Author: ctrlalttabby@comcast.net

Shut The Box!

Shut the Box is a traditional English pub game. Unlike some pub games, it is family friendly and unrealistically easy. I marked this as a quick game, but that doesn’t at all describe it. With 2 players, this game takes 3 minutes. It is wonderful to play with your family, because you can sit down and it will fit most time constraints. It is especially great to play when you have a purring cat next to you. (Errr… might have tried that. What can I say? She was sleeping next to our chosen game board.)Shut-the-box

This game works with any amount of players, making it great for parties or being by yourself. In Shut the Box, you roll the dice. Then you flip down any one set of numbers that you can add to make the sum found on your dice. You continue your turn until you cannot flip anything to make that exact sum. Then you add up the remaining numbers. This is your score. You proceed to reset and the next person goes. This process repeats until everyone has gone. Then the person with the lowest score wins. If anyone successfully flips down all the numbers, they shut the box and automatically win the game. Yep, that’s it. The entire game. No, seriously, that’s it. Yep.

This is just one variation of the ways it can be played. See here for more.

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Sales in Camden!

Camden is a wonderful game, illustrated by John Kovalic, who might have also illustrated oh, I don’t know… Munchkin? *grins* You’re all business owners with a dream and 10 pounds. No, I don’t mean you’re extremely light. Camden is actually a market area in Britain. Thus I mean the British currency: pounds.Camden

First, chose your colour. I mean color. Or is it colour? Blasted American English against the original English. It’s messing up my spelling! First, there’s player A. Player A is the red token and specializes in clothes sales. Player B is my favourite, and is yellow and selling food. Player C is green, selling a large variety of antiques and random debris. Last is Player D, who is blue and sells comics and books.

Each turn, you will collect income based of the number of entrances to your shop, draw a tile, search for and initiate special effects, place the tile, and then if it meets your fancy, purchase another shop. The first person to reach 50 pounds wins.

Special effects vary, and they’re not always set off. If the letter on the tile matches your player letter, the sign around the letter kicks a special effect into order. The first special effect is basic: Fire. It burns down the largest shop and any shop sharing the tile with it. The second special effect is the Bobby. The police come and empty the largest shop. The final one is the least devastating: Holiday. Every player gets their income’s worth right then and there.

This is a wonderful, reasonably simple game. And has hit my favourites list. Or is it favorite? Or…

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7th Sea

7th Sea is a Role-Playing Game, or RPG. In RPGs, you make a character, background, and how good they are in what traits. It’s strange and bold, like many gamers, but it’s also an art, in a way. It takes the perfect balance of brawn, wits, finesse, panache, and resolve to make the perfect character.7th Sea character sheet

The perfect character doesn’t mean the fearless, invincible one. The perfect character is the one who’s traits, skills, advantages and disadvantages all fit the center of it all: the story you gave them. Note: when I say this, I don’t mean to say they have to be weak or a coward, I’m merely saying the carrot can’t scare the rabbit. However, I am also saying that the carrot can’t be afraid of the dirt.

I’ve found one way to make a strong character is to start with the background and base everything off of that rock you’ve placed. The moss, the bacteria, the lichen, and even the ants underneath all need the rock. My father, on the other hand, has a certain talent for messing up the GM’s (Game Master’s) plans. He makes his character by making an idea of the character concept, then looking at the traits, skills, advantages and disadvantages. He chooses the species of moss, the type of bacteria, the variety of lichen, and the type of ant. Then he uses those to choose the rock’s shape, size, and color.

Everyone has a different way of making their character. Feel free to comment me yours!

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The Concert of a Lifetime!

Last Saturday, I did something phenomenal; something extraordinary; and most importantly: something super geeky! On Saturday, I did something I never thought I would have the pleasure of doing… I went to a live Weird Al concert!Weird Al concert

This was also my first concert that wasn’t Cheshire Moon. Unlike the small events they have, the Weird Al concert had rows upon rows upon rows of people attending. It was, I will admit, a tad intimidating. Just to clarify: I have nothing against the small concerts or the big concerts as they both have their pros and cons.

Weird Al sang a handful of the songs through to the end, but a lot of the concert was medleys of different songs. I would have loved it if he had sung more of the Spider-Man parody of Piano Man. My favorite of the songs that night was by far the one about Anakin Skywalker.

As you see, I had a blast at the Weird Al concert. Did you know Weird Al is weird?

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Firefly!… Fluxx?

Do you like the show Firefly? Do you like the card game Fluxx? Then this game is for you: the one and only… Firefly Fluxx!Firefly Fluxx

The Keepers have changed: Instead of Time, and Death, and Chocolate, they have Firefly Keepers: Kaylee Frye and Jayne Cobb. Therefore the Goals are also very different: Instead of Rocket to the Moon, where you need the Rocket and the Moon, they have Goals like The Tam Siblings: you need River Tam and Simon Tam. The New Rules and Actions are similar to the original… they just renamed some of them.

This variation also brings with it a less welcome change: Creepers. Creepers are cards like Reavers. You can’t win with them unless specific conditions say otherwise. There are some Goals that include Creepers as part of the winning criteria… for instance: the Crazy Ivan Maneuver requires Serenity and Reavers. Besides these special Goals, getting rid of a Creeper is particularly difficult.

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Off To Tokaido!

Tokaido is a beautiful game about Japan. In Tokaido, you are a traveler. You are walking across the board, stopping for cash and enjoyment along the way. The happier you are, the more points you get at the end. So let’s start that vacation!Tokaido

On the board, there are 5 inns. You must stop at each inn. Movement is simple… the person in the back moves anywhere up to the next inn. When you reach an inn, you look at that round’s meal cards (number of players + 1) and chose one if you can afford it. The only rule about which one you pick is you can’t have already had one. Each character tile has a special power. My character’s power was I could draw the top card of the meal deck and get it for free. This is because my character was the orphan.

In between inns, there are many places you can visit. There are the hot springs, where you draw a card and receive points. There are also panorama spots, where you take a break to paint a part of one of 3 panoramas.  There’s the farm, where you get some money, or the encounter space, where you draw an encounter card. You can donate money to the temple. Last but not least, you can purchase some souvenirs! Draw the top 3 and pick whichever ones you can afford.

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Fighting with Bullfrogs

Bullfrogs is a fun strategic game. In Bullfrogs, you have little frogs and lily pad cards. You play one lily pad card at the start of your turn. You aren’t competing over the cards, each color frog gets their own deck. You play the card adjacent to at least one other lily pad. Bullfrogs

The amount of moves per turn you get depends on the card you play. The less lily pad spaces on the card, the more turns you get. The lily pad spaces and the turns will add up to 7. When you put the card down, there should be a row of lily pad cards or 2 rows you can manipulate. They have to be in a straight row (like Rooks move in Chess). Any card in this row is a card you can affect.

There are 2 move options for your turn: place a frog or sabotage. When you place a frog you choose any lily pad card in your straight rows except the card you just placed. You may place up to 2 frogs on each lily pad card. There are also 2 types of frogs: Frogs and Bullfrogs.

Sabotaging has the same range as placing a frog. You may choose an opponent’s frog and move it one space to any adjacent lily pad card (adjacent to where it was, not adjacent to you.)

If a lily pad is full, frog wars break out. First, find out how many fighing points each person has. Frogs are 1 point, Bullfrogs are 2 points. The team who wins gets the points from the card.

When the battle is over, the lily pad sinks. The losing team evacuates first. The winning player decides which adjacent space the frogs move to. This is the order they evacuate: loser’s frogs, loser’s bullfrogs, winner’s frogs, and then finally winner’s bullfrogs. If they cannot evacuate, they sink with it. If a frog sinks, it comes back and gets reused. If a bullfrog sinks, it is out of the game. At the end of the game, you count up points. The frogs and cards are worth different amounts of points, depending on the criteria.

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Bank It!

If you really want that bike, save up money and Bank It! Bank It is a game where you are trying to get ten dollars in your bank account. First, however, you have to purchase something from each of the 4 stores (Pizza Palace, Barnes and Books, Toy Store, Sports Corner) and donate to a charity.Bank It

The most common spot on the board is one of the most important. It is the Bank It spot, and it is how you can get money consistently. Each Bank It card will have a different amount of money for you. Will you get $1.50 for chores… Or will you get $0.25 for Flower Power?

One of the worst encounters is with the Do You Have It space. This appears twice on the board.  Depending on which one you land on, you either break a window or buy a gift. Either way, you drop $0.50 on the ground.

There are many things to get. That Novel you’ve always wanted to read, that Stuffed Toy that’s oh so cute, that juice that looks so delicious, and that baseball bat you believe could withstand anything. Or maybe you want that printer, or that ooey gooey slice of extra cheese pizza, or that irresistible board game. Who knows? Find out for yourself in Bank It!

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Total Knock Out!

TKO is a Kickstarter that came with Fly (which I wrote about) and everything else in that Pack O’ Game. TKO is, of course, a boxing game. Be warned: there is humor to be found in a game with characters with names like Barry Punch and Will Bleed.TKO

TKO is a game where both players simultaneously pick one of 4 moves: uppercut, body blow, head block and body block. Each area starts at a different point level depending on the character. Then comes the scoring.

Here’s where things get tricky. If one person hits and the other blocks, but blocks the wrong section, the person who hit gets a point on that specific section. If one person hits and the other blocks it, that block earns a point for the person who blocked. Two punches to the same area cancel each other out, and two punches to different areas then both score.

Each round ends when someone has 5 points on a skill. When a round ends the winner gets the round token. Whoever has the most victories after 2 rounds wins, or if it is a tie, they play a third round. The winner gets the TKO Champion card!

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Touring Arkham

Today, I went to my first LARP (Live Action Role-Playing game). It was with a bunch of my mother’s LARP friends. We were playing Arkham on 5 Sanity Points a Day, a Cthulhu/eldritch-themed game. To go with the theme, I arrived with my Cthulhu schoolbag filled with 2 folders, a notebook, and a giant plush Necronomicon. Everyone loves the Necronomicon. It’s so cute!Cthulhu props - Cthulhu messenger bag and plush Necronomicon

When I was given the blurb about what to expect, my brain materialized an assumption: lunch was going to be at Pupusita Express and therefore be yummy; I would recognize some of the people there; and the LARP was going to be fun/weird/creepy/scare-your-pants-off-fandom, so I prepared myself… I wore shorts instead of pants.

When we got there, we were given instructions and a choice between characters. I ended up with Jackie Meadows, the hyperactive ten year old kid. So tough to play, right? Everyone joked it was typecasting.

I read my character sheet. Jackie was so skinny, hitting something wouldn’t do damage, so my special fighting ability was I could curl up on the floor and say, “I’m hiding, you can’t see me,” and they couldn’t see, touch, or harm me. However, in that maneuver, I wasn’t allowed to move or make any noise except childish whimpering. Humph.

My character also couldn’t resist lying. She would add a touch of exaggeration to everything she said. That was fun!

Jackie had a puppy, named Killer. He was so small she carried him everywhere. He was a Doberman, but since Jackie told tall tales, I told everyone he was part werewolf. Ha!

Everywhere we went there were “souvenirs”. Someone handed me a toy gun. I also received a plate. At one point we went somewhere and they confiscated Killer! I walked past the table, then told the people helping with the game what I was going to do. As I walked past I retrieved my dog. My puppy!

I love LARPs.

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