Gaming Friday Plus
Quick games rundown:
Gaming Friday started with three rounds of a Kickstarted werewolf/mafia variant called Fox & Chicken. Round one was with standard rules, rounds two and three had some players with special abilities. It went as well as I could have expected. I’m ordinarily not a fan of purely sociopolitical games because they require a skill I don’t have: convincing people of things. And they’re so random. For example, if you go two games without someone suspecting you, then someone does in the third, defending yourself looks suspicious because you’re suddenly insisting on your innocence a lot more than normal. Others view this as an interesting challenge, and the entire point. I just find it frustrating.
I came in third in the seven-player 7 Wonders game that followed, behind the 2nd place player by about 3, who was in turn about 10 points behind the winner. I had a ton of pure VP blue cards, which worked well enough, but I had no second focus. A single late-game military card gained me 10 VP off my defenseless neighbors, but that wasn’t enough boost. The winner went full military and supplemented with, I think, lots of VP-granting market and guild cards. I’m still unclear how she got so many points out of that. Military in particular is an unstable and limited source of points. It’s worth 18 points maximum; worse, it’s worth significantly less if you play too few cards and nothing extra if you play too many.
Today was another game industry board game night at PopCap’s main office. I got there late and only played one game, but it was a good one: Fish Cook (a.k.a. “Yum Yum Super Fish Delicious!”) It’s one of the new round of designs from the re-invigorated Cheapass Games company, and I’ve been looking forward to it since I heard it was in early playtest. Players take the roles of sushi restaurant operators. Every day they take turns buying ingredients off a varying market until something runs out, then at night they cook what they can with the ingredients they bought. Cooking your own recipes gives you bonus money. Cooking other players’ recipes gives them a small payment but may also let you steal it. Whoever makes the most money in five days wins.
The Steam summer sale hasn’t drained my wallet too too much. So far I’ve only picked up:
- The Binding of Isaac
- Endless Space
- Farming Simulator 2013 (yes, really...more on that later)
- Hotline Miami
- Mark of the Ninja
Oh, and my Kickstarter pre-order dice for Castle Dice arrived, but it'll be a couple of weeks before anyone will have time to play it.