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Hypermind BoardGame Night - October 2007
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They say 'tis October, and that autumn has arrived. Of course, with 90-degree weather and practically no rain for months, it might as well still be August around here. So how, pray tell, can we be sure that Halloween truly approacheth? Simple - 'cause the Hypermind Boardgamers have pulled out all the spooooky games! Join me again as I chronicle our weekly boardgame nights!
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Posted On: 2007-10-07 22:37:59
Edited On: 2007-10-08 13:20:33
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It's been 8 months since we started up the Hypermind BoardGamers, and you can go here to see the rundown of the whole thing. It's also a good place to bookmark to find future updates and new Glogs! |
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Posted On: 2007-10-07 21:31:56
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We really wanted to pick a Halloween-related game for the Game of the Month! in October. We thought about Arkham Horror or Fury of Dracula, but for a weeknight game night we though that both of them would be too long to play every week. And since pretty much every other horror-themed game that we have access to sucks, we decided to go with Betrayal at House on the Hill. I've played this a handful of times before, and I really like the cooperative and exploration elements of the game, plus the fact that you don't know how to win (or lose) before the haunt happens. I hope it works out... |
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Posted On: 2007-10-07 22:07:29
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October 2, 2007
We kicked off October with a pair of "horror"-themed games, beginning with the decidely depressing novelty card game, Gloom. Chris taught Chip, Zack, and me to play, then we got down to business trying to make our families as miserable as possible and then kill them in sad and humiliating ways.
I should have killed one other character on what ended up being the last turn (I could have tied for the lead), but I thought I would have one more chance to play. As it was, Chip proved most adept at bringing misery and death.
Time: 35 minutes
Score: Chip -65, Zack -55, Chris -40, Me -40
Ratings: Chip 6, Zack 7, Chris 7, Me 6
Gloom is a pretty entertaining little game. The plastic cards are pretty unique, and the names, pictures, and flavor text on them are downright hillarious. While not very heavy or anything, it's definitely a nice little game if you appreciate dark humor.
From there, we went on to our Game of the Month! for October, Betrayal at House on the Hill. I was the only person to have played before, so I the rest of the guys a quick rundown and then got us started with exploring the mansion.
Things got a little exciting when three of us went down into the basement and kept hitting bad events and complicated rooms. I was playing one of the little girl characters, and got into a line of rooms that required various checks to move past, so I was a little stuck. Finally, after 8 or 9 Omen cards, Chris missed the Haunt roll and we entered the House of the Living Dead! (haunt #21)
Unfortunately, we were caught in a common trap of Betrayal at House on the Hill, as we misunderstood the rulebook about how many zombies to place in the mansion. After the game, we figured out that you were supposed to place 2 zombies in a number of rooms equal to the number of players (which would have been like 8 zombies total).
What we thought it said, however, was to place one zombie for the (number of players + 1) in all of the listed rooms. Something seemed to be wrong when we ran out of zombie tokens and had to use other ones as proxies, but we went with it anyway. So, the remaining explorers faced Chip the Zombie Lord and all 30 of his zombie minions!
Chris was close to the Zombie Lord and he had the Medallion (which is needed to damage him), so he went for it... and ended up as zombie #31. I pounded on the door of the Vault (see the picture above)while Zack kept ringing the Bell and pulling the zombie horde closer to himself. When they finally caught up with him, he fought brilliantly but still ended up as brainless zombie #32.
As they shambled closer to me, I finally got the vault open and found a stick of dynamite. Hoping against hope, I threw it into an adjacent room, blew a few zombies to smithereens, and made a break for it. Alas, though, I was caught on the bridge spanning the Chasm and became Chip the Zombie Lord's final thrall of the evening.
Time: 85 minutes
Ratings" Chip 6, Chris 6.5, Me 7
I really like this game, but it is so sloppy in the writing of the various booklets and in the formulation of the haunts that the game can be ruined just by which haunt you get. Well, I hope we haven't made too big a mistake with this as GotM, but I guess we've got three more weeks to see how good or bad it can get. |
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4 Comments []
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Posted On: 2007-10-07 22:02:15
Edited on: 2007-10-08 13:33:31
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October 2, 2007 (continued)
After finishing up the Game of the Month! for this week, we decided to try out Yspahan. I had played the computer version a few times and I'd heard a lot about the game around SdJ announcment time, but this was my (and Chris' and James') first time playing the "real" game. Chip ran over the rules quickly and got us started.
I was planning to go with a caravan strategy, but had trouble early getting what I needed. Chip pretty much ran away with the game, beating the nearest competitor by 30 points.
Time: 47 minutes
Score: Chip 93, James 63, Me 61, Chris 49
Ratings: Chip 8, James 6, Me 6, Chris 8
I probably need to play it a few times before really making a final judgement, but Yspahan doesn't do much for me. It's pretty interesting and definitely different, but it just seem pretty chaotic and random to me at times.
Denise then came over and joined Chip, Chris, and Me as I pulled out Dragon's Gold for the first time. I picked up a few of the "blue box" games when they were on sale, and this one had always looked pretty interesting to me. I didn't think we needed to bother with the "basic" game, so I just explained the advanced rules to everybody and we got started.
There were all kinds of wizarding and thievery going on, but the game went very smoothly from the get-go. The timer was pretty extraneous, and the only unresolved arbitration was the one involving the black diamond (which was intentional). We all thought that Chris had it wrapped up, but I rode a horde of gold and two gem majorities to the ultimate victory!
Time: 46 minutes
Score: Me 63, Chris 52, Denise 47, Chip 33
Ratings: Me 7.5, Chris 7.5, Denise 8, Chip 6
To end the evening, we pulled out my virgin copy of China, which I bought at Tanga after just one game with Chip's copy. Chip has played literally hundreds of games of Web of Power online, and was undefeated in China here at Hypermind as well. It was getting late and Chris had to head home, so only Denise joined Chip and me for this last game of the evening.
In the first game, Denise was still learning how to play, but ended up being pretty competitive anyway. Chip won pretty handily, but everybody wanted to jump right back in and give it another shot. I felt like I was starting to really "get" the game, and felt truly in control of my actions on the second time around. So, what happened? Well, "ding-dong the King is dead!" I pulled off the upset in a very close game that came down to my 6-house road.
Time: 29 minutes (game 1), 17 minutes (game 2)
Game 1 Score: Chip 41, Me 34, Denise 28
Game 2 Score: Me 45, Chip 42, Denise 32
Ratings: Me 9, Chip 9, Denise 9
As you can see, we all really like China. It is just so deep for its length, and I think it is just so "organic" how all the scoring is tied to the number of pieces placed in the affected areas. I just want to play it a lot more... very soon. Tune back in and see if I get the chance! |
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2 Comments []
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Posted On: 2007-10-07 22:36:48
Edited on: 2007-10-08 13:29:02
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October 9, 2007
As this week's BoardGame night got started, I was a little nervous because only Chris and I had arrived as 6:00pm began to approach. Soon, however, Sabrina and Mark rolled in toting their suppers. While mastication was occurring, Chris and I sat down for a game of Blokus, a great abstract game that we both love.
Chris played Blue and Red, I was Yellow and Green. We both went immediately for the blocking moves, resulting in a veritable wall of blue and green that almost sealed off one side of the board completely. I felt like Chris was getting the better of the blocking moves, so I shifted a little and started looking more for ways to fit between the pieces on the board. As playable pieces dwindled, we knew it would be close. In the end, it was a close as you can get... we tied.
Time: 30 minutes
Score: Chris -24, Me -24
Ratings: Chris 9, Me 8
By this point, Mark and Sabrina were ready to jump into the gaming action. We pulled out Betrayal at House on the Hill, our current Game of the Month!, and I quickly explained the rules to our new players. I was playing Heather Granville, Sabrina was Ox Bellows, Mark was cute little Zoe Ingstrom, and Chris reprised his role from last week as Professor Longfellow.
Things started out pretty well for most of us, except Chris. On the first turn (I believe), he fell down a coal chute that someone has ridiculously placed right next to the front door. He never made it out of the basement.
The rest of us explored some on the ground level but then headed up to the upper floor where we eventually revealed every available room. Mark also ended up in the bastment after being transported there by some event that he revealed. Before he or Chris could find the stairs from the bastment to the rest of the house, however, things took a turn for the worse.
When Professor Longfellow discovered the catacombs, the haunt occurred as a crazed madman erupted from the labyrinth and killed him to death. Chris then took over the role of said Madman as well as the zombies he had created by killing his family. Reading the explanaiton of Haunt #10 (The Family Gathering) very carefully, only four zombies were added to the board in various places.
Two zombies were on the ground and upper floors combined. Sabrina had found the blood dagger, which allowed Ox to attack with all 8 dice, while I had found the ring that allowed me to attack with my Sanity (which I had taken the opportunity to pump up by visiting the Chapel a couple of times). We made short work of these two zombies, stunnign them occasionally and eventually trapping them in rooms on the upper level.
Little Zoe, however, was in trouble; all alone in the basement with a madman and two zombies. Mark scrambled around, luckily finding a revolver which he used to stun zombies a couple of times as he frantically tried to open the vault. The madman was too much for the young girl, however, eventually invading her smoke-filled haven and ending her young life.
But as it turned out, the two young explorers in the upper level were too much for the madman and his undead cohorts. We trapped the third zombie pretty quickly, and then Sabrina's character did 6 points of physical damage to the madman to finish him off as well. Unfortunately, we forgot that we couldn't trap more than one zombie in the same room, so we ended up in the chapel with a very belligerent undead monster. After it attacked Ox, he was left with both physical stats on their last level. Risking myself, I attacked the zombie with my ring, stunning it and giving us time to get to the attic. The mindless beast followed us, overcoming the memories of its previous life to attack us once again, but Ox managed to fend it off. Once again, I stunned it with my Sanity attack, giving it two more opportunities to become trapped, the second of which it failed. The explorers were victorious!
Time: 95 minutes
Ratings: Chris 7, Sabrina 8.5, Mark 7, Me 7.5
This game went soooo much better than it did last week. I defitely like the core game, but it seems that the resolution of each session might depend on how well-balanced the particular haunt is (and how easy it is to understand the rulebooks). In this case, the explorers definitely had an advantage, but I still think that Chris at least had a shot at winning (most of our advantage came from the powerful weapons we had found and the fact that almost all of the "trapping" rooms had already been discovered.)
Meanwhile, Chip and James joined young Ian for a game of Nexus Ops. I really wasn't able to pay much attention to this game, other than to notice that Denise took over for Ian when he had to go home.
Time: 75 minutes
Score: Chip 14, James 6, Ian/Denise 6
Ratings: Chip 7.5, James 7, Densie 8 |
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Posted On: 2007-10-08 08:41:08
Well, starting with the rule of "only use as many monsters as the game provides" will probably alleviate most of the problems of last week.
Seeing the tower ad for "Get Spooked Game Day", I really want Denise to get in a copy of Zombie Fluxx. That sounds like a version of that game that I'd snap up without hesitation.