game night

Marvel Dice Masters: Age of Ultron

Dice Masters: Age of Ultron

Dice Masters: Age of Ultron

I’ve never played Marvel Dice Masters, but I’m the proud owner of the copy pictured above. How? Read on …

This summer my wife and I hosted our second annual Gaviola Game Night for our daughter and her friends. We have plenty of game nights throughout the year, but this one is special because it’s for our daughter’s close friends. They had such a good time last that one of the first things our daughter requested after studying abroad was another game night for her crew.

Of course, we couldn’t resist.

I planned on barbecuing and trying out some new recipes, but the thought of sweating outdoors next to a hot grill didn’t appeal to me, so I bought pre-marinated chicken and beef fajitas from our local Mexican market. All I had to do was cook the meat on the stovetop, serve it with fresh tortillas, salsa, and guacamole and everyone would be well-fed for a night of gaming.

Our daughter and her friends played games and chatted throughout the Saturday night. They’ve all been friends since high school and it’s great to see them continue their friendships as they go to college. Most have stayed in state, but some are studying in other parts of the country. Most have travelled or studied abroad and they’re all intelligent young people.

As my wife and I say, smart people who like to play board games are always welcome in our home.

Games played that night included Word on the Street, King of Tokyo, Codenames, Escape: The Curse of the Temple, Dr. Eureka, For Sale, Timeline, Zombie Dice, and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.

My wife and I were content to sit back and let them enjoy the night, but did manage to play a few games with them (our favorite as a group was Escape: The Curse of the Temple). There was plenty of laughter and they stuffed themselves silly all through the evening.

A few weeks later and our mailbox had a thank-you note from one of our guests, along with a copy of Dice Masters: Age of Ultron. What a sweet and thoughtful gesture!

Dice Masters is one of those games that’s been on my must-play list for some time. I love rolling dice, I love the Marvel Universe, and I love games by Eric Lang; why have I not played this yet?!

Thanks to the kindness of our daughter’s friend, I’ll be able to finally play it. We’ll see if this is the only Dice Masters title in our game library by the time we all get together again. I doubt it.

GenCant 2016 Haul: FUSE

FUSE

FUSE

A lot of people post photos of the games they’ve bought during Gen Con. Thankfully, for those of us doing GenCant, we could also participate as good consumers, thanks to the annual Gen Con amazon.com sale. (Note: I’m sure that Cool Stuff Inc. and Miniatures Market also had sales, but since I’m an Amazon Prime member, that’s where I do most of my game shopping.)

FUSE

There were plenty of good games on sale at Amazon on Saturday, but there wasn’t plenty of money in my wallet. I’m a sucker for a good deal, though, so I went with a game I’ve had my eye on, FUSE. (By the way, here’s the link to the games that were on sale.)

FUSE is a real-time dice game by designer Kane Klenko, who created one of my favorite cooperative games, Dead Men Tell No Tales. In FUSE, players are trying to defuse bombs on their spaceship. One player reaches into a bag of different-colored six-sided dice, pulls out dice equal to the number of players and each player tries to use a die on one of their two bomb cards. The cards have icons that indicate what dice are needed to defuse the bomb; for example, there might be several icons for a certain number or color to be placed on the card, or there could be conditions such as the dice must equal a certain sum or be larger than the preceding dice on the card, etc. Any unused dice that turn are re-rolled and players must take a die matching the number or color of the re-rolled die off their bomb cards and place it into the bag.

Once the correct dice are placed on a card, the bomb is defused and the card is placed away from the player, who draws another bomb card. Players have 10 minutes to defuse all of the bombs in the deck (16-29 cards, depending on number of players and difficulty level).

So it’s rolling dice and set collection, right? Well, this is what turned me into a fan of FUSE: it also contains a dexterity element. Some of the bombs must be defused by placing dice in a tower or a pyramid. If a die happens to fall off your soon-to-be-completed tower or pyramid, then you take all of your dice on that card and put them back in the bad. Bummer! As the rule book states, bomb defusing is a delicate business.

I solo played it twice tonight to learn how to play. It’s tough! I was in training/easy mode and only cleared 13 the 16 bomb cards necessary to win, but this is one of the games that I know will be a hit during family game night. We love Escape: The Curse of the Temple and this has a similar feel with its fast dice-rolling and cool soundtrack, which in this case is a hilarious robot voice that counts down the time remaining until your spaceship is blown to smithereens.

 

GenCant 2016 Day 4: Pandemic: The Cure

Pandemic: The Cure

Pandemic: The Cure

Yesterday was a busy day for me, so I only played one game on GenCant Day 4. And, unfortunately, I only played three of the four games I wanted to solo for #GenCantSoloCon. Still, if I’m able to play a single game on a given day, then it’s been a good day.

Pandemic: The Cure

I love Pandemic and love teaching it to new players. Unfortunately, like other cooperative games, there’s often the problem of the Alpha Gamer, where one person dominates the game, telling others what the best strategy is and generally sucking the fun out of the group experience.

This is why I now prefer Pandemic: The Cure, especially for new gamers. It sets up and plays faster than the original and it’s easier to understand for first timers. While an Alpha Gamer can still tell others what to do, each player has their own dice and can roll or re-roll to their heart’s content. Yes, there may be a preferred play with the dice you’ve rolled, but you almost always have a chance to roll for something better. It gives back more of the decision-making to each player, while the original Pandemic often has one best play that the Alpha Gamer generally sees before everybody else and tells them about it, basically forcing them to do it.

Like Pandemic, players in Pandemic: The Cure try to cure diseases before they spread throughout the world. The diseases are represented by six-sided dice in four colors and they are located in one of six different locations. If there are ever four dice of the same color in one area, then an outbreak occurs.

Each player rolls their own player dice and performs actions based on their rolls (like Pandemic, each player has unique abilities). You can re-roll any of them, but the catch is if you roll a biohazard die, it counts against you (there are some exceptions to this that I won’t get into here). Actions include moving from one area to another, treating diseases, sharing samples with other players, and curing diseases.

Cure all four diseases before you run out of disease dice or suffer too many outbreaks or epidemics and you win.

Just like the original game, it’s a lot easier said than done.

What I Played During GenCant 2016:

  1. Ca$h ‘n Guns
  2. Rome: Rise to Power
  3. Pandemic
  4. Valley of the Kings (solo)
  5. Dead Men Tell No Tales (solo)
  6. Ca$h ‘n Guns
  7. Bohnanza
  8. Between Two Cities
  9. KLASK
  10. Splendor
  11. Pandemic: The Cure (solo)

Not a bad four days of gaming! For me, though, one of the highlights of this year’s GenCant (besides finally beating Dead Men Tell No Tales) was volunteering to manage the official GenCant Facebook page. It was a treat seeing how people responded to the idea of a digital get-together. I’m proud to be part of this terrific community of board gamers and if you weren’t able to attend, I highly recommend joining us for next year’s GenCant.

GenCant 2016 Day 3: Bohnanza and Between Two Cities

Bohnanza

Bohnanza

One of my regular gaming buddies hosted a game night and we had a blast, as always. An added bonus was that my wife joined us and she met most of the guys I regularly game with. Also, I got to play two games I’d never played before: Bohnanza and Between Two Cities.

Bohnanza

Bohnanza is a classic card game, one I’ve somehow managed to not play for years. I played the dice version Wurfel Bohnanza last year so I was long overdue to play the card game it was based on. After playing both I think I prefer Wurful Bohnanza, if only because I can never resist chucking dice.

I can see why this was so popular back in the day, though, and still remains so; the trading aspect of this set collection game makes for some fun interaction. It plays quickly and even though I kept forgetting a few rules, the turns flow easily.

I’d like to play it at least once more, but right now it’s a like-but-not-love game for me.

Between Two Cities

Between Two Cities

Between Two Cities

Between Two Cities, on the other hand, was an insta-love game for me. I enjoy streamlined games like this where you have an action (pick two cards and play one to each side of you) and try to find the most effective way to play it. What makes this tile-laying game unique is that you’re working with and against your fellow players. Since you’re building two cities and can only score the lower of the two, you’re trying to help yourself and your partners without letting them score too high.

I like the easy tile-drawing/drafting mechanism and the addition of the double-sized tiles during one round was a genius move. It was frustrating (but in a good way) having to deal with this big piece without screwing up your future plans.

My wife enjoyed it, too, so it’s now on my Games Wish List.

Final note: after I played Cash ‘N Guns the other day, I thought my wife would dig it as much as I did.  Last night she got to experience the fun of pointing foam guns at her fellow players and not only did she like it was much as I did, she won the game, thanks to a killer round where everybody else was shot or ducked.

Yup, we’re adding it to our collection. We agreed that family game nights will be better with foam guns.

GenCant 2016 Day 2: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Dead Men Tell No Tales

A mellow Day 2 of GenCant for me last night: watched the Olympic Opening Ceremonies and played one board game.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Back in April I played Dead Men Tell No Tales with my weekly gaming group. I’d never heard of it before, but the box cover art was gorgeous and since I like cooperative games, I was interested. The guy who brought it had just received it from Amazon, so we opened it up and jumped right in.

I loved the theme: you and your fellow pirates have conquered the Skelit’s Revenge, a burning ship full of treasures to be looted before it sinks. Of course, nothing says pirates like having to defeat guards to gain the treasures or battle one of the many undead skeleton crew or deckhands trying to stop your crew.

Dead Men Tell No Tales is a mix of Flash Point and Pandemic and it’s much tougher than both. In addition to making the best use of your actions every turn, you have to keep an eye on all of the hot spots on the ship or else a room will blow up and be inaccessible for the rest of the game. I loved the combat against the skeletons and guards; it’s something that sets it apart from other co-ops (it’s easier than Dead of Winter’s combat, though).

Our group quickly found out how tough DMTNT was; before we knew it, we’d reached the maximum number of explosions and our game was done.

So, thanks to a screw-up by Amazon, my gaming buddy’s copy was one of two that he’d received. Amazon told him to just keep the second one free of charge so after we were done he asked if anyone wanted to buy it for $20, which would pay for half of his copy.

I’m a sucker for a good deal and couldn’t resist a 50-percent-off copy of a game that’d just been played once. Just like that, I had my very own DMTNT.

Last night I solo-played it on the Scurvy Dog (easiest) level with three characters. This was my fourth time playing it solo, but the first since April so I was pretty rusty with the rules. I had to stop a few times to consult the rulebook and even reviewed the notes I’d taken after I’d played it the first few times. More than once I had to re-trace my steps to correct improper moves.

I’d never beaten the game and as things started getting hectic, I found myself re-living those previous losses. Would I have enough deckhands left? (Like Pandemic, if you go to the supply and can’t put any out on the board, you lose.) Or would I suffer from too many explosions, which is how most of my other solo games ended?

Thankfully, neither happened and I won right after I pulled the last tile for the ship.

Even if I’d lost, I’d still feel that DMTNT is an underrated cooperative game that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. Copies aren’t as easy to track down as Pandemic or Flash Point, but it’s well worth the effort.

GenCant 2016 Day 1: Egypt and Rome

Valley of the Kings

Valley of the Kings

Day 1 of Gen Con was today and it looked awesome (although I have no desire to be in this). I loved seeing all of my online gaming buddies posting photos and reporting the latest and greatest from the con.

Valley of the Kings

It was also Day of GenCan’t 2016 and I participated in the #GenCantSoloCon by playing a solitaire game of Valley of the Kings. I’ve  played this deckbuilder several times solo and I enjoy it as a get-your-highest-score game. Set in ancient Egypt, it’s a deck builder with set collection, in which you only score points by putting cards in your tomb (trashing cards) and you earn more points for collecting similar items. This sets up interesting choices throughout the game: do you play your card for its money value, its action, or trash it to start accumulating points?

Valley of the Kings is one of two deck builders I recommend to Dominion fans (the other being Trains).

Rome: Rise to Power

Rome: Rise to Power

Rome: Rise to Power

After my solo game, I went to my Thursday night gaming group and I was able to get Rome: Rise to Power to the table. I’ve had the game for a few months and have been itching to play. Unfortunately, it’d been awhile since I’d gone through the rulebook (which isn’t exactly the easiest to follow), so there were a few pauses during the game to clarify some points. I’m usually pretty good at explaining games (I’m the designated rules guy during family game night), but I wasn’t at my best tonight. Thankfully, my gaming buddies are smart enough to figure out things on their own and we were able to play the game within the suggested time (45 minutes).

Rome: Rise to Power is a game that combines dice allocation, card drafting, set collection, area control game with variable player powers. Players are in ancient Rome trying to use its military to win regions throughout the Roman Empire, win influence with senators, and put on the best arena battles.

The dice allocation system is unique and it’s what appealed to me most when I’d heard about it. Yes, there’s luck involved with dice (duh), but there are several ways to mitigate the luck factor, mainly through the special powers each player earns through their combinations of senators and regions won. The third way to earn points, through the arena battles, is sort of wacky, but somehow it works: you buy cards to build a poker-like hand and play them after rounds three and five (the final round). So, three barbarians and two beasts are the “Battle Royale,” which is a full house in poker, and there other hands that score.

The overall consensus was okay. I liked it and agreed with two of my buddies; we’d like to play it again now that we have a better understanding of the game. The fourth guy didn’t care for it, but I’m thankful that they were all up for playing. I’ve got more than a few games in my collection that I haven’t played so it was good to scratch this one off the list.

Weekly Gaming Group

Jet Set

Jet Set

I’ve had a busy summer, so I haven’t been attending my weekly gaming group on a regular basis. I’ve missed a few weeks and other times I’d stop by for a quick visit, sometimes playing a filler game or two.

Last night I was back at my usual spot, hanging out with my gaming buddies. Ever since we started advertising on Meetup.com, we’ve had new gamers join us each week. It’s nice to see new faces and, as always, it’s great trying out so many new and new-to-me games.

Jet Set

I’d never heard of Jet Set before last night and it turned out to be a fun game. It’s like Ticket to Ride for gamers. You’re flying around Europe and establishing links between cities and earning Victory Points for each link you claim. The end game consists of you flying around one of your secret routes (the ominous-sounding Final Flight) for more VPs.

Like TTR, Jet Set allows you to do only one action per turn: earn income from your Flight cards, spend your income to claim links, place planes on the links, or claim an available Flight card (by completing a link).

What separates Jet Set from being a TTR clone is its economic mechanism. You earn money on the Flight cards that you claim, which allows you to buy more planes and afford more links. It’s not as easy as just laying down your trains in TTR; you must have enough money to play your planes and if you’re playing it on someone’s link, then you’re paying them as well as the bank.

Jet Set has a bit more depth to it than TTR, but maintains the streamlined one-action-per-turn element that keeps the game moving. There’s some light number-crunching as you figure out the cost of certain actions such as playing planes on an opponent’s link or earning income, but overall it’s a solid route-building game that’s worth a play.

Solitaire For Sale

For Sale

For Sale

While getting ready for #GenCantSoloCon (here’s my schedule of games for this weekend) I wanted to see if there was a solo variant for one of my favorite filler games, For Sale. A few clicks and clacks on boardgamegeek.com and I can now play For Sale by myself.

For Sale is an auction-style game played in two rounds. During the first round, players bid on properties (numbered 1-30). A few properties are dealt out and players begin the auction by using their allotted amount of money tokens.The highest bid takes the current highest property, with the second highest bid taking the second highest property, etc. A player can drop out of the bidding at any time and receive half of their bid back along with the current lowest property. They can also pass (i.e., not bid on a property) and take the current lowest property for free. This process is repeated until all properties have been bought.

In the second round, players try to sell their newly acquired properties for checks (valued at $0 to $15,000). This time, the checks are dealt out and players secretly choose one of their properties. After everybody reveals them, the highest valued property earns the current highest valued check, the second highest property earns the second highest check, etc. This process is repeated until all properties have been sold. The player with the most money at the end wins.

For Sale is always a hit whenever I play it. It’s a fantastic quick play that also makes for a great introductory game for new board gamers.

Here’s the link to the original post of the solo play rules. And here’s my rewritten version; the technical writer/editor in me couldn’t resist streamlining the text and making things more consistent and orderly.

GenCant 2016

GenCant 2016

GenCant 2016

As I mentioned in my first blog of my challenge, this week is Gen Con, America’s Board Game Super Bowl. Gamers from around the world invade Indianapolis for an extended weekend of all things board games. I wish I had it in my budget to fly out for four days and be amongst my fellow tabletoppers, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Thankfully, there’s a terrific alternative for those of us who can’t make it to Gen Con. The GenCant website explains it best:

#GenCant started in 2014 on Twitter as Jason Paterson (@nakedmeeple,) Suzanne Sheldon (@425suzanne) and others were chatting enviously about all the Gen Con news in the social media sphere. One fateful Twitter exchange created the hashtag – and GenCant was born. Twitter gamers jumped in head first with enthusiasm by participating in the conversation, tweeting #GenCantContest photos, and donating prizes of all sorts. Soon the event had enough buzz that publishers and designers were asking how to get involved too.

  • GenCant is a community created and fueled event.
  • Call it an UnConvention, a Virtual Con, or Digital Gathering – just call it fun!
  • GenCant is intended to be something a bit fun for everyone who can’t attend the world’s biggest board gaming event, Gen Con.
  • GenCant is not intended as criticism or insult to Gen Con.

Cool, huh?

I love the idea of people taking something negative (not going to Gen Con) and turning it into something positive (going to GenCant). Seriously, what’s not to like about a free virtual gaming event that anyone can attend? They even have an official mascot, cool-looking badges, and prizes!

This will be my second GenCant and I’m excited. It looks like I’ll have four (actually five!) days of gaming.

I’m starting early on Wednesday with my regular gaming group, then I’ve got my other group on Thursday. On Saturday my wife and I are going to a friend’s for dinner and gaming. And throughout all of this, I’ll be participating in the #GenCantSoloCon.

(Yes, I solo game. I’m the only one amongst my gaming buddies who enjoys it; everybody else would rather play video games. Oh, these kids and their technology. Haha)

Hope you can join me and all of the others online for GenCant.  Whether you’re gaming with your regular group, doing solitaire play, or a little bit of both, it’ll be a blast! (And don’t forget to tweet me with the hashtag #GenCant2016)

I’m not sure what I’ll be playing with my gaming groups, but here’s my solo schedule for #GenCantSoloCon:

Thursday Card Game: Valley of the Kings

Friday Co-Op Game: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Saturday Euro Game: Harbour

Sunday Dice Game: Pandemic: The Cure

GenCantSoloCon games

GenCantSoloCon games

August Blog Challenge: Board Games

Trains

Trains

I haven’t written nearly enough this year (unless you count my news column at iSlaytheDragon.com), so I’m kickstarting my blog with my Blog Every Day in August Challenge. 

Every day this month I’ll share thoughts and photos of board games and if I’m feeling particularly cheeky or inspired, I’ll write about other topics.

But it’s all about my favorite hobby this month.

Trains

My wife and I recently became HUGE fans of Trains; we’ve played it almost a dozen times since I bought it on Memorial Day weekend. I scored a like-new copy for only $10 thanks to a Facebook gaming group and I love the fact that it’s now cost less than a dollar per play.

Trains is a basically Dominion meets Ticket to Ride. It’s a deck builder with a map, so there’s some route laying mixed in with the card-playing. I was introduced to the game by one of my weekly gaming groups and after I’d played it the first time, I thought my wife would dig it. We’d enjoyed playing Dominion and Ticket to Ride together and after we played Trains for the first time, I knew we had a new favorite.

Pictured above is the Saitama map, which was a promo given out at Gen Con 2014 (and in turn given to us by a friend). I thought it was appropriate we played this one today in honor of our country’s biggest gaming convention happening later this week.