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Debbie Ohi(Inkygirl)Canada
Toronto
Ontario
YAY, a chance to play games during the DAY!! (I am cursed with morning person genes)
I tweet about board gaming at @BGGgirl, about writing/illustrating at @inkyelbows.
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I had played Mansions of Madness earlier this year (Blood Ties scenario) and was keen on trying again, so many thanks toRocky RococoUnited States
Wichita
Kansas
And there's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut
Looks easy, but sealed to the back of this metal mother is a radar-activated stamping and seizing module that’ll keep a man punching ‘till he’s drunk with power!
for letting me join this game. Plus I finally got to play a game with him, yay! He doesn't look anything like his BGG avatar, in case you're wondering.
Thanks also to my other playing partners:mylesUnited States
Mustang
Oklahoma
KNEEL BEFORE ZOD !!!
100 geek gold and this is all I get? :p
and our keeper:Jim BrooksUnited States
Some are born to move the world To live their fantasies But most of us just dream about The things we'd like to be Sadder still to watch it die Than never to have known it For you, the blind who once could see The bell tolls for thee...
I stupidly forgot to take ANY PHOTOS as we were playing the game, so have none to post here. But wait, here's a cartoon instead::strip_icc()/pic1163665.jpg)
Anyway, we played the Classroom Curses scenario, which involved a lot of darkness but no monsters, and ended quickly. By the end, we were all a bit disappointed (including the Keeper) because we had won so easily. The game itself wasn't too blame, but the scenario. Judging from this review (spoiler alert for other scenarios in this post, so skim over scenarios you haven't yet played), we weren't the only one who felt this particular scenario wasn't all that interesting.
Despite the scenario, I still enjoyed the game mainly because of the other players. Like Arkham Horror, themed co-op games of this type depend HEAVILY on the players involved. It's not just about winning, but also to enjoy the roleplay and atmosphere.
Happily, we had a good group and I do hope to play Mansions Of Madness with them again sometime...but another scenario.
BGGgirl (a.k.a. Debbie Ridpath Ohi - Twitter: @BGGgirl)
Board gaming meanderings, comics and photos from a children's book writer & illustrator
Archive for Game Session Report
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Debbie Ohi(Inkygirl)Canada
Toronto
Ontario
YAY, a chance to play games during the DAY!! (I am cursed with morning person genes)
I tweet about board gaming at @BGGgirl, about writing/illustrating at @inkyelbows.
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:strip_icc()/pic1155957.jpg)
I admit I have a weakness for food games. So when Carlos Hernandez invited me to play Bonbons (GameWorks SàRL, 2011), I couldn't resist.:strip_icc()/pic1155958.jpg)
My co-players:
:strip_icc()/pic1155960.jpg)
BonBons is basically a memory game. There are eight types of candies (each in four colours) as well as three money tiles and one empty package. Each player gets four round tiles and the rest of the tiles are square and are placed face-down on the table.:strip_icc()/pic1155961.jpg)
On your turn, you turn over a round tile and a square tile. If they match exactly, then both tiles stay face up and you take another turn. Differences from similar concentration/memory games: you can steal candies from your opponents, money tiles help you get rid of your round tiles, and the empty package gives you an EXTRA round tile.
First player to turn all of his round tiles face up wins.:strip_icc()/pic1060523.jpg)
Cute packaging, fun filler game.
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Debbie Ohi(Inkygirl)Canada
Toronto
Ontario
YAY, a chance to play games during the DAY!! (I am cursed with morning person genes)
I tweet about board gaming at @BGGgirl, about writing/illustrating at @inkyelbows.
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:strip_icc()/pic1155946.jpg)
Had lots of fun trying Rattus for the first time. As the name suggests, lots of rats are involved. The theme: players try to control the black plague during the Dark Ages; the player with the highest surviving population wins.:strip_icc()/pic1155947.jpg)
Thanks to Paul Gerrardin (sp?) and Max for teaching us this game.
My co-players:
:strip_icc()/pic1155953.jpg)
Love the artwork by Alexandre Roche.
Rattus is quick and straightforward. It's an aggressive game, where pretty much every move involves some nastiness against another player. Ordinarily I don't tend to enjoy this type of game but had a lot of fun in Rattus.
Why? Trying to figure out why. I think it was because the game was so fast-moving and short, with little downtime. And there was no backstabbing or betrayal component -- it was just straight out INFECTION.
Jeff bought this game as well as one of the expansions.:strip_icc()/pic1155950.jpg)
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Debbie Ohi(Inkygirl)Canada
Toronto
Ontario
YAY, a chance to play games during the DAY!! (I am cursed with morning person genes)
I tweet about board gaming at @BGGgirl, about writing/illustrating at @inkyelbows.
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Thanks to
for taking the video above, which actually catches our Alien Frontiers game in progress (around the 1 minute mark).:strip_icc()/pic866095.jpg)
The theme didn't appeal to me at first (there are so many 'build it in outer space' games out there) but changed my mind as soon as I started playing it.:strip_icc()/pic1155241.jpg)
The rules are straightforward, the game is short, and I liked most of the game mechanics -- the only part I wasn't crazy about was the ability to steal other player's resources.
You could block stealing with the right alien technology card, but you were pretty vulnerable if you didn't have it. I had this card so didn't get stolen from, but also avoided stealing myself just because I prefer trying to win the game without the nastiness (yeah, I know I KNOW).
Alien Frontiers was one of the first (if not the first) board game to get successfully use Kickstarter to fund its first release before it was picked up by publishers.
Anyway, thanks to my game partners:
Andrew Korson(AGKorson)United States
Kennewick
Washington
Never trust the brute-force power of a computer network to do the job of a combinatorialist.
You can see more of my photos in my Gallery on on Flickr: Part 1 | Part 2
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Debbie Ohi(Inkygirl)Canada
Toronto
Ontario
YAY, a chance to play games during the DAY!! (I am cursed with morning person genes)
I tweet about board gaming at @BGGgirl, about writing/illustrating at @inkyelbows.
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:strip_icc()/pic1155065.jpg)
I had played a prototype of Dungeon Petz, so was curious to play the final version. I'm also a fan of Dungeon Lords and of Vlaada Chvatil, the designer.:strip_icc()/pic1103979.jpg)
As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of games dripping in theme. I'm also a fan of the creepycute (also like drawing creepycute creatures), so the idea of nurturing wee dungeon monsters had huge appeal to me.:strip_icc()/pic1155075.jpg)
I've heard many people say that they prefer Dungeon Petz to Dungeon Lords because the former enables them to have more control over game play, plus they found the rules to Dungeon Petz more straightforward.:strip_icc()/pic1155076.jpg)
Above: Don't let your pet cages get too poopy! The game actually comes with brown cubes, but someone helpfully donated these more realistic components.
HUGE thanks to
for being a fantastic teacher. Seriously. He also explained Kingdom Builder to me earlier in the day and was also brilliant then. I want to put Matthew in my pocket and take him with me to every board game event I attend from now on, but I suspect his family would object.
Anyway, thanks to Matthew and my other game partners:June KingUnited States
Unspecified
Bring me her heart in this box.
You can see more of my photos in my Gallery on on Flickr: Part 1 | Part 2
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Debbie Ohi(Inkygirl)Canada
Toronto
Ontario
YAY, a chance to play games during the DAY!! (I am cursed with morning person genes)
I tweet about board gaming at @BGGgirl, about writing/illustrating at @inkyelbows.
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One of my favourite new games at BoardGameGeek this year: Kingdom Builder (Queen Games). LOVE this game.
:strip_icc()/pic1102105.jpg)
Several people who know my game tastes recommended this game to me, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that I liked it so much.
You build settlements on different types of terrain, and the winner is the player who ends up with the most gold. No backstabbing, no betrayal, no outright aggression. The most aggressive action one player can take against the other is to block them from building on a particular hex.
You'd think that the lack of aggression would turn off some gamers, but there's a lot of different strategies involved, plus the game objectives change each time (depending on what objective cards you draw at the beginning of the game).
PLUS the game is short (average 45 minutes) and the rules are pretty straightforward. A good family game.
Thanks to my game partners:
Matt Robertson(Bixby)Canada
Regina
Saskatchewan
Life is Short; Play Games!
The BixCON Series of gaming events: A combination of Great Friends, Great Games, Great Food, & Great Drink!
You can see more of my photos in my Gallery on on Flickr: Part 1 | Part 2
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Debbie Ohi(Inkygirl)Canada
Toronto
Ontario
YAY, a chance to play games during the DAY!! (I am cursed with morning person genes)
I tweet about board gaming at @BGGgirl, about writing/illustrating at @inkyelbows.
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I had been wanting to play Witch of Salem, and had the chance at BGG.con. Many thanks to
for a wonderful game.
Like Arkham Horror, WOS is based on the Cthulu mythos. It's much shorter than Arkham Horror (about 60 minutes compared to Arkham's average of 4 hours), and involves less roleplaying.
It's fun co-op and I'd definitely play this again.:strip_icc()/pic1154082.jpg)
:strip_icc()/pic1154078.jpg)
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Debbie Ohi(Inkygirl)Canada
Toronto
Ontario
YAY, a chance to play games during the DAY!! (I am cursed with morning person genes)
I tweet about board gaming at @BGGgirl, about writing/illustrating at @inkyelbows.
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:strip_icc()/pic1154033.jpg)
One of the two games I signed up for before the convention started, via the BoardGameGeek site: Arkham Horror (Fantasy Flight).
Thanks to:
for organizing this game, and teaching the beginners. Our co-investigators:
:strip_icc()/pic1154032.jpg)
We played the base game, with no expansions. Partway through, we discovered that we'd forgotten that for eight players, we needed to release twice as many monsters when gates opened. Ha, no wonder it seemed way too easy/quiet (and non-panicky) in the first couple of hours!
[Edit: To clarify -- we hadn't forgotten the rule; it just hadn't been included in the first edition.]
A big part of my enjoyment of AH is the player interaction and narrative interpretation, and this group was no exception. Lots of witty repartée and puns. :-)
Anyway, as much as I enjoyed the narrative and gameplay, I still think that the optimum size for Arkham Horror is four players...it takes way too long otherwise, and AH is already a long game. Sadly, I had to leave before the end of the game but I did hear that they vanquished the Ancient One by the end (yay!).:strip_icc()/pic1154031.jpg)
Thanks to
for the loan of a cute yellow Cthulu, which greatly enhanced the Lovecraftian atmosphere.
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Debbie Ohi(Inkygirl)Canada
Toronto
Ontario
YAY, a chance to play games during the DAY!! (I am cursed with morning person genes)
I tweet about board gaming at @BGGgirl, about writing/illustrating at @inkyelbows.
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Airlines Europe was one of my favourite games at The Gathering. The game is a revamp of one of the earliest published games from designer Alan R. Moon and publisher ABACUSSPIELE.:strip_icc()/pic1153256.jpg)
Thanks to my game partners:
Andrew Korson(AGKorson)United States
Kennewick
Washington
Never trust the brute-force power of a computer network to do the job of a combinatorialist.
and
Ricardo Costa had come all the way from Argentina for his first BoardGameGeek convention, which I thought was very cool.:strip_icc()/pic1153257.jpg)
As someone who isn't crazy about games that depend on backstabbing and outright aggression, this game really appeals to me. I also like the vaguely co-op aspect of working with others to push a shared airline stock price higher, though in the end there is only one winner.
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Debbie Ohi(Inkygirl)Canada
Toronto
Ontario
YAY, a chance to play games during the DAY!! (I am cursed with morning person genes)
I tweet about board gaming at @BGGgirl, about writing/illustrating at @inkyelbows.
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:strip_icc()/pic1153007.jpg)
One of my favourites games at BGG.con: Panic Station (Stronghold Games), a paranoia-driven partly cooperative game in which you control two characters in the Extermination Corps sent out by the government to investigate the presence of fiendish alien life forms.
Emphasis on the paranoia-driven part./pic1086190.jpg)
My co-investigators:
Andrew Korson(AGKorson)United States
Kennewick
Washington
Never trust the brute-force power of a computer network to do the job of a combinatorialist.
I started getting suspicious of Lisa's and Brian's tabletalk partway through the game::strip_icc()/pic1153002.jpg)
In fact, Tim & Andy also started acting suspiciously::strip_icc()/pic1153004.jpg)
(Fellow on the right was the Stronghold volunteer who taught us the game...and hey, even HE started looking suspicious to me, and he wasn't playing!)
I love theme games whose theme's contribute to the atmosphere and gameplay, and imho Panic Station did a GREAT job. In the beginning it's all pseudo-friendly and almost co-op as we all start investigating the station but then, bit by bit, we all begin to realize that Things Are Not Quite Right.
I blew it in the beginning by not letting the others know when Jeff tried infecting me (happily, I had given him a gas can at the same time, which nixed the attempt)...but I had misheard the explainer and thought I WASN'T supposed to say anything.
The others around me started to get infected (and Brian accused Jeff outright), and I started getting nervous. I got hold of a keycard and managed to get to a computer terminal so I could do a body scan of the others on the station.
I was pretty sure at least a couple of them had been infected, but how many? Turning over the scan result cards one at a time, here's what I got::strip_icc()/pic1153005.jpg)
Guess which one is ME?:strip_icc()/pic1159287.jpg)
Photo above courtesy StormKnight/Brian.
AAUUUUUUGGGGGGH!!! By this time, I was totally scared (I'm serious!!) and started freaking out...both in the game and in real life. Totally out of gas cans, I started running through the station, hoping to collect what I needed along the way and then DESTROY THE HIVE AND THE EVILTUDE WITHIN.
Sadly, I failed.
But wow, have to admit I had a ton of fun along the way. I'd like to try playing this again now that I have a better grasp of the rules.
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