wil wheaton

Day 87: Castle Panic

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Yesterday I talked about Tsuro, one of two board games that I bought recently. The other was Castle Panic, a cooperative game that’s on the easy side of the learning scale, with a fun theme; I mean, who doesn’t like to slay trolls, goblins, and orcs? You and your partners are defending the castle against wave after wave of monsters. Each monster has 1-3 hit points and you use the cards to take away those points. Other challenges face you, including a Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark rolling boulder that crushes everything in its path, plagues that thin out your ranks, Orc Lords leading the charge on the castle, and many more.

Over the past few nights, I’ve managed to go 3-1 in solo play. It’s definitely on the easier side of the difficulty scale, which is exactly what I wanted as I was stocking up on games for my niece and nephew’s visit. I hope they enjoy it as much as I do. I’ve already added the Wizard’s Tower expansion to my Amazon wish list.

Here’s the always entertaining Wil Wheaton and his Tabletop episode on Castle Panic:

 

Day 69: Gaming Success

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride

I’m not a hardcore gamer. I have friends who are, but outside of the increasingly rare session of poker, I don’t play video games or board games or card games or dice games.

But the times they are a-changin’.

Confession: I have a like-new copy of Carcassone sitting in storage somewhere. Or maybe I passed it along to my stepdaughter; I don’t remember. What I do remember is that when I bought it 10+ years ago, I gave it a trial run or two and it didn’t stick. Back then my idea of game night was hours-long sessions of poker: limit and no-limit Hold Em, Omaha, Stud, Draw, Razz, Badugi, and other variations. You name it, my buddies and I played it into the wee hours of the morning.

Forward to today: I don’t play much poker, but now I’m wish-listing, buying, and playing games like there’s no tomorrow. The latest and greatest addition to my collection was Ticket to Ride. Back in January I bought Pandemic and have played it dozens of times, but only as a solo game. My wife played it with me once, but wasn’t really into it. No problemo, since it played so well with one player. But when I bought Ticket to Ride last week, I was a bit nervous. What if my wife didn’t like it? The only solo variants I found online didn’t sound as good, since it’s not a cooperative game in which roles could be shared by one player.

Thankfully, my wife enjoyed Ticket to Ride. Success! We played three games over the weekend and had a blast. I had read many reviews (and watched the TTR Tabletop episode, of course) about how elegant and simple the game was to learn, and it’s true. It only took a few turns to get the hang of gameplay and after each game we discussed strategies and other nuances. Not only has it been a lot of fun, but it’s also quality time with the missus: a win-win, obviously.

Day 23: Game On

Pandemic Game Board

Pandemic Game Board

Two days ago I did something I hadn’t done in eons: I bought a board game. As my wife and I were about to finish the first half of season five of The Walking Dead, we wondered how we would get our zombie fix until the new episodes were released. Although I enjoyed Dead Trigger and hadn’t downloaded Dead Trigger 2 yet, they’re still first-person shooter games that don’t offer  multi-player modes. We had fun playing Zombie Dice with our niece and nephew, but were looking for something a bit more challenging. A quick Google search offered plenty of zombie-related fun and we settled on the board game Pandemic.

While not exactly a zombie game, Pandemic’s theme is pre-zombie apocalypse: you and your team are trying to prevent infectious diseases from spreading and killing off the Earth’s population. You travel around the world, treating diseases and trying to discover a cure before it’s too late. The diseases aren’t named, but in our games one of them is definitely a strain of Zombie-itis.

What interested me the most is Pandemic’s cooperative game-play: two to four players play together, trying to beat the game. You share resources and do what’s best for the team, instead of trying to out-maneuver or out-wit your opponents. There are no advantages to withholding resources or trying to sabotage a teammate. There are various ways to lose, but only one way to win: cure all the diseases. It’s only possible if your team works well together.

Last night I watched the Pandemic episode of Tabletop, Wil Wheaton’s Youtube gaming show, trying to get a feel for the game. I also watched the instructional video on the Pandemic website and with these two videos, I felt like I had a good grasp of the rules and game play.

During a meeting this afternoon, I received the Amazon notification that the game had arrived. Yes! When I got home, I tore open the package, checked to make sure the game was complete, reviewed the rules, and set up the board.

It’s time to save the world.