Chateau Roquefort!

Salut! Château Roquefort is a wonderful game full of twists and turns where a bunch of competitive mice split into teams of 4 and race to get 4 pieces of cheese. There is, however, a catch. The rooftops they’re running on are shifting under them! They risk falling into a mouse trap!

Château Roquefort

The roof tiles are only uncovered when the mouse is on that tile, so these blissfully oblivious rodents with unusually small man-made brains* could be set up to fall in a hole! The rules with the cheeses are that each mouse team may only have 1 of each type of cheese. On your turn you may choose to push the blocks once as one of your 4 moves.

When you push blocks, you take the spare piece and push a row. This pushes all the blanks, mouse traps, and cheeses in that row. Otherwise you could use 4 moves to move and uncover roofs. Once you are done with your turn, if there are unoccupied, uncovered roofs they get recovered.

Château Roquefort is the rodent equivalent of the Hunger Games, but with official teams, not just a “You don’t kill me, I don’t kill you” scenario. Instead of finding weapons, you are searching for cheese, for the 1 with 4 cheeses rules them all!  (So long as they don’t cut their cheeses,)

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*I’m not sure whether they actually made brains in the mice, but wouldn’t it be cool? Besides, it’s a cute jumble of words, right?

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Would You Use Snake Oil?

Snake Oil Elixir is a game kind of like Apples To Apples, but with a few changes. For instance, instead of choosing a random adjective as the subject, you get to pick between 2 “customers”. The other players then chose 2 of their cards which they put together to make a product for you. They throw a sales pitch and you chose which you think would be better.Snake Oil

Choosing has a few options. You could be practical, but where’s the fun in that? I know people who vote for the most random, crazy thing possible. I personally go for the most wild, crazy, but distantly relative choice.

The person who wins the round gets the Customer card. The person to the left of the previous Customer gets to be the new Customer. The process repeats until everybody has been the Customer. Then the person with the most Customer Cards wins, unless there’s a tie, in which case you keep playing. In both games we played my mother won.

I like this game because you stretch the boundaries of reality to make the most ridiculous, odd and amusing inventions to please our customers. Of course, its nothing I can’t handle as I effectively do that every time I write fiction. Some things we came up with included Fairy Pickles and Pearl Musket. One thing to note is the more people, the better the game play is.

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Free Comic Book Day!

Everyone needs free comic books, right? Whether or not that is true, Free Comic Book Day is now an international holiday as of 15 years ago and is celebrated on the first Saturday in May! To celebrate the holiday, Mom and I went to a local comic book store and got 3 free comic books each. They had a whole selection of comic books to chose from!Free Comic Book Day 2016

This holiday is useful for comic book stores, as it attracts people who might want one of the other comic books or small trinkets like keychains. I may have picked up a mystery package with Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas (which, as you may recall, has its own dedicated version of Munchkin that I wrote about). *Smiles Sweetly* But I’m getting off topic, so let’s get back to comic books.

I love this holiday because we help local stores get publicity and money. Okay, okay, I love this holiday because we get lots of free comic books. I chose 2016 Summer Blast, which has a bunch of random little comics in it, Comics Lab seems similar, and Science Comics has 2 comics that are about coral reefs and volcanoes. Mom chose Archie, which has been totally modernized, Legend of Korra, which also features How To Train Your Dragon and Plants vs. Zombies comics, and Serenity, which is clearly about Firefly.

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Which Dojo will Win?

This is about one of the most epic battles of all time; a view into the 15th century; a mystery left unsolved: this week I present to you, Ninja versus Ninja! It was published in 2008 by Out Of The Box Publishing. In Ninja versus Ninja you start with your master at 0, as he scores points, and your spy at 0, as he keeps track of how many points each mission could potentially reward you.

Ninja vs. NinjaThe slightly shaded spots on the board show where the ninjas start at the beginning of the game. Each turn you roll the pair of swords for your movement roll. Then you may move any one ninja that amount of spaces, allowing only one 90 degree turn in your movement unless you are in the opponent’s dojo. If you are, you may have one move that turns him back towards you (a reversal) and a 90 degree turn.

You may only have one ninja in either the opponent’s base or in the neutral zone at once. Once they have left your dojo, they have two more turns to return to the dojo or they will be taken out of the game and their points will not be scored. The same consequences awaits any ninjas that are taken during their mission. You can take a ninja by landing on a ninja from the opposing dojo, but you must end your turn on him, not just pause there and then keep going. When you take a ninja it gets set aside for the rest of the game.

I like this game because it is mainly about logic and fun*.

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*Of course, what games aren’t about fun?

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Felicia Day is in town!

Today I met Felicia Day who I was first introduced to through TableTop, which I may have mentioned once or twice before. She was signing her new book at a local book store and there were over 400 people in line to get a copy signed. Lucky for us, my mother went ahead and signed up as soon as possible, so we were only number 32. Felicia Day, You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)

We met a few people, and because we got there early, we ended up standing around, staring at books. Oh, the horrors, right? It helps that my inevitable interest in books was added to the fact that I am an only child. I love books. It helps that at stuff like this and the recent Brandon Sanderson signing we get meet other geeks.

I am looking forward to reading Felicia’s book You’re Never Weird on the Internet [Almost].

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Can you build Machi Koro?

In Machi Koro you build a town, starting with only a Wheat Field and a Bakery. Buy Establishments and build your landmarks, roll dice to activate Establishment-related events to get more money. Some Establishments include The Forest, The Fruit and Vegetable Stand, and the Furniture Factory.

Machi Koro

I got this game for Christmas from my cousins. It was sort of funny, as we had gotten them the same thing. I enjoyed it because it is a good balance between logic and luck. Of course, Dad won, just like with most logic games. Such a surprise! Oh, wait….

There is also a fine balance, as you have to buy Establishments to get money, but don’t want to spend it all, because then you don’t have enough to buy the Landmarks, which you need to win. There are 4 different types of Establishments, which are color-coded.  The red ones allow you to steal money from other players when they roll the number of that card. The blue ones are activated on anybody’s turn, and the green and purple ones are only on your turn.

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Continue reading Can you build Machi Koro?

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In a Fluxx?

There is a wonderful game called Fluxx. It is a Looney Labs game (click here to see my previous post). In Fluxx, the rules are always changing. I like this game because of that fact, though my grandmother found it a bit confusing. I don’t remember when and where I first tried Fluxx, but it might have been because of the numerous Fluxx decks we have floating around the game closet (a.k.a. the Ultimate Closet of Doom, or UCD).

Fluxx 3.0

There are several variations of Fluxx, including but not limited to: Monster Fluxx, Zombie Fluxx, Pirate Fluxx, Fluxx 3.0, Fluxx 2.1, Cthulhu Fluxx, and Wizard of Oz Fluxx. The version we played this time is Fluxx 3.0. That’s a lot of Fluxx!

There are different types of cards. Keepers like The Robot are played to help achieve Goals like The Appliances, which requires The Toaster and The Television. Actions like Draw 2 and Use ‘Em are played to either mess up the other person or get you closer to winning(or both!). New Rules such as Hand Limit 1 make it tougher to win for both players. There are also other cards like Creepers and Surprises in other decks.

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Brass Balls and Nerves of Steel

What has brass balls and nerves of steel? If you guessed a board game, you guessed right! Okay, Iron Man might have them too, but that’s besides the point. Anyway, Brass Balls and Nerves of Steel is a board game where you are rolling little metal balls across a three-by-three grid with small holes for the metal balls to fall in. Sounds tough, eh? Wait until you hear the spin-off options!Brass Balls and Nerves of Steel

In the original the scoring is based off of the rows. The farthest row from you is 3 points, the middle row is 2 points, and the row closest to you is 1 point. Included in the instructions are 4 possible spin-off options. These include games such as Tic Tac Toe and Four Corners. I like this game because it is a challenging, hand-eye coordination game in which you rely on a little metal ball. Okay, 6 little metal balls, but still….

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Please the Kodama!

I played a brand-new Kickstarter called Kodama today. In Kodama, you are attempting to please the Kodama, or tree spirits. You are helping grow a tree with the specific aspects that each Kodama in your hand wants. There are special point values for each of the cards.In this game there are 3 seasons, in each of which you will please a Kodama.Kodama

I liked this game because it was about pleasing tree spirits, so it covered two of my favorite subjects: the pleasing part reminds me of having pets and the tree spirits link this game with nature. This game has you growing a tree for the specific Kodama who want to hang out in the tree. The different things they want include caterpillars, fireflies, flowers, clouds, stars, and mushrooms.

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Checkmate!

This post is for all those chess fans out there. I first learned chess in a simple way: I found an old chess board in the game closet and my dad taught me how to play. This newfound interest in the strategic board game led to my enrollment in the after school chess club, where I learned even more, like forks and pins.Chess

I learned the point values of the pieces (when you play at home the points don’t matter, you win or you don’t) and received several chess key chains to add to my wonderful collection. I also learned en-passant at a gaming party some of our friends hosted.

The picture is actually from one of the times my dad and I played chess together and the board itself is of sentimental value. You see, my father actually made that board for a school project. There’s the wooden box and board, which he didn’t actually finish putting the wood finish on, and the pieces are homemade out of acrylic resin.

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