Wow, somehow this past week Game Night came and went and I didn’t even get a chance to write about it.
Well friends, have no fear, here is the game night over view:
Jon was sadly out working, making Brian the first one to show up. Everyone else was scheduled to show up later in the evening. Michelle had a test to take, but we lured her into the dining room for a game of Samurai.
Samurai is one of those games that I love, but for whatever reason I cannot seem to beat anyone except the computer. In dozen of playings I have yet to beat Michelle at it; the best I have ever done is tie her. It was my hope that with the help of Brian I would be able to tip the balance and finally end her winning streak.
Samurai is a clever little game. Each player is trying to rise to power in Japan by exerting influence in 3 different areas of power: The Peasants (rice paddies), The Religious Sector (Buddhas), and The Nobles (high hats). Whoever wins the most influence in the most area’s wins the game.
Each player has 5 tiles hidden behind their screen as well as their unused pile in front of them (face down). The tiles either directly influence a particular subgroup or they are military tiles which influences everyone (you even have several ships to influence from the water). Some tiles allow you to place more than one per turn.
On your turn you place your influence marker outside a city. Once a city is completely surrounded, control is resolved. Who ever exerts the most influence wins that piece. For example, in a city there is a rice paddy and a high hat. Michelle has an influence of 3 on the rice paddies, and 4 on the high hats. I have 2 on the rice paddies and 4 on the high hats as well. Influence is determined by adding your tiles that are touching the city. Michelle would win the rice paddies because she has 3. However, since we are tied on the high hats, no one wins them and they are removed from the game.
Once all the pieces are claimed, the game ends.
As I said above, I love this game and someday I hope to win it. However, today was not my day. Through masterful play Michelle was able to deny my every attempt at controlling a majority in various areas. The end game resulted in a three way time with 5 pieces removed from play due to ties. What a great little game. You can also download a PC version for it to play at home by going here: http://www.klear.com/samurai/index.php
Michelle had to leave at that point which was understandable considering she had a test due that night.
Brian and I pressed on while we waited for the rest of the crew to arrive.
Every time we play Cloud 9, I want to call it Balloon Cup (another balloon racing game). So I figured it was high time I brought this little gem out and showed it to Brian.
Balloon cup is part of Komos’ two player game series, so it goes without saying that this never gets played on game night. However, there are some advantages to down time and I was going to make the most of it.
In Balloon cup, players are trying to win colored cubes in attempt to win a majority of a given color. Whoever has the majority of cubes in a color wins a trophy. Whoever wins a majority of the trophies wins the game.
There are 4 playing areas on which players compete numbered 1 thru 4. Cubes are placed on each pad equal to the number on the card. So for example on the 3 pad there are 3 cubes (easy enough to follow). Some of the pads are marked high and some of them are marked low. On the pads marked high, the player with the highest total value in cards wins all the cubes. On the pads marked low whoever has the lowest total value cards wins all the cubes.
On a players turn they place a card and draw a card. One side of the pad represents each player. The left was Brian’s total, the right was mine. You are only allowed to play cards that match the cubes on the pad. If there is a red cube, and two yellow cubes on the pad, then there can only be 1 red card and 2 yellow cards on each side of the pad. A player can play a card on any side they choose in an effort to hose the other player. For example, say Brian wanted to give me the shaft, he could play a 13 red on my side of the pad (assuming we are fighting on a low pad) to drive up my score. Since there is already a red card on my side, I cannot play one there. Once both sides have the correct number of cards, the cards are added and the cubes are awarded to the winner.
Then just to make things interesting the pad is flipped. If it was a high pad before it becomes a low pad and vice versa. The came continues until someone has won a majority of the trophies.
Brian and I played several games of this and had a great time. One of the lessons learned is that when you expend cards to hurt your neighbor, you end up hurting yourself as well since you are spending your good cards on someone else. All in all it was a great time.
C.Ray and Andrea showed up shortly after that and we were going to settle down to play a game of La Strada (which I’ve been waiting to play). But as a total surprise, the “Chief Elf” himself, John Kaufeld decided to drop in for some gaming. Just when I thought things couldn’t get more interesting Bobby Rothrock stopped over as well and suddenly we had a full house.
I decided that with a group like this we should break out some TurfMaster since John, C.Ray and Andrea had never played before. Since I’ve already bored you once before we details on how this game works, I won’t go into it again.
We explained the rules to the group and jumped right in.
The first race went very cleanly. Andrea and I boxed out the rest of the crowd and dominated the pack. John and Brian were battling it out for 6th place. Each and every one of us had to draw our two bonus cards and it became a sprint towards the end. It was neck and neck around the straight. Andrea and I were tied (I had the inside lane) and 5 spaces from the finish line. Lucky for us it was a dice roll and Andrea choose the 6 to have us finish first and second leaving the rest of the crew to race had the next turn.
Now that everyone had a lap under their belts it was time to get serious. The bell sounded and we were off.
We stayed in a pretty tight bunch going into turn one Andrea and I were again pressed to the inside and out in front. John and Bobby were taking the outside approach and rapidly pulling ahead. We had just started to come out of the second turn when things got ugly.
Andrea was in the lead, I was right on her tail and I had 3 guys stacked to my right pinning me in. Then the unthinkable happened. Andrea’s horse went down and I had no place to go but down as well. The rest of the field shot around us and left us in last place. It was so bad that it took me several turns after the rest of the group had finished just to cross the finish line. I have no idea who won as my horse was limping across the field. I believe it was John or Brian who finished first, but don’t quote me on that one.
John had decided it was time to take off, but we talked him into playing Rette Sich Wer Kann. This is also affectionately known as the Life Boat game. Where players take turns voting to put holes in boats, toss people over board and paddle ahead to shore.
We all had a great time with C.Ray taking the win (grudgingly) at the end.
All in all it was a great game night.
Posted by Don Quixote
4 comments
Okay, I’ve bought some toys in my life time, but shedang! This iPAQ is just rockin’ my face off.
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