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I had one of the better weekends in a long while this past weekend. What could make my weekend so good? Games of course!
It started Friday with my mom as we played Lords of Waterdeep (still my fave), Castle Dice, Dark Gothic and Takenoko. I won the evening 4 games to 3. We had probably our shortest game of Dark Gothic when my mom picked up all three villains in short order. The first time we played Castle Dice, I found the wording on the cards a little funky and couldn’t understand how anybody would want to use some of them. Now that I understand them, the game plays a lot better and all of the cards are useful. I like the game even more now.
On Saturday, I didn’t game, but it was a day filled with discussions about gaming. Fab and I went to Trois-Rivieres to see our friend Steve whom neither of us had seen in ages. It only cemented my desire to get a RPG campaign going. I tell you, it’s GOING to happen. I also got the last of my Christmas presents: the expansion to Dark Gothic! WOOWOO! I can’t wait to try it out on Friday.
La Crique o jeux decided to hold a game day to mark the beginning of the March Break. I got to game from 2 to 10 and had a great ol’ time. I was introduced to Telestrations (imagine playing the telephone game only instead of writing down what you think you heard, you write down what you think you saw! Each player has a pad with an erasable marker. On the first page, players write a word and then pass it on to the next player who has to try to draw that word. The pad gets passed along and the next person has to write down what was drawn. The next person has to draw what that person’s guess was and so on. It’s a nice party game with plenty of laughs.
I introduced some people to King of Tokyo to some mixed reactions. The kids really liked it, the adults a little less so.
After that I was taught how to play Abalone. It’s a tactical abstract game where the goal is to eliminate six of your opponent’s pieces. The pieces are all marbles and the board is made so that you can push lines of them from space to space. The trick is you can’t move a row of more than three of your own colour and you can never break a line in the middle. You can only push an opponent’s pieces if your line outnumbers his. So I could use a line of three pieces to push my opponent’s line of 2 pieces. If we both had lines of two pieces, it’s a stalemate until someone manages to maneuver their pieces around to gain the advantage. I have trouble seeing potential pitfalls so I’m not a great tactical player. For my first game I managed to do okay and it came down to the wire. I thought I had my opponent trapped but in my rush to spring it, I missed the opening I left for him and lost the game.
Next I had to choose between Rampage (a game I’ve seen played on Tabletop) and Abyss (a game I’ve played before). The dexterity based game play of Rampage didn’t really appeal to me, so I joined the game of Abyss. We had fun and I came within two points of winning.
We closed the day out with a game of Dead of Winter, which is a semi-cooperative game set in a post-apocalyptic world where zombies are running rampant and the players control a group of survivors trying to forage for the resources they need to stay alive. Now I make no secret that I hate the zombie theme. It’s unfortunate (for me) that they’re so popular. I played Dead of Winter because a) it was the game being played and b) because I’ve heard nothing but good things about the game system. I’ve seen it played on Tabletop as well and I have to admit I found it intriguing. It’s semi-cooperative because while there’s a common objective that everybody needs to pitch in to complete, each player also has a secret objective they have to do which can put them at odds with the common objective either by holding out a little help now and then or by straight up betraying the colony. In our game, we achieved the common objective, but I misread my secret objective and equipped two of the cards I was supposed to just keep in my hand. Having now played it, I will say that it’s a solid game that has plenty of theme. If I LIKED that theme, it’d be an easy addition to my collection. Plaid Hat Games is supposed to be releasing a new game using the same system with a sci-fi theme. I’m much more open to that so I’ll be on the lookout for it when it comes out.
With all that gaming, I was a little lax on my drawing this weekend. I had a Bandit Baby strip and a mash-up to draw and I only got one of the two done. I wasn’t able to figure out the script for the strip. I was going to draw it tonight, but I’m beat so it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I guess I’ll have to make up for it next weekend.
Okay, so that about covers things for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.
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