September 25, 2007

Only three people tonight: Phil, Eli, and myself. We played two games.

• Infernal Contraption - This is a humorous card game for two to four players. The deck consists of contraptions, upgrades, consumables, and power sources. Each player gets a power core to start. The deck is then divided up equally between the players, so each player has his own draw pile (called a “parts pile”). Each player then draws an initial hand of cards from his parts pile. On each player’s turn, the player gets a chance to add parts to his or her machine by playing cards from the hand. Then the machine is aimed at an opponent and activated, and each part is evaluated in order. Contraptions do things like take cards from the opponent’s hand or parts pile, or give the player parts from the “scrap pile” (discard pile), or remove parts from the opponent’s machine. Upgrades make adjacent contraptions more powerful. Consumables are powerful one-use-only cards. Power sources are necessary for other cards to operate. When a player runs out of cards in his parts pile, he is out of the game. The last player remaining wins. Phil built a machine with a contraption that stole one card from the opponent’s parts pile, and added that card to his parts pile; he then attached three x2 upgrades, so he was taking 8 cards a turn! This gave Phil the lead early in the game. Both Eli and I attacked Phil. Phil concentrated on me, and eventually ran my parts pile out. But, Eli was able to take Phil out, and won the game.
• Wiz War - This is an old favorite (from 1983) in which each player is a wizard, running around a dungeon, trying to steal treasures from the other wizards. Each player has a hand of spell cards to use against the other players. Early on, it looked like it was going to be an easy win for Phil. But then I played “Swap Home Bases” on Phil, and turned the tide in my favor. Eli set up Booby Traps to stop me, but to no avail. I created a skeleton, and sent it through the traps, and then walked onto my home base (formerly Phil’s home base), dropped my second treasure, and won.

Our next session will be on October 9.

September 11, 2007

Tonight, it was just Hal and I, so we played several two player games.

• Phoenix - Hal won the first two rounds. I made a bit of a comeback in the third round, but it wasn’t enough. Hal won 18 to 17.
• Hive - This is an abstract strategy game with no board. The pieces are bakelite hexagons with insects painted on them. Each type of insect has a different move. The object is to surround your opponent’s queen bee. This was the first time Hal had played. We played two games; I won both, but the second game was much closer than the first.
• Octi - Another abstract strategy game. In this one, each turn you choose between moving one of your pieces, or making one of your pieces more powerful. The rules list several different variations of the game, depending on how complex you want it to be. We played the “fast” game twice. Hal won both times.
• Fibonacci - And yet another abstract strategy game. You move your pieces around the board in amoeba-like groups, trying to surround your opponent’s center piece. This is one of my favorite abstract strategy games, but it doesn’t seem to attract much notice. Hal and I played twice; I won both times.
• Tantrix - And still another abstract strategy game! This game also has pieces that are bakelite hexagons, and does not require a board. Each piece has three line segments on it, each line segment is in a different color (there are four colors total). Players place pieces trying to make the longest possible line or biggest possible loop in their chosen colors. At the end of the game, each player scores the one line or loop that would give the most points. Hal won 17 to 13.

Our next session is on September 25. Hope to see you there.