Two player – Page 7 – Random Geek Child

Don’t Talk to Strangers

The third and final game from the trio that includes Let’s Dig For Treasure and Let’s Summon Demons, Don’t Talk to Strangers is the only one that’s founded on particularly good advice– that is, don’t get abducted by aliens.

In this game, each player is responsible for a set of children. If at the beginning of your turn, none of your kids are outside, you place one in the school, from where they will be trying to reach some safe spot. The board has several of these, like homes and pools, though some have more available space than others. To reach these locations, players will play one movement card per turn (ex: Run, which lets you move two spaces). Some of these make use of either city buses or school buses, with stops indicated on the board.

After you’ve moved, you’ll draw a card; if it’s a Stranger Sighting, it gets played immediately, and you choose a Stranger Space on the board to place an alien. Any child on that space when the stranger is placed is automatically abducted (removed from the game), and unless a card says otherwise (i.e. Heroic Dog) kids cannot move through that space. If you drawn an abduction card, choose a kid on the board (doesn’t have to be yours) and flip the flying saucer token like a coin. If it lands saucer side up, the kid gets abducted. This includes kids in “safe” spots. So, you know, it’s not so much that they’re safe as that they’re scoring points while they hide for their lives.

What do I mean? Well, each safe space has a point value associated with it, so the actual goal is to get your kids into high value spots — but if you get too greedy, you risk an abduction toppling your lead, which is your incentive to save many and save often! Some safe spaces also have additional effects, such as the library, which lets you have +1 cards in hand (base is 3), or the parks, which let you have an additional kid in play at a given time — effectively, this means you don’t have to wait for your current one to be safe before placing the next.

The game ends when all the Strangers are placed, and whoever has the most points wins; that said, I’ve never actually done that part, because there’s also a card that has the potential to end the game.

Let’s Summon Demons!

Actually, please don’t — the world is enough of a mess as it is. But if you’d like to satisfy that urge by pretending to summon demons, I have just the game for you!

Like Let’s Dig For Treasure, Let’s Summon Demons relies heavily on luck… but while I suppose there’s still some luck of the draw, this game is more about luck of the dice. Allow me to explain: each player starts with a candle card, which has two numbers on it. When one of those numbers is rolled — by anyone, not just you — you get to collect a soul token. These act as a form of currency — once you have 3 souls, you may trade them for one of the five sacrifices on the Block (face-up in the middle of the table). Each of these has their own ability and activation number. For instance, the Goldfish: when activated, you may choose to discard the Goldfish and collect five souls. Like all animals (and only animals) it activates on the number 7, whereas children have a wider range. Children are also split into two categories, Sweet and Rotten. Some abilities only affect one or the other, like Sweet Destiny, who when activated lets you activate another of your Sweet children. (I had, at one point, two Sweet Destiny cards and a third Sweet child who’s ability was “Collect 2 souls.” Five was an excellent number for me.)

Each player also starts with three random demon cards, hidden from everyone else until they’re summoned. How do you summon a demon, you ask? Well it’s actually quite simple, at least in the game! (You didn’t think I’d tell you how to actually summon a demon, did you?) Just discard 3 children and/or animals from your collection, and choose which of your demons you’re summoning. Like sacrifices, demons have abilities, some of which are constant (‘other players can’t steal from you,’ for example) and some of which have activation numbers. Unlike ordinary activation numbers, however, these are only activated if their player rolls them.

The first person to summon all three of their demons and have ten souls wins!

Let’s Dig For Treasure!

…in a graveyard! (Whose idea was this again?!) But hey, it’s actually a really fun way to pass the time.

Ok, that sounded bad. Let’s Dig For Treasure is a press-your-luck style card game in a trio of recent releases based on the artwork of Steven Rhodes. See? Not actually digging in any graveyards. That would be ill-advised. But anyways, on to the game!

Like I said, Let’s Dig For Treasure is a press-your-luck game. The deck is split into 3 Dig Stacks, and on your turn you choose one, flip the top card, decide if you’ll risk flipping the next, and so forth, until you either choose to stop, or the game chooses for you. This can happen if you draw an Evil Skeleton (your turn ends immediately), or two Worms cards. If you stopped of your own volition, congratulations! Everything you collected over the course of that turn is now yours to keep.

Cards are split into 3 categories: 1) When You Dig This Up, which get used as soon as you draw them, 2) When You Score This, in other words, resolve these when you decide to call it quits, and 3) When Scoring At Game End, which is fairly self-explanatory. As a general rule, When You Dig This Up cards are… not very nice. Sometimes not nice for you (Evil Skeletons and Worms), sometimes not nice for everyone, like the Tweenage Mutated Samurai Worms, which are placed next to one of the Dig Stacks, and make it so anyone drawing from that deck only needs one Worms card to strike out. By contrast, When You Score This cards are usually helpful, and When Scoring At Game End cards are… conditionally valuable. Examples of the latter include Board Game and New Kid, both of which are worth 0 points, unless you’re the owner of the game, in which case Board Game becomes worth 5, or this is your first time playing Let’s Dig For Treasure, in which case New Kid becomes worth 20.

The game ends when one of the three stacks runs out of cards, and whoever has the most points wins!

Cthulhu Fluxx

Have you gotten the impression that I really like Fluxx? Not yet? Maybe you should check out my other five Fluxx posts! I’ve written about Firefly Fluxx, Chemistry Fluxx, Doctor Who Fluxx, Jumanji Fluxx and Eco Fluxx.

Oh, and one more! The basic, core mechanics of Fluxx, which you can find here. Like I outlined in that post, there are four types of cards that all Fluxx decks have in common: New Rules (yellow), which are fairly self-explanatory, Keepers (green), which you (shocker) get to keep in front of you, Actions (blue), which are discarded upon being played, and Goals (pink), which go in the middle like New Rules and list the Keepers (or occasionally Creepers) you need to win the game. Creepers are black cards, and they’re like Keepers, but bad – if you draw one, you immediately have to play it and redraw, and you can’t win with one in front of you unless the Goal says otherwise. Not every Fluxx deck has these, nor do they all have Surprise cards (purple), which can be played any time, even when it’s not your turn.

Cthulhu Fluxx has all of the above, but also Ungoals (red) — if the criteria is met while the Ungoal is in play, the game ends and nobody wins. That is, unless you’re playing with the Meta Rule, Cult Clash, in which case the player with the greatest number of Doom points on the table wins… unless someone has the Secret Cultist, in which case they win, and if there’s a tie the player with the most Keepers or Creepers mentioned in the Ungoal claims the victory.

“Hold up. What are Doom points?” You see, aside from the Ungoals and the Eldritch Horror-themed cards, Doom points are what make Cthulhu Fluxx unique. They’re little upright hourglass symbols on certain Keepers and Creepers, including Cthulhu himself, who actually has three. These are important, not just for Cult Clash, but for cards like the Ungoal The Dunwich Horror, which ends the game if, 1) the total Doom count for the table is 6 or more, and 2) someone has Yog-Sothoth in play. “Six?!” you might be asking, “Cthulhu puts you halfway to that all by himself!” True, true, but there are also Anti-Doom cards like the Cat, which have a sideways hourglass and subtract Doom from your total. The other special classes of cards are Investigator Keepers, identified by a magnifying glass, and Attachable Creepers, which attach themselves to Keepers in play like the parasites they are. (I.e. Nightmares, which attach to an Investigator and stay with it until both are discarded… unless you have the Dreamer in front of you, in which case you can detach and discard those.)

I’ve yet to play a Fluxx I didn’t love, but this one I especially enjoy because of the additional mechanics that set it apart. Well, and the Cat. So what are you waiting for? Come investigate Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know and lose your sanity over a game of Cthulhu Fluxx!

We’re All Chums Here

Well, I hope we are. Though there is a certain amount of “hey, stop stealing my stuff!” Why? Well, Chums is a SimplyFun take on Go Fish!

I’ll admit I haven’t really played Go Fish recently to compare the two, but Chums works like this: you start with five cards (seven for 2 players), and on your turn you pick a card you already have, let’s say number 8, and ask one of the other players, “[Person], do you have any 8s?” If they do, they have to give you all their 8s, and you get to ask again. Once someone says no, you have to draw the top card of the deck. If that card is the most recent card you asked for, you show it to the table and get to ask again anyways; if it’s not, your turn is over, and play moves to the next person. Once you collect all four of a set, you place it face up on the table in front of you — when someone no longer has any cards in hand, or when the deck runs out, the game ends immediately and whoever has the most face-up sets wins.

Where Crazy Ates is mostly the luck of the draw, Chums has that strategic element, trying to remember which other players have what; there’s been many a time where one of us has asked another for something they didn’t have, only for the next player to turn around and ask for that card.

As a bonus, every number (1-12) has its own colorful species of fish! I used to make a point of collecting 4s and 10s, because I liked the lionfish and pufferfish illustrations best.

Sudoku Challenge

“Hold up, didn’t you already tell us about Sudoku?” Well, yes, sort of, but that was Hawaiian Sudoku! And, no, I’m not here to talk about the normal version, at least not exactly — I’m here to talk about the board game.

Yep! Sudoku is a competitive game now! Sudoku Challenge actually came out in like 2006, but I didn’t have a blog then, so we’re going to pretend this is a new discovery. The first thing to choose is which side of the board you’re playing — Sudoku (9×9 grid), or Zoodoku (6×6). What’s Zoodoku, you ask? Well, it’s the easier version of Sudoku, and much, much cuter, since instead of numbers, you’re placing animals.

Whichever you choose, the mechanics are the same — you start by placing the starter tiles (marked with a different backing), one in each box, no overlapping rows/columns, and placing each player’s chosen pawn at 0 on the scoring area. Players then take turns drawing a face-down tile and choosing where to place it. Just like regular Sudoku, it can’t be in the same row, column, or box as a tile of the same type. Unlike regular Sudoku, you have another goal: scoring. When you place a tile, you get 1 point for each other tile that shares a row, column, or box with it. Each tile is only counted once. If you’re feeling exceptionally masochistic, you can play Sudoku with a twist — instead of scoring one point for each other tile, you add up their values. Note that if you do this, you will run out of 40-point tokens; we used the Zoodoku tiles as stand-ins.

There are going to be times when prior placements leave spaces unable to be filled, like the empty space in the middle right of the board below, where the box needs a deer (blocked by row) and the row needs a raccoon (blocked by both column and box). If a player draws a tile they cannot place, the game ends immediately, and whoever has the most points wins.

Pavlov’s Dogs

Brought to you by the same people who made Schrödinger’s Cats, Pavlov’s Dogs is a cooperative psychology game that will challenge your memory and your capacity for dog puns.

Players start the game by collectively deciding how many tests they’re going to play, and how many of each level, ranging from Easy to Very Hard, with 2 sets for each level and a bonus Silly set. Each set represents a different Dogtor, the likes of Sigmund Fetch and Immanuel Mutt, and, with a maximum of 1 from each set, the tests you draw are placed in the Dogtor folder faced down.

For each round, one player will be selected as Dogtor, and choose one rule to flip face up. This is the rule for the first test (Ex: scratch ear when Sit is played). The other players will be read this rule, and then dealt 5 cards each, face down, and take turns flipping their top card. Following any special instructions from the tests first, they conclude by listing the value of the test. For the first card played, this is the number in the corners; for the cards that follow, it’s that number added to the sum of the cards already played. The Dogtor will use the folder with the tests as reference, and say either “Good dog” or “Bad dog,” depending on if they followed the instructions correctly. If they got it wrong, the value of the test resets to 0, and that player loses one of their bones (everyone starts with 3). Your grade at the end is based on how many bones the group has left, so be careful!

At the interim between rounds, players can choose to shuffle around bones — this is advantageous because if a player loses all their bones, the game is over and you’ve failed your selected difficulty level. Then comes the hard part — a new Dogtor is chosen, a new test selected, and you now have to adhere to both the new test, and every test that came before it. Yup, that’s right — they stack! You thought one rule and simple addition was easy? Try five rules and simple addition, and one of those rules changes the value of some of the cards. Now play the game again with a new set of rules. Can you see why it’s a challenge?

It’s a true legacy to Ivan Pavlov, as well. After all, you really are training yourselves — specifically, training your memory and cognitive flexibility. And a lot like Lumosity, a mental training program I posted about here, I suspect if you recorded your scores you’d notice definitive improvement the more you played.

Avocado Time

Anyone remember my post about Throw Throw Burrito? Well, here comes the sequel: Throw Throw Avocado! I didn’t think it was possible, but the avocados might actually be even cuter than the burritos.

As a quick review, Throw Throw Burrito is a speed matching game where you’re trying to draw and discard (hand limit 5) until you have a set of 3 matching cards, which you play into your score pile. If these are Battle Cards, all other gameplay stops long enough to carry out the specified combat. Whoever loses that battle gets a boo boo, which counts as a negative point when scoring.

For the most part, the mechanics of the two games are the same, though the normal cards come in different varieties depending on which game you’re playing. Battles, however, are a significant difference. Where Throw Throw Burrito has a duel (back-to-back, walk, turn and draw), a brawl (two players) and war (all players, except whoever played it), Throw Throw Avocado’s battles are decidedly wackier. There are legs duels, where you have to throw the avocado through your legs, double brawls, where the two players have to keep grabbing and throwing until someone has been hit twice, and freeze wars, where all players — including whoever played it — go to war, and if you get hit you freeze and become a human shield. Another difference between Burrito’s wars and Avocado’s freeze wars is that in war, whoever gets hit first loses, and in freeze war, the loser is chosen by the last player standing. There’s also a chaotic combination option if you own both decks, but we haven’t tried that yet, so I can’t really comment on it.

The cats were very patient with us and our flying squishies, and it’s a lot of fun to throw (soft) things at the important people in your life! (Or strangers; who cares? Everyone wants to throw things at people.)

Hear My Battle Cry

Have you ever wondered how battles from the American Civil War might have gone differently, were you in command? No? Well, that is a sort of specific thing to wonder. But if you’re wondering now, try the game Battle Cry!

Battle Cry has a number of battles you can play, setting up the board with appropriate troop starting places and terrain tiles for each. The terrains all have slightly different effects — if you move into the woods, for example, that unit can’t battle or move further that turn, but anyone attacking a unit in the woods gets 1 less battle die to attack with.

What are battle dice? Well, let me back up and explain the units, first. There’s infantry, which can move one space per turn and battle; cavalry, which can move three spaces per turn and battle; and artillery, which can move one space per turn or battle. There’s also generals, who can attach themselves to a unit to give the unit an extra battle die when attacking.

So… what are battle dice? Well, when a unit attacks, you roll battle dice to determine how many enemy pieces they hit. Each die has five symbols — infantry, cavalry, artillery, crossed swords, and a flag, with infantry appearing twice. For each roll that matches the enemy unit, you remove one piece. Crossed swords counts as a wild die, and a flag forces the enemy unit to retreat one space back towards their side of the board (or be eliminated, if they have nowhere to run). The amount of dice you roll on an attack is determined by what kind of unit you’re attacking with, and how far away the target is. Cavalry have three battle dice, but can only attack from an adjacent hex. Infantry and artillery have longer ranges, four and five respectively, but decrease in battle dice the further away the enemy is. So, for example, if I used an infantry unit to attack a cavalry unit adjacent to them, I’d get to roll four dice — if, however, the cavalry I was attacking were three hexes away, I’d only get to roll two. The target also has to be within line of sight, which means that a straight line between the centers of the two hexes must be unobstructed by any other units or terrain that would impede it (hills, for example).

The units you can move/battle with (order) on a given turn are determined by cards. How many cards you have in hand depends on the map you’re playing, but in every case you play first, resolve, and then draw at the end of your turn. Cards can have fairly small effects, like “order 1 unit or general on the left flank” (the board is split into two flanks and the center), or significantly larger movements, like how Mom opened our last two games: All Out Assault, which lets you order every unit you have. Yeah, sweet initial draw, right? For the record, I still won the second of those games.

You win the game by being the first player to capture six flags — each unit has one, as does each general, and it’s the last piece of the unit to fall.

Battle Cry is a fun two-player game, balancing the strategy of battle with the luck of the draw and the dice, and providing an accompanying history lesson for each map you play.

Tower of Hell

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.

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