Gaming day jolly!!

Yay! Monday was a day of getting together with my best mate Matt at his place whilst he had the place to himself for a few days to play games, eat pizza and drink beer! It was also an opportunity to introduce him and his game-aspiring daughter to Euro gaming :) I had brought most of the games with me to try and squeeze in as much as possible.

Firstly we played Diamant as a good introduction. This went down a storm - very popular as it is very easy to learn but difficult to master - Hannah, Matts daughter, got the idea straight away and loved it - eventually winning the game.

Next out of the bag was Zooloretto - obviously it took a bit to explain the rules, but the game proceeded quite well, with only a few references to the rules - this game has a great system where although it is a fairly complex game, say compared to Diamant, there is no text in the game to get confused with; no cards to read or text to ponder over. Again highly enjoyed by all - and again won by Hannah. :)

It was time then to drop off Hannah to her grandparents; after which Matt and I explored the contents of 7th Fleet and Gunslinger, just to get an idea of what ye olde '80s punch counter games were like - actually Gunslinger looked quite attractive to play and if I'd known the rules we'd have given it a go.

So we had a go at Back to the Future the card game - I've played this a few times solo play, so this was a good chance to test out the rules with two of us. The concept of how to play took a bit to understand (even for me and I'd played a few times!) but after getting into the swing of it, it was a great game - won by Matt in the end.

Next was Niagara - Matt loved the idea of the plastic discs acting as the flowing river and there was much merriment in pseudo-Mexican voices. The ending was full of tension as we both had our fill of gems, me 5 different coloured gems, Matt his mixed collection of 7. We just needed to get one more gem each to the finishing line. With our last paddle cards and the end in sight, we raced for him - Matt pipping me to the post!! Another game lost! :)

Next was Memoir '44 - actually two games of Memoir as it was so popular with Matt. The only unfortunate thing I found was that set up took too long and was actually a bit confusing with two people on opposite sides of the table whilst looking at the map in the book. Something to consider in the future. But the games went off really well - the first an American attack against heavily entrenched German positions - including several elite German tank platoons; leading to a win by Germany that followed the course of History. Then it was another try at an Omaha beach landing, this time with Matt as the Americans. This turned into an unmitigated disaster for the Yanks as one after another unit and platoon were destroyed or mown down on the beaches of France.  Notch one up for me! this would turn out to be my only win of the day...

Finally we had a game of Last Night on Earth - and as I'd not played this before, game play proceeded a little slowly at first as Matt read the rules, counters were punched and cards were shuffled. The scenario we took was Get Petrol and Keys for the Truck! or something like that. This involved my humans searching for petrol and keys whilst fending off the undead! Unfortunately one character after another died and then the Sun set and it was game over man game over! A good game, if not 100% my cup of tea in its mechanics. Perhaps another couple of games will win me over.

In all, a hugely successful gaming day/night! Cannot wait to do it again!

Weekend play

Just played one game this weekend - Nordic Ticket to Ride; and I won by a staggering 148points to 114! Tried to introduce Roshni to Back to the Future but a lot of the aspects of the incidents from the films, not the game play, were lost on her as she'd not seen the film in ages! So we stopped and said we'd watch the films and give it a go again.

Also took a stroll to stretch the legs which just happened to pass Battlequestgames :) Popped in for a look around and got talking to Andy about Back to the Future. He mentioned it was based on Fluxx and loaned a shop copy to try out. Turns out it's a pretty cool game after a quick rules check and solo play. Try and squeeze a game in with the family before it has to go back. Also the Disaster at Dieppe add on for Memoir is due in next week, so I hope to collect on Thursday.

Managed to also secure a second hand copy of Niagara - Anita found a second hand copy on Ebay going cheap and because we were not 100% if it was for us, we got that instead of a brand new one. Hopefully with us in a few days.

Great Scott! It's Back to the Future!

1.21 gigawatts! Yay, one of my all time favourite films has been made into a game! And a great game too! I'd seen this previewed on Boardgamegeek and heard it was based on a previous game called Chrononauts. I picked up a copy from Battlequestgames at the weekend as it was a cheap purchase.

Both of these have been released by Looney Labs - Chrononauts had been very successful, but was supposed to have several bugs in the game play. Here, these have been ironed out apparently. Hard to say for me because I haven't played the original, but this version I can say is excellent.

The idea is that you have a series of cards, line A to D, number 1 to 6. Each card represents a moment in time, an event or storyline. And as in the films, if something is done in one part of the timeline, such as Older Biff giving Younger Biff the sports almanac, this has effects which Ripple down the timeline. This is shown in practise by flipping cards marked by the Event or Linchpin as it is called. Each Linchpin has a number of Ripplepoints it affects - such as if Older Biff gives Younger Biff the sports almanac, this has all sorts of connotations down the timeline such as Biff willing millions, killing George McFly, marrying Marty's mother etc.

The idea of the game is that you play as one of the descendants of a character from the film. I have read complaints that these characters have no background or depth as they are not seen in the film or if they are, don't have any characterisation. The aim is the character has three things to do in the timeline, set it in a particular way. Some want George McFly dead, some want him publishing his story. Some want Marty to get injured in a car crash, others don't. The idea is to take a card in hand and use one of those cards in play. This might involve placing an object on the table that will help you with another card. For example you can't use the Mark 2 time machine (the flying one), unless you have the Mr Fusion card in play. The time machine cards allow you to "edit" these Lynchpins as how you see fit, thereby affecting the timeline.

Some cards allow you to affect a specific event and only that event (Such as the metal pie tray stops Buford Tannen from shooting the blacksmith - Doc - in the back), some cards allow you to change any other time event if you have X card in play. To win, you have to have your three Lynchpins set, the timeline set how you want it then finally change history, stopping Doc inventing the flux capacitor. Even this may not win the game because there is 5 cards for this linchpin and only one is successful!

It's an interesting game to play - I've played it a few times by myself against another fake player. It is a very sublime game because you think it is very quick, that you can change a few items and you've won, then suddenly someone changes an event again causing another ripple then you are loosing!!

One caveat - you must have seen Back to the Future to play this!! Lol - Roshni and I tried to play, but the lynchpins didn't make much sense as she couldn't remember much of the film - so we all sat and watched BTTF part 1!! Part 2 up soon.