Do you want Codenames?

Your answer should be yes. Codenames is a fun strategy game that can play with two or more players. If you have two or three players, you are on the same team; it is a cooperative race against the clock to have your teammates guess the locations of your team’s Secret Agents.Codenames

If you are playing more than three players, you split into two teams. One person on each team is the Spymaster (just like in 2-3 player). They pick a key card at random, placing it between both Spymasters. It shows placements in the array of random cards that are the names they need you to guess correctly.

As Spymaster, you give a 1-word clue and a number of your team’s Codenames that it applies to. They can guess that many Codenames, one at a time, plus one extra (to make up for ones they couldn’t find on previous turns), until they either run out of guesses or find a Codename that doesn’t belong to their team.

There are four teams that you could find a Codename for.

Your team: place one of your team’s tiles on top of the Codename card.

Other team: place one of their team’s tiles on top of the Codename card. This acts as a point for their team.

Innocent Bystander: place an Innocent Bystander tile on top of the Codename card. This does nothing, it simply shows that the Codename has been guessed.

Assassin: Whichever team found the assassin automatically loses. Game over.

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Are you going to Ninja Camp?

In Ninja Camp, you are all students, going through the training course and collecting points. Avoid walls and traps while earning points and messing up the other players!Ninja Camp

When you can’t find any legitimate moves to make, you must Pass, at which point you are out of the game. Even though you are out, you leave your pieces on the board, right where you last had them. Now that you are out, these pieces serve as obstacles. Count up how many points you have by counting the point  value on each card in your discard and hand.

It doesn’t matter who is the last one standing. Whoever has the most points wins! They get personal training from the Sensei!

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Are you in a Rushi?

Rushi is a very basic strategy game, and yet, a very challenging one. In it, you have a six column board and seven pieces. You put one on of your pieces on each of the assigned spaces in the row right in front of you, keeping one in your hand. Each turn, you may either place that tile where another tile is pointing, then remove the pointing tile, or swap tiles with one of yours already on the board.Rushi

This seems like a simple concept, but I assure you, it will keep you entertained for hours. You score by getting a piece to the other player’s side of the board. Once it gets there, it gets flipped facedown and stays there for the rest of the game. You win by getting all of your pieces to the other player’s side of the board.

This game runs a little longer than the standard wait time for food at a sit-down restaurant, assuming the restaurant is mostly empty. Definitely not for playing at a fast food restaurant! You also want to play it in good lighting, as the colors are very similar shades of green and blue.

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Don’t Blink!

Literally. If you blink, you might lose! In Blink, you all have an equal amount of cards. You can have 3 cards in hand at once. You are trying to match the card in the middle. This is a speed game. You are not waiting on the other player unless you cannot match the card in the middle. You can match by color, shape, or number. You win by finishing all of your cards before the other player.Blink

This is actually a really convenient game for waiting at restaurants, even fast food places. Shuffle, split the deck, play, put away, all in the time it takes for your food to arrive. The best part is, you don’t have to talk. You could be playing with someone who doesn’t speak English and still be able to play with them.

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Schrödinger’s Cats

Schrödinger’s Cats is a small card game with a lot of betting and (go figure!) cats. You are betting how many boxes (cards in the round) have dead cats, alive cats, or nothing at all! You are all Cat Physicists, trying to prove that you are right about the statistics.Schrödinger's Cats

It is an elimination game, so each round one player gets out until the next game. If there are 5 players, you each start with 5 cards. Then the next round 4, then 3, etc., until there are only 2 players with 2 cards each.

The Cat Physicists all have names and powers (unrelated to the name). Some names are Sir Isaac Mewton, Stephen Pawking, Albert Felinestein, and Madame Purrie. The powers include skipping your hypothesis (bet) for one turn, adding 1 empty box to the findings, and using a power someone else has already used this game.

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You Have To Babysit Lil’ Cthulhu!

Lil’ Cthulhu is another Kickstarter game. You are cultists of Cthulhu, and he has given you a challenging task: babysitting his young son, Lil’ Cthulhu. And you thought his Dad was bad!Lil' Cthulhu

You make toys for Lil’ Cthulhu, play Dark Toys to foil with other cultists, and endure many a Tantrum from the Lil’ Brat himself. I enjoy playing this with a plush Cthulhu to play out the Tantrums. One particular time, the title of a Tantrum card referenced “My Father”, as in, Cthulhu. My plush acted this out well:

Lil’ Cthulhu (as acted by my plush) “I’m telling my Daddy!”

Me: “Shut up, Malfoy.”

I have only played against Mom, winning twice out of three times. There are two ways to win: be the last with sanity or make Lil’ Cthulhu’s three current favorite toys (picked at random from the deck of 6).

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Windycon 43: King of the Nerds

Alas, another Windycon has come and gone. During this convention, I played Munchkin Cthulhu and Machi Koro (to name a few), went to The Melting Pot (mmm…), met a brilliant artist named Juan Carlos Martinez and bought yet another Cheryl Storm dragon (go figure)!WindyCon 2016 - MJachi Koro, Morse Code, Teletype machine

Let’s start with Juan: he makes flowers and others cool trinkets out of coins! One piece he was selling was a dalek! The coolest part was you could actually turn the dalek’s head, thanks to a magnet inside.

The charity this year was Save-a-Vet, where they rescue veteran dogs that can’t be adopted (due to trauma, having been trained to kill, or possibly having killed). Then they buy a house for the dog and hire a disabled veteran to live with the dog. Yes, it’s the dog’s house. If the dog wants to sleep in the sink, it will. In return, the veteran lives there rent-free. I bought a t-shirt to support the cause. (A $20 T-shirt, in camo colors, to be exact.)

I, as usual, did Critter Crunch. I, as usual, drove the Spider. I also drove Army Tank, which has a rotating turret. There are little buttons on the controller that “fire” the two separate guns. (Firing is a little LED light flashing red and making noise.) I, as usual, got lots of cool swag, including a toy dragon!

I spent some time with W9W, a group with a Morse Code set and a teletype machine. I got to try out both!

Most importantly, I had fun and socialized with people. After all, isn’t that what the con is all about?

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I’m A Chrononaut!!!

Want to film the Creation of the Universe? Want to go to the future and bring back a cure for cancer (in easy-to-swallow pill form)? Now you can, in Chrononauts!Chrononauts

Everyone has an ID with a timeline containing 3 things that either need to be changed or need to stay true in history. For instance, in 1939, instead of World War 2 initiating, fair-goers could enjoy German cake! You also have a mission involving what artifacts you want, like the Shakespeare’s Last Play. These are how you win. (There’s also the evil giant cockroach that wants the world to explode, which happens if there are 13 unpatched paradoxes).

Rewrite history and collect artifacts to make the world a better place (or, you know, to win)!

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English Lesson: The English word “chrononaut” comes from the prefix “chrono”, meaning “time”, like in chronological, and the suffix “naut”, meaning “traveler”, like in astronaut. Thus, “chrononaut” means “time traveler”.

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Gamehole Con

Last weekend I went to Gamehole Con, a convention hosting our own smaller convention: Dorkstock. Dorkstock is John Kovalic’s convention, one I’m proud to say my mother is occasionally the con chair of.

My mother ran multiple games, including Chez Geek, Camden, and Unspeakable Words. No, no cussing involved. I promise.Dorkstock 2016

I encountered Looney Labs again. With them, I played assorted Pyramid Games, Fluxx, Chrononauts, and Mad Libs! I also got free cake (it was Andy Looney’s birthday), a little plush flower, a Pink Hijinks set (Pink Hijinks is a Pyramid Game), and a special Fluxx card.

Pyramids, Munchkin bookmarks, and Dorkstock bannerOver the weekend I also played Munchkin, and ran a game of Munchkin Oz. One guy brought in prototype games and we played them. I thought it was great and look forward to seeing them published.

Dad and I did Paint N’ Take. Paint N’ Take is an event where you grab a figurine, paint it, leave it to dry, then come back and take it home. It’s really fun!

 

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I’m Shipwrecked!

Shipwrecked is yet another John Kovalic-illustrated game. You are bidding on resources for your character. The truth is it doesn’t much matter!  Only the resource type, the point value, the income, and the normal value matter. You win by having 100 points in one resource type or 150 points overall.Shipwrecked

Some resources you can bid on are coconut milk (drink), fruit (food), treehouse (housing), lean-to (housing), pet cricket (pet… not food!), parrot (pet) and more!  The price starts at 5 and works down by 1 in each round of bidding.

I think the best part of this game is either the illustrations or the role-playing. In one game, I lived in a treehouse drinking my coconut milk, with a lean-to at the base of my tree for my pet cricket and parrot.

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