November 27, 2007

Seven people played seven different games tonight.

• Chateau Roquefort (Burg Appenzell) - Played by Hal, Phil, and myself. This is a cute game about mice searching an abandoned castle for cheese. Each player controls four mice, and starts the game with one of his four mice on the board. Rooftops block the view of most of the board. On a turn, a player has four actions. He can choose from 1) peeking under a rooftop, 2) moving a mouse one space, 3) adding a mouse to an unoccupied corner space, or 4) shifting one row or column of the tiles that make up the game board. Most of the tiles are printed with one of several types of cheese, some of the tiles are just blank, and a few of the tiles have holes in them. If a player can get two of his mice on tiles with a matching type of cheese, the player gets a marker for that type of cheese. In the standard game, collecting four different types of cheeses wins. If a player shifts the tiles so that a hole moves under one of the mice, that mouse drops through the floor and out of the game. If a player gets down to one mouse, the game ends, and the player with the most types of cheese (excluding the player down to one mouse) wins. Phil won by getting 4 types of cheese.
• Kanaloa - This is a four player version of the two-player game Kahuna. The board consists of 16 islands, each island with 3, 5, or 7 places to place a bridge. Players play cards to place bridges to connect islands. If a player controls a majority of bridges to an island, he takes control of that island, and kicks off all bridges belonging to other players. The game is played in two rounds, and at the end of each round, players score one point for each island they control, plus one point for each bridge space to that island that they don’t control (so you score maximum points by just barely maintaining your majority of bridges). Phil had a huge lead at the end of the first round, with me in second, and Hal in third with no points at all. In the second round, Hal made a huge come-back, while I continued my middling performance, and Phil really got hammered. Phil still managed to win by a narrow margin. Final scores were Phil 22, Eric 18, Hal 16.
• Poison - Played by Lance, Joey, Tim, and Katie. This time they played by the correct rules. Lance won.
• Mmm... Brains - Played by Lance, Joey, Tim, and Katie. Lance won.
• Phoenix - Phil had to leave after Kanaloa, so Hal and I played Phoenix. Hal finished first in the first and third rounds, while I finished first in the second round. Final score was Hal 23, Eric 19.
• Munckin Cthulhu - Played by Lance, Joey, Tim, and Katie. With Lance and Tim already cultists, Katie lost a fight with a monster that turned her into a cultist, giving Joey the win as the only non-cultist.
• Fibonacci - Hal and I played two games of this great, but relatively unknown, two-player abstract. I won the first game, and Hal won the second.

Our next session will be December 11.

November 13, 2007

Nine people played four games.

• Before the Wind - I introduced this game to Eli and Phil. This is a card game where the players take on the roles of merchants, trying to obtain and ship various goods for victory points. This is a three step process: the player has to get the goods into his hand, then move the goods to his warehouse, and then move the goods to one or more ships according to the demand of each ship. A certain number of ship cards, each with a demand for goods and a number of victory points, are dealt out face up. There are three action card decks, each deck corresponding to one of the three steps. The start player flips three action cards face up, and then chooses one. The other players may then offer bids for that card, or pass in the hopes of getting one of the other action cards. The start player can either accept one of the bids, taking the money and giving the action card to the bidding player, or he can pay one of the bidding players the amount of his or her bid and keep the card for himself. Then, the next player who has yet to get a card or money chooses from the remaining cards. The process repeats until all players receive either cards or money. Players then execute their action cards in turn. Once players have filled the demands of a certain number of ships, the round ends, and players may lose some of their goods due to spoilage. Then new ship cards are dealt out, and a new round begins. The game ends when one player reaches 50 points. I took an early lead in the first round by concentrating on the larger ships. Both Phil and Eli caught up in the second round, but I was able to pull ahead again in the third round and win the game. Scores were Eric 57, Eli 53, and Phil 47.
• Munchkin Cthulhu - Lance, Joey, Diana, Brian, and Tim played Munchkin Cthulhu. Lance won.
• Hive - Phil had to leave after Before the Wind, so Eli and I played two games of Hive (see the session report for 9/11/07). I won the first, while Eli won the second.
• Bushwhackin’ Varmints out of Sergio’s Butte - played by Joey, Brian, Diana, Tim, Katie, and myself. This is one of Z-Man’s series of B-movie card games that started with Grave Robbers from Outer Space. Players can add characters, props, or locations to their own movies, or attack the movies of others. The player with the most points in front of them when the “Roll the Credits” card is played, or when the deck runs out, is the winner. We each spent far more effort in attacking each others movies than we did in building our own. Diana emerged victorious.

Our next session is November 27.