It had to happen...

It is said that the only certainties are death and taxes.  The third is that resolutions and predictions will be interrupted by life.  Given that large portions of my life at this stage are governed by a multi-million dollar corporate project (for a government client at that) I should be thankful and more than a little surprised that I was able to go this long.

On the positive side a long awaited Kickstarter arrived today (details below) and I am gearing up to do some quality game prototyping and play testing. Eduardo Baraf, the designer behind Lift Off: Get Me Off This Planet! just put out the call for expansion play testers, and the beta files for the Evolution: Climate playtest have been recently released.  Needless to say, I have some work to do this weekend.

Now, on to the report.

Game report Day 37 - Swish
This is a fun little abstract card game that I would probably get out more often if it did not live in the kit of travel games.  As a travel game is it nearly ideal.  Simple setup (you just lay out 16 cards), durable (cards are plastic), and short (game lasts 20 minutes tops).  The plastic cards in particular make it perfect for venturing out into the wild, game destroying world.  I have personally been very lucky with my games.  I take them out of the safety of the home relatively frequently, and while there have been a number of occasions where someone decided that the game and a glass of wine wanted to be friends, all of these occasions have been with games that consist of plastic cards.

This particular session was at home, with just my wife and I.  The whole point of the game is pattern recognition.  Each card has a colored ball and a colored hoop.  The goal is to spot combinations of cards that, when stacked, line up such that each ball rests in a matching colored hoop.  Easy, right?  Not so fast.  Orientation matters here, and you are not allowed to test combinations.  Everything has to be done in one's head.  This is something I happen to be relatively good at.  My wife, not so much, or at least not right before bed.  I won handily, and fun was had by all.

Game report Day 38 - Pagoda
As we had spent the day out and about celebrating the imminent Lunar New Year, this seemed appropriate.  I might have chosen something like Go instead, but I was stupid and put all of my Go sets in storage.  In contrast to the last session of this game, I pulled out to a quick lead and stayed there.  The game actually felt like it was over unusually quickly with a low score.  I did win, but both scores were well under 100.  To my knowledge, that is the first time that has happened for us.

Game report Day 39 - Museé
I was feeling indecisive (a common problem amongst game collectors) so my wife picked the the evening game.  We played two rounds, and it ended up being a split decision.  The scores were relatively close in both cases.  In addition, we both seemed to have similarly timed luck (or lack of it) with our card draws.  Often times in games like this where one has to take a gamble with most of the cards placements (Rack-O being another), you can look back at one or two plays that would have changed the game.  I can't say that with these two rounds, and that is more than a little frustrating.  It is often taken as a sign of poor game design when one makes the best plays possible and still loses.  I can't say that I subscribe to that opinion, at least not completely.  I do enjoy some luck in a game, but the perception of being defeated by it alone is still frustrating.

Game report Day 40 - Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia, Takenoko
It was meetup night again, and as I knew the event was fully booked, I brought along one of my favorite 6 player games.  Euphoria was the beginning of the Kickstarter obsession for me.  This was also the game that truly sealed the reputation of Stonemaier Games for game and component quality.  We did not quite get a full table, but 5 plays nearly as well as 6, if not just a little better.  The whole table (save myself) was new to the dystopia, so I did have to spend some time teaching, but everyone got into the flow pretty quickly.  We started out with a even mix of revealed factions, so the player's attention was evenly distributed throughout the board.  At one point I noticed that people were starting to accumulate resources, so I started the market race.  Before I knew it, all six markets were built, and two of the players were down to three stars remaining.  This is when some earlier decisions on the ethical dilemma started to bear fruit, and ultimately it was another player who got to play kingmaker.  Fortunately for me, I was the beneficiary.  It was one of the closer games I had played recently, and a hell of a lot of fun.

After that experience and the departure of one of the players, we decided to get out something lighter.  With Takenoko, fate had apparently decided that I had seen enough good luck for the day.  While I was the first one to complete objectives, there was really nothing else that went well that game for me.  The aforementioned kingmaker had a glorious game.  In that sense, I guess things worked out in a karmically appropriate way.  Even having recognized this, I was still ready to strangle both the panda and the gardner who always seemed to be in the one spot on the board that was completely useless to me.  Ahh well.  Can't win them all.

Game report Day 41 - The Game of Life
This is where life, or more appropriately work, has interfered with my gaming goals.  I new well in advance that I was having a work dinner at a German restaurant in Chinatown (I know that sounds like a joke, but I am not kidding).  Had a known ahead of time that we would spend over an hour at the restaurant eating for people to show up, I would have had something small with me.  I used to have a couple things in my backpack at all times anyway for just that purpose.  But then I made the mistake of cleaning out my bag.  At least I got to eat good German food and drink good German beer on the company tab.

Game report Day 42 - Labyrinth
Having played the pocket version of this a couple weeks ago, I wanted to get out the original.  In this Ravensburger classic, your pawns are on tiles forming a shifting maze.  You need to wanter around this maze finding specific treasures.  The control that you have over the maze is limited, but with some careful planning and a little luck, you can collect your treasures before your opponent.  I, unfortunately, came up a turn short and my wife picked up her last item just before I did.  As exhilarating as the close wins are, the close losses can me equally frustrating.  Goes to show you, physics is the law everywhere.

Game report Day 43 - Wombat Rescue, Exploding Kittens
This was the new arrival.  Did you know that wombats poop cubes (so they don't roll away), and use these smelly cubes to navigate their environment?  It's true, and you use these skills as you play mother wombats searching the countryside looking for her baby wombats.

Unfortunately, fate did not want us to play this tonight.  We had the game all set up, and then the dinner we had ordered in showed up nearly 40 minutes ahead of schedule.  Then after dinner, the children were being particularly clingy which diverted my wife's attention until it was far to late to play anything but the lightest of games.  Maybe tomorrow.

So we decide to blow up some kittens in the most non-pc way possible, with Exploding Kittens, the NSFW Edition.  Once again, I can say that fate hates me and I lost in spectacular fashion.

Here's to hoping that tomorrow's anticipated play of Wombat Rescue favors me more.  Though, to be honest, there is not much hope of that.  My wife has significantly more experience with poop than I do.