest blog on his favorite games of 2010.
gamerchris.com
And stay tuned for my best of 2010.

By tomgurg | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)

What I Played Last Night

December 16, 2010 – 3:50 am

I got to game night late (8pm) for various reasons.  Most everyone was in a game of 7 Wonders except Kenny.  He was setting up Command & Colors: Napoleonics for he and Chris.  Once he got it set up we played a game of Parade.  He beat me pretty handily.  Around then the 7 Wonders game finished.  Adam, Shawn, Keith, and I started a game of Homesteaders.  I’m not sure I did a good job of explaining the game but my fears were alayed soon enough as Adam jumped out to what seemed to be a substantial lead.  He and Shawn went back and forth for the first several auctions.  Shawn picked up some good properties early and got a $ engine working well.  He was taking in 5-7 silver each turn at first then 9-12 by game end.  Adam picked up 5 debt tokens by the fifth round but had some good properties for it.  Then he built the bank and those debt tokens began to disappear.  Meanwhile Keith and I were struggling to keep up.  Keith picked up a couple of workers to get some income coming in.  He started gaining some victory points with the meatpacking plant.  Early on I realized that I was not going to do well competing for properties as I could not get any $ or trade tokens coming in.  So I decided to go strictly for victory points.  I worked up the railroad development track and also was able to get the church.  That earned me 10 vp and generated 2 vp per turn.  That seemed to be pretty weak to me, especially since I only had 2 workers on my gold mine.  So I was getting some gold each turn and was able to buy some resources once in a while.  The last auction was a battle with Adam for the 6 vp charity token.  He had the lawyer and was upping each time.  He finally bowed out at $12.  I had to take a debt token to pay but I got it.  That enabled me to take the lead.  The final scores were 41, 37 – Adam, 32 – Shawn, 28(?)-Keith.  My second win at Hypermind!

Next up was Hansa Teutonica.  Chris has been raving about this one so I was eager to play.  He set it up for Keith, Adam, himself, and me and explained it to Keith and I.   It took a minute or two but I got a control of a couple of important cities and kept scoring from them.  I also started putting a chain together.  Keith was really working his cube bag, enabling him to replenish his supply each turn.  Adam was having some trouble getting a strategy going.  But Chris was eating the special tokens up.  This enabled him to take extra actions at key times or wide a threatening opponent (usually me) from my strategy of getting a long chain of controlled cities.  In the end, Chris’ accumulation of the special tokens did us in.  I did not realize that they were worth points at the end so I didn’t pay them much attention.  Keith was able to get control of the central chain of cities for 7 vp.  And he activated his key to get a multiplier on these to get second place.  I came in a respectable third.

It was a good if short night.  Parade is fun and one I will be picking up.  I was very glad to get Homesteaders to the table again and introduce it to some new people.  Everyone rated it an 8 and want me to continue bringing it.  I enjoyed Hansa Teutonica.  I didn’t think I would but I was surprised.  It is going on the buy list.  Only downside is that I did not get to play Eminent Domain.

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What I Played Last Night

May 20, 2010 – 2:19 am

It was Game Night at Hypermind so I played some games.

First was Pandemic with the mutation variant.  There were five of us and we won in a tight game.  This is such a fun game.  Why is it so fun?  It’s intense.  It is ever changing.  It sneaks up on you.  You’re working on one disease then bam! another one outbreaks suddenly and you’re in a crisis.  There is a time limit.  It’s hard.  It is one of the best designed games I’ve played.  Each play is different.  And adding the On The Brink expansion just makes it better.  Everyone should own it.

Next up was Princes of Florence.  This is a thinky game.  I like thinky games.  Most of the time I lose but I still like them.  I was doing pretty good.  My initial hand worked well together.  Only the buildings were different.  So I thought I was in good shape.  And I was until the second to the last turn.  I had 4 works in place and was in third place of five.  And I had a 19 point work in my hand ready to go.  I forgot that I couldn’t build buildings next to each other with only one builder!!  So I couldn’t do the work!!!! So What to do??  I lose.  I ended with 2 Prestige Points cards that were worthless.  The last Freedom had been bought out from under me in the previous round.  And because of my forgetful self I lost the Lake which would have given me 8 points, enough to get me into 4th.  Argh!

Next up was a 7 player game of Bang!.  I had played Bang! once and liked it.  And was glad to be able to get in another game.  The first outlaw blew herself up with dynamite.  The second revealed himself soon after and went out several hands later as Vulture Sam began blasting him with his Volcanic.  I was the last outlaw.  Great name for a Western.  We lost.  Vulture Sam had a mean on for me and made it his goal in life to make sure that I died.  I almost got him.  His bigger hand was my undoing as he held back a Beer to give him a life after out duel.  Come to think of it, he played that on my turn.  I had played the Duel card I think.  Can he do that?  Oh well it was a blast.  The cool thing about this game is that people role play and get into character.  Lots of fun.  And Kenny has Ennio Morricone music playing through out.

The last game was just Chris, Kenny, and I.  Chris was itching to play Pandemic with the Bioterrorist so that’s what we did.  It really changes the game.  The BT takes his turns after EACH of the other players take their turn.  So he gets double turns in this case.  And the way he infects a city is different.  He moves in secret too.  This is a very cool twist on the game that we will play again.  Kenny and I lost when we ran out of cards in the draw pile.  It was huge fun though.

All images are from GamerChris and are used with permission.

By tomgurg | Posted in Gaming | Also tagged , | Comments (2)

Hypermind Board Game Night

March 25, 2010 – 1:23 am

At the invitation of GamerChris, I’ve been going to the weekly board game night at Hypermind in Burlington, NC for a couple of months now. I have to say it is one of the highlights of each week. I’ve played a new game every night I’ve been there. Last night it was Princes of Florence and Dominion. Both of them are good but I think Princes is much better. The auction mechanic and that you have to plan ahead are very interesting. First time games are:

Witches’ Brew – 6.5

China – 7, needs more plays to get the scoring
Vegas Showdown – I like it a lot. 8 of 10
Roll Through The Ages – another 8
Endeavor – another 8
Cutthroat Caverns – 7
Thunderstone – 6.5, I need another play.
Descent – 8
Escalation – 7.5
Saboteur – 7.5
And I’ve played 5 games of Pandemic – it’s a 9.
But the real surprise and my new favorite game is Macao.
Boy, do I like this one. Lots of strategy, some luck,  planning, and lots of decisions. I find myself strategizing how to win constantly. This one is at the Top of The Buy List right after Forbidden Island.

Here are some pictures I swiped from GamerChris’s site.  He does a weekly recap of all games played that week.  Check them out here.  Here are the Macao regulars:  clockwise -  Kenny, Chip,  Chris (taking the picture), and me.

It’s a long drive back at 1 a.m. in the morning but worth every minute that I spend there.  I can’t wait for Tuesday.

By tomgurg | Posted in Gaming | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (4)

RPG or Die!con

March 2, 2010 – 12:36 am

GamerChris had a game day at his house this past Saturday.  He was calling it RPG or Die! reflecting the fact that it had been postponed several times.  But I’m very happy to say it went off without a hitch this time.
The participants were: husband and wife team Britt and Carol, Kenny, Chris, and myself.  Britt and Carol were not arriving until about noon so Chris, Kenny, and I went through a playtest of character generation for Comatose.  It went well.  They helped me identify some issues and see that I had some parts working well.  Several questions and suggests came out of this that will help me move forward.  The most important of these is that this is a horror game and I need to focus on that.
Britt and Carol arrive in perfect timing as we finished the playtest.  Lunch was served and we got to know each other.
After lunch Chris had a game of Dread planned.  He had even purchased the Onyx version of Jenga to be more in the correct mood.  And he had created a soundtrack for the game also complete with sound effects!  It was pretty cool.  Chris built a fantastic scenario with werewolves and army types and innocent victims.  I was a homeless Army interrogator and I ended up sacrificing myself so that Carol’s character, Mary Jo, could escape.  There was much self-sacrificing in the game.  Mary Jo was the only one to survive.  That is one of the interesting things about Dread.  Characters will die.  It is unavoidable.  Either the tower will fall or you will go out in a blaze of glory but someone is going to die in this game.  And Chris brought out something about it that I hadn’t really realized – it is pure role-playing.  There is barest minimum mechanics using the Jenga tower.  The rest is Role Playing.  And there was a lot of excellent role-playing.  Kenny is very creative and quick minded.  He came up with some neat stuff.  And Britt was amazing.  He stayed in character pretty much the whole game except when he needed to make a pull.  And he is the Jenga King.  Carol was really good with her character and added a lot to the game.  I didn’t know until after the game that this was her first rpg.   Much fun and very tense.
We  played Fiasco next after supper.   WHAT A BLAST!  You have to play this if you haven’t already.  This is such a great game.  It builds very interesting characters, a fun and catchy story, and the collaboration in it is sweet.  We played ‘In a Nice Southern Town’ playset, of course.  Boy did it rock.  We had two thieves Tick (me) and Red Apple (Kenny) who stole copper and worked out of a cheap motel.  Red was part owner of the motel with his cousin, Kandee Apple (Carol).  Kandee was the daughter of Louis Apple (Britt).  Sargent Nate (Chris), Tick’s parole officer, rounded out the group.  In the end, Louis and Nate were in jail for various reasons.  Red and Tick were dead.  We learned how Louis’ wife and Red’s mom died.  And Kandee ended up running a cheap motel in Atlantic City.  Much hijinks happened between.
This will probably become our go to rpg.
The only down side was we didn’t get to chargen for Diaspora, which would have been cool.

RPG or Die! con was crammed full with awesome.  Chris and his wife were excellent and gracious hosts.  The group meshed well and I hope we are able to get together again soon.

UPDATE: Chris has posted on the first two sessions here and here.

Go Forth And … you know.

tomg

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Gurgacon 1 – review up at Gamerchris.com

January 30, 2010 – 8:29 pm

We had a big ole blast at Gurgacon 1 last Saturday.  It was me, Terry, Cindy, Kenny, Chris, and Zachary – junior GM extraordinaire.  We played a Savage Henford scenario I whipped up earlier that week.  It involved rage ‘zombies’ and tested most of the PC’s.  Chris’ Flynn was a battle machine.  I don’t think he ever got injured.  Cindy’s half-folk mage was the heavy gun while Terry’s thief did thiefy things.  Kenny had Keel the boatman/smuggler who was instrumental in enabling the outbreak to be contained and eventually cured.  Zachary had fun rolling dice for me and providing Lego men for the bad guys minis.  Check out the Hill Giant picture that Chris posted on his blog.

Savage Worlds is my system of choice now.  It is fast and fun.  I still need a lot of GM work to get things to run smoothly.  Such as keeping track of how many bad guys are around and still active.  I have problems with this it seems.  But more practice with the system is a good thing.

Head over to Gamerchris.com to check out Chris’ take on things.  He is very kind to me.

All the players had fun and the scenario was a success.  I will write it up and include it in The Henford Project.

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Game Night At Hypermind

January 9, 2010 – 6:13 pm

I was able to make Game Night at Hypermind in Burlington this past Tuesday. Hypermind is the home store of GamerChris who had invited me over.
I got there late but just in time to get in a game of Endeavor. Endeavor is one of the new hot games. It’s about exploring the world and is set in the Age of Exploration, of course. I’m not going into the mechanics because GamerChris has or will have a better review on his site. But I will say it is fun. There are hard choices, plenty of strategy, and some battling. It plays quickly (45 minutes) and is easy to learn once you start playing.
Next was Pandemic. I had played this once at a local housecon and loved it. I got a copy for my birthday but had not played it with others yet (only solo). I see why this game is so highly thought of. The co-op aspect is great. It is a tense game with lots of anticipation and strategy. In the end the Blue disease beat us, by one action! We were soooo close. There was still time left so we reshuffled all the cards, reset the game, and were off. This time we saved the world from death. We played with the On The Brink expansion which added some neat twists.
I had to take off at this point.
Thanks to Chris and the gang at Hypermind for a blast of fun gaming. I’ll be back soon.
If you are in central NC, check out Hypermind. It is a fantastic friendly, professional game store.

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A Good MACE Roundup at GamerChris

November 26, 2009 – 3:03 am

GamerChris has a very good overview of his experiences at MACE’09.   I meet Chris in person for the first time at the con.  We even played PTA together.  He’s a great guy, lives not too far away, and I hope I am able to game some more with him soon.  He has an excellent gaming blog.  Check it out.

By tomgurg | Posted in Gaming | Also tagged , | Comments (1)
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