board game

Challenge Completed

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Over on boardgamegeek.com they run a 10×10 challenge, in which participants attempt to play 10 different games at least 10 times each during the year. I did it last year and like the Lakers winning championships back in the day, I repeated the feat this year.

Here’s are quick thoughts on the 10 games on my list. Thanks to my wife, nephew and niece, and regular gaming buddies (two on Twitter: Daryl and Oscar) for helping me finish my list.

Santorini. One of my favorite abstract games ever. The game is ridiculously easy to learn: on your turn you move to any adjacent square, then you build on any adjacent square; to win, you must move up to the third level of any building. That’s it. It has surprising depth and lots of replayability due to its God Power cards, which add new moves, abilities, and/or win conditions for each player. Simply brilliant. (25 plays)

Mint Works. Everyone I’ve played Mint Works with has loved it. It’s a stripped-down-to-basics worker placement game that fits inside an Altoids tin. Games take no longer than 15 minutes, but it always manages to satisfy that worker placement itch. (10 plays)

Karuba. This was an insta-hit with my wife and our extended family of gamers. The tile call-outs reminds me of bingo, while the puzzle-like game play is always a blast, as each player tries to guide their adventurer to their temples while scooping up gems. (10 plays)

Onitama. Another abstract that gets bonus points for its terrific, road-trip-friendly packaging. While Santorini provides more depth and replayability, Onitama is even easier to learn: play a card and move any of your pieces according to the card’s directions while trying to capture your opponent’s master pawn or moving your master pawn to your opponent’s side. It plays faster than Santorini and I’m happy that both are in the Gaviola Game Library. (18 plays)

Red7. Any fan of card games should give Red7 a try. It’s a quick filler-type game, but has lots of interesting decisions throughout a game, thanks to its unique card play. Each card can be used in multiple ways so you’re always trying to find just the right card to play on your turn. The win condition is simple: be the last person standing. (17 plays)

Tiny Epic Quest. I love the Tiny Epic series of games. Scott Almes and Gamelyn Games manage to pack a lot of game into small boxes and Tiny Epic Quest is the best of the lot. I enjoy the puzzle-like nature of the Day Phase as you try to complete Movement Quests, but it’s the dice-chucking, push-your-luck Night Phase to complete Treasure Quests that’s an absolute blast. (28 plays)

Guess Who? My wife and I took a weekend cruise to Mexico earlier this year and the ship had a lounge that had a few shelves of board games. Unfortunately, it was multiple copies of chess, checkers, Connect Four, and Guess Who?. Thankfully, we were too busy chillaxing and enjoying the trip to care about how shoddy the selection was. We did, however, play 10 straight games of Guess Who?, so at least I was able to get my board game fix. (10 plays)

Tiny Epic Galaxies. No surprise here: I played another Tiny Epic game 10 times this year. This was my favorite in the series until I got Tiny Epic Quest. Galaxies is a lot of dice chucking, which always makes me happy. The solo game is fun (although TEQ has also supplanted it as my favorite of the series) and the Beyond the Black expansion added some nice touches to it, including new ships and abilities, and set collection and push-your-luck mechanisms. (14 plays)

Imperial Settlers. I’m not sure what I expected with Imperial Settlers, but I heard a lot of good things about it and won an auction for it last year. I like the civilization building aspect, along with card drafting. As the game progresses it becomes a good brain-burning exercise as you try to squeeze as much as you can out of each of your cards. (16 plays)

Viticulture Essential Edition. I lucked out last year and found a BGG user who had a brand new copy for half price. Not sure why I waited until this year to play it, but it was love at first play; the theme and mechanisms blend in so well together. It’s a classic of the worker placement genre and easily makes it into my Top Five Games Ever. When I added the Tuscany Essential expansion a few months later, it took the game to a whole new level. (36 plays)

Travel Blog

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After bringing Travel Blog to my weekly gaming group for the umpteenth time, I was finally able to get it on the tabletop. It seemed like every time I brought it, there was always something else that I wanted to play.

I’d never heard of this geography game until I saw it listed at $5 during the last Strategicon flea market. I did a quick search on BGG and learned that Vlaada Chatvil was the designer. Yes, the same Vlaada behind Mage Knight, Through the Ages, Codenames, and so many other popular games.

For five bucks I’m willing to take a chance on nearly any game, especially one whose designer has such a fantastic track record, so I placed my bid and before I knew it, I was the proud of owner of another Chatvil.

In Travel Blog, 2-6 players are trying to earn the most money by blogging about their travels. Don’t worry, there’s no actual writing involved, but it does help if you know your geography.

The game can be played on either the U.S. or Europe map and players get 100 Euros (paper money alert!), two tokens, and a player aid. During each of the seven rounds there will be state (or in the case of Europe, country) cards placed face up in the middle. Next, one (in later rounds, two) card is flipped up and players quickly place their token (in later rounds, both tokens) on a state.

What determines the state that a player chooses? In the first two rounds, the middle state is the beginning of each player’s journey and their chosen state is their destination. Each player will be scored separately by placing markers on the two states. To score, the player counts the number of state lines they cross during their trip from one state to another. Each line crossed costs 10 Euros and is immediately taken from that player’s money.

One twist that I liked: if you pick a state that borders the state of origin, then you lose 30 Euros. So, you want to be close to that state, but not too close. Another option is to place your token on the 40 space, which means you pay 40 Euros and don’t do any traveling. This is useful if you know that none of the states are close to the state of origin.

Finally, since state selection is done in real time, there’s a penalty if you’re too slow. If another player’s token is already on your desired state, you can still place yours there, but it will cost you an additional 10 Euros.

For rounds 3-4, players receive additional money (it’s easy to burn through your cash in Travel Blog) and place both of their tokens on two different states, with the state of origin being a middle point between their choices.

For rounds 5-6, players again received extra dough, and place both of their tokens on different states. This time, however, there are two states of origin so players must find the shortest route among all four states.

Finally, the seventh round is where players make money. All of the cards are reshuffled and players go through the same process as rounds 5-6, but instead of paying for each state line they cross, they earn money for each one. In other words, instead of wanting to be close to the state of origin, players want to be as far away as possible so they can go cross as many state lines as possible.

Travel Blog is a decent game that I liked, but didn’t love. It’s a good 20-30 minute filler that I’m sure will remain in my games library, thanks to its unique combination of geography, real-time selection, and route optimization.

I’ve now played 7 of the 49 games on my Shelf of Shame!

Shelf of Shame 2017

  1. Agricola
  2. Amerigo
  3. Cheaty Mages!
  4. Chrononauts
  5. Cypher
  6. Dice City: By Royal Decree
  7. Dice City: Crossroads
  8. Doomtown: Reloaded
  9. Dungeon Fighter
  10. Eminent Domain: Microcosm
  11. Epic Card Game
  12. Formula D
  13. Get Bit! Sharkspansion
  14. Guildhall
  15. Guildhall: Job Faire
  16. Hanafuda
  17. Harbour
  18. Imperial Settlers
  19. Lost Legacy: Flying Garden
  20. Machi Koro: Harbor
  21. Marvel Dice Masters: Age of Ultron
  22. Mottainai
  23. Munchkin Legends: Guest Artist Edition
  24. Munchkin Zombies Deluxe
  25. NBA Interactive Card Game
  26. Ophidian 2350
  27. Pack of Heroes
  28. Pandemic: On The Brink
  29. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set + Expansions
  30. Pingo Pingo
  31. Portobello Market
  32. Quiddler Mini Round
  33. Rampage
  34. Sail to India
  35. Sans Allies
  36. Santorini: Golden Fleece
  37. Seventh Hero (Doomtown edition)
  38. Space Base Mutiny
  39. Steam Torpedo: First Contact
  40. Suburbia
  41. Sun Tzu
  42. Tiny Epic Kingdoms
  43. Travel Blog
  44. Valley of the Kings: Last Rites
  45. Viceroy
  46. Vikings on Board
  47. Viticulture Essential Edition
  48. Wok Star
  49. Yahtzee: The Walking Dead Collector’s Edition

Shelf of Shame 2017

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Pictured above is part of my Shelf of Shame: games I own that I haven’t played. It’s grown since last year, thanks to the great deals I’ve scored at each of the Strategicons‘ flea markets. At the start of this year I had 49 games (I’ve included expansions) on my Shelf of Shame, which are listed below.

I’ve crossed out the ones that I’ve played this year. And to be honest, there is one that I have no intention of playing: the Yahtzee: Walking Dead Collector’s Edition that I bought on clearance at Barnes & Noble. I just wanted the cool zombie-head dice cup to store my copy of Zombie Dice.

My goal is to play all of these games by the end of the year and to write about my experiences. Wish me luck!

Shelf of Shame 2017

  1. Agricola
  2. Amerigo
  3. Cheaty Mages!
  4. Chrononauts
  5. Cypher
  6. Dice City: By Royal Decree
  7. Dice City: Crossroads
  8. Doomtown: Reloaded
  9. Dungeon Fighter
  10. Eminent Domain: Microcosm
  11. Epic Card Game
  12. Formula D
  13. Get Bit! Sharkspansion
  14. Guildhall
  15. Guildhall: Job Faire
  16. Hanafuda
  17. Harbour
  18. Imperial Settlers
  19. Lost Legacy: Flying Garden
  20. Machi Koro: Harbor
  21. Marvel Dice Masters: Age of Ultron
  22. Mottainai
  23. Munchkin Legends: Guest Artist Edition
  24. Munchkin Zombies Deluxe
  25. NBA Interactive Card Game
  26. Ophidian 2350
  27. Pack of Heroes
  28. Pandemic: On The Brink
  29. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set + Expansions
  30. Pingo Pingo
  31. Portobello Market
  32. Quiddler Mini Round
  33. Rampage
  34. Sail to India
  35. Sans Allies
  36. Santorini: Golden Fleece
  37. Seventh Hero (Doomtown edition)
  38. Space Base Mutiny
  39. Steam Torpedo: First Contact
  40. Suburbia
  41. Sun Tzu
  42. Tiny Epic Kingdoms
  43. Travel Blog
  44. Valley of the Kings: Last Rites
  45. Viceroy
  46. Vikings on Board
  47. Viticulture Essential Edition
  48. Wok Star
  49. Yahtzee: The Walking Dead Collector’s Edition

Solo Board Gaming

Viticulture Essential Edition

Viticulture Essential Edition

I get my love for solo games from my mom. She loves playing solitaire (almost exclusively Klondike) and doing jigsaw puzzles. As far as I can tell, she was never into the competitive aspect of card or game playing (unlike my dad, whose love of cards and poker was passed down to me and my brothers).

Within my circle of gaming buddies, I’m one of the few that enjoys playing board games by myself.  Whenever I mention my love of solo gaming, I usually get one of two responses:

  1. “Oh, I prefer interacting with others during a game.”
  2. “If I’m going to play a game by myself, then it’ll be a video game.”

Sometimes I want to be snarky in my reply: “Well, I like playing games with others, too. It’s why I’m at game night. Duh.”

As for opting to play a video game: yes, it’s easier and faster to play games on my smartphone or laptop, but I find it more enjoyable to be at the tabletop with an actual board with real physical bits and pieces.

Much like doing a jigsaw puzzle, playing a board game by myself is a form of meditation and relaxation. I like quietly taking turns and trying to find a way to win or post the highest score possible. I like being away from my phone and computer while I’m at the tabletop. I like the feel of those dice, cards, and tokens as I pass the time before my next “real” game with others. And I like not feeling rushed to do anything during a solo game. Everything is done at my pace: win, lose, or draw.

 

Rhino Hero

Rhino Hero

Rhino Hero

We had a packed house at our weekly gaming group, with several tables of us regulars alongside some new faces. As always, there was a wide variety of games on the tabletops including Specter Ops, Descent: Journeys in the Dark, Sushi Go Party, FUSE, Kingsburg, Othello, and several others.

My buddy Oscar brought Rhino Hero, which is one that has been on my gaming bucket list for quite some time. It’s a gamer’s version of building a house of cards.

Each player starts with five cards and plays one of them. First, they add the wall cards on the spaces indicated on the roof (or if they’re first, on the base) card. Next, they lay down a new roof card, which will indicate an action such as play another roof card, make the previous player go again, place the rhino figure on the card, and more. First player to play all of their cards wins or whoever has the fewest cards when the building comes crashing down is victorious.

It was nerve-wracking trying to place the cards on top of each other and the Rhino Hero meeple seemed like it would bring down the structure every time we moved it. I think we made it to seven stories before our building bit the dust.

I’m sure this will be a hit at my family game nights, so I’ve added it to my Wish List. All hail Rhino Hero!

Happy New Year!

Lakers Rose Parade Float, 2016

Lakers Rose Parade Float, 2016

Happy New Year! I’m re-launching my website again, this time as Ruel’s Blog. I know, not exactly the most creative name, but hopefully a clever one will come to me soon. Last year this blog was known as My Quest to Blog Every Day in 2015. Not only did I accomplish my goal, but I also accomplished a few others as well.

I’m not blogging every day in 2016, though. I learned first-hand how tough it is to do, so I’m just posting here on a regular basis. Whether it’s a once a week or less/more often, we’ll see how everything pans out.

Like last year, my blog will cover the topics that I’m interested in: board games, fantasy sports, food, Los Angeles, and Star Wars, to name just a few. This isn’t the place to get your daily politics or religion fix, though. I write this blog to relax and have a good time.

I began 2016 just as I ended 2015: playing a board game with my wife. I scored a copy of La Isla online for the ridiculous price of $13 with free shipping, thanks to a boardgamegeek.com post last month. One of my gaming buddies had raved about it so when I saw it on sale, I couldn’t resist. Since December was a hectic month, Michelle and I didn’t get to play La Isla until last night for our quiet New Year’s Eve celebration at home, complete with a fantastic sherry from Rancho de Philo winery. We liked La Isla so much we played it again today (and we still have some of the sherry left over, which we’re enjoying right now).

We also found time to watch part of the Rose Parade this morning and I was thrilled to see my favorite sports team, the L.A. Lakers, with its first-ever float in the parade (shown above). I loved the name of the float, Every Second Is an Adventure; sounds like a great mantra for this new year.

Before our first day of 2016 was over, we made it out for a walk on the local trail, before going to Jollibee for a semi-tradition of ours: eating the fast-food version of palabok, a Filipino noodle dish that we use for our “long noodle, long life” dinner. We’ve now done it two years running so I think that qualifies as a semi-tradition, just like watching part of the Rose Parade and playing board games on the first and last day of the year.

La Isla

La Isla

Palabok

Palabok

 

Day 363: A Thousand Words

Best shot I hit all year on the golf course.

Best shot I hit on the golf course in 2015.

I can’t believe I only have two more days until I’ve completed My Quest to Blog Every Day in 2015!

I’ll write more about this on the final post of the year, but for now let me say this: I wish I would’ve written more substantial posts. I didn’t realize how tough this quest would be and I have a greater appreciation for those that publish quality content on a regular basis.

What’s the old saying? A picture’s worth a thousand words? Here are a few photos I took this year. I’m not sure I could write a thousand words for each, but they are a good sample of what I did during the previous 363 days.

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Roll for the Galaxy

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Premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens

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Wasabi-flavored Kit Kats from Japan

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Incredible kim chi fried rice from Little Meats LA

Frontier sign at the Neon Boneyard Museum

Frontier sign at the Neon Boneyard Museum

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A summer night at Dodger Stadium

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Celebrating the US Women’s World Cup victory at LA Live

 

Day 323: Kaosball

Kaosball. My team lost.

Kaosball. My team lost.

While Kaosball won’t replace my love of fantasy football, it was a fun sports-themed board game that I’d like to see on the tabletop again.

Mainly because I scored exactly zero points.

I was left in the dust by my opponents last night, but I started to “get” it as the game progressed. There was almost no point to getting the ball. It was all about fighting your opponents trying to end up in one of the scoring spaces.

I kept forgetting to use my team’s special ability (the Ogre “Stomp”) and I made the mistake of trying to play like a real game of football. Getting the ball to the “end zone” was next to impossible. We were playing a free-for-all, so instead of two-on-two, it was every player for themselves.

Excellent theme and top-notch components mean I’m ready to play again. I need to redeem myself after posting a first-match goose egg.

Day 271: I Slay the Dragon

I Slay the Dragon

I Slay the Dragon

This has been in the works for the past few weeks and I’m happy to announce that I’m now part of the team at islaythedragon.com, “a collaborative blog about games, gamers, and those who tolerate them (namely, gamers’ spouses and families.”

I’m captaining the helm of The Village Square, where you’ll find the latest and greatest board game news from the interwebs. My first column went up this morning and I’m excited to be working with such fine folk. Stop by the site and slay dragons with us, take on the Empire, and boldly go where no one has gone before!