…but not really. I’m too busy blogging, right? Let’s get to it.
My summer schedule is coming to a close. This is my last shortened week. I’m back to 5-day work weeks starting next Monday. That is going to be rough. I wasn’t nearly as productive as I was hoping to be, site-wise. I felt for sure I’d be able to close out Bandit Baby and I didn’t work on it at all. I’ve got a HUGE lead on Flashbacks though, so when I finish the Masters of the Universe set, I’ll really have to dedicate myself to finishing Bandit Baby and/or possibly work on another project. This should be the last time I mention this for a while.
L’Imaginaire had a huge anniversary blowout to celebrate 30 years of being in business. Every day in August they had a different 30% off special. Last Monday was board game day and well, I had to take advantage of it. 30% of a $20 game is nice and all, but 30% of a $60 or $90 game is even better. It made some games and expansions on my want list MUCH more interesting. I picked up the last expansion for Mice and Mystics (until they come up with a new one) and Favor of the Pharaoh at big discounts. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Board Game and the Tokaido Matsuri expansions were more modest savings, but savings nonetheless. I rounded the order out with Takamachi, which is a cute little observation dice game that I’m apparently terrible at.
Matsuri is the second expansion to Tokaido. This is important, because for the first time I’ve come across a game expansion that requires the purchase of previous expansions to be able to play. Crossroads wasn’t in stock, but I thought I’d be able to play with Matsuri anyway. Guess I should have read up on that. Now I have to track down Crossroads so I can use Matsuri (and Crossroads itself of course).
I’ve been playing a lot of the Pokemon trading card game on my computer lately. It’s a pretty good port. I played the physical card game when around the time of the very first expansion MANY years ago. The cards are…somewhere. I actually only got to use them a couple of times since the one friend I knew who played the game lived in Montreal. I did play through the Gameboy port and had a really good time with it. The game has evolved a lot since those days as one would expect from a CCG. The digital version manages to make it relatively easy to acquire new cards without spending any money (big plus), though as one would expect, you can be at a pretty big disadvantage when paired up against players who’ve been playing longer or who HAVE spent money on the game and therefore have access to the bigger and better cards.
My greatest accomplishment in the game so far came last night when I was paired up against a guy who asked if he could record the game for his YouTube channel. I said sure and the game started. Not surprisingly, he had a pretty solid deck, while I was playing my trickster fairy deck, because Jigglypuff. Honestly I felt like I should have been destroyed and about the midway point, he said “Well played” which is either a sign that someone is about to give up or is about to unleash the full force of their deck on you. In this case, I think it was the latter as he started getting his big guns working and took out the Wigglytuff that had been my one hope of victory.
Since he said he was recording the game for his channel, I decided I’d be a good sport and play through to the end instead of conceding. Or maybe I was just being stubborn and making him earn the victory. At any rate, that’s when something funny happened. I drew a couple of key cards and was able to field my Clefable which had an attack that allowed me to choose which enemy Pokemon I’d have to face. I then kept switching out his Pokemon for those who had no energy attached. About the fourth time I did so, he said he was starting to get annoyed with the power, as though I were being a poor sport and just delaying the inevitable. I didn’t respond and just continued playing.
Weird as it was, I was actually managing to whittle down his forces and keeping alive to see if I might be able to draw into something good. Then he made the mistake of fielding a Pokemon that had an item equipped that drew him two cards every time I hit it. He had no energy attached, so he couldn’t attack me. Instead of letting the Pokemon die, he kept healing it so I kept hitting him and making him draw cards. Then, instead of attaching the energy which would allow him to switch it out or attack me, he kept building up the rest of his forces (maybe to show me all the ways he could beat me). I guess he was really upset by this point because he made another comment about how all I was doing was wasting time. Not so.
If at the beginning of a turn, a player cannot draw a card from his deck, he automatically loses. Maybe he didn’t know that or maybe he wasn’t keeping track of the number of cards left in his deck, but ultimately I just wanted to see how long I could stall before he was able to crush me. And it WAS coming. He did finally take out the Clefable and none of my other Pokemon had any powers that would keep me going. I just put my highest HP Pokemon out to withstand as many hits as possible and hoped he didn’t have the card that would allow him to put his hand back into his deck, which he didn’t. So I won. After his “well played” comment that I actually think came off as a little patronizing given the situation, it felt really good to beat him. I sorta regret not taking the name of his Youtube channel down to see if he posted the game.
Well that’s all for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.