Game Night logs for July 2001

No Game Night this week, everyone was at Pete and Michelle's for the annual 4th of July party. Great Food, Drinks and Friends, who could ask for more? (I know, you would expect some smart ass naked lady comment from me, but you aren't going to get it!)

A quick Game Night after a Birthday Party at my old friends Mike and Lynn's house. We have not had a Game Night with them in a long time. This was my first group of "regular" Game Night friends, we would meet once a month or so.

First up, Titan: The Arena. John M., Mike and Lynn have never played, so a quick rules class and everyone is on the same page, or so I thought. Mike placed four bets on the same creature, do I need to tell you about putting all your eggs in one basket? Lynn did very well for a first game. If it wasn't Mike's first game, I would have gotten my ass kicked!

Next up, Attila, two new players again, Mike and Lynn and virgins once more! (still kicked my ass!) Mike didn't seem to take off until the last two scoring rounds. Like any newbie game of Attila, lots of battles, the game ended after the last battle, we haven't seen that in a while! Everyone seems to still like this game, it's quick and easy.

Attila Winner Mike K. 66 - John M. 56 - Lynn 50 - John P. 49 - Ed 29 (not much scoring in my corner!)

I started off the night with my first baby solo flight. I had to put Vanessa to bed without Jen. Sound simple? -except that Vanessa is breast fed. I'll spare you the 'boy are my nipples sore' jokes.

Side note: Once again, I took a side trip because I thought I had enough time! I had a few hours until Game Night started, time for a mini Road Trip! I drove to Ann Arbor to check out The Underworld's game selection. I figured a half hour each way to drive, and a half hour in the store. Little was I to know, The Art Fair was this weekend! The Fair was done, but all the roads are still closed down. Again, not being the "Normal" person, I didn't let this stop me! I parked in a parking structure, and walked. I thought I was in the right area, but I was way off. I found out one thing, information costs $125, yes, my phone was sitting in me truck! After sweating my ass off, I walked back to my truck and called. I was lucky, a parking structure is right behind the store, so I got in and out. By the time I was leaving Ann Arbor, it was 9:00pm. Now, back to our story.

Tom and Steve played a game of 'Schotten-Totten' while waiting. After they set up for a second, I convinced them to join the larger game. We grabbed Ed's new game "Alibi". This is actually an older game that is reprinted. I wanted to enjoy this game, but it fell short of expectation. Tom really hated it, due to the non-concrete nature. I find this hard to believe, Tom hates a game? I don't like to give up on a game until we have played it a few times. This game has gotten good reviews (for a Clue type of game), so I hate to give up on it so soon. I think if we have a nice large group, sans Tom, it may be better. You would think that would learn from our mistakes, and not play a new game with Tom, this is recipe for 100% disaster. Me, I just did not like the fact that we all basically had the same info throughout. There was not enough 'fun factor'. I think the problem may be that we didn't know what cards to pass, being the first time played. That and the fact that, while learning the game, we didn't get into the spirit of the mystery.

After some more players arrived we split into two games. Sorry, we didn't play Ra, so we are missing all info. Don and Noelle had never played, I hope they liked it.

This went so well, we played twice. Farming won me the first game, so everyone piled up on farmers in game two. Two bad that limits your moves. Game two, I had a lot of farmers, John won on castle points.

Carcassonne Winner Ray 76 - John P. 73 - Ed 47
Carcassonne Winner John P. 70 - Ed 62 - Ray 57

I played a strategically terrible game of Aladdin's Dragons, which I accredit to alcohol. I made two major poor decisions and got wiped. Ed was cold and heartless. I thought Suzanne played a good game, but Ed was cold and heartless. I mean he was ...cold and ...heartless. What am I, the Tin Woodsman? I think this may have been my first win in this game. After I had a terrible night, at he table, I was hell bent to win one!

Well, we had a special Friday Game Night with a unique guest, Phil! Yes, he took time out from his busy G.I. Joe schedule to play a card game with us.

First up was Land Unter, this is a re-make of an older game called Zum Kuckuck (we never played that). I think everyone but Prich loved it. But you can tell by the score, he had a reason to not like it! Everyone gets 12 weather cards (1-60), the some weather cards have life preservers on them, you add them up and take that amount of life preservers. In the center of the table you have a stack of water level cards, with cute little pigs on them. The water level cards are numbered 1-12, two of each number.

Game play: the top two water level cards are flipped over, and everyone plays a weather card face down. When everyone has played a card, they are flipped, the highest card takes the lower of the water level cards, the second highest weather card takes the water level card that is left. now the fun part, the person with the highest water card in front of him/her loses a life preserver, if he/she has none left, he/she is out of the game and the next water level loses a life preserver. The water level stays in front of a player until a new level is won. When you have played 12 turns, all of your weather and life preservers are passed to the left, the game ends when you have played the same amount of rounds as players (you get every hand once)

Scoring: At the end of a round you get one point for each life preservers left, you lose a point for getting knock out of the round, and the player with the lowest water level gets a bonus point. Easy and fun!

Phil had to leave at this time (it was after midnight) so we made more drinks and broke out Zero. Each player gets 9 cards and five cards are placed in the center of the table to make a pool of cards. On your turn, you place a card in the pool and take a different card from the pool. The object is to score the least amount of points, scoring goes like this: a set five, or more cards with the same number score ZERO. A set of five or more cards of the same color scores ZERO. The sets can merge (you need to do this to use all 9 cards), a blue 5 can be used in a blue set and a set of 5's. All other cards score face value, but multiple cards of the same type count as one card, a set of three 5's will only cost you 5 points, but a 3, 4, 5 will cost you 12 points. That's it, another simple game, but I think it is missing the magic. Prich like this won (I wonder why?)

Saturday started with some of us going to the Michigan brewers festival. It was sort of an Octoberfest for only 500 or so people. I drank samples of many beer, ate sausages, and ran into an old 'Comedy Sportz' troup member. Towards the end, when the local 'frat boys' were getting loud, we left. The Beer was great but the women in tank tops rocked!

This preface was just to set up the fact that we were a bit shagged out. Tim & Beth came by, but after the first game, had to bail. The youngin' was a fussin' too much. We also got the kids to bed LATE. So, the Cartagena game stretched though multiple breaks. Even so, everyone thought I would win easily. Until Beth put her last 'little man in the boat'. Steve and I were close, but completely out of cards. We estimate that one of us would have come in second... sometime in August.

Cartagena Winner Beth/Tim - Ray - Steve

We talked Suzanne and Tim into playing a game of Land Unter. Prich and Jen hate this game for some reason (I guess because they haven't found their groove yet). I love this game, the best part about it is, you can't say you lost because of a bad hand, you get to play all of them once! I hope we can change John and Jen's mind on this one, I love the game play, it reminds me of Take 6.

Land Unter Winner Ed 15 - Jen 9 - John P. 2 - Suzanne 2

Steve and I played Schotten-Totten while waiting for the other game to complete. This is the only two player game I ever bought and the only one I ever recommend. Short, simple set up and a thinker. Try to get 5 of the nine stones by playing better sets of cards by each stone. But, when you play one card at a time, the other player knows what set your going for and attempt to form one higher. Works very well. I beat Steve in a squeaker 5 to 4.

Schotten-Totten Winner Ray 5 - Steve 4

Next, Ed taught us all 'limits'. This is a game where your know how many of each color are allowed to be played and have to track when someone goes over. Correct person +1, incorrect -2. You do NOT want to be wrong. It takes two wins just to make it back up! Plus, each player plays a face down secret card which increases the limit count of one of the 5 colors. So, you can never be sure. When purple started at a limit of 2, and I saw the forth card played, I challenged. Everyone but me had played purple as their secret card raising the limit to 6! I lost 2 points. (There was much bawdy conversation). Now that we know how to play, I think this might be a good early game.

Limits Winner Ed 3 - John P. 1 - Suzanne -1 - Steve -3 - Ray -5 - Jen -6

We played Reibach, but the dollars (rounding ending) cards came up very fast. Since I decided to play out early, that fact helped me and no one else. I think that Prich blew the shuffle because he hates being "Shuffle Bitch"!

Reibach & Co. Winner Ray 27 - Steve 16 - Ed 15 - Suzanne 13 - John P. 9

Next, I pushed Ed into teaching everyone 'Zero'. It was a blast. Ed and I were tied, but on the last hand, I took a calculated risk and went out with 4 points. I did not anticipate Ed having zero.

Zero Winner Ed 8 - Ray 12 - Steve 20 - Suzanne 35 - John P. 45

Ed	John P.	John M.
Lynn	Mike K.

Ed	Don	John P.
Noelle	Ray	Steve
Suzanne	Tom

Ed	Jen	John P.
Phil	Ray

Beth	Ed	Jen
John P.	Ray	Steve
Suzanne	Tim