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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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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