Thoughts of a Flying Sheep

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posted by FlyingSheep @ 12:50 PM 0 comments

Session Report: September 1, 2003
Games Played: Option, Killer Bunnies, Emerald
Gamers: Chip, Sara, Denise, Karl, Aaron, Rob, Peter, Matt, Nate

Thanks to Rob for hosting and making lunch.

OPTION (0:55)
Aaron: 268
Chip: 233
Sara: 156

Option is basically a Scrabble variant with two letters (of different colors) per tile, instead of one. Long words spelled entirely in a single color score double. This incentive helps to keep the game moving, as looking for a word with 14 letters takes much longer then looking for a word with only 7 letters. Also, players can flip any tile on the board, so long as the new letter keeps all words legal. There is an additional option rule (which we didn't use) that rewarded players for finding as many "flippable" tiles as they could.
I'm glad I tried this game, as it looked interesting, but I'd rather play Scrabble, or Quiddler. Do not play this with someone who is determined to win: it will slow down to a crawl.

KILLER BUNNIES AND THE QUEST FOR THE MAGIC CARROT (0:75 + 0:22 rules)
Denise: won
Sara, Chip, Karl, Aaron, Rob, Peter, Matt: lost

Matt brought this game along with two of the expansions (Red Booster and Violet Booster). He was very brave to try to teach a game that no one had ever played before to eight gamers at once! I'll go out on a limb here, and say that most people disliked this game. It took a few turns around the table to sort out exactly how the game worked. This was partly because the rules were unclear, but mostly because no one heard all of the rules when they were initially read.
To win the game, one needs to have a bunny in play, and own the magic carrot (selected randomly). Obviously, the more carrots you have in play, the better your chances of having the magic carrot, but a player with only a single carrot still has a chance at winning.
Unfortunately, there are a few situations that can make the game unbalanced. If you do not draw any bunnies, then most of the cards will be fairly useless. If you lose your bunny and do not draw another one, any carrots that you have collected will be useless. On the other hand, whenever you draw a money card, you take the card and draw another one. If you are fortunate enough to draw a bunch of money cards in a row, you can keep them all.
I was in the minority - I enjoyed this game. Playing with eight players was a bit too chaotic, but I would gladly play this game again with fewer players.


EMERALD (0:35)
Matt: 32
Chip: 28
Rob: 27
Sara: 24

This is a fun little strategy game. I was lucky and managed to get some valuable cards early on in the game. I tried to keep Matt from being the first player to get one of each gem, but without success. As Sara and I collected gems, he only ended up with the majority in one color, otherwise he lead would have been greater.
Sara was in the position of being able to end the game early (by taking the final 5 point knight card), but at that point it would have ended with a tie between Matt and me. Shortly later, Matt's penultimate knight was eaten, ending the game.
This is a quick game with a nice fantasy theme. It's easy enough to jump in and start playing, but there is some strategy behind it as well. I'd play it again.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 2:12 PM 0 comments

Some monthly stats for August 2003

Total games played: 42
Unique games played: 24
Total gaming sessions: 15

Total Gaming Time: 25:37
Total Set-up Time: 1:04
Average Game Length: 0:37

Games played more then once this month (other then Magic):

Switch (aka Qwitch) 3
Gold Digger 2


New games this month:

Formula De (mini-rules)
Land Unter!
Kohle, Kies, & Knete
Quandary
Taj Mahal
Categorically Speaking
Smarty Party
TriBond
Frog Juice
Alien Hotshots
Namesake

Game of the month: Formula De (mini-rules)

While watching go-kart racing at a local country fair last weekend, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed playing this game. It's quicker (and much less wacky) than Ben Hurt, and easy to set up and play.
I'm probably missing out on a lot of complexity by not playing with the full rules, but I doubt that the additional nuances would add much to my enjoyment of the game. I'll have to try the real version at some point to test this theory.

Computer Games played: Oni

PS2 Games played: Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex, Jak and Daxter

Notes:
A lot of the new games in the second half of the list were garage-sale games that I wanted to try to see if I wanted to trade them away at Unity Games. Now that I've tried them, I'm ready to get rid of most of them (:
Oni is an old game that I've just recently discovered. I was able to get it used from Amazon for less then 3 dollars. Easily the best money I've spent in a long time.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 1:29 PM 0 comments