{"id":2149,"date":"2007-11-19T21:14:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-20T03:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/?p=2149"},"modified":"2007-11-19T21:14:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-20T03:14:00","slug":"what-i-did-with-my-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/?p=2149","title":{"rendered":"What I did with my weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s see…<\/p>\n

Thursday, I stayed a little late at work to finish something up. Then and I went out for Mexican and then saw The Sparrow<\/a>. A compelling play about an orphan who is more than she seems, returning to her home town. It was actually quite good. It has a clear narrative, the acting is good and almost never so overdone as to be offputting (which is rare for me in a stage production). In places it’s almost a musical. There is very little in the way of set, though props are used to good effect. They also make good use of sound and lighting. I was impressed by the choreography and surprised by how well they made the ‘supernatural’ effects work. I recommend seeing it, and it actually isn’t sold out like I previously thought. Hell, I might even see it again. (Though at $50 \/ seat….)<\/p>\n

Friday I got up at roughly my usual time and flew out to Dallas for the board game geek convention. It’s not a huge convention, it took up one decent size ballroom and several smaller rooms, but compared to PAX, Creating Change, or Origins, it’s pretty tiny. I saw not long after I got there. He was my roommate, but we didn’t get to spend much time interacting that weekend. As I usually do at cons, I spent my first 30-60 minutes feeling horribly clueless, out of place, and not sure what to do. Then some kind soul took pity on me and pulled me into a game. A few games later, I ran into . I played many games with his friend Patrick and several with him. <\/p>\n

The first game was Gangster<\/a>, a heavily themed, but mechanically light game. It’s set in 1930’s Chicago (I got to show people where I lived on the map. Basically, you spend the gaming driving around chicago, dropping off your gangsters to claim neighborhoods, and shoving their gangsters in your trunk to dump in lake michigan. With various ways of improving your capabilities. I think it might appeal to the bang!\/munchkin fans. I might suggest it to them, but I don’t wanna pay for it. I came in a close second.<\/p>\n

The second game was Moai<\/a>. Another strongly themed game. More mechanically sophisticated. You compete for wood, farming opportunities, and try to build moai. You get points for the wood, and for surviving tribe members, but the moai are the big point makers. Game end is determined by the event deck. The event deck includes various catastrophes. If you can’t make enough food (which you never can) you can “raid” an opponent tribe member, killing them and feeding one of your own (if you’re going to theme it strongly, call it cannibalism, all the players do.) I was a close second out of 4.<\/p>\n

The third game was Starcraft: The Board Game<\/a>. This is a combat\/empire management game. I find it a much more enjoyable game than the board game it is most comparable to: Twilgiht Imperium. It plays much faster, you still feel like there’s alot going on. The combat system is very heavily dependent on a “combat deck” which one draws. In five player games, it seems like there is a tendency for sets of two players to get embroiled in conflict and for the lucky fifth to run away with the victory. (I played another 5 player game after returning to Chicago.) I do like this game though. Not quite enough to buy it, but I’d choose it over Twilight Imperium 9 times out of 10. As it turns out, I was, once again, a close second.<\/p>\n

My 4th and final game of Friday (after a malibu and pineapple, also involving multiple shots of whiskey) was Runebound<\/a>. It was not a good game. It’s a run around, and kill stuff, and level up and get allies and buy toys, and kill higher level things type board game (which you win, surprise, surprise, by killing teh Ultimate Badass of Scary Nameness. I really do enjoy World of Warcraft better than these games. It does it so much better. That having been said, if you’re into that kind of game, it’s not egregious, simply uninspired.<\/p>\n

Saturday I played a rather different set of games. I started off with Kingsburg<\/a>. I had spotted this on friday, and it seemed rather interesting. This game combines dice-rolling, development, resisting the annual invading horde of progressively tougher monsters, all while trying to impress your monarch. If not for getting eaten by the final enemy, I would have come in a close second. I was complimented on teaching the game well (I spent twenty minutes reading the rules after I checked it out from the game library.) I enjoyed it, though the heavy dependence on random rolling didn’t do much for me. I’d play it again, not sure I’d want to shell out for it. <\/p>\n

The other three games I played on Saturday were repeats for me. First was Scepter of Zavandor with 5 players, and I the only one to play it previously. It’s a long game. There are a few things that could be done to improve it. First, add a 1 magic dust chit, which also takes up 1 hand space. The change making is tedious, and that would help it. Maybe adding more fiddly bits to mark one’s discounts (a 5\/10, and a 10\/20 card for the two different knowledges of artifacts that you could use every time) so you can add them up in your hand without thinking about it too hard. Something similar could be done with points. It seems like players spend much time in the game recalculating point values and bidding capacities. Those simple changes would make it a more enjoyable game, I think. I think I was a close third on that one. I may have had the best income in the game (11 slots of diamonds + 1 crystal of protection) at the end. But the player with two masks of charisma<\/a> and the one with one mask of charisma came in first and second (though which was which, I’m not sure.) I feel like I’m losing my mania for SoZ and like I might want to get Phoenicia (and maybe Outpost?) to play as more accessible versions. <\/p>\n

Second was Blue Moon City<\/a>. I won it handily, though only by one offering to the obelisk. It bears a certain resemblance to Gangster, but is much better, and not just because I prefer fantasy themes, but because I also like fiddly bits. You run around the city trying to rebuild various districts, by matching cards of certain colors, or doing neat things with wild cards, or other cards which become wild when played together. It’s a good, light, quick, fun game. <\/p>\n

My final saturday game was Tichu<\/a>. A partnered card game where one plays hands on top of other hands (often not single cards) until no one can or wants to play on top of it. Scoring is based on the cards one takes or betting that the player can go out first. It was a teaching game: my partner did very well and it was neat to see her learn in the process. We finished the game at 700 to 600, our lead after a tichu out one two.<\/p>\n

I only got one game in on sunday before I had to go. It was my only game with . The game was Race for the Galaxy<\/a>. It’s a card game with clear similarities to san juan. Only themed around space exploration. It reminded me of my earlier lj poll about I love it and I want to have its babies. Or maybe just purchase it. My only complaint was that the game was over so fast (a little under an hour). Which, in context (flight to catch) was not a terrible thing. But I definitely want to play it again (and again, and again. I sense a new game mania). <\/p>\n

Back home, a little time doing responsible things. Some WoW time, then board game night playing Starcraft. I lost, again. I was expansionist, but inadequately militaristic. I never expand my military enough in such games. And thus I am always eaten. =) A 35ish minute run through the Black Morass, and then bed time. I enjoy my life.<\/p>\n

Then at work the thing that I had spent my thursday evening on went poof. And it is apparently in no way due to user error. It has since been worked around. But very frustrating. Nick came over for dinner. Goodness all around. Tomorrow evening I hang with Kraig. But soon to sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s see… Thursday, I stayed a little late at work to finish something up. Then and I went out for Mexican and then saw The Sparrow. A compelling play about an orphan who is more than she seems, returning to her home town. It was actually quite good. It has a clear narrative, the acting … Continue reading “What I did with my weekend”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}