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Mike Amos
United States
Minneapolis
Minnesota
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I headed over to Minneapolis's Boardgame Madness last evening, a great event put on by [user=binge gamer]Binge[/user] and other assorted accomplices. It's 3 days of gaming in a local hotel's conference room. I've been twice before but I think this was my favorite trip to date. I didn't expect much but it turned out the room was packed, there had to be 30 - 40 people at least.
I was very fortunate because when I got there a table had just freed up and the refugees of the previous game were kind of milling about. I quickly invited them to join me at the table and play a game, they were kind enough to oblige me and we looked at what I had brought with me: Quarriors!, Alien Frontiers and Betrayal at House on the Hill. Fortunately the two gentlemen with whom I was speaking seemed to like the games I brought. I'm afraid I'm terrible with names so I've forgotten them, which is a shame as I'd like to look them up.
Quarriors!
We opened with a little Quarriors!. We we had four players, one of our players , who's name conveniently started with "quar" was the most familiar. I was a tad embarrassed as I realized I had utterly forgotten the details of the game. I mean, I know it's dice building, but stuff with you quiddity, spend quiddity to summon monsters then try to keep them around for a turn but that's not quite enough to play it. Forntuntately our "quar" player explained it.
The game got rolling and it turned out we had about the lowset power set of card possible. We had a lot of three and four cost cards and a couple sixes. We had one player go for the portals immediately, our newest player got creatures out right away and bought creatures whenever possible, "quar" player just couldn't get anything to summon at all, and I went for the axemen creatures.
It turned out that the quick summons of our newest player took the day. It was agreed that they game may have played differently with some heavier monsters out there but given that no one had much stength we weren't able to kill off his low level monsters to stop the points building. My axemen managed to score me a few token points but I just didn't get enough of them out to matter. The fact that our newest player got a a couple of the eight defense knights out at critical times also helped.
This game leaves me a tad frustrated. I really, really want Quarriors! to be awesome but I'm increasingly convinced that it isn't. I think it flaws can be overlooked once all players are familiar with the game but I think it's flaws are just too great to make it worthwhile for most people to bother playing it enough times to understand the game thoroughly. I had not previously rated this game but I'm going to set it to a six. I like it and am willing to play past the bumps in the road but it will never be a great game to me and I just don't see it hitting the table a bunch.
Panic Station
Panic Station was owned by our winner from Quarriors! and several people wanted to play, enough that a second game started next to us while our game was in play. I've heard of it in a remote way but it wasn't a game I had keyed in on in any way.
As it came out I began to get a bit excited. It seemed like a simple paranoia game, between Werewolf and Battlestar Galactica in complexity, right where I would like to find one. The rules were a little cumbersome and it's clear that the rule book needs another revision but I was still excited. The gist is that you all have some infection cards in your hand and as you move around the base, trying to burn out the parasite infection, you have to trad items whenever you pass someone. The infected will pass their infected blood and the uninfected with not. If you pass a gas can as they pass infected blood, you remain uninfected.
As we played several rules and mechanical issues came to light. We reached a point where we knew who was infected and had isolated them and simply needed to get three gas cans to the hive to win. At that point we just had to wait for the game to end as it took a couple turns to get everything in place. It was honestly a little frustrating and it felt like the designers had built a good kernel of a game but the more rules they added, the worse it got and the worse it got the more rules the added. I'm not above giving this one another go but I can't say I will be looking to play it or that I want to buy it.
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Finally, we got out Betrayal for two plays. Both plays had four players and both plays ended up lopsided, the first was partially due to luck and partially due to the haunt and the second I would say was entirely luck.
In both games we opened with the usual exploring and got some of the stat rooms out immediately which was nice. We had one player find lots of good equipment, armor, and axe, a medallion. So inevitably he became the betrayer, all geared up. The haunt was where the house floods from he basement. There is a row boat on the top floor that must be moved to the tower or another room for the heroes to win.
Unfortunately the boat is placed in the attic which was at the end of an obnoxious dead end we had created. To get there you had to go over the collapsed room which landed me in the basement. Our person who did make it to the boat had to get a luck tile (2/4 chance) to get the right room in a place where he could reach before drowning. It didn't happen. If it had, the fact that two of us were in the basement to begin with and thus drowned before we could get out, causing us to lose, didn't help. This haunt has two issues I find truly frustrating: the water if far too aggressive, making it all but impossible to move and causing damage way too quickly and there is a direct conflict between the traitor tome and survival guide. The survival guide says that the betrayer is effected by the water penalty the traitor tome says he is not.
The second haunt was slightly better. Again, we roamed around. Again, one person was getting over geared. As it turned out the haunt revealer wasn't the betrayer. I was! I was psyched, I think this is my first time. My body was immediately destroyed but I had bats, oh boy did I have bats MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I got to place some bats immediately, but not a lot, just enough to put those sniveling kids on point. They sent their overgear brute, Ox down to the organ room to beat on the organ. I sent more bats, managed to get several to latch onto the profession, unfortunately none latched onto Ox. Ox then went and took my stuff (right outside the organ room) which had some gear to bump up mental stats. He took my gear and played the organ, driving my beloved bats away. It was then simply a matter of time before they mashed the couple of my beauties that remained. I would have won if it wasn't for those meddling kids.
For five hours of gaming at some random hotel conference room, it was a really good time and I'm really glad to have made the trip. I'm not really good about making these because I've had a mediocore experience or two but this more than made up for it. It also reminded me of where I seem to fit in the gaming world. While I like Euros, I'm clearly not your 18XX player, I like lighter Euros (Stone Age, Alien Frontiers) or slightly heavier Ameritrash. I'm ok with that. That seems like a nice landscape to me.
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