Monday, April 7, 2008

April 3, 2008 Session Report

I was out of town last week, but -- once again -- Nick Schroedl has produced an excellent session report describing last week's festivities. Can't wait for this week's session. Here's Nick's report in full:

Nine of us battled the rain, sleet and traffic jams to play this past Thursday night. First game of the night was Target between Gabe, Doug and Paul. It appeared to be a mix of poker meets rummy, I was unable to tell who was winning or losing as the game progressed and all were surprised when Paul won out (even Paul). Final scores were Paul 25, Gabe 22 and Doug 18.

After the game of target Clayton, Doug, Gabe, Paul and I (Nick) played a game of Beowulf. Having never played before I found it to be an interesting mix of auctions, card collection and gambling. Strangely I can't recall any of these being in the book or movie, ah well. Clayton displayed nerves of steel risking more often than most and it paying off quite frequently (to my determent). I did well until getting shafted on bonus squares I didn't plan for. Doug got the worst of it by far, and was mercilessly scratched and wounded though out. After all scores were counted, Gabe eeked out the win with a 26, closely followed by Clayton and myself with 25, Paul 20 and Doug -1.

While the game of Beowulf was going on Ben, Abe, Brandon and Mike showed up. Ben started setting up the prototype to his new game he's designed tentatively named "Open Water". While they waited for Beowulf to end and after much deliberation Brandon, Mike, Abe and Ben played a quick game of Transamerica which ended in a tie between Brandon and Mike, then Ben and finally Abe.

After Beowulf, Ben sat down with Paul and Abe to teach his fishing game "Open Water". From what I've heard each player is a captain of a fishing boat that sets crab traps, nets and avoid disasters. Reminded me of that show on the Discovery channel 'The Deadliest Catch'. The game lasted the rest of the night. Ben got plenty of feedback and ideas for how to tweak the game. I'm looking forward to trying it out!

At the the other table we had a six player game of The Great Space Race going. It's one of my goofy games with ties to Roborally. Clayton, Doug, Gabe, Brandon, Mike and I set off on a one lap race with mines and ramming galore. The last turn yielded two major events that set everyone's speed down to one and one that sent a hail of asteroids all over the track. I was able to cross the finish line first closely followed by Gabe. The rest of the contestants called the race since they were slowed so much by the event and it would've taken several turns to get back up to speed again.

After that we finished up the night with one of Gabe's card games, Car of Cthulu. Playing was Doug, Mike, Gabe, Brandon and myself. Plenty of passing and damaged cars. Doug seemed to have an endless supply of cancel cards that made him untouchable. The dice viciously turned on me as I lost every single pass attempt. I still think my car was the coolest, The Satanic Pushcart. After all was said, Gabe won with two successful laps. By far its one insane, crazy, random game.

No comments: