Hey everybody, welcome back to the blog. What am I going to talk about this week? Let’s begin and find out.

I’m seeing my list of remaining flashbacks getting shorter and shorter. By mid-January at the latest, I should be done. For sure I’ve completed all the Star Trek and Cobra flashbacks. It’s a nice feeling. I still haven’t decided what the next Friday feature will be. I need to get on with that.

Saturday night was board game night. We played two games: The Adventurers: The Pyramid of Horus and Anima.

The Adventurers is a nicely-themed game. It just lacks depth. Each player is a tomb raider who’s trying to loot, you guessed it, the pyramid of Horus. There are different areas with different search result decks to choose from and halls lined with sarcophagi to pillage. The catch? In addition to useful equipment and the all-important treasure cards the players need to score points, the search decks are also filled with different injury cards and mummies roam the halls just waiting to deliver the mummy’s touch (a different type of injury). The cards a character carries (injuries, equipment and treasures) add to their load limit which in turn limits the number of actions he can take during the round. Certain treasures (idols) also limit available actions by removing certain dice as possibilities. On top of that, impassible stone blocks keep falling every round, possibly barring the players’ escape route, thereby putting the game on a timer.

There’s all that and I say it lacks depth? Well, yeah. The falling blocks are all random, and conceivably the path out of the pyramid could be blocked as early as the fourth round, meaning a game can go by really fast. There’s no strategy or skill involved. You go to the loot stations, draw a card and keep going until you think you have enough treasure to win and then hurry out before your escape route is blocked off. I waited about one turn too many and got trapped inside the pyramid. As it turns out, I would have won easily had I made it out since my opponents made several points after I got trapped (I stopped taking my turns at that point) and I still had the winner beat by three points.

The game mechanic to determine the number of actions each player receives per round is clever, but it adds to the overall random feel of the game. You roll five different-coloured dice, each die result that is over your load level score gives you an action. Each of the five major idol treasures removes one coloured die from your action options. This means you cannot hope to get all five idols because none of the dice would then be able to give you actions.

On the boardgamegeek.com rating scale, I gave The Adventurers: The Pyramid of Horus, a 5 out of 10. I could see it having value as a game to play with family who aren’t into more involved games. I bought it a couple of years ago on heavy discount during Fantasy Flight Games’ annual holiday sale (this year’s edition ends today) since I like to collect board games. After playing I feel that I got my money’s worth, but also that it wouldn’t have been worth the full retail price.

As for Anima, I’d already played the original game several years ago. However, since that time I bought two more Anima stand-alone editions of the game. All three can be combined to create a more diverse experience and I was curious how it would play with all those new cards added in.

Each player starts with one hero card and goes to different locations to acquire power in the form of advantage cards and recruit other heroes to their parties. Once they feel strong enough, they’ll try to accomplish one or both of the starting mission cards they were dealt at the start of the game, which will in turn, allow them to attempt the secret final mission. The first player to accomplish the final mission is the winner.

Each hero has a Power stat and a speed stat. Players add the speed stats of all the heroes in their party and the highest speed total starts each round. Power is added when fighting creature encounters and other player parties, with a die roll added in to allow for upsets. Heroes also have between 0 and 3 of the game’s 3 skills which are needed to use the various advantage cards. If you don’t have a hero with Trickery, you won’t be able to use any of the Trickery advantages you’ve won.

The first player to reach a specific location must face a preliminary encounter to access the location. Once there, the party must roll to explore the location which can result in drawing cards from the encounter deck or special events determined by the location itself, or nothing special happening. Successfully exploring the location (not having a game effect forcing you out of the location or causing you to lose a turn) allows you to claim one of the three rewards listed on the location, one of which is usually allowing you to start a mission that must be undertaken at that location.

The rulebook is very barebones and there were a lot of instances where the wording was up to interpretation. We tried to go with what made the most sense based on what was in the rules, though oftentimes those interpretations resulted in what, in my opinion, was unbalanced game play. One thing we got really wrong was that we were allowing players to attempt missions without exploring the location or to explore the location for a reward and ALSO attempt a mission. This was because the location cards would list a specific mission but not necessarily one of the missions we had in hand (the disadvantage of playing with multiple editions of the game combined). If that mission wasn’t listed as a reward at the location listed on the mission card, then we wrongly figured it could be attempted without having to explore for one.

Anima has more depth than The Adventurers but it can drag on. There’s no pressure to reveal the secret final mission until the players decide they want to. A cautious table of players (which we were) will continue on and on until they’ve amassed so much power that even the Level 3 encounters are easy to beat. When the final mission is at last revealed, it’s so easy that the end game is anti-climactic. Whoever gets to the right location first will simply win the game (unless the dice rolls REALLY work against them). Also, if you’re on a Level 1 location, you discard Level 2 and Level 3 encounter cards you draw there (without having to draw a replacement encounter). So if you’re REALLY cautious (i.e. chicken) you can stick to exploring level 1 locations without ever being in that much danger. And even if you do go to a higher level location, you still have a good chance of drawing a lower level (easier) encounter.

If I were to play again, I’d probably instate a house rule that when drawing encounters, players keep drawing until they get an encounter that matches the level of the location they’re in. Also, I’d add a house rule that completing a mission raises the possible encounter level (but not the reward level) of a location by one, though you’d still stop drawing if you met the minimum level of the location. So if you completed your first mission, Level 1 and 2 locations could yield Level 2 and 3 encounters respectively and if you complete both missions then all encounters could be met at any location.

The artwork on the cards is gorgeous. Even if the game isn’t your cup of tea, at least the pictures are pretty to look at. When I played Anima the first time, I rated it a 7.5 out of 10. I found the mechanics interesting, but I found myself wanting more cards to add variety. With three games’ worth of cards, there was more variety, but the game wasn’t as fun as I remembered which is why I lowered my rating for the games to a 6.5. If the rules were a little tighter and there was some kind of mechanic to ensure the game didn’t drag on, it’d be a definite winner.

Lastly, in Skylanders news, I finally finished the story mode of the game and captured Kaos (yay for the Dark Edition and the bundled Kaos Trap). I love the way the interaction the game developers included between the characters in the game and the Portal Master (player), particularly in the final level. I don’t want to spoil anything for people who haven’t played the game yet, but the use of the portal’s built-in speaker is really clever.

I had a bit of a scare when I went to turn on my Wii U and the gamepad wouldn’t turn on. It was supposed to be fully charged but nothing happened when I pressed the power button. It turns out this is not an entirely unusual occurrence. Users need only open the back cover and disconnect the battery pack for about ten seconds and then reconnect it and the game pad will work normally again. What a relief THAT was.

Anyway, that’s all for this week. Have a good week everybody!

It snowed over the weekend. I live in Canada and it’s November, so it’s not that unusual of an occurrence. Still, it makes me sad. The first snowfall (that sticks) typically signals the end of my bike-riding season. My goal every year is to make it to the first of December, but I always seem to fall short of that goal. I’ll be running on the bus schedule until May. Biking to work is also my principle form of exercise. It’s not optional because I need to get to work. I’m going to miss my bike.

Related to taking the bus, sometimes not paying attention pays off. Consider the following math problem: If taking the bus once costs $3 and you need to take the bus twice a day to go to and from work, how many days would you need to take the bus before a $53 bus pass is worthwhile? Nine, right? This was the math I was counting on when I went to buy a bus pass for the rest of November today after work. I have nine work days left in November so it made sense.

So I went to buy my pass only I didn’t notice that the cashier gave me a pass for the month of December until after I paid for it. Now I’m going to need a bus pass for December so the money wasn’t wasted, but it still left me needing a pass for November. The problem was they had no November passes left. That meant I would need to buy bus tickets. Here’s where things worked out in my favour.

Bus tickets are sold in packs of five for $11. For nine days worth of travel, I would need eighteen tickets, so four packs (leaving me with two left over) which cost me $44. So because I didn’t pay attention I saved $9 for the month of November and the month of December is paid for. Yay me!

This past week I wrote some more Funnies scripts. I fully expected to switch back to what’s happening in the bandit camp, but I keep extending what’s happening with Red Rich’s group. In trying to end their group’s part on a Thursday I keep having to find something to do on Tuesday. That new idea inevitably takes more than one strip to accomplish and when I’m finished I’m back to Tuesday. This idea’s the last one though. When it’s done, I’m switching back to Cyran in the bandit camp no matter what day it is.

In Skylanders news, I was in Trois-Rivières on Friday and finally found Wave 2 figures back in stock. I really like the red accents added to Jet-Vac’s design. The new Trap Masters are alright. Bushwhack seems the strongest off the bat but he lacks range. I like the Wave 1 Trap Masters better. Speaking of Wave 1, I leveled up Chopper over the weekend and he’s a lot better than I originally thought. Enough to get pushed into my favorites.

That’s all for this week. Have a good week everybody!

I attended my first wedding this past weekend. To qualify that statement, when I was young (read, before school age) I am aware that my youngest aunt got married. I have no recollection of the wedding. I seem to recall that I was not brought to the ceremony as it was felt I was too young for such a thing. Probably a good call as I would not have been able to sit quietly through it. Also, back in 1999, I was supposed to attend a wedding that my long-distance girlfriend at the them was invited to. However, there was a scheduling mix-up and they needed someone to let the caterers into the reception hall. I had no ties to the marrying parties, so I volunteered and missed the ceremony. I got a dance with the bride out of it (and I don’t dance) so it wasn’t a total loss. All this to say, weddings aren’t a regular occurrence in my life.

The wedding was a small unconventional affair (we were encouraged to come in costume, which only half of us did) at a small private room at a restaurant in Trois-Rivieres. I was honoured but I must admit a little surprised to have been invited since it was so small and I’ve never felt especially close to the groom (who invited me) or the bride (who I hardly know). Still, it was a nice to be considered and it’s an experience I’ll remember for a long time.

But that was Friday. On Saturday, there was gaming! It was my turn to pick games this time around and I went with Ad Astra, a game I bought on heavy discount during Fantasy Flight Games’ annual Holiday Sale a few years back. I’d never been sure about it because it seemed a little more abstract than the games I’m used to playing, but as I’ve gotten to know my play group over the years, I thought it might be a good fit after all. It turns out, it was.

Ad Astra is a resource gathering colonization game set in space. It’s been compared to Settlers of Catan (which I’ve played) and Puerto Rico (which I have not). Everybody starts on Earth with a factory and a spaceship and heads out to make points by setting up colonies, factories and terraforming planets. There’s alien technology to be found which give one-time bonuses to the players who find them. Every turn, each player sets three action cards on the board. These cards will be carried out by all players to a degree, though the player who played each card generally gets an added advantage. The trick is to figure out which cards your opponents are likely to play so you can maximize the efficiency of your own actions. If you know an opponent is likely to play a build card, you can focus on another action you need since you’ll also get to build when his card is played anyway.

The game is simple in its gameplay, but there’s still a learning curve involved in trying to figure out the best plays each turn. There were a number of turns where we had three build or move cards in a row (out of a possible five) because we weren’t thinking enough about what others might play, and then there were turns where the action a player was counting on another player to play didn’t come up resulting again in inefficient choices. I made a super bad move off the bat, I moved to a planet with the idea that I would colonize it for its resources, and then left before actually colonizing it.

We all agreed that it would be interesting to play again now that we have a better idea of how things work. However, it was getting late and we ultimately decided against playing again then and there. I have a suspicion it’ll be coming back to the table sooner rather than later though.

That’s all for this week’s blog. No Skylanders news because I didn’t get a lot of playing in on Sunday. Have a good week all!