And the only cure is more board games!
Called in sick yesterday. Nothing was really happening anyway. Spent the majority of the day (about 10 hours) playing board games with my buddy Will. It was fantastic. Haven't had a marathon boardgaming session like that in a long time. We both got to play stuff that's been languishing in the closet for some time as well as some new stuff.
Gheos: I've played this several times, but it was a first for Will. I'm really enjoying this one. Very simple and very fast, but good theming and some fun mechanics. And some pretty direct conflict. Nothing feels better than wiping a civilization off the board that your opponent had 4 followers in and you had none. Good mix of luck and strategy. I don't think that the 2 player game is ideal, but it works. 3 or 4 would be preferred. Will won this one, with a strong play in the endgame.
Clout: Goofy game where you toss poker chips (with bases, actions, troops and relics printed on them) onto a surface to fight a battle. Dexterity plays a big a role as anything. We both agreed that it would have been more fun if it hadn't been a collectible game and the rules weren't so convoluted with 25 different special abilities. Still, totally worth the $2 I spent at the game auction to get it. I took this one with some lucky throws.
Mr. Jack: A very nice 2 player in which one player is Jack the Ripper and the other is trying to catch him. Even though it seems like a deduction game, as you eliminate suspects and make an accusation, it's much more heavily focused on the tactical movements on the board. I was impressed with the components in this one, since it looked kind of cheap from the images that I'd seen. It's actually very nicely produced. We played two games, each taking a turn on each side. I won both games. Keeping in the light is much easier, even though it means that Jack can't escape.
Factory Fun: Essentially a multiplayer puzzle game in the vein of Ricochet Robot. I had a lot of fun with this one. Trying to somehow cram all of the different machines, pipes and outputs onto the factory floor is quite engaging. Played this one 3 times. 2-1 in my favor.
Blue Moon City: Rebuilding the city in the aftermath of the events of the Blue Moon card game. Basically, you move from building site to building site, playing cards to construct the building. When the building is completed everybody involved gets rewarded, with the person who did the most getting a bonus. Then the winner is determined by the same mechanic on a central building. Played well. Like some of the other games we played, it will probably work better with 3 or 4. Will won this one handily.
Doom: A boardgame based on the once popular video game. While it is a giant mess with all kinds of tiles, counters, plastic figures, reference sheets and wacky dice, it actually works pretty well. We both agreed that it felt more like a dungeon crawl than a video game, but still enjoyable. I guess Descent is based on this same system. That would be interesting to see. Will's marine was able to essentially race through the map (having drawn some great movement abilities at the outset) to get the BFG, and then cleared the way to the exit with that.
Also, we squeezed a couple vs. games of a Nintendo DS game, Elite Beat Agents, in there somewhere. That was a lot of fun even though I got my ass kicked. We took a look at Shear Panic, but the 2 player variant rules were just too complicated.
So that was the day of boardgames. It was a lot of fun. Wish we could do it more often.
