Tale of the Tape #2 for 2016

I have continued to work on my three board gaming challenges that I have committed to doing this year. So far, I think I'm well on track to get this done this year. Here is the current Tale of the Tape...

10 x 10 in 2016 Hardcore Challenge

1. 7 Wonders Duel = 15 Plays - DONE!
2. Munchkin = 5 Plays - 1/2 Way There
3. Machi Koro
4. Pandemic = 1 Play
5. Power Grid = 3 Plays
6. Yedo = 1 Play
7. Zombicide = 6 Plays
8. Lords of Vegas = 2 Plays
9. RoboRally = 1 Play
10. Guillotine

Challenge #2: The 52 Game Challenge

This challenge is designed to get me to play 52 different types of games over 2016. The types are listed below. There are only 50 listed because #32 is a "trilogy". 

1. A game that take 4+ hours to play - Firefly - Played 01/02/2016
2. A classic game - The Game of Life - Played 01/08/2016
3. A game that became a movie - Jumanji
4. A game published this year (2016) - Dr. Who: Time of the Daleks 
5. A game with a number in the title - 7 Wonders - Played on 03/08/2016
6. A game designed by someone under 30 - Bohnanza (Uwe Rosenberg was <30 when he designed this game) 
7. A game with nonhuman characters - Merchant of Venus (Classic Version) - Played 01/09/2016 I played the EeepEeep
8. A funny game - Munchkin - Played 01/18/2016
9. A game by a female designer - Qwirkle (Susan McKinley Ross) - Played 01/08/2016
10. A game with a mystery or thriller theme - T.I.M.E. Stories (Mystery Theme) - Played on 01/16/2016
11. A game with a one-word title - Fluxx - Played 01/08/2016 
12. A game from a "system" - 504 - Played 01/04/2016
13. A game set in a different country - Yedo (Fuedal Japan) - Played on 01/19/2016
14. A game based on historical events - Axis & Allies (World War II)
15. A popular designer's first game - RoboRally (Richard Garfield) - Played on 04/01/2016
16. A game from a designer you love that you haven't played yet - King of New York (Richard Garfield)
17. A game a friend recommended - Nefarious - Played 01/05/2016
18. A Spiel des Jahres winning game - Alhambra (2003)
19. A storytelling game - Gloom - Played on 03/22/2016
20. A game at the bottom of your to-play list - Forbidden Island - Played on 03/15/2016
21. A game your Mom loves - Monopoly 
22. A game with a horror theme - Elder Sign - Played on 01/25/2016
23. A game more than 100 years old - Chess (1475 A.D./C.E.)
24. A game based entirely on its cover - Fortune & Glory
25. A game you hate that you've played at least once before - Poo
26. A game named after a person - Justinian
27. A game you can finish in under 15 minutes - Loot Letter (Based on Love Letter)
28. A game with antonyms in the title - The Good, the Bad, and the Munchkin - Played on 01/18/2016
29. A game set somewhere you've always wanted to visit - Istanbul (Turkey) - Played on 01/19/2016
30. A game that came out the year you were born - Alexander the Great (1971) 
31. A game with bad reviews - Phase 10 (Tom Vasel HATES this game)
32. A game trilogy -
    Pandemic - Played on 02/05/2016
    Pandemic: Contagion - Played 01/08/2016
    Pandemic: Legacy
33. A game from your childhood - The Wizard of Oz Game (1974)
34. A game with triangle-shaped components - Zombicide (Noise Tokens) - Played on 02/11/2016
35. A game set in the future - Outpost - Played on 01/01/2016
36. A game set in a school - Zombie Dice 3 (School Bus) - Played on 03/11/2016
37. A game with a color in the title - Red Dragon Inn - Played on 02/09/2016
38. A game that made you cry/sad - Dead of Winter
39. A game with magic - T.I.M.E. Stories: A Prophecy of Dragons 
40. A game illustrated by your favorite artist - Euphoria (Jacqui Davis) - Played on 03/15/2016
41. A game by a designer you've never played before - Codenames (Vlaada Chvátil) 
42. A game you own but have never played - Ogre
43. A game that takes place in your hometown (or as close as possible) - Hang Town (Placerville, CA) 
44. A game that was originally published in a different language - Power Grid - Played on 02/13/2016
45. A game set during Christmas - Holiday Fluxx
46. A game designed by someone with your same initials - Aye, Dark Overlord! (Chiara Ferlito)
47. A game with 8+ players - One Night Ultimate Werewolf - Played on 03/11/2016
48. A game with a controversial theme - Cards Against Humanity
49. A game based on or turned into a TV show - Battlestar Galactica - Played 01/01/2016
50. A game you have trouble getting other people to play - Dixit - Played on 03/15/2016

A few clarifications:

1. The list may be completed in any order
2. The same game may not be used to satisfy multiple criteria

Challenge #3: 1 x 100 Challenge - 7 Wonders Duel = 15 Plays

A Storytelling Game - Gloom

So, I'm not sure how this happened, but somehow I have started something at work. Once a week I host a Game Day at lunch time. I bring in gateway games that can be played in 30-45 minutes and show my coworkers who show up how to play. On March 23rd I brought in a card game called Gloom.

In this game you have cards for the members of your family. Each member is strange and a bit dark. Each player introduces his or her family by reading off the flavor text on the cards. The object of the game is to lower your family members' self worth to such a point where they die of misery and despair.

This game reminds me of the old TV show, The Addams Family. In that show the Addams Family members were always doing things that were opposite of normal families. They tried to make each other miserable, picked dead flowers, and eating spoiled food. The humor in this show was in that they were opposites to social norms. The same is true for this game.

The cards in this game are made of transparent plastic. Each action card has either positive or negative self-worth points. You play the negative self-worth card on your family. You play positive self-worth card on your opponents family members - thus cheering them up and giving them hope. Occasionally you will draw R.I.P. cards that allow you to kill off any single family member with negative self-worth. You want to be careful that they don't die too soon, because you're trying to rack up negative self-worth points.

The game ends when one person has managed to kill off their entire family. Then each person adds up all the self-worth points of their dead family members. It is possible that the person who finished the game may not be the winner if he or she has killed off family members too quickly instead of building up negative self-worth points.

This game does sound like it is indeed gloomy. It is not. Part of the fun of this game is the story telling aspect. As you play each card on your family, you need to tell the story of what happened to your family members to lower their self-worth. The situations that each player comes up with to explain what happens is the part that causes much hilarity to ensue. The replay-ability of this game comes in playing the different families and by introducing this game to new people with different creative stories during game play.

I really enjoy playing this game. It allows for creativity in the story-telling aspect of the game-play. Some people may freeze up a bit at first as they try to get into the spirit of the game. I have found, however, that if they stick with it, they will get into the flow of the game and ultimately have fun.

A game illustrated by your favorite artist - Euphoria (Jacqui Davis)

I recently got to play (not for the first time) the first game that ever got me to say, "Oh that's beautiful!" Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia is an artistically lovely game. It has an Art Deco art style. The game itself is based upon ideas posed in dystopian literature like:

• 1984
• Atlas Shrugged
• Blade Runner
• Brave New World
• Fahrenheit 451
• The Handmaid's Tale
• Neuromancer

Before I proceed with a description of this game, it's important to make sure that all of the readers understand the meaning of the term, dystopia:

"A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia, or simply anti-utopia) is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening. Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Dystopian societies appear in many subgenres of fiction and are often used to draw attention to real-world issues regarding society, environment, politics, economics, religion, psychology, ethics, science, and/or technology, which if unaddressed could potentially lead to such a dystopia-like condition." (Wikipedia)

Basically you are a workforce leader who has "awakened" and are trying to figure out how to react to the reality before you. Your job is to keep your workforce (dice) dumb and happy. You do this with food and Bliss (drugs). You are presented with opportunities to "invest" in projects. If a project that you invested in is seen to fruition, then you gain certain privileges. If you missed out on an opportunity, there will be areas of the board that you are locked out of until you can buy your way in. 

During the game you are collecting commodities (food, water, power, and Bliss), resources (ore, clay, and gold), and artifacts from history (glasses, boardgames, teddy bears, balloons, etc.) in order to either invest in projects or keep your workforce dumb and happy. You are also confronted with an ethical dilemma that you have to decide how to deal with it. One way to deal with it is to maintain the status quo and thus, earn a victory point (star). Another way to deal with it is to go against the establishment and recruit others to your faction to rebel against the status quo. The winner of the game is the first person to place all ten of their stars on the board. 

I have yet to see the rebel strategy win. The idea of the game, after all, is to build a better dystopia. Therefore taking the more conservative and stringent path will lead to the "best" dystopia. On the one hand, this is a fun game. On the other hand, it forcasts a depressing vision of society if one truly understands the meaning of the term, dystopia. As with the books named above, the game serves as a warning of a possible future.

A Game by a Designer You've Never Played Before - Colt Express (Christophe Raimbault)

Saturday was our Meet-Up Board Game Group's game day at the Carmichael Library. Mark and I broke out our brand new copy of Colt Express that we had picked up at DunDraCon for $20 because of a slightly dinged up box. Because we collect games to play them rather than to preserve them in pristine condition, the dent in the box didn't matter to us at all as long as the components inside the box were fine - which they were.


We sat down and played this game through with two groups of people and had a blast both times. In the first game one person had played the game before, but as a computer game. In the second game, it was just Mark and me who had played the game before by virtue of this being our second game of the day.


One the things that caught my attention about this game was that it does not use a board like other board games. Instead it uses a cardboard, three dimensional train that you must put together when you open the box for the first time. Once you have put it together, there are compartments in the box to store the assembled train cars and engine. Additionally, the theme of the game is continued because the wooden meeples are cut with cowboy hats and bowed legs.

In this game, the players are trying to rob a train in the Wild West. In each train car there are bags of money and gems that you pick up by playing cards. However, each of the moves your character makes have to be pre-programmed at the start of the round. This means that two players can interact either with each other or with the Marshall character and their pre-programming suddenly becomes skewed. If the Marshall gets moved by one character into a car where another character is, then that character must retreat up to the top of the train and may not get to grab any loot. It's also possible to shoot one another or get shot by the Marshall which has the effect of putting bullet cards in your planning deck. This means that they get in the way of your ability to plan your moves each round.

As we played this game there was lots of laughter and lots of plans thwarted as the game progressed. There were also times during the programming phase where all of a sudden people couldn't remember what they had put in for the last card and there was no way to go back and look at it once other people had placed their cards. That caused some laughter too.

Colt Express is a fun game that anyone could easily learn to play. I would call this a gateway game and a good family game. I can't wait to show this to my non-gamer friends and family.

New Game: Birds of a Feather

I love games that are thick with theme. The theme allows you to immerse yourself into the world that the game is depicting. When a new game comes along with a unique theme, that catches my attention. When the game is both competitive and fun, that keeps my attention. Birds of a Feather did that at DunDraCon last weekend. Enough so that I bought my own copy and then brought it to work to play it with my nascent game group there.


In Birds of a Feather the players are bird watchers who are trying to "spot" different birds in various habitats. The players are each dealt a hand of cards (based on the number of players in the game). Each player then chooses one card to play face down on the table. When everyone has played their cards, all of the cards are turned face up and scored. Each player can score all of the cards on the table that are from the same habitat as the one that he or she just played. Then the cards are moved into an inner ring. Each player plays another card (face down) in the outer ring. When the cards are turned face up each player can score all of the cards on the table from the habitat that they played on the second or subsequent card. After this turn, (and each subsequent turn) the cards in the inner ring are removed from the game and the cards in the outer ring are moved to the inner ring. The game is played until each player has one card left. That last card is discarded. Add up the scores and the player with the highest score wins.

While this game comes with score sheets and provides a resource for replacing score sheets when the ones that came with the game run out, the designer has also provided a free scoring application available for download from the Google Play Store and from iTunes. The app is rock solid and easy to use. It makes the scoring process for each player quick and easy. The only downside is that each player needs to download the app on their own phone. It doesn't score the whole table. That is a minor nit to pick.


The artwork on this game is lovely. I was initially taught this game by the game designer and he explained that his brother did the art work. This game is somewhat educational in that you learn what birds live in which habitats. It would be a great game to play with children and, because it plays up to seven players, you can play it with a good sized group of kids or adults. It's simple to teach and simple to learn. I will definitely be bringing this to both gamer and non-gamer gatherings alike.

10 x 10 Challenge: Yay! Dead Zombies!!!

I don't know why I am so enamored with Zombicide. I'm not a huge zombie genre fan. I find that genre occasionally amusing, if well done, but mostly tiresome and dumb. I guess this game must just fall into the well done part of the genre. I also enjoy it because each play ends with a story.

Late last year I managed to convince Mark to let me put it on my 10 x 10 list for 2016 and he agreed to help me knock it out this year. Tonight we actually knocked out two plays of this game which brings me up to four plays of this game now.

1. February 11, 2016 with Mark
2. February 13, 2016 at DunDraCon - I played Scenario #3 with three gentlemen at the convention and lost
3. February 17, 2016 #1 - Scenario A2: Roundabout with Mark
4. February 17, 2016 #2 - Scenario SC: Switch City Campaign - Pull the Switch with Mark 

February 13, 2016 @ DunDraCon: The DunDraCon game was fun! It was a scenario where we were just trying to get one survivor in to the red zone on the scoring track. There were four of us playing and we each had one character. Because I only own the base game right now, there are only six characters to play with. With only four players there weren't enough for all of us to play two characters. 

We were doing pretty good until one player made the decision to end his turn standing alone outside a building. When the zombies moved, four of them moved into the zone with him. Then, during the zombie spawning phase a card came up that said "All Walkers Get an Extra Turn". This meant that each of the walkers in the zone with this character got to attack him. He was dead. After that we started dropping like flies.

I don't remember the exact circumstances behind the next death, but my character cleared a room and decided to use her last action to search the room When this happened she found a walker zombie. Because she ended the turn with a zombie in the room and already had one wound, she was dead when the zombie got to move. [sigh]

The last death came when our final player cleared a room full of walkers. He had one wound and was one point away from the red zone. All he had to do was clear the room one more time after the movement phase and he was well equipped to do this by having a chainsaw in hand. A fat zombie and two walker zombies moved into the room with him. No problem. He could handle these. We moved to the spawning phase. One of the spawning cards that came up said..."All Fatties Take an Extra Turn." The fat zombie in the room with him attacked him and he was dead. One. Point. Shy. Of. Winning. 

February 17, 2016 #1 - Scenario A2: Roundabout with Mark: This was an easy scenario on a small map that started out with a whole bunch of walker zombies on the board but had the added advantage of having no spawn zones. Mark and I were able to defeat this scenario in less than an hour. It was fun and mildly amusing but left us ready for more. I had found this scenario on a site called Zombicide Scenarios and proposed another that I had found...

February 17, 2016 #2 - Scenario SC: Switch City Campaign - Pull the Switch with Mark: This is actually a scenario campaign. It contains six different maps that are supposed to be done in sequence. Some are harder than others. We started with the map called Pull the Switch. This one took us about 2.5 hours to complete and we lost two of the six characters we were playing right towards the end of the game. Characters who sustain two wounds are dead, but in this scenario they come back in the next map with a wound, so we'll see them again in the next game. 

The objective of this game is to collect all of the objective markers - there were eight - and get to the Exit zone. There could not be any zombies in the Exit Zone when the game was ended. We had some pretty hairy situations. At one point we ran out of abomination zombies. This gave the abomination zombie on the board another move. They are hard to kill and this brought this guy closer to our party. We had to scramble to find a Molotov cocktail to kill this zombie. Another time we had the same situation with fat zombies, and yet another time with runner zombies. The rule of the game is that if you don't have enough zombies to fill a spawn card, then all of that type of zombie on the board get another turn. If you already have zombies in a zone with your character then the next thing the zombies do is attack your character. 

Mark and I had a great time with this particular scenario and are looking forward to continuing this campaign. In fact, we are now considering buying the next expansion for this game. We've found some pretty good deals on Ebay and BoardGameGeek.com so I don't think it will be too long before we add some new characters, maps, equipment, and, of course, zombies to our fun with this incredible game. 

Convention Report: DunDraCon 40

Mark and I went to a board game convention over Valentine's/President's Day Weekend (February 12-15, 2016) called DunDraCon. This was the largest board game convention I've ever been to. All of the name tags were numbered and the largest number I saw was over 2300. There were a LOT of people there! We promptly signed up for several games, but were only able to get into a few simply because of the large number of attendees all vying for access to the same small pool of game events.

My first game was a role-playing game called Dread. This particular story was called Mission to L5. The participants played a group of investigators who were sent to investigate why a space station between the Earth and the Moon had stopped communicating with Earth. The Dread game system has a way, if done correctly - and this was - of building tension in the group. By the end of the story everyone is feeling the strain and is just trying to get out of the story alive. This was a great experience. I'm running my own Dread game at ConQuest SAC in April.

We did some pick-up games in the Open Gaming Room. I sat down to play a game called Birds of a Feather. The game designer, Teale Fristoe, was demonstrating it. The theme of this game is bird watching. There are a variety of terrains where you see different types of birds. You are trying to collect all of the birds that can be seen in any one terrain. The added bonus to this fun little filler game is that the designer also created a scoring phone app and provided it for free. I quickly downloaded this and used it instead of the scoring sheet that is provided with the game. It made scoring so much faster and easier and the game even more fun because the scores were instantly available rather than having to take time to calculate it. I was impressed enough to pick up this game from the Dealer's Room. However, if you find it intriguing enough, you can find it here.

My friend, Dave Mitchell, loaned me a game called Leaving Earth. I had not yet had a chance to figure out this game when I discovered that the game designer, Joe Fatula, was demonstrating the game at DunDraCon. I signed up for the game and was able to get in to his second demo. This game is a brain burner, but very fun and challenging. The players are members of the space programs of various countries beginning in 1956. I played the USSR. The USA, China, Japan, and France were all represented. The object of the game is to be the first country to achieve specific goals like landing on the moon, or sending a probe to Mars or Venus. This game has a very strong math component to it. You have to calculate weight and thrust to get your ships off of the ground and into orbit and then on to the destination and ultimate goal of your mission. Now that I've played this game, I'm very much looking forward to playing it with Dave and Mark and perhaps a few other of my friends. I bought my own copy straight from the designer once he told me that this has a solo-play option. That way I can practice so I have a chance of winning.

My last game was Battlestar Galactica, which I have played many times before. However, the game master for this event was playing with a component of one expansion that I had never played before called the Ionian Nebula. I was intrigued and wanted to give it a try so I could introduce it the next time my friends decide to play. This was an epic 6.5 hour game and the Cylons won when a card I was forced to play lost the game for the humans.

I had a great time playing it however. The group was fun and experienced with this game and it made the time fly by. It's fun to see how others play a game that I have played many times with my regular group. I got to see different perspectives and game play techniques that I may have to try in my own games going forward.

This convention was quite an experience. There were a lot of people, but everyone was very friendly and well-behaved. It was good to see a larger and older convention as I'm now on the committee that helps to put together a couple of smaller conventions here in Sacramento - ConQuest SAC and ConQuest Avalon. I will definitely be going back again - hopefully next year. This was a lot of fun and I learned a lot.

#34/52. A Game with Triangle-Shaped Components - Zombicide

When I saw the criteria for #34 - A game with triangle shaped components - my first reaction was, "You've got to be kidding!" Then all of a sudden the noise tokens from one of my favorite games, Zombicide, floated into my mind's eye and I jumped up to check and make sure I was right. I was! Huzzah!

Now let me start off by saying, I'm not a huge fan of all things Zombie. I don't watch every zombie movie, I'm not a fan of iZombie, and I certainly don't like every zombie-themed board game out there. In fact there are two that I like. Zombicide and Zombie Dice. That's it! I think the whole zombie theme is WAY overdone. However I happen to be really enamored with both of these two zombie-themed games.

In Zombicide you play survivors of the zombie apocalypse and you're on a mission with the rest of the players. This is a cooperative game. Cooperative games involve multiple players working together towards the same goal. The rule book contains several scenarios ranging from easy to medium to hard. Each has a different way to set up the board and different goals and objectives to achieve. In some the whole group needs to get out of the city alive. In others, only one person has to get out alive in order for the game to be considered a win. In the one that Mark and I played tonight, we were on a mission to kill the zombies before they could escape from the hospital complex and neutralize their spawning zones.

Mark and I each took on three characters each (there are six available in the base game) and set up the board. We had a false start where we made a glaring error (we ended a turn in a room full of live zombies) and died right away. So we decided to re-think our strategy and start again.  This time we were able to defeat the zombie hoards.

If four zombies escaped then we would have lost the game. We had to let three zombies escape in order to keep our characters from dying, but we did end up losing half our party before the end of the game anyway. That was ok though because we didn't have a survival number requirement. As long as even one of our characters survived to neutralize the zombie spawning zones and kill the zombies, we could consider it a win.

This was an intense game! Zombicide usually is if played correctly. There is lots of strategic and tactical thinking. Your characters move and act. Then the zombies move and act according to a preset way outlined in the rules. Then more zombies spawn at the spawning zones. If you don't plan your moves correctly, when the zombies move, your characters will die. To fight the zombies you have to role dice to see if your weapons work or not. If you say, "I'm firing my pistol at those zombies" but you only role a three, you just missed AND you made noise which means the zombies will be headed your way when it's their turn to move.

The intensity and need to communicate, coordinate, and work together is why I really enjoy this game so much. The theme adds to the fun and tension, but if you changed out zombies for space aliens, I think this would still be a fun game. Not only is this game on my 52 Game Challenge this year, but I also put it on my 10 x 10 challenge so that I could finally explore more of the scenarios in the rule book. I also hope to obtain at least one more of the expansions so that I can play with it. This game really does have a lot of variety and the potential for even more when the expansions are added in. The price of it is really high though but that's because of the great quality components. This is a very well thought out and produced game.

#37/52. A Game with a Color in the Title - Red Dragon Inn

When I was putting together the list for my 52 Game Challenge for this year, I was stumped on what game to use for "#37. A game with a color in the title." I didn't own any games with colors in the title. My friends have a Facebook group, so I put out the question to this group list and asked for suggestions. My friend Amy came right back with Red Dragon Inn and mentioned that our friend, Dwayne, owned it. Dwayne chimed in and said he would be happy to bring it to game night and play it with me. I'd never heard of this game, but both Dwayne and my husband, Mark, assured me I would enjoy it. Boy were they right!

Mark, Dwayne, me, and one other guy (sorry I don't know his name) sat down to play on Tuesday night at our weekly game night at Denny's in Citrus Heights, CA. Before we knew it three other people asked to play as well and we had a riotous group ready to party! That's exactly what this game is...a party.

The premise of the game is that a band of adventurers has returned from a successful raid on some dragon's lair or enemy castle, or whatever and they are in the mood to celebrate their success and fortune at the pub known as the Red Dragon Inn. The object of the game is to be the last person in the party to still be on your feet and with gold in your pocket at the end of the party while trying to get your fellows drunk (figuratively so, not actually in reality) enough to pass out or broke enough to get thrown out of the tavern for being out of money.

The game has action rounds where you can play cards that can start a round of gambling or you can buy drinks for your friends, or you can do mischief unto your friends. One of our party started off the game with a round of gambling which went around the table several times with different people taking control of the pot and requiring everyone to add more and more "gold" to the pot. I finally ended this round of gambling by playing a card called "The Winning Hand" that allowed me to collect the pot. Little did I realize at the time that this would make me prime target #1 for the rest of the game. I was now being bought drink (another card) after drink and my alcohol level (measured on a player game board in front of me) was going up and up and up while my fortitude (also measured on the game board) was going down. If the two scores met in the middle, my character would be considered "passed out" and I would be eliminated from the game.

I was not the first, or even the second person eliminated from the game. I was third, but it was a hard fought struggle to remain in the game. I stayed at the table and watched as others played and were eliminated one-by-one in rollicking good humor. It came down to Mark and the only other woman at the table (sorry, I don't know her name either). They traded back and forth for several rounds when Mark finally emerged victorious.

This game took about two hours to play with seven players. There was much humor and laughter at the table as each person seemed to take great pleasure in doing some role playing with their in-game character and his or her special abilities. I played the wizard, Zot, while another person played my pet rabbit, Pookey who is apparently sentient and has a temper. One man at the table drew a female character and had a great time playing her. All-in-all we had a great time!

This game has many expansions. I mean a LOT. While I really enjoyed playing this game and will not turn it down if asked to play in the future, I'm not sure right now about adding it to my collection just because of that barrier. I don't know how often this game would hit the table if we owned it. It cannot be played with just two-players. It needs a minimum of four players to be any good. This is something I"m going to have to think on a bit. If I found it at a thrift store or estate sale, I'd snatch it up quick. Buying it new though...I'm still on the fence.

If you get a chance to play this game, jump in! It's great fun and, if you can use your imagination to act the part of your character, you'll have a blast!

A New-to-Us-Game: Five Tribes

Between games on Meet-Up Saturday Game Day at Great Escape Games yesterday, my friend, Frank, and I went out to the store to browse around and look at games. After some discussion, Frank decided to purchase a game we had both been thinking about called Five Tribes designed by Bruno Cathala - who also designed a favorite game of ours - 7 Wonders Duel. Frank also bought the expansion for this game called Five Tribes: The Artisans of Naqala, but we did not include this in our game because none of us had ever played it before.

Mark, Frank, and David had played this game before. I never had. Frank quickly explained to me how to play and we began. It's a very simple game to understand how to play. Playing it is a bit of a brain burner.

If you have every played the ancient game of Mancala, you will understand the movement mechanic of this game. You pick up a handful of meeples and then drop one on each space as you move along the board to your destination. The twist is that the meeple you drop on the last space has to match one of the meeples that is already on that space. This takes careful planning. Once you drop that last meeple you get to pick up all of the meeples on that square of that color. If that means that you were able to clear that square, you are able to claim that square as your own and the points that it is worth. You can use the meeples to buy different things that are worth victory points at the end of the game: trade goods, Djinns that give you extra abilities, and viziers who provide extra victory points.

I could not seem to gain enough traction in this game to be able to collect board squares or Djinns, but I was able to collect the second most number of viziers (which earned me an extra 25 points) and turned in a collection of 7 trade goods which earned me another 70 points. Mark won this game, but I was able to tie Frank for second place. David, who ended the game by claiming the eighth square (the game-ending number), came in 4th but we all cleared 100 points. It was a very close game and we all had a good time! I think I can safely say that this game is going on the list of games that Mark and I want to add to our collection.

Power Grid: France Map

Mark and I did an inventory of our Power Grid board game the other day and compared it to the list of maps on BoardGameGeek.com and discovered that we were only missing one expansion map: France/Italy. It just so happens that one of our favorite FLGSs, Viking Hobby, had that map in stock and would hold it for us until Saturday. While Mark went to get our friend Frank, I drove over to Viking Hobby and picked up the map. We met at Great Escape and, after a game of Pandemic, we were joined by our friends, David, Cale, and Melinda for a game of Power Grid on the France side of the board.

This was a tricky board! One of the things about Power Grid is that you have to buy spots in the cities on the map, but you also have to pay the connection costs between each of the cities. On the France map these connection costs were really high. On most maps there are usually two or three cities that have 2-3 sections where there are no connection costs and the connection costs between those mega-cities and their nearest smaller cities are quite low - $3-5 each. Not on the France map! Paris was the only mega city in the sections we
were playing with and most of the connection costs were between $10-19 each. On top of this, one of the other special rules about the France map was that nuclear fuel is cheap and nuclear power plants start off plentiful. However, just because they are plentiful does not mean they are cheap.

With a six-player game the competition was fierce. Only Melinda was a newbie at this game and even she caught onto it very quickly and became competitive. We all stayed pretty closely clumped together on the scoring track throughout the whole game and when we came to the end, it was a photo finish. Mark won the game by being able to power two more houses than Frank and David and had a grand total of $8 left over. It was a very good game!

#32a/52. A Game Trilogy: Pandemic

Saturday, February 6th was the first Saturday of the month and this means it's a Meet-Up Gaming Day at Great Escape Games! This is my primary FLGS simply because it is the largest and most central game store in the Sacramento area. It has a good selection of board, card, role playing, and miniature games, friendly staff, and a large gaming area for customers to meet and play together.

Mark, our friend Frank, and I went to game day and started off the day with a game of Pandemic with the addition of the first expansion - On the Brink. Pandemic is a game by prolific game designer, Matt Leacock who created other game his such as Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert,  and his megahit, Pandemic Legacy: Season 1. Pandemic is a cooperative game where all the players are working together to stop four diseases from getting out of control while simultaneously looking for a cure for them. It is the players vs. the game. If they players lose, the game wins.

Each player has a role working for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to fight and contain diseases worldwide. I know, this is one of the flaws in the game. It should be the World Health Organization (WHO) rather than the CDC because CDC operatives would not have the authority to go into foreign countries to fight disease. However, set that aside and this is really a very fun game. It requires planning, coordination, and quick reaction as the players have to react as each turn the game throws something new at them.

In this game Mark, Frank, and I happened to prevail. That is not always the case. Because it had been quite awhile since any of us had played, we did not add in the hardest part of the new expansion, the bio-terrorists - a traitor component of this expansion - or the disasters that go with that role. We'll give that a try the next time we play with it. To use that component you need to play with three or more players. We are planning to go to DunDraCon in San Ramon this coming weekend and I'm hoping to get in an epic play of this game there.

A New Game! Lost Cities

I like to listen to a podcast called The Dice Tower with Tom Vasel and Eric Summerer. These gentlemen talk about board and card games and provide reviews and insight into the board gaming hobby that I have found entertaining, satisfying, and educational.

Tom Vasel has said on a number of occasions that one of his favorite games to play with his wife is Lost Cities. Mark and I are always looking for good two player games, so when we saw this one on the shelf at Viking Hobby - one of our FLGSs, we just couldn't pass it up and decided to give it a try.

According to BoardgameGeek.com, "The object the game is to gain points by mounting profitable archaeological expeditions to the different sites represented by the 5 colors. On a player's turn they must always first play one card, either to an expedition or by discarding it to the appropriate discard pile, and then draw one card. There is a separate discard pile for each color and a player may draw the top card of any discard pile or the top card of the deck. Cards played to expeditions must be in ascending order but they need not be consecutive. Handshakes are considered lower than a 2 and represent investments in an expedition. Thus, if you play a red 4, you may play any other red card higher than a 4 on a future turn but may no longer play a handshake, the 2, or the 3."

When you score your expeditions at the end of each hand (you play three hands per game) you first count up the numbered cards and then subtract 20 to pay for the expedition. Yes, you can end up with a negative number. Then you add in the handshake investments depending on how many were added to the tableau. If there is one handshake you multiply your score by 2. Two handshakes mean you multiply by 3 and four equals multiplying by 4. This can make your positive OR negative score much larger.

On our first game we were just trying to figure out the scoring system so we didn't really deploy any strategies until the start of the third hand. By then our scores were well into the negative range. Once we were done, we wiped everything out and started again and did much better the second time. I won our second game with a score of 94 - 14. Even though the score gap was so wide, Mark and I both enjoyed this game and we are both looking forward to playing it gain soon.

Featured FLGS - The Game Getaway in Folsom, CA

On Sunday, January 31st my husband, Mark, and I took a drive out to historic Folsom, CA specifically to check out The Game Getaway. This is a friendly local game store (FLGS) that we had heard about but never visited before. I have to say that this store is unlike any FLGS I have ever visited before!
The store is nestled inside a building that is full of other small shops and looks positively miniscule from the outside. This is something that the owner has obviously realized because he has painted a TARDIS from Doctor Who over the front door and the words “It’s bigger on the inside” over the door. It actually IS bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside, but not by much and boy is this store PACKED!
I have to say that this store is pretty much STRICTLY a board and card game store. No miniatures. No Magic the Gathering or other CCGs. No comic books or toys. I saw a shelf of puzzles. However, this store was packed from floor to ceiling with board games. I have to say, of all of the FLGs that I have visited (which is not many…yet) this one has the widest selection of them all.
I saw games at this store that I had only heard about on The Dice Tower or TableTop like Sheriff of Nottingham, No Thanks!, Codenames (which I bought), and many, many more. I saw games that I had never heard of and I saw a copy of a game that I had play tested across the street from this store about a year ago called Hangtown that is about nearby Placerville, CA and developed by a local game designer, Jonathan Cantin.
My only complaint about this store was that Mark and I were not greeted when we came it. The store clerk was hidden behind a stack of games and didn’t pop up his head until he heard us talk about Colt Express. At that point he informed us that it had won the Spiel des Jarhes – which I knew. A bit later he did ask me if there was anything I was looking for and pointed out Codenames (way up high) that I had missed earlier. At that point I bought that game. I had just been hoping that he would have been a bit more friendly and talkative since we were the only people in the store at the time.
I will definitely be returning to The Game Getaway for future game purchases. I have my regular game stores here in Sacramento, but if I cannot find what I’m looking for here, a trip out to beautiful historic Folsom is worth supporting another FLGS before I turn to finding what I’m looking for online.

Lords of Vegas & A 10 x 10 Game Challenge Update

Beginning in January I started three board gaming challenges to complete in 2016 for myself:

1. 10 x 10 Challenge - Play 10 Games 10 Times Each
2. 2016 52 Game Challenge - Play 52 Different Games Based on Specific Criteria
3. 1 x 100 Challenge - Play 1 Game 100 Times (Not constrained to complete in 2016)

So here is where the 10 x 10 Challenge stands to date:

1. 7 Wonders Duel = 6 plays
2. Guillotine
3. Lords of Vegas = 1 play
4. Machi Koro
5. Munchkin = 3 plays
6. Pandemic
7. Power Grid = 1 play
8. RoboRally
9. Yedo = 1 play
10. Zombicide

Last night Mark and I kicked off the first plays for two more games on this list Power Grid - which I reported on here - and Lords of Vegas.

Lords of Vegas is a fun game where you are building casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. The game mechanics are pretty simple. You draw a card which tells you which lot you get and which color of casinos pay out. If you have casinos in that color you get more money plus $1 million per parking lot (game term for an empty lot) you own. When your color of casino pays out, you also get victory points. The player with the most victory points when the Game Over card comes up wins.

Dice are used in this game to determine control of a casino. If two players build the same color casino right next to each other on adjoining lots, that is considered one casino and the player with the highest number of dice pips showing gets the victory points when the casino pays out. The non-controlling "partner" can contest this arrangement by challenging the other player to a dice duel by paying $1 million/pip showing. They then roll the dice concerned and whatever the outcome, that is the who controls the hotel. Sometimes control changes. Sometimes it does not.

The pips on the dice also control how much a player is paid for his/her casino when that color pays out. The number of pips showing for that casino (on all of the adjoining lots with that color) x $1 million = the payout. This provides incentive to acquire neighboring lots and build really big casinos.

Another incentive to acquire neighboring lots and build large casinos is the victory point track. It uses a unique mechanism to keep one player from getting a gigantic lead. Every so often the ability to move forward on this track suddenly becomes difficult because you don't move forward one point at a time. for awhile you have to be able to move forward two points at a time - or not at all. Then three points at a time - or not at all. Then four...and then five...and then six. Each lot involved in a casino counts as a victory point. A two lot casino will get you over the two point hump, but not the three point hump.

Another way to get over the victory point humps involves the only expansion to come out for this game. It's called UP! It allows you to add floors to your casinos. Each floor counts as a victory point as well.  Last night when Mark and I were playing, I had a two-lot casino that was five stories tall. That's 10 victory points and gets me over two five-point humps.

I actually won the game last night! I know I sound astounded, but it's very rare for me to win this game, especially when playing against Mark. It was a close game for most of the time. I would pull ahead and then he would pull ahead. However, in the end I made a few moves that shot me into the lead and he was not able to catch up. He did some analysis after the Game Over card came up and figured that even with two more turns, he would not have been able to catch up to me. That really felt good. I don't usually win by that much.

#44/52. A Game That was Originally Published in a Different Language - Power Grid

Yesterday was a game day at the Carmichael, CA Public Library. I had been looking forward to that game day all month. It turns out that I couldn't go. Not because I didn't have the time or had other obligations, but because I have a cold. I didn't think it would be nice of me to share my miserable cold with the rest of the gaming community, so Mark and I stayed away. First we went out to Folsom to check out a board game store we'd heard about but never seen called The Game Getaway (more on that in a different post) where I picked up a copy of Codenames, and then we came home and played a couple of games in the evening.

One of those games was Power Grid. This game was designed and published by Friedemann Friese, a German board game designer. It's German name is Funkenschlag and the game was originally published in German. Friedmann Friese is known for designing games with odd themes. Building and running a power grid certainly sounds like a dry theme, but the game works and is compellingly fun and competitive. In fact, the Meeple League runs tournaments around this game!

In this game players are competing to build the largest and most robust power grid in a particular market. The different markets can affect how the game is played. In some markets some resources are quite scarce while others are abundant. In other markets, the resources market is regulated or rigged.

In the Australia map it is illegal to build a nuclear power plant. On other maps, nuclear is illegal in some parts of the map, but not in others. As the game's popularity took off, the company published more market maps. The current list includes:

• Australia & Indian Subcontinent
• Benelux/Central Europe
• Brazil/Spain & Portugal
• China/Korea
• France/Italy (the only one we don't currently own)
• Germany/United States (the map that comes with the base game)
• Northern Europe/United Kingdom & Ireland
• Québec/Baden-Württemberg 
• Russia/Japan

There are three phases to each turn. First you buy power plants. There are several resources available to power these plants. Coal, oil, garbage, and uranium will all cost you money to purchase in the next phase of the turn. There are also wind powered plants and, later in the game, even more advanced plants that cost nothing to run, but are very expensive to purchase. They become even more expensive because they are purchased at auction and your fellow players can drive up the cost of a plant by bidding on it. A player can have three plants in front of him/her at a time. When you buy a larger or more efficient plant, you discard one of your older or less efficient plants out of the game.

In the second phase of the turn you buy your resources. Coal and oil are always more abundant in the early part of the game. They are, of course, more polluting and the cards depicting the power plants show that in their representations. You are limited to buying only double what your plants need to power your towns. However, this does still allow you to drive up the price of resources for your competition if you are able to snatch up all the cheap coal and oil early in this phase each turn. The refresh rate for resources fluctuates during the game, so some resources that were once abundant can suddenly become quite scarce.

The third phase of the game is building houses in towns. Each town has three areas (usually). In stage one of the game you can only build in the area that cost $10. In stage two you can build in the $15 and in stage three you can build in the $20 area. Except, here's the rub, you cannot build in a $15 or $20 area where you have already built in that city. You have to move on to other cities in the market. So it pays to be the first person to get into a city cheaply and then to spread out from there. Between the cities there are connection costs that also must be paid. After all, you must connect new cities to your existing power grid. Once everyone is done with this, it's time to power everything. Players get paid based on how many of the houses they built that can be powered by the plants that they have. It is possible to have more houses on the board than you have the capacity to power. That's ok. 

The game ends when the number of houses built goal for the game has been reached. This varies based on the number of players. The winner is the player with the most number of POWERED houses. NOT the most houses. If there is a tie, money on hand is the tie breaker. 

Mark and I played a really competitive game last night. It was neck-and-neck until I made a tactical error at the very end. I bid too much for one of the largest power plants and then didn't have enough left to buy resources for my remaining garbage plant. Mark ended up winning the game. It was a very good and fun game however. 

One final note... this play also counts as one of my 10 x 10 plays because I have Power Grid listed as one of the games on that list as well. I've made some pretty good progress on both that list and the 2016 52 Game Challenge. I'll post another Tale of the Tape here soon.