Memoirs of a Board Gamer

On a spur of the moment, Lisa took the kids to her parents house 3.5 hours away for a few days as the last fling in the summer before she goes back to work and the kids get back into school. When she left home I was at work and she sent me an email stating that she was leaving for Indiana and that she and the kids had picked up the house a bit because she figured I'd already be organizing a gaming session while she was gone. We are soooo married.

So...to live up to her expectations of me, I hustled around and got Jason and Rich to come over for the evening and play Stone Age and Lexio. The more I play Stone Age the more I like it. Every time I've played I've tried a different strategy with varying levels of success. You can live or die by the dice but as Jason put it, you're in control of the level of risk you're willing to accept. The number of dice you roll is dependent on the number of cavemen you allocate to an area so if you really need to obtain a particular item then you'd darn well better not push your luck. I came out on top tonight which was extra sweet since it was the first official usage of my dice tower (well and it was the first time I've won in a long dry spell of humiliating losses :-). I'm convinced that we christened the tower well and my hope is that it will continue to roll well for me and become my own lucky tower of goodness from here on out.

We finished up the night with many rounds of Lexio as our wind down game. Thanks for coming guys. You helped me meet my wife's expectations of me. Well, at least the expectations related to gaming that is.

I never thought I'd want, let alone build, my own dice tower. However, my latest craving, Stone Age, is just crying out for one. So, given that I've got all the woodworking equipment I need to build furniture (another hobby of mine) and I've got several varieties of wood in which to build one, I decided to make my own.

Introducing my homemade cherry dice tower. I know the theme of the tower isn't very Stone Agey but I'll use it with several of my dice games. I kinda like the chunky medieval castle look.

An image submission I made in July is doing pretty well on the monthly image submission contest. If you feel so inclined, give me a thumb and check out the other shots as well. There are several really good ones out there.

I've exchanged some emails with Aldie at BGG and I've gotten the logistics worked out for me to donate some items as give-aways at BGG.Con this year. I'm not going to be there but I thought I'd celebrate vicariously with those that do attend by digging into my own pocket and giving away some freebies from Uberbadger.com.

I've published a poll at BGG asking for help to narrow down what kinds of products that people would enjoy winning. If you get a chance, I'd appreciate you taking a moment to make the prizes relevant.

AGN Aug 2008 was held at my house tonight and with a small group of just Jason, Paul, Keith, and myself, we started off the night with Stone Age. At it's core Stone Age is a set collection game. No wait. At it's core, Stone Age is about maximizing resources throughout the game to push your marker down the scoring track. No wait.... Okay Stone Age present players with multiple paths to victory that include both strategic and tactical moves. Those players collecting cards are taking a more strategic long term approach and will be blessed with points at the end of the game. Those players that horde and burn resources for buildings take a more tactical approach hoping to score enough points during the game.

I like the game mostly because it's fast paced. There is almost zero down time between doing something and each step is pretty straightforward. You can play to block but player interaction is relatively low. Stone Age does punish players that don't stick with one or two paths to victory. If you switch gears very much in the game you'll fall behind with no hope of catching up. The leather dice cup is pretty nifty cool but for the most part, the meeples could be yaks; the mechanics don't reinforce the theme in any readily apparent manner. As they say on BGG, the theme is pasted on.

The game does use dice quite a bit and that may sour the milk so to speak for many more cerebral players but I quite enjoyed the randomness. I didn't find it any more chaotic than say digging for treasure in Thebes for example.

Jason plowed ahead with a caveman explosion heading for the hut with a partner almost every chance he could get. By birthing many cavemen and by being lucky at his food rolls (and gold rolls...sheesh!) he could keep them supplied and was able to pay for many nice buildings stretching for the win. I stuck with a green card, tool, and food strategy but in the end came up short. I'm looking forward to many more plays of this game.

Since Paul had to make it a short night, we played several hands of Lexio and closed out the evening. I've said quite a lot about this game in the past so I won't go into it yet again. But I do enjoy playing it. Paul said it best when he said, "There's something inherently satisfying about playing with the big bits". I'm not sure where he was going with that but I can't argue with the man.

Thanks for coming guys and see you next month or earlier.

As I understand it, the hosting site took a power hit and a UPS self-destructed taking BGG down with it. Man...what timing! Tonight is game night and I wanted to do a little research on Stone Age errata and the common pitfalls and foibles.

Andrew Muhling (antiussentiment) a BGG user from western Australia, has gone off the deep end of boardgame geekiness by constructing a mold for making 90 pound cement yard Meeples.

Let's just hope he doesn't start making them clothes and dressing them up like people do with cement geese and garden gnomes.

The Norwich Bulletin (CT) has posted a story about families finding fun with Eurogames. I like to see articles like this exposing the general public to the rich and rewarding world of boardgaming. Being marinated in games it's humorous to see adjectives like "massive" used to describe a collection of 70 games. To the general public, 70 boardgames would be massive given that most homes have, at most, 6-10 games gathering dust in the closet or basement. 70 games would be ludicrous. But my collection, currently hovering at 100 pales in comparison to most "gamer geeks". My collection is ultra tiny and I even run the risk of being called a poser!

In a temporary swap for my copy of China I received a copy of The Downfall of Pompeii. A few nights ago, Noah and I played a sample game to learn the rules with each of us playing two hands of cards simulating four players. So with the rules down, I got Lisa to play with Noah and me this evening.

The first half of the game requires each player to populate the board with as many meeples as possible. By playing cards, players place meeple on the board using straightforward-to-understand rules that drive your decision making, granting extra meeples, and at times allowing you to throw an opponent's meeple into the volcano where they die a horrible death.

The second half of the game is played by drawing lava tiles from a bag, placing them on the board, and moving your meeples around on the board trying to march them out one of the seven city gates to safety. Lava, of course can be used to burn meeples (and throw them into the volcano) and to wall off exits effectively trapping them...becoming food for the voracious volcano. The player who saves the most of his meeples is the winner.

Pompeii is not a cerebral exercise. Your decisions, although tense, are pretty limited in the first half by what cards you possess and in the second half by the limited number of moves you can make to drive your meeples to safety. Lucky and/or unlucky draws of lava tiles can easily eliminate your chances of escape but it's still fun to burn up your opponents, seal off the gates they're running for, and to toss them into the burning maw. We completed our game in about 45 minutes including the rules explanation so it's a very quick game which is nice when you're pushed for time and/or want something light to play.

The components are well made but the plastic volcano feels like it might break after repeated bending to form the shape you see above (it fits down in a round hole through the board to keep it bent during play). I appreciate the colorful artwork that doesn't detract from play by being overdone. I was amazed at the minute detail of the trees, horses, carriages, and people depicted on the roads leaving the city gates.

Would I purchase a copy for my library? I'm not sure. If an opportunity dropped in my lap I might pick up a copy but I don't feel like there is a hole in my collection without it. On the other hand, it's a nice game to use to teach an alternative style of gaming for people only used to roll and move games.