Game Night logs for April 2001

Ed and his droogs got an early start again, with a new game called Wyatt Earp.I got to play this game later in the evening and I say "thumbs up".Nothing Earth shattering, but full of solid mechanics.The theme is that youra bounty hunter and your bringing in outlaws. Often with non-solicited help from other bounty hunters (the other players). Your 'posse' size (oh dear) determines how much of the reward (percentage wise) you will receive.The outlaws become more valuable as you close in, which is cause and effect in reverse.The more lawmen you get to chase them, the more notorious they become.After the cards exhaust, all the outlaws are suddenly 'caught' and the rewards distributed.Get $25,000 in total purse and the game ends and your the best gun (for a lawman).Cards involve sets of colors and value for each villain with a good supply of special law cards that maximize your potential.Only one law card per turn keeps the game workable.Some only work at random (you flip a card and if it has a bullet symbol on it, it works) which also works to burn a few cards from being in circulation. That insures that the outlaws are different values each round. But, it seems silly that if no player reaches $25000 at the end of the turn, all the criminals escape to be caught again.Still, what's the difference? There all dead long ago anyways.

Ra ABORTED
Due to children causing a one hour rain delay to this game, we declared this game to stale to continue.To which you can insert Suzanne in a Tralain (sp?) like voice from that Star Trek episode featuring Liberace, "But I was winning..."

The next game up, at the main table (poker table), was Shipwrecked. This is a biding game. Each player has 6 bid cards, three pass cards, two stop cards and one strike card. You use your bid cards, one at a time, to try and win an auction for resource cards. Each player places a bid card, if someone has placed a stop card, he can say stop (but is not forced to). If no one calls stop, another bid is made. When a stop is called, the last bid card from each player is turned over. One strike beats all other cards, more than one strike cancel each other out. If no strike cards, or more than two strike cards have been played, the win would go to the stop card. If two or more stop cards are played, you need a tie breaker.For a tie of stop cards, all the other votes of the tied players are turned over, the player that played the most pass cards, wins. If people tie for the most pass cards, they all pay four to the bank. With each bid, the cost of a resource card does down, the first bid the cost is 5, the second is 4...

This game is very light, and I think it will hold up. I look forward to playing again.

Shipwrecked Winner John M. 150 - Ed 80 - Jen 40 - John P. 40
Shipwrecked Winner Ed 150 - John P. 100 - John M. 60 Jen 0

The main table broke out another new card game called Dragon's Gold, I'm not sure if I liked this one or not. Each player has three adventures, two warriors, a thief, and a wizard. You have four dragons, on the table, to battle, as one is killed, another is flipped up. Each character does a different amount of damage, Warriors 4 and 3, Thief 3 and Wizard 1. Each player, on his turn sends a character in to do battle, if the total damage by the characters are equal or higher than the dragons health, the dragon dies and leaves his treasure. Any one who has a character that attacked the dead dragon, gets to split the treasure. This is the main part of the game, you have 1 minute (sand timer) to wheel and deal but everyone must agree, if no decision is made, the treasure leaves the game. If you have a thief in the battle, he can steal a random gem from one of the others that split the treasure. If you have a wizard in the battle and take a red gem, you get a spell. I think some spells may be a bit too powerful. I had a spell called Invisible Hand, it let me take treasures from the dragons, one at a time. I took about 9 treasures before anyone caught on. Once someone catches you, the spell is broken. The scoring, at the end of the game, goes by who has the most of certain colors, my big mistake in thieving was to steal a black gem, this scores you 15 points but it is cursed and you can't get any of "the most" scores on the other gems. I would like to play this game again, it is good up to 6 players.

I made an effort to get some more party games for silly nights with many players.The first was "How much for the Camel?". Although this was easily explained (after the giggles stopped), the mechanics ended up bland (although they worked fine).Neal had some interesting improvement ideas (which I agreed with), but we decided to move on.

Next I attempted "Masquerade".This is a simple game of trying to pass secret hand signals while stealing others.Everyone was caught up in how the SCORING was going to work and others just wanted a more concrete concept.In the end, we were forced to abandon even the attempt.

Our big party game of the night, survived (barely) 2 full restarts based on player changes and player's leaving/retiring due to excessive exhaustion.

NOTE: Next warm Saturday, Please show up with your kids between 12noon and 1pm.We (Steve and I) will be filming a short 4-6 minute film featuring all kids (especially babies!)We have done some preliminary casting, so we know we want 'Spencer' as the evil Master Wu.Vanessa will serve as the reluctant heroine bent on revenge.Avery as the 'old man' (he is the oldest!).We may decide to film for less time over 2 Saturdays to get all the people we want, but we WILL keep this unambitious and get everything in one take!It is what it is, after all they're kids. Then Steve and I will spend one additional week nightin post production (basically voice overs).You'll welcome to join us to supply a voice (adults only please).The movie is loosely based on the Jackie Chan file 'Shoulin Wooden Men'.The 'working title' is 'Shoulin Wooded Babies'. The story board is done, but the dialog is still being put together this week. Should be a howl!

ALSO : This weeks bonus bit, Mr. T. meets the 'All your base' guy
http://www.maficdesign.com/ayb/mrt.swf

=Pre-Game Night 4-13-2001=
Ed had the week off, so with John in tow brought over all new games.We got through 2 of them.The first is a gem called Merchants of Amsterdam. The claim to fame is the 'Dutch Auction Clock'.For those of you unfamiliar with this concept, it is still in use today at the Holland flower auction.A lot size and makeup is put up for auction by a vendor. The price startsVERY HIGH and the clock winds down the price until someone rings in.He then pays the price on the clock.This game takes that element and adds it to the 3 tier scoring mechanism of Taj Mahal. Now, I never liked Taj Mahal, due to the confusing graphic and labored rules. Amsterdam, however, succeeds where e Taj Mahal Failed.The mechanics work, they are easy to learn, and there is very little down time due to the constant auctioning of cards.By purchasing extra cards, you can in effect get an extra move.But, your spending you money which basically all that counts in the end.It's a game built on the wonderful concepts of 'Maximize you investments' while preventing the "waiting for the player with the 'yellow cube' to take their turn."The theme sticks with Amsterdam also. At certain points in the time line, good things happen (everyone gets one free x) and other times bad (everyone must lose a resource).Trick is, is you achieved a monetary bonus, you must maintain it or repay the money.This makes losing something a real thinker.There are 3 big bonus' too. One of each resource (actually 2), One port in each of the four continents, on warehouse in each of the four districts.Sounds easy, but since you want to rank first in at least one of each area (scoring is based on first and second place in each item/place), the game forces you to not totally abandon the ones you'renot dominate in.My only knock on this game is that the clock has a very small 'dead zone' and thus is hard to set totally to the top.I also have to hope the clock lasts as there is no way to simulate the clock with other mechanics.Still, for now the game is great fun.

Merchants of Amsterdam Winner Ray 1,350,000, Jen 1,250,000, Ed 1,220,000, John P. 1,100,000

Reibach and Co. is a card game that pleased us so much, we played twice. 10 commodities, 9 cards each.Each turn you get 3 'turn points'. Draw or play cards, one point each.There are 3 up cards to choose from on your draw.Make runs of like commodities in order to rank first in that commodity and thus score (2nd place get a token point, 1st place 3 or 4 points when no 2nd place).The small catch?To start a pile, you 'kill' a card by turning it face down.Since cards never return to play, you change the amount needed for a majority in the commodity that you 'kill'.You must always show the others what card you are killing, its up to them to remember it.Sound simple?It is!And Fun!Add in a x2 card (that also prevents a pile from ever being expanded) and a couple of jokers and you got this nifty card game.Add 3 scoring rounds (ala Union Pacific) by putting in cards with initiate scoring when enough on them are turned up. Quick to learn, quick to play.

Reibach & Co. Winner Jen 36, John P. 24, Ray 22, Ed 16
Reibach & Co. Winner Jen 37, Ray, 30, John P. 22, Ed 21

Official Game Night 4-14-2001
Like all holiday game night, turnout is good.We did not do the dinner thing tonight, due to bad weather and stuff.So, we just ordered takeout. Steve and I had pasties!
The main game table started early with a few quick games of Reibach & Co. I love this game, I just don't seem to play it well. I did tie with Beth on our first game, better than dead last, like the first two games we played the night before. I think our main problem is letting someone run away with unchallenged commodities for most/all of the game. This is a very easy and light game.

Reibach & Co. Winner Tie Beth & Ed 28, John M. 23, John P. 22, Tim 19
Reibach & Co. Winner Beth 31, John P. 22, Ed 15, John M. 13, Tim 9

I was dying to show this game off (even though its Ed's) and dragged Steve and Suzanne (and Beth's sister!) over to play.They liked it!I did not even win.I swear I thought I was killing them!

Merchants of Amsterdam Winner Jen S. 1,370,000, Ray 1,180,000, Suzanne 1,150,000, Steve 1,010,000

At some time, girls drinks started showing up.The Margaritas had $100 Vodka in them!Ha bougoise Americans!The mudslides were VERY chocolately.

Note the 34*.In the most amazing Cloud9 game ever, everyone one thought Steve had won.All he had to do was jump out of the balloon at 9 and he won.So...Jen passes the barn PASSED Steve to Suzanne, we ALL jump out and Steve is left to make the roll.Even though he rolls one yellow and one Blue, he can not make it and comes in THIRD!

At the main table, we broke out a new game called Mü & Mehr, this has gotten great reviews, but I don't think we "get it". In the basic game, players bid cards to call trump. Each card is worth 1 point, the catch is, the person that bid the most cards is forced to try for bonus points, if they missed, they lose 5 points for each level they miss by. All bid cards stay on the table, but are still part of the players hand. The person that bid the second most cards is called the Vice, he picks a trump first. The person that bids the most cards is the Chief, he calls trump second, but his is higher than the Vice's trump. The Chief and Vice can call a color or number as trump. If one calls a number and the other a color, the card that is in both trumps is the Super Trump card. (if red and 3 is called as trump, the red three is the highest trump.) The tricks score by the number of triangles on each card, from 0 to 2. We are not sure about this game, we only know that Beth hates it, but she is very unforgiving with most new games. The game has 6 different games in the rule book, we may have played a bad version, I guess. We played till 100, rather than the normal 200.

Next, was a game of Take 6, with 10 players! This was a first for us. There was much discussion of ass beads. The game itself was a bit uneventful, which is rare for Take 6.

Take 6 Winner Tim 26, Beth 30, Jen E. 36, John M. 36, Jen S. 40, Ray 42, Steve 51, Ed 59, John P. 67, Suzanne 70.

Many people left at this point, but Steve and Suzanne and Beth and Jen S.(her sister) stayed for a last game of Liar's Dice.There were no total wipeouts (I lost 3 though).In the end, Suzanne succumbed to Steve and his powerful stare.

I don't have Ed's score updates yet, but it was a pretty decent night for me.After a big dinner crowd, I went down to play games earlier than I usually do.When I looked up later, half of you were gone! Sorry I did not say goodbye, I was a bad host. Naughty naughty!!

I got to play an early game of Shipwrecked.A simply game, on par with 'Chez Geek' in my opinion.The bidding mechanics are "outthink your opponents and not yourself" in nature, similar to 'Banana Republic'.Overall I consider it a compromise between the two. For just that reason, I like the other 2 better.Not a bad game though. And short!

Shipwrecked Winner John P. 180 - John M. 90 - Ed 20

Shipwrecked Winner Ed 160 - John P. 40 - Ray 40 - John M. 0

Next was another game of "Wyatt Earp".Fun game, but the luster is wearing thin for me.I came in second place, but it seems to be a game of Gin with flares.Again, good game but I might be raising the bar too high on expectations.

The Lump™ tries to help yet Ray falls short!

Wyatt Earp Winner John M 32 - Ray 30 - Ed 27 - John P. 22

The Margarita foam was not a successful drink. No blame to pass due to 9 year old tequila and no measuring cups.We returned to beer. God, what we'll go through for our 'girl drink' fix!!!!

We them opted for the ancient classic 'Acquire'. An excellent game, but a bit long for such a dry concept.Consider it the father of Medici.With out the integrate bidding mechanism of Medici (or RA), I was able to dominate like a bully at a science fiction convention.

Acquire Winner Ray 31,200 - John P. 26,600 - John M. 25,000 - Suzanne 24,400 - Steve 20,800 - Ed 14,200

Reibach & Co. Winner Jen 37 - John P. 33 - Suzanne 31 - Ed 25

Reibach & Co. Winner Suzanne 35 - John P. 33 - Jen 28 - Ed 22

Lastly, we were joined from some old acquaintances from John Martindale's (and Myself and John P.) and myself past.Don and Noelle.We played a big game of Condottiere, whist the others played Reibach & Co. Condottiere was fought so long and hard, that Steve commented not once but twice, "This is being fought long and hard".'nuff said.Once again, in establishing the greatest 2nd place pattern of all time...I had the most countries and lost.

Condottiere Winner Don 3 - Noelle 4 - Ray 4 - Steve 2 - John M. 0

Also on a major bizarro note:I signed up for the new live interaction game majestic.AM I worried?yes!!Should you join me?YES~!!!!!

What a night.Game night history was made and its too bad that a missive can not due it justice. Maybe if I was Mark Twain, I could spin the yarn colorfully enough to capture the moment.I'll have to settle for an attempt.And now, on with the show.

Ed brought a new game, called Attila.For those of you who were here the previous week, you may remember Ed pulling out the game and everyone calling the 11pm rule and Ed putting it away. This time, we dove in. Now Attila is a very special game.First some background.

One of the most infamous parlor games of all time is Diplomacy. It was one in the legendary 'Avalon Hill Bookcase game' series that included Acquire, Twixt, and other notables until they drifted into hex based war games, never to return.Diplomacy was brilliant.It was Risk, with no dice.To begin each turn, you had X minutes to talk with the other players and form plans.At the end of the time period, you wrote your move on paper. If you move involved a border conflict, it was resolved in the most realistic way possible... Larger army wins.So, if you made a deal with another player to help you attack, and he wrote down his support on his turn card, his armies counted towards your total.This meant that allies were the key to everything.If someone promised something, then did not show up, you went down in flames.Of course, that screw job always resulted in an eventual revenge opportunity.The reason no one ever plays Diplomacy?It takes as long to play the game as it does to use diplomacy in real life. Forever and a day.Diplomacy games would last 3-4 hours, sometimes longer. It collects dust on most shelves.

Now, along comes "Web of Power".This game involved token placement in an attempt to control spheres on influence.It involved not only the countries themselves, but also they trade routes and their religious influence (cloisters).The scoring was then done based on how many of these spheres of influence you controlled.Because there was no 'conflict', token placement choices were paramount to success.The game had promise, but I quickly found it annoying.

Now comes Attila.Take Diplomacy and eliminate the dedicated diplomacy round.Start again with the concept of Risk with no dice.Now add the concept of token placement being a strategic move (from Web of Power type games).Now add the every popular German scoring mechanism of First place gets X points, 2nd X-y points, all others DITA (I think you know what that means). Here is how it works:You get a hand of 6 cards. Each card is nothing more than a color.Each turn, you can play a card and that allows you to place a token army of that color on the board. Then, as a result of that move, you can take 'influence' in that color.This is not much different than Carlos Magnus, or that Dutch auction game.You want to be in first or second place in the color to score points.As you shiftyour moves to concentrate on other armies, you allow your influence in earlier colors to slip. As the game progresses, each turn provides for more 'influence points'.This is significant because moves early in the game are rendered insignificant by the end.You must always be maintaining your influence, or you lose it to a challenger.

When the 5th 'army' is placed in a country, a conflict round ensues.Each color represented in the country does battle. Every player may now place additional cards from his hand face down. When the cards are revealed, they add to the army total (they are reinforcements).The color with the lowest total is kicked out of the country. Then, that country has permanent peace.This makes conflict resolution very exciting, because the underdog can win easily with a little support. But, if you try and save cards for conflict resolution, you will have less options during you actual turn. Your best strategy is lot like horse racing.Try and determine which armies are in the best position to win at the end of each scoring round (there are four) and bet on them by building influence in that color. The rules are simple, the game is brilliant. Please play this game next time you get the chance.

It is at this time I should mention that Suzanne made Margaritas from scratch!!! They were delicious... and strong.Whew, strong.

Next we played that simple little game called Reibach & Company.That is the card game with the 10 commodities of 9 cards each. Again, you try to be first (or second) in as many of thecommodities as possible.It is a fun, simple, and short game, that still requires some strategy. Still, the winner usually is the person whose commodities have no second place holder.

Ed brings a game out called, "Time's Up".This is a party game.Now most party games suck, but then again Apples to Apples is a big winner.So we had some apprehension, even after the first round.Then all was revealed. Here is the concept.Each player is dealt 8? cards.You look at them and each card has a famous person on them.Take two of them and toss them away.All the other cards are collected from the players and mixed together to form the deck. No other cards will be used.Now in this deck are all the card chosen by the players. So each player has already seen some of the answers.Each turn, you draw a card and try to get your partner across the table to guess the famous person. You can talk as much as you like, without using spelling clues, or 'sounds like' clues and the other obvious cheats.

In the first round, there were some amusing moments.The Poet Robert Burns you have to get across to someone who doesn't know who he is. Same with the baseball player Catfish Hunter.And sometimes you just can't remember a Strom Thurmond.Still, for the most part, it was pretty easy. We were now very confused that as with Take 6, there was a Mensa sticker on the box.Here is where it starts to turn around.After all the cards are guessed, you gather the SAME cards back up and reshuffle them.In round 2, you are only allowed to give a one word clue, which can be supplemented with non-verbal clues.What happens is that when you are reduced to one word, you are often better off using a word that reminds someone of the previous clue rather than of the answer itself.When Ginger Rogers ended up being derived in the first round from Ginger on Gilligan's island, the second round clue was 'Gilligan'.And he guessed it right.It is at this EXACT moment that everyone realizes that not only did we not pay enough attention to the round oneclues, but that the alcohol was affecting our memory too. The Charles Darwin clue was now the fish symbol (from Christianity) with legs (a popular variation right now).Ed doing the 'Be seeing you' symbol from Prisoner, then letting his fingers do the walking was amusing.Some remained very easy, such as Curious George.It was also weird for me picking up a card, staring intensely, my only utterance being the word "BLACK" (in a very loud voice) and having Jen get "Jesse Jackson".Rodin was also difficult, because you had to get his first name, Auguste.Prich drew this one, but did not remember any of the round one clues (such as 'the thinker').SO, he starts waving his arms madly. I am cracking up, because I INSTANTLY recognize this as the monster Rodan, fighting Godzilla.Everyone else is thinking, how is that Auguste? And his clue for Al Pacino was not the word Godfather, but rather something less significant, forcing Prich into a very bad Godfather impression.Now even though he was doing Marlon Brando, Ed gets it because it is the same cards as round one.It also gets amusing because you run into situations were everyone gets the clue except the person guessing.(There were other amusing moments with Hands (sic) Christian Anderson and another with the number 3 that I can't even recall at this time.) This would be Rumpelstillskin! George Bush, is simply 'president'. Now round 3. You see, in round three (again, the SAME CARDS), you can use no verbal clues at all. Not even sound effects.But you have already seen every answer at least twice.The funny part is that the previously easy ones are now hard because nothing memorable happened for that answer in the earlier rounds. Early on, Suzanne gets Jesse Owens and takes off running. An easy guess, but amusing. I got Nicholas Cage and completely blanked and started drawing a tattoo on my chest like the one he had in Valley Girl, until suddenly I came to my senses and gave a better clue (this would be placing your index fingers near your mouth for fangs). Sammy Davis Jr. was Isaac the Bartender by now (index finger pointing at you, one eye closed). Prich once again gets Al Pacino and simply pulls out his jowls.That is a sight to see.Jen tries desperately to get me to Robert Burns.When the guesser doesn't get it right away, oh boy.After a full minute of knees bent running about, I think I got it at the wire.Suzanne drew Ginger Rodgers and is trying to get Steve through pantomime to get Ginger.She is running her hands down herself, and the runs towards the doorwall and crashes. NO ONE realized she was trying to do the crash of the SS Minnow!

So now Steve draws a card and gets Suzanne as far as George something.In a brilliant attempt to make it on time, he resorts to pointing at Suzanne's crotch.Suzanne now blurts out "Curious George".It is at this point that I (we) start laughing uncontrollably. I mean, I literally had to lay my head on the table.But that was the warm-up.Steve waves her off, points to her crotch again and Suzanne blurts out "George Cunt". Ok, even remembering this now, I am laughing so hard that my hands are shaking as I type.I almost pass out from laughing.I am banging my hand on the table, tears flowing down my face. Everyone is just screaming with laughter, trying to contain themselves.I declared it the first 'Game Night Hall of Fame" moment.Even now, I don't even know if she ever got it. Sadly, she didn't get it, but this helped John and I by giving me the "point to Suzanne's crotch clue to give to John. Everyone knew that crotch=Bush except Suzanne.

Now there is enough time passing in the round to reset.George Gershwin was amusing, as was people trying to use the number 8 to represent Auguste. Now it comes back to Steve and he draws Catfish Hunter.He is casting like a fisherman and Suzanne remembers Catfish, but not Hunter.It was at this point I blurt out, "try using you previous clue with a 'sounds like' " (Catfish Cunter). Again, uncontrolled laugher, but mostly from now remembering the first joke.

There were other funny moments, too many to even recall. In the end there was a score, but who really cared at that point.

Next week is Cinco de Mayo.And we will be doing a Mexican grill theme with margaritas galore.And I do mean galore.

For those of you attempting the puzzle I sent out, Ed cracked slide two before even arriving on Friday (Chopsocky night featured "Shoulin Master Killer" which consisted of a lot of cool training sequences), Steve had it by Saturday night.The first panel remains unsolved.

Beth	Ed	Jen
John M.	John P.	Laura
Neal	Ray	Steve
Suzanne	Tim

Beth	Ed	Jen E.
Jen ?.	John M.	John P.
Ray	Steve	Suzanne
Tim

Ed	Don	Jen
John M.	John P.	Noelle
Ray	Steve	Suzanne

Ed	Jen	John P.
Ray	Steve	Suzanne