cellio | game night

Last night we attended a gaming night, hosted by Char and Cara, in honor of Char's birthday. It was a fun (though late-running) get-together.

After a tasty dinner of vegetarian pad thai, we determined that seven is the pesimal number of players for pretty much every game present that met the "finish before 1am" rule. So we split into two groups, with some migration over the course of the evening.

I played a game that was new to me, though Johan had last played it 25 years ago, called "Wabbit Wampage". It's the farmer against the rabbits, with cartoon physics and a steady supply of stuff from ACME. It was quite a bit of fun, and I'm told that the occasional comment that escaped our table provided entertainment for the folks at the other table:

"It's duck season, and I have a shotgun."
"Oh look! My thermonuclear device just arrived!"
"I have a chainsaw and I'm not afraid to use it. Die, chicken!"
"Hey, you stole my carrots!"
"My rabbit puts on the jet pack, hovers over the road, and fires the cannon."

The folks at the other table were playing a new game called Nano-Fictionary. (We actually bought it as a present for Char, but he didn't get to play it last night.) It appears to be similar to Once Upon a Time, except that instead of telling one collaborative story, you're each building up your own. (Players then vote on which is the best.) I hate Once Upon a Time, because I'm too slow (let alone being slow and un-clever simultaneously), but Nano-Fictionary looks like a game I could enjoy. Maybe we'll pick up a copy for ourselves, though the $17 price tag for a card game is a little irksome.

I also played a game along the lines of Fox and Geese (smaller board, three hunters instead of a dozen, and the hunters are never allowed to move backwards). It's deceptive; it looks easier than it is. It boils down to figuring out how to set the parity in the first couple moves, but I couldn't quite get the hang of it no matter which position I played. I'm not very good at those.

I also played a bizarre game, played on a Go board, that Char called "Philosopher's Football". (I don't know where this comes from.) One white piece starts in the center; this is the ball. Two players are each trying to move it to opposite sides. On your turn you can either place a black stone (anywhere) or move the ball. The ball moves by jumping black stones -- and you remove the stones it jumps over. My tentative conclusion, having played once and watched once, is that the first person to move the ball loses. But my sample size is small; it might just be that Char (the winner in both games) is very good.

The evening ended with a train game (name forgotten) that Johan had brought, along with half a dozen custom maps. The flavor is sort of like EuroRails et al, but much simpler -- you lay your track until all cities are connected by someone, and then you roll dice to choose pairs of cities and award points based on who can make the resulting run most quickly. Last night's game was played on a map of Scotland; Johan had half a dozen others, one or two of which he designed. I'd like to play on some of them sometime.

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eub.livejournal.com

I think John Conway is responsible for Philosopher's Football, so if you can find a copy of Winning Ways it might have some discussion.

tangerinpenguin.livejournal.com

There's an interesting twist to the way Nanofictionary's scored that I'm not sure what I think of, which is that the strategically-minded could start getting game-theoretic about the voting. That is, intentionally voting "up" someone they expected to otherwise do poorly and voting "down" someone they felt would otherwise get a lot of points, rather than working from which story they actually felt was strongest. I didn't notice that happening Monday (or if it was, it wasn't happening much). The "juror's two cents" from "innocent bystanders" which we weren't using would help mitigate that, but I'm not sure how much.

Of course, that's also the sort of game where the actual gameplay counts (or ought to count) a lot more than the scoring - but then, that's the way I feel about most games.

lefkowitzga.livejournal.com

I wouldn't spend an additional $17 if Char can come to whatever party you want to play at. :) Actually, it would probably be more fun to create a version of your own. I found that after playing 4-5 hands I was getting tired of the same characters, so it might be fun to print card stock pieces that could customized - include friends, enemies, or local politicians!

RE: strategy, I hadn't thought of Chris's idea of voting 'down' other peoples' good stories. We weren't keeping score between hands, so affecting others in this way didn't occur to me. I would have to look at the rules to see how they suggest you vote in order to see if this fits with the goals of the game.