I recently had two back-to-back weekend events with my core group of friends. During the first weekend, I introduced them to Sushi Go! and Survive: Escape from Atlantis! (I just now noticed that these two game titles both have exclamation points in their names). Both games were a big hit with my friends, so much so that two different people purchased Sushi Go! later in the week, and one of them also purchased Survive and its expansions.
So I’m a total sucker for all things cute … and giant pandas are no exception. Takenoko itself is a solid medium-heavy game that I’m always down to play, so when I saw an online deal on the Takenoko Collector’s Edition last year, I quickly jumped on that cuddly bad boy. It quite possibly is the largest chunk of change I’ve spent on one. single. board. game. And honestly, I have no regrets …
My one gaming group had a farewell game day for one of my close friends, who is leaving town with his wife and baby to be near family. It was a bittersweet day knowing that in over a week, they won’t all be in Phoenix anymore. The last game we played that night was The Grizzled, fitting for a game about friendship and making hard decisions. The game even asks: Can friendship be stronger than War?
I purchased Orleans with my game winnings when I was at Strategicon, and I’ve played this game twice already within the past week. It has quickly become a game-night favorite. Orleans plays 2-4 people and lasts about 90 minutes. It’s a medium-heavy worker-placement bag-building game, and, best of all, it isn’t too hard to teach. A friend of mine had said he was initially turned off by what looked like a really busy game board, but once game play was explained, he said it’s actually not that hard to learn. Winning the game, on the other hand, requires planning efficient moves.
I can’t believe it’s been a week since Strategicon! I’m seriously having convention withdrawal. My Phoenix friend and I decided to go to OrcCon for two very different reasons. I wanted to play Virgin Queen, which was slated for 11 hours of game play, and he wanted to play Mega Civilization, which was slated for 14 hours of play. And guess what? Both of us succeeded in doing so! Huzzah!
If you follow me on Instagram, you saw that last Friday I got to meet the Game Boy Geek himself, play games are his house and bask in the glory of his awesome board-game room. How cool is that?! I seriously still get starstruck when I meet folks from the Internet who are very active in the board-gaming world. And it all came to be because of a happy coincidence!
I’ve been going back and forth on what to write for this week, which explains the lag. It’s not that I haven’t been doing any board gaming; it’s actually quite the opposite! I’ve been doing a lot of gaming in the past week or so but it’s nothing new that I haven’t written about. So this be more like an update on the state of things.
At a game day last week, my friend confessed to me, “I don’t have the energy to learn a new game,” and I agreed. There are those days where you just want to slip into something oh-so-familiar with a group of other folks who also know how to play that particular game. There is neither a 30-minute (or longer) explanation during game setup nor that drag where the one newbie is asking lots of questions on game play and strategy while everybody else is just eager to keep the game going.
Don’t get me wrong … I love introducing new games to people, and questions are always encouraged, but there is something deeply satisfying about opening up a box and jumping right in.
The new year has been busier than expected, and it’s been a little difficult gathering up the troops for a game night. But it finally happened this past week.
This past Thursday, I got Mombasa onto the table again with my core group of gamers, and it was awesome. I came thiiiiiss close to first place — only 2 points away! But it was definitely a lot better than the previous time I played, when I came in last. But most importantly, all the guys in my core group of gamers have played this game and love it as much as I do, which means it will definitely make it to the table more often than not. Woohoo! I ended up purchasing some Mayday card sleeves for the game in order to protect each player’s action cards.
