No, I’m not talking about Jenga. Tower of Hell is a Roblox game where you’re trying to reach the top of the tower before the timer runs out and the tower resets. The catch? It’s a randomly generated layout each time… and there are no checkpoints.
Tower of Hell is an obby — in other words, an obstacle course. Each section of the tower sports its own challenges, from gaps you have to jump, to sliding zones (think moving sidewalks, but more likely to vroom you off the edge and halfway back down the map), to glowing areas that will kill you if you touch them. Dying respawns you at the very bottom, whereas falling off of something provides the opportunity to catch yourself on a lower level on your way down.
The progress map on the right shows where everyone is in relation to the sections, as well as the highest spot you’ve reached so far– the higher on the map it is, the more coins you get. Once someone reaches the top and steps into the victors’ archway, the timer speeds up, doubling its pace for each player who’s finished.
Usually, the clock is set for six minutes. I say usually because one of the things you can buy with coins are mutations, which affect the map for the rest of the current round — one of those is to add two minutes to the timer, and another, also pictured above, takes away the lethality of the glowing parts, so it’s just falling you need to worry about. Where mutations affect everyone, gears affect only yourself; both, however, disappear at the end of the round. In fact, the only in-game purchase of permanence are effects, which come in “boxes” that provide a random trail, gear skin (ex: Pastel Gravity Coil), or constant effect, like “Steaming,” which my avatar is sporting in the second screenshot.
As a final note, the (often witty) name of each section is displayed at their starting platform, which is the flat safe space that all sections have in common. I mention this specifically to point out that they are not the title in the lower right corner of the screen; that’s the name of whatever instrumental track is currently playing in the background.
We’ve all wanted to be members of a prehistoric tribe, hunting dinosaurs for dinner and competing to be the next tribal chief, right? Right. Well, now you can, because that’s the premise of the board game Ooga!
In Ooga!, the board is a randomized array of dino tiles, comprised of 5 different color-coded species on 3 different terrains, as well as the occasional coconut (for nutritional balance, of course). The Tribal Chief flips over a menu, which will be the goal until it’s completed — for instance, 1 red, 1 purple, 1 green and 2 blues. The aim is to collect all the dinosaurs on the menu, at which point you call out “Ooga!” discard those tiles, collect the menu, and become the next Tribal Chief. The game ends once all 12 menus have been completed, at which point whoever has the most of them wins.
The catch is that you can only pick up the dino tiles which not only match at least one color on the menu, but also a terrain from the current bones. Each hunt, the current Tribal Chief will toss the four bones, and whichever flip picture-side-up are available that round. One of these, rather than a terrain, marks Coconuts as fair game, which act as a wild card to replace any one dinosaur when completing a menu.
I should also probably mention that once the bones are thrown, you collect dinosaurs on a first-come, first-serve basis by stabbing them with a suction cup on a stick. (Sorry, I meant a “spear.”) The round ends as soon as all but one of the players has caught a tile, or, since we were playing two-player, once each has caught one. Mom refers to this as “the matchy and stabby game,” and honestly if that’s not incentive to try it I don’t know what is.
(Apparently I’ve already done a write-up for this game, but I forgot until after I had already written this one, so… if you didn’t try Ooga! the last time I posted about it, maybe you’ll try it now.)
Hey, would you look at that? It’s been over a year since I last wrote about a Fluxx variation (Jumanji Fluxx, December 2019). I guess we’re due for another one!
Our newest rediscovery in that vast, mythical land known as “the game closet” is Eco Fluxx. From Keepers like Birds and Flowers to Actions like Extinction and Pollution, this deck is, like the others, a fun and quirky reimagining of the original Fluxx concept. It’s more than re-themed cards, however, as like every version of Fluxx it has some unique mechanics of its own.
The first big difference is the Creepers. In any game of Fluxx, you can’t win if you have a Creeper in front of you (unless the current Goal says otherwise). In Eco Fluxx, though, there are 3 Creepers, and while they’re in play, nobody can win. Furthermore, 2 of them have a second, more active negative effect — Forest Fire will force you to discard one of your Keepers every turn you start with it in play, until you no longer have any (at which point the fire goes out and gets discarded). If you have Flood instead (or, ow, at the same time), then at the end of your turn you have to discard your hand and give Flood to the next player, until either someone intervenes (plays a card that allows you to discard a Creeper) or it’s gone through every player in the game.
The other feature that stands out as specific to Eco Fluxx is a particular subset of Goals that I’ve been referring to as the “[x] eats [y] Goals,” like “Snakes Eat Mice,” “Mice Eat Seeds,” and “Rabbits Eat Leaves.” The key difference here is that where most Goals say “if you have [x] and [y] in play, you win” and some Goals say “if you have [x] in play and nobody has [y], you win” (ex: the “Ferns” Goal requires Leaves and no Flowers), “[x] eats [y]” Goals say that you win if you have [x] in play and anybody has [y]. For instance, in the picture below, I won with the Goal “Bats Eat Insects” by having Bats in play, because even though I didn’t have Insects, Mom did.
Along with this new style of Goal are a couple ways to combat it — the first is Poison, a Keeper that protects your other Keepers from being eaten. The second is a New Rule called Camouflage — you can “hide” one of your Keepers by either playing it face down or flipping it over if it’s already on the table. You can only have one hidden at a time, but while it is, the card is treated as if it isn’t in play, meaning things like “[x] eats [y]” Goals, Forest Fire, and Keeper Limits don’t affect it. You can reveal your hidden cards at any time, but you can only hide them on your turn.
Unsurprisingly, I love this version of Fluxx at least as much as I love the others, and I hope you will too!
Some of you may recall that I wrote about a game called Just Desserts a couple years back. For those of you who don’t, I’d advise you read that post here before continuing with this one. Why? Because today I’m talking about the expansions!
Just Desserts currently has two expansions: Just Coffee, and Better With Bacon. Yeah, I know, ew. Believe me, Mom and I spent plenty of time making faces at cards like Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes and Maple Bacon Donut.
The expansions don’t change the mechanics of the game; what they do is add two new ingredients (coffee and bacon), and two new families, bringing the count up to 9. Each has 4 customers, and six new desserts. For each expansion pack, there’s one dessert that doesn’t have the expansion’s special ingredient in it, and a customer who’s favorite is that one dessert. Which makes sense — none of the other families have one ingredient entirely in common, after all.
The one thing I think is really different with the expansions is that they each have a character who has their favorite listed as “Anything With Bacon” or “Anything With Coffee,” which allows players a way to use a single-ingredient card on its own (not possible with any other customers) or to use something with extra ingredients and still get the tip for a favorite.
For some extra fun and opinionated commentary (because seriously, why do people put bacon in desserts) I’d suggest getting the expansions (Just Coffee, Better With Bacon) to add to your base deck, or buying them all together at the Looney Labs online store. It’s worth it!
A couple weeks ago my best friend introduced me to Among Us. Yes, the game that it seems everyone is suddenly talking about. It’s got fan-made songs, animations, fanfic… but some of you are probably asking, “What actually is Among Us?” Allow me to explain.
Have you ever played Mafia? Or Are You A Werewolf? Among Us is like the digital, slightly more complicated sci-fi version of those. In those games you have the “night,” when the killers (be they mafia or werewolves) choose a victim, and then the “day” where you find out which one person has died, and vote someone out. Either the citizens vote out the killers and win, or the killers murder enough citizens that they can’t be voted out by majority, thereby winning.
Caption: Role: Crewmate
In Among Us the crewmates have another goal: complete your tasks. Each crewmate is given a random selection of assignments, like fixing wiring, downloading and uploading data, and entering their ID. Some of these, like the ones I just listed, can be found in any game of Among Us; some are specific to certain of the three maps. For instance, “Align Engine Output” wouldn’t be useful on Polus, which is a planet’s surface, but since the Skeld is a spaceship it makes sense. Neither of those maps have a greenhouse, but the airship by the name of Mira HQ does, so “Water Plants” is a perfectly reasonable task. A small handful of these are also “visual tasks,” meaning other players can see them, which, since imposters can’t do tasks, proves your innocence. Submitting a Medscan is the most well-known of these, but there’s a handful of others as well. Whatever your tasks are, if all the crewmates finish theirs they win the game. This simultaneously gives the imposters pressure to kill quickly and the crewmates an alternate objective, rather than solely focusing on the murder aspect of gameplay.
Caption: Medscan on Mira HQ
Though, admittedly, the murder aspect is important too. The imposters’ job is to kill all the crewmates (or, rather, enough that there’s the same amount of crewmates as imposters, just like in Mafia and Are You A Werewolf). They have a couple of tools to help them achieve this: a partner, depending on server settings (there can be 1-3 imposters in a max of 10 players), vents that allow them to move unseen between certain rooms, and sabotage. With this last functionality they can close doors to slow down their targets (on the Skeld and Polus, at least), sabotage communications, temporarily making the list of tasks inaccessible, turn off the lights (narrowing all the crewmates’ range of view), and cause a reactor overload or (on the Skeld and Mira HQ) an oxygen depletion, either of which left unchecked for long enough will automatically result in a victory for the imposters. Each of these has a different means of reversing them, but whatever the case they help to slow down the task progress and sometimes draw people away from a fresh corpse.
Caption: O2 depletion drew everyone else to the far side of the Skeld, enabling an easy kill.
That’s important because, unlike Mafia and Are You A Werewolf, it’s not a matter of one voting session per death. Rather, a meeting is only called when someone comes across and reports a dead body, or presses the Emergency Meeting button that’s in the Cafeteria on the two ships and in the Office on Polus. This button is primarily useful for when you saw someone going into/coming out of the vents, witnessed a murder on the security cams, or watched someone’s vital signs terminate (each map has multiple means of monitoring; the Skeld has security cameras and Admin, which gives a headcount for each room; Mira HQ has Admin and a Sensor Log for each of three sensors you can pass in the hall; and Polus has security cams, Admin and a vitals monitor). As an interesting aside, crewmate’s ghosts can still complete their tasks to contribute to victory, and imposter’s ghosts can still sabotage. This is a compelling reason to stick around even after being voted out or murdered.
Caption: The yellow highlighting the computer indicates that it’s one of my tasks; the computer next to it is the vitals monitor.
How many kills the imposters can manage without anyone noticing depends largely on location and how strategically they’re playing, but unless they’ve won, a body is eventually found and a meeting called. Then, of course, there’s the accusing phase. I won’t get into the strategies for that here, at least not this week (I don’t think I’ve ever done a follow-up on a game before but if y’all want one or I feel like it I may), just the process.
Caption: Getting my neck snapped in the Laboratory on Polus
I don’t recall ever playing a game of Mafia or Are You A Werewolf with a time limit on voting, but each Among Us server has a set discussion time before voting opens, and a set time from there before voting closes (both set by the server host). As you can imagine, it’s a lot of back-and-forth pointing of fingers and “Where was the body? Any sus [suspects] nearby? Where was everyone else?” It’s also a race to get your argument in before people vote, since voting doesn’t happen all at once in Among Us; rather, you can submit your vote anytime after voting opens, and when the time is up or everyone has voted all the votes are revealed.
Caption: As the imposter, I can see who the other imposters are (indicated by red name). The megaphone next to Red/M2lk indicates they called the meeting.
Once voting for a meeting has closed, there are a few things that can happen. If there’s a tie, nobody gets ejected. If skipping vote gets the most votes (yes, “skip” is an option, but no, not voting at all does not count as a vote to skip), then nobody gets ejected. If, however, any one player gets the most votes, they will be joining the ghosts. How depends on which map they’re playing: since the Skeld is a spaceship, ejections there occur by flinging them into the vacuum of space via airlock. Whoever’s voted out on Mira HQ goes skydiving without a parachute, and on Polus they take a quick stroll into a lava crater. Whether you get to see if they were an imposter or not at the point of ejection depends on the settings set by the host.
Caption: This isn’t an actual ejection screen, but it’s the lava crater.
If it’s not clear by how long this post is, I enjoy this game immensely. I think it’s a brilliant, engaging twist on a concept I was already fond of. I highly recommend trying it, whether for free on mobile, for a small fee on PC, or, like I’m playing, on PC for free through an app player called BlueStacks that enables Android applications to run on PC (for info on how to get Among Us that way, click here).
No, not the eating utensil. Chopsticks is a simple yet entertaining game I learned in elementary school to pass time while waiting in line. It’s convenient, as it doesn’t require much equipment — just two hands (at least four fingers each) and basic arithmetic.
I’ve usually played this as a two-player game, but you can really have as many people as you like, so long as you can fit them all facing each other (directly across for two, circle-ish for anything more) in whatever space you’re playing in.
Each player starts with both hands out in front of them, one finger on each raised. From there, whoever is going first will choose someone (anyone) and tap one of their hands with one of their own. The tapped hand raises a second finger, and play continues either clockwise or counter-clockwise (because it honestly doesn’t matter so long as it’s agreed upon).
It’s not always one that’s added to the hand. The principle of the game is that however many fingers are raised on the hand that taps, that’s the number added to the hand that’s tapped. Once a hand gets to five, that hand is fisted, put behind your back, or otherwise indicated as “dead.” If both your hands are dead, you’re out of the game.
Instead of tapping someone else’s hand, you can choose to tap your own together. This is an action of rearranging chopsticks; for instance, if you have four fingers raised on one hand and one on the other, you might adjust it to three and two. You’ll end up with the same amount of fingers raised, just redistributed, usually to lower the chance of a high-numbered one getting out. The rules vary by group (make sure you confirm them ahead of time!) so in some versions it’s acceptable to redistribute chopsticks to a dead hand, bringing it back into play, and in others once the hand is out, it stays out. It is not, however, a legal move to flip the values of your hands. (Think 2 and 3 to 3 and 2; nothing has actually changed, which prevents the game from properly progressing.)
The winner is, of course, the last person with at least one hand left in the game.
Ah, yes, furious ramen. Or, well, ramen with chili peppers in it. But, like anger, that’s only a bad thing sometimes! Let me explain. Ramen Fury is a surprisingly backstabbing-intensive game of ingredient collecting and meal preparation.
Very basically, each player has three bowls, and each bowl of ramen can have up to five Ingredients (noodles excluded). To be eaten, there has to be a Flavor and at least one additional Ingredient. Flavor determines scoring. For instance, Beef Flavor scores for unique Protein Ingredients, whereas Shrimp Flavor bowls are worth four points per pair of Protein and Vegetable ingredients. There are also special Ingredients: Nori Garnishes and Chili Peppers. These can be played at any time (as a free action) into anyone’s bowl. Nori is a plus one, while Chilis are a minus one. That is, unless they’re in a bowl with Fury Flavor, which scores two points per pepper, and is where Ramen Fury gets the “Fury” part of its name.
You get two actions per turn. There are six of them: Prep, where you place an Ingredient in one of your bowls; Draw, where you take either a face-up card from the Pantry or the top card from the Ingredient Deck; Spoon, a twice per game action where you remove the top Ingredient from any bowl (including your opponents’); Restock, where you replace all four Pantry cards; Eat, where you finish a bowl of ramen, making it untouchable; and Empty, which you perform on your bowl of choice and is largely self-explanatory.
The final round is initiated either when any player has eaten their third bowl of ramen or when the Ingredient Deck is empty. Scoring is directly correlated to ingredients and handily mapped out on the Flavor/special Ingredient cards, making it quick and easy to calculate.
So, sit back, make some ramen, and appreciate the strategic Protein/Vegetable duality advantage of tofu!
No, no, I’m not being rude or mean, and I’m not shouting at anyone today, I promise. That’s just the name of the game! That’s right, Burn In Hell is an actual game, and it’s loads of fun!
In Burn In Hell, you’re Demon princes (or princesses) fighting over the souls in the “Permanent Pitchfork Party.” The deck is made up of notable souls from throughout history — dictators, tycoons, serial killers, etc. Each card has their name (of course), an illustration, a biography (on the back), and actual mechanics-relevant material. These include their special ability, if applicable, and a number of categories: the value of the card, the “tags” (dictator, tycoon, serial killer, etc.), and however many of the Seven Deadly Sins apply.
It is with these traits that you match up groups, “Circles,” of four or more souls to score points. The mechanics for getting there are complicated, involving roundly sacrifices to the Pit, trading with the Pit, trading with other players, burning souls, and incredibly complicated multi-trade maneuvers, but basically, you’re trying to get groups of cards that either all share at least one trait (bonus points for more) or represent the Seven Deadly Sins, one each. The value of the cards involved, combined with the combo bonuses, along with any special pairings (some people who had met in life give you extra points if they end up in circles together) are added to your score.
While it’s important to make Circles wisely, you also need to make them quickly — the value of the cards sacrificed to the Pit each turn determine how much colder Hell gets, and the game ends when Hell freezes over. If you don’t watch the temperature, you could end up losing by a turn to your mother, and having to listen to her bemoan the irony in her winning score of 665.
I’ve already written about Chrononauts — a fun game of time travel, artifact collection, and screwing with timelines. But now, I’d like to introduce you to ÜberChrononauts: the ambitious combination of original Chrononauts with its prequel, Early American Chrononauts. In other words, twice the timeline, twice the cards, twice the chaos!
So what’s different? Well, besides having mixed both decks for fun variety, the end of the game is a bit different. In either game on its own, you win by completing your (one) mission, returning to the timeline of your (one) ID, or getting ten cards in hand. In ÜberChrononauts, you need to complete one of your (two) missions, one of your (two) IDs, and get ten cards in hand. Not all at once, of course, once you’ve completed one of those objectives you mark it as complete, without worrying about keeping the criteria for it intact. That would be even more confusing. Yikes. Also, rather than 13 paradoxes blowing up the universe, those 13 have to be in four consecutive rows.
Worried about sorting the two decks back out once it’s over? Don’t be! While the backs of the cards are the same, all of the Early American cards (except the timeline) have a little star in one of the top corners. The timeline is set off by, rather than the original’s coordinates of A-D, having designations of W, X, Y, and Z, allowing the few intermixed dates in the middle of the map to be returned to their own decks with no hassle.
All in all, it’s a longer, more complicated version of a brilliantly fun game. So, if you’ve got the time and the dedication to your many missions, play some ÜberChrononauts for some ÜberChaos!
Yep, another Fluxx. Specifically, the Fluxx that ended up in my Christmas stocking this year. (As well as a Doctor Who Fluxx 13th Doctor expansion pack, but that’s sidelining…) Don’t worry, there’ll be no spoilers here for the Jumanji films; I haven’t even seen the new one yet. More importantly, I’m not actually focusing on the plot, because, well… this is Fluxx. Plot? What plot? We make our own plots here, thank you very much.
Anyways, I’m not really here to talk about Fluxx, or the new Keepers and Goals for this version of it, as I am to talk about what’s new and different about the game mechanics in this version. I mean, sure, there are some interesting new cards — I definitely don’t recall having seen “Let’s Keep Doing That” as a New Rule before — but that’s not really big news.
The really big news is that there are Danger cards — cards with a yellow and black border that allow players to be “eliminated.” Elimination is both more and less drastic than it sounds — you lose all your cards, both your Keepers and the ones in hand, but after everyone else has taken a turn, you draw a hand of three cards and play from there. So you’re not out, you’re just kind of… starting over. The conditions for these danger cards are usually based around Keepers, like saying, “If a player has Albino Rhinos in front of them, that player is eliminated.” I may or may not have used a whole slew of Danger cards on Mom. What can I say? I grew up on Munchkin.
There are also optional Meta Rules, which we didn’t play with this time around, but as I understand it there are two of them. The first, if used, gets placed next to the Basic Rules in the middle, and indicates that you must shout “Jumanji” when you win the game. The second, “No More Lives,” gets placed at the bottom of the deck, and once it comes up it, elimination is permanent.
I should also probably mention that, like “The Doctor” and “Companions” in Doctor Who Fluxx, Jumanji Fluxx has certain cards marked as “Adventurers” and “Animals,” which for certain card mechanics are interchangeable amongst themselves.
