Posts filed under 'Card Games'
Over the next five months, I’ll don the mantle of Ozzy, an aristocratic Englishman who’s good friends with Percy, the Scarlet Pimpernel. No, it’s not the part I dreamed of, but it’ll be downright fun!
Over the last year or so, my wife and I have participated in a WoW get-together with some real-life friends. Unfortunately, my rehearsals will conflict with this occasional commitment, so I’ve given up my spot to another friend. It will be very interesting to hear from my wife how the group dynamic changes with a new player (playing a different class).
To me, though, it’s something of a relief. I’ve been having less and less fun in WoW. (I know I’m not alone in this.) I’ll enjoy the hiatus. I’m keeping my account open so I can play with her, more informally, as she gets her paladin to the level cap, but I won’t be logging in for any other reason.
I’ll also let my LotRO subscription lapse. LotRO is a game I’ve been enjoying much more than WoW, mostly because even though it’s somewhat inferior from a gamey perspective, it’s more satisfyingly immersive than any game I’ve played in a while. But some of the elements of WoW that I didn’t like but that provided building blocks for LotRO are starting to show, breaking my willing suspension of disbelief. Worst of all, I’m finding it lonely. I’ve been grouping in it a lot more than I ever did in WoW, but since my real-life friends are either non-gamers or are back in Azeroth, I don’t have anyone to chat with about LotRO.
So what will I do with my spare time? Well, besides the hours dedicated to the Scarlet Pimpernel (which will increase geometrically over the next few months), I expect to indulge in some standalone games (Neverwinter Nights 2 and Portal look mighty tempting), catch up a bit on my reading, and if I’m lucky find some way to get people to play card and board games with me!
November 8th, 2007
If we gamers consider ourselves Homo ludens—humans who play—we can’t ignore that we have subspecies. Many call themselves “gamers,” but most mean something more specific. What distinguishes Homo ludens from people who don’t call themselves gamers, what unites us, is the perceived geek-factor of the games we play.
Within our geeky species, though, we’ve got varieties so distinct from one another that they can hardly be considered the same animal.
- Homo ludens sangoculi
Those whose eyes begin to bleed after avoiding blinking for five hours during an important raid. In other words, video gamers.
- Homo ludens terataleae
Those who play with monstrous dice. In other words, tabletop roleplaying gamers.
- Homo ludens con-concilii
Those whose definition of “diplomacy” is almost the exact opposite of Webster’s. In other words, board gamers.
- Homo ludens shovelens
Those who shuffle. In other words, card gamers. This subspecies is broad enough to encompass such infraspecies as homo ludens shovelens economica (trading card gamers).
No taxonomy is perfect. As with life taxonomy, the borders are blurry and subject to change. Unlike life taxonomy, in which separate subspecies rarely mate outside of unusual circumstances, Homo ludens is basically engaged in one enormous, non-stop orgy of crossbreeding. In common with Douglas Adams’s Hagunenonns of Vicissitus Three*, Homo ludens is a super-evolutionary being that morphs from one life form to another several times over lunch.
Despite that, though, most gamers do seem to wind up identifying more as one particular subspecies than any other, at least for a given time. For instance, although many MMO players also play roleplaying games, the vast majority of WoW players seem to be Homo ludens sangoculi, and many have never touched a icosohedron in their lives. A quick survey of gaming blogs supports this hypothesis. There are many video game blogs, many roleplaying game blogs, and so on. But there are very few blogs that embrace both kinds of games.
I enjoy different varieties of games with equal fervor. Surely, I’m not the only Homo ludens ecclecticus, right? Who else is out there? And what other subspecies belong in the taxonomy?
*If you don’t know about the Hagunennons, do get your hands on a copy of the original The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy BBC radio production. It has quite a few gems that didn’t survive to the many later versions of the property that will absolutely tickle a fan of the setting.
October 16th, 2007
Another game I picked up during my vacation in Vermont was the Catan Card Game (Amazon
, Board Game Geek). My wife and I hoped it would give us the feel of the Settlers Of Catan Board Game
for two players.
We already have Starship Catan
, a two-player board game that uses a modified version of the resource mechanics from the original board game to fuel a space-exploration themed game. It’s great fun actually physically upgrading your ship with laser guns, engines, and probes, but it takes a while to set up.
I hoped the card game might make for quicker setup, hoped it would stay true to the original setting, and if nothing else give us an interesting taste of how a board game could be reinterpreted as a card game.
I’m happy to say that the Catan Card Game is a grand hit, at least with us. Setup isn’t instant, since the game comprises about six or seven different (small) decks, but once both players understand the rules, it plays fast and fun!
I have to admit, I have so far lost every single game to my wife. (Basically, she absolutely PWNs my ass in competitive tabletop games.) That hasn’t detracted from the fun of the play.
In the card game, each player is given a set of nine starting cards with which to build his or her “principality.” One of the nine cards is the player’s initial settlement, two are roads, and the remaining six are resource nodes, each displaying a single die. As in Starship Catan, resource accumulation is tracked by turning the resource node cards so the number of resources “stored” on that card (o, 1, 2, or 3) is placed at the bottom. A single card can’t ever hold more than three of its resources.
Players spend these resources to build roads (to separate settlements), new settlements (adding two new resource nodes for each settlmenet built), and buildings, as well as to upgrade settlement to cities (which can accomodate four buildings instead of two). Each of these is represented by a card, and as new places are built, the player’s principality grows—horizontally for new settlements, vertically for new buildings.
Although you can always build a road, settlement, or city if you can afford it (and cards of the appropriate sort remain), in order to construct a building, you have to draw it from one of the four decks of face-down cards. Also in these decks are action cards that let you bend the basic mechanics (by destroying your opponent’s buildings, for example, or defending against certain threats). The buildings themselves add victory points, increase resource production, defend against threats, and grant their owners other benefits.
Finally, the game is affected by “events.” When the resource die is rolled, an event die is also rolled. It may indicate an attack of raiders (who steal resources), a free resource to both players, or a draw from the final deck of the game, the “event cards.” These cards are almost always interesting and occasionally catastrophic.
Players may also field armies of knights (the mechanics of armies depend mostly on comparing each player’s knights’ total “strength”).
The game has ample complexity, with lots of room for entertaining emergent situations and challenges, but play itself is just plain fun. Strategy from game to game varies depending on the cards you happen to draw—and, of course, the luck of resource production.
I’m also pleased to say that the game keeps players moving along at a reasonably even pace. Oh, yes, my wife beat me every time, but never by so much that I ever gave up any hope of catching up (except maybe in the last turn or two). Unlike with the dreaded Monopoly, the game never devolved to an agonizing and unending pillaging by one player of another. Every turn, each player had some hope of advancing.
We’ve since acquired (but have not tired) the Catan Card Game Expansion Set
. It basically contains six different expansions that can be added to the game, giving each play a very different feel. I also noted from a quick scan of the rulebook that it supports a sort of tournament play where players can build their own decks. I’m unlikely to ever give that a serious try, but adding dragons or barbarians to the game seems just plain fun, and I can’t wait to give it a try.
September 20th, 2007
I got back from vacation less than a month ago, but I already miss it. I worked almost full time while on vacation, so it’s not the work I have to do now that bothers me; it’s the structure. In Vermont, effective “working from home,” I found time to do work whenever it didn’t interfere with my family life. Now, back in the office, I squeeze family and fun time in when it doesn’t interfere with the expected nine-to-five (or in my case seven-to-three) work schedule my company imposes on me.
One thing that’s missing is the casual gaming my wife and I—and other friends—did while we were in Vermont.
And one game that we’re not playing now is the Illuminati
card game (the deluxe edition, whatever that means) from Steve Jackson Games. I picked it up in Heroes Kingdom in St. Alban’s, VT, because I’ve enjoyed many an SJG product, because the theme (illuminated conspiracy) is great fun, and because the box promised the game would work for “2–6 players.”
Apart from not really working for two players, I have to say it’s a good game. But I’ll start with my quibble.
The box advertises a game for two to six players, but on the first page of the rules it warns that it’s best not to play with less than four. Three is marginal, at two you’re definitely missing something, and both are “not recommended” according to the rules. My wife and I found this to be completely true. I understand why they printed the box the way they did, but since one primary reason for our purchase was that the game was suitable for two players, I’m a bit miffed.
That said, we quite enjoyed the game. My wife beat my soundly four games out of four, we laughed at the cards and enjoyed the different feel the game has when you play different factions.
In fact, I think it’s the factions that really make the game. Depending on your randomly chosen faction, you have very different strengths and weaknesses, and each faction also has its own unique goal. (Except for the UFO faction, which gets to choose its goal from the list and keep that secret.) Thus, depending on your own faction and those of other players, each game is radically different—more different from game to game than Settlers of Catan I’d argue, despite the fact that Catan’s board layout changes every game.
The different factions wind up adding quite a bit of complexity to what is, what it starts, a fairly straightforward game to play. The turns go fast. But depending on your own goals, strengths, and strategy—and of course the happenstance of how the deck is shuffled—the convolution of a world fought over by illuminated conspiracy groups seems to unfold, with wit, on the table.
The rules suggest—and I’m convinced they’re right—that with four or five players the fun increases. One-on-one, the only goal is to win and frustrate your opponent. With more players, though, alliances can easily form (and of course just as easily break). Best of all, the game actively supports the possibility of multiple players winning simultaneously.
Alas, with just the two of us, we didn’t get to sample the real double-dealing and backstabbing of desperate alliances and bitter betrayal, but I hope to rope some gamer friends into a few games soon (maybe even this weekend), to see how it all plays out.
September 14th, 2007
A wave of toys washes across the floors of several rooms in our house when, at high toy-tide, our daughter diligently unpacks the chests and shelves filled with her favorite things. At first glance, these waves may seem chaotic, but look closer. S— has arranged her “people” (mostly Fischer-Price Little People, with a couple of Weebles and her beloved Purple Man DDR figure mixed in) in a graceful fractal arcing from one corner of the coffee table to another. Each is facing the same way, and they’re all “watching” a pile of toy birds “sleeping” on the sofa in a pile that alternates bird and blanket, a sort of impromptu toy napoleon.
On the other side of the room, I pick up a discarded toy cow—or maybe it’s not discarded. “No!” wails my toddler, “It’s talking to the otter!” I look down. Sure enough, the cow was positioned face-to-face with a toy otter. I was unwise to interrupt their conversation.
When S— goes to sleep, the toy-tide recedes. Plastic teacups go back on shelves in the toy kitchen, stuffed animals assemble in the toy chest, and the sofa transforms once again into a place to sit rather than a stage.
Among all these toys, though, there aren’t any that qualify as “games.” Oh, she plays games of pretend with them, and as I posted in the first part of this series, I hope this will lead to a lifetime love of roleplaying games. But she doesn’t have any games proper.
For the most part, manufacturers don’t make too many games for toddlers. Crazed parents will hand over thousands of hard-earned dollars for toys stamped “educational” on their packaging, but the littlest kids just don’t play games. Only after about a year of life to do they even have enough perception, language, and motor skills to start imitating what they see their parents and friends do for fun.
But on one rainy day on my recent vacation, I got to see four kids aged two to four (my daughter on the young end) playing actual, commercial games. These games are actually targeted at older kids, and in fact not one was played strictly according to the Rules. But then, what game ever is?
The three games they played were:
The fishing game—purchased by the parents of one kid because the nearby pond permitted fishing, so they thought they’d bring the fun indoors—proved thoroghly entertaining. On, only one kid (the youngest) had anything approaching the motor skills to actually catch a fish by the official method, but all of them (even the skilled one) had a grand time carefully inserting the hook into the mouths of fish as they passed. Or simply grabbing a fish of an appealing color. In the end, though, they treated the game more as a toy which had a skill element than a real game.
The homemade fishing game that I brought over—which my wife made from wooden dowels, rare earth magnets, string, paper, and paperclips—proved much more popular. Sure, we had only two rods, and the “fish” were pictures and bits of greeting cards. But the fun of fishing for a picture of my daughter or a reindeer with a magnet dangling from a string was something the girls were better able to do, was more relaxing, and was much more rewarding (”I got a horse!” “I got S—!”)
They treated the Peanut Butter & Jelly card game as a toy instead of a game, too. Instead of trying to build a particular sandwich, the kids just shouted out when one dad would call, “Who wants peanut butter?” or “Who wants bacon?” The littlest kid wanted them all, of course, but in the end the girls assembled some remarkable sandwiches. My daughter decided to treat her sandwich (meticulously free of meat products, coincidentally; maybe she’s picked up on our family’s vegetarianism without understanding it) as a toy and pretended to eat it for several minutes after the other girls put theirs away.
Zingo! came the closest to being played as a game. Basically “bingo with pictures,” the game drops two sturdy tiles with images that may match the squares on each kids cards. The girls each took one card for themselves and one for their dolls, and they happily laid matching tiles on pictures as they showed up. The precocious youngest girl quickly memorized both sides of her cards (the green side apparently leads to less “competition,” but both sides have images), and we laughed as she flipped each card over whenever a chip with a picture she remembered on the other side came up, dumping any that she’d placed on the front.
None of the girls played to win. None of them felt the slightest bit of competitiveness (which,
really, is a fine thing; toddler competitiveness can get ugly fast and is expressed mostly through
whining). But they did sort of play to fill their cards.
The youngest recommended age for these three games is four, and the girls definitely weren’t ready to play them as proper games. But as a gamer myself, and a doting father, I had a grand time watching them experiment with the beginnings of gaming.
After the last sandwich card and Zingo! tile was put away, they reverted to their favorite kind of game: roleplaying games. The oldest decided she was a teacher, and the other three—and their dolls—happily assembled as pupils and did what she told them. Or did something else. No one really minded, as everyone was having fun.
September 7th, 2007
| I don’t just like games; I’m a foodie as well. On Fridays, I publish drink or cocktail recipe that I enjoy as an accompaniment to some sort of game. These aren’t necessarily drinks I’ve invented, but they are superior potations that gamers who tipple are liable to enjoy. |
| And, what with all this talk of addiction here on the blog, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that the drinking of alcohol should always be done in moderation. And if you’re going to operate any sort of heavy machinery or vehicle while drunk, make sure it’s a mecha or X-wing in an computer game! |
Since I’ve been thinking a lot about spy video games, I figure a spy-ish drink is an appropriate drink of the week. It’s not a drink I’d want to have next to me while playing an espionage video game, but it is one I’d want my sophisticated spy avatar to be able to order.
In Ian Flemming’s Casino Royale
, the very first Jame Bond story, 007 touted this drink as his own invention. He meant it “to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made,” and I think it succeeds admirably on all four counts.
The drink made it into the recent Casino Royale movie, too. Personally, I think it was, by a substantial margin, the greatest Bond film of all time. Not the least because it inspired a resurgence of popularity for the Vesper martini.
In the book, Bond instructed the bartender:
“In a deep champagne goblet. . . . Three measures of Gordon’s [gin], one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.”
The availability of these ingredients—and even the glass itself—can be a problem today. Nowadays, this is made in what’s come to be called a martini glass or cocktail glass. Gordon’s gin has been reformulated to have almost one-fifth less alcohol, and most vodka has similarly reduced alcohol levels. Using Tanqueray for the Gordon’s and Stoli’s 100-proof vodka recaptures the correct alcohol levels and most of the flavor.
And there’s no such thing as Kina Lillet anymore. Most people use Lillet Blanc, but some die-hard fans actually add quinine powder to recapture some of the original. I’ve heard that a dash of bitters works well enough, although I imagine something like Angostura bitters—once used to mask the flavor of quinine—might interfere rather than enhance. If I ever find quinine powder for sale, I’ll give it a try, but the cocktail is great without it.
Here’s one recipe that makes a good stab at simulating the original. By the way, this really is a big, strong drink, just like Bond wanted. By most measures, it counts as two “drinks,” if you’re keeping track of your alcohol consumption, so take your time and go easy. Unless you’re an uber-spy.
As I said above, I don’t think this drink actually goes with spy video games. In fact, it really belongs at a casino table. The original Bond would probably have enjoyed it with Baccarat, but it should complement the new Bond’s Texas Hold ‘Em just as perfectly.
Versper Martini
Ingredients
- 3 oz. Tanqueray gin
- 1 oz. Stolichnaya 100 proof (blue label)
- ½ oz. Lillet Blanc
- twist of lemon peel
Instructions
Put all ingredients but the lemon peel in a shaker half full of ice.
Note that many martini aficionados insist that martinis are both colder and smoother when stirred instead of shaken. They are completely right. But this is James Bond’s drink—James Bond’s. For that reason alone, it must be shaken. Long and hard.
Pour into a martini glass and garnish with the lemon peel.
July 20th, 2007
