Saturday, September 18, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
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Nice write ups!
I love that kind of thing!
DungeonQuests combat system isn't really too bad, but it is a lot more complicated than anything else in the game. You shouldve seen me trying to explain it while everyone was hammered!
I think for new players I'd just use the solo rules. Way simpler to explain and good enough for the kind of game it is.
Castle Mikenloft looks pretty boss!
DungeonQuests combat system isn't really too bad, but it is a lot more complicated than anything else in the game. You shouldve seen me trying to explain it while everyone was hammered!
I think for new players I'd just use the solo rules. Way simpler to explain and good enough for the kind of game it is.
Castle Mikenloft looks pretty boss!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
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DorfQuest
Played my first solo DungeonQuest tonight. I'm leaving to Portland in the morning, so only had time for the one quick game. I think I'm going to enjoy it, but I don't really understand the combat yet.
My dwarf got 4 spaces into the dungeon before encountering a bottomless pit. He made his luck check and then the next tile was bridge where he fell in the catacombs. Dorf was in the catacombs for a long ass time and got down to 1 hitpoint thanks to combat with a golem and troll. Finally got out of the catacombs with 3 or 4 turns till the dungeon closed and escaped with 1400 gold he got from 2 treasure chests discovered in the catacombs.
I don't really get combat. Playing solo it made a little more sense, but with other players it sounds more complicated and strategic, MAYBE. Fucking confusing.
It's a good game overall and I'll need to play a bunch more to figure it out.
My dwarf got 4 spaces into the dungeon before encountering a bottomless pit. He made his luck check and then the next tile was bridge where he fell in the catacombs. Dorf was in the catacombs for a long ass time and got down to 1 hitpoint thanks to combat with a golem and troll. Finally got out of the catacombs with 3 or 4 turns till the dungeon closed and escaped with 1400 gold he got from 2 treasure chests discovered in the catacombs.
I don't really get combat. Playing solo it made a little more sense, but with other players it sounds more complicated and strategic, MAYBE. Fucking confusing.
It's a good game overall and I'll need to play a bunch more to figure it out.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
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Escape the Tomb
You wake up alone in the depths of Castle Ravenloft. The last thing you remember was when the man with the piercing eyes and long cape approached you on the dark street outside the inn. It had to be Count Strahd, the vampire! Outside the castle, you know that the sun is high in the sky. Now you have to find your way out of here before the sun sets and Strahd returns to finish whatever foul plot he began last night.
I played the introductory solo-adventure in the Ravenloft board game this afternoon and it was a lot of fun. The first game is 10 random tiles and an 11th "secret stairway" tile which you need to reach to beat the game. Certain tiles trigger a setting-sun counter which when it reaches sunset, Strahd awakes. Every tile you expose, you draw a monster card. There's also a chance you'll have to draw an encounter card which is more monster, traps, etc.
Fighting my way to the exit I defeated the following foes:
3 Wolves
2 Rat Swarms
1 Wraith
1 Zombie
2 Kobold Skirmishers
1 Ghoul
1 Blazing Skeleton
1 Spider
I also encountered a few traps along the way. I was about 9 tiles in when Strahd awoke but I also hit a dead end, so had to backtrack to an explorable area. Strahd moves fast as hell (2 tiles a turn) so he caught up to me on the last tile.
To win you have to start your turn on that tile, and unfortunately I triggered an encounter: An arcane symbol flashes at your feat(sic) and you disappear from sight. - Teleport Glyph! This sent me back to the start of the dungeon. So in the most Scooby-Doo fashion, I had to run back through the dungeon passing Strahd at the mid point. I escaped with 2hp remaining.
I played the introductory solo-adventure in the Ravenloft board game this afternoon and it was a lot of fun. The first game is 10 random tiles and an 11th "secret stairway" tile which you need to reach to beat the game. Certain tiles trigger a setting-sun counter which when it reaches sunset, Strahd awakes. Every tile you expose, you draw a monster card. There's also a chance you'll have to draw an encounter card which is more monster, traps, etc.
Fighting my way to the exit I defeated the following foes:
3 Wolves
2 Rat Swarms
1 Wraith
1 Zombie
2 Kobold Skirmishers
1 Ghoul
1 Blazing Skeleton
1 Spider
I also encountered a few traps along the way. I was about 9 tiles in when Strahd awoke but I also hit a dead end, so had to backtrack to an explorable area. Strahd moves fast as hell (2 tiles a turn) so he caught up to me on the last tile.
To win you have to start your turn on that tile, and unfortunately I triggered an encounter: An arcane symbol flashes at your feat(sic) and you disappear from sight. - Teleport Glyph! This sent me back to the start of the dungeon. So in the most Scooby-Doo fashion, I had to run back through the dungeon passing Strahd at the mid point. I escaped with 2hp remaining.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
We didn't have time to swing up to Aptos, but the Aquarium was fantastic and totally worth the $30 buck ticket price. The rest of Cannery Row was pretty skeezy though, ouch. Carmel was really nice - we had a awesome dinner there.
Blood Bowl is only $10 bucks on Steam right now - I'm not buying it again but daaamn, what a discount. Still, that game had some jankyness issues.
Blood Bowl is only $10 bucks on Steam right now - I'm not buying it again but daaamn, what a discount. Still, that game had some jankyness issues.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
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Stuff to Do
- Go to Big Sur
- Come up to Aptos to get our year passes for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, then go the the aquarium, then drive the passes back up to us. :) ~ 60 mile round trip, but the drive might be worth the savings at the aquarium!
- Take her to your old stomping grounds, UCSC!
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Monday, September 06, 2010
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In honor of Strategicon...
...I stayed in my room and watched Small Wonder. It was a good weekend.
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some things never change
I got the bug to play Dragon Wars (a super fun, old RPG from the Apple days). I spent a long time on character creation, then jump in and 5 minutes later what happens?
Fuckin' hemophilia strikes again.
Fuckin' hemophilia strikes again.
Yeah! Totally awesome Rude, I'll forward you the links and stuff through email. It would be a lot more fun getting all of us in a group. They get together really often. Each group gets together officially once per month, so, 2 groups is 2 weekens, (1st and 3rd), then individual members gets together on the weekdays soemtimes. I can't really do those because I actually have to work and stuff.
Oh man, wish I would have gone Jael! I've been interested in game design for awhile now and would have enjoyed being exposed to all the different games. Let me know about those meetup groups. I used meetup for lots of active-life kinda groups (hiking, biking, etc) but never looked at gaming groups. Also local is Dennis and Peter from the cons (don't know if you've met Peter) so I was going to try and get in some gaming with those dudes soon if you want to join us. I got a bunch of new games incoming to try out.
Youre right! sorry, it was Dominion, not Imperial. Dominion was the 2009 game of the year. Thunderstone is a role playing variant of the card system Dominion. I brought that up because I knew you would be interested. The guy at the dealer room was introducing me to the games and it seemed interesting. I was a stone throw short of buying it partly to support the persistant business owner of the empty dealer room. It was awkward not buying anything but 60 bucks for another game I would eventually be parting on Ebay. Less hassles.
Excilis was definitely much better in person. Parsing it on internet video streaming didn't get the overall UI and feel of having the actual miniatures and computer on the table.
my thought however, and I might actually work on this can you imagine using Iphones or Android phones, tablets, instead of laptops which are bulky for competitive, bluetooth interface. Second, Excilis confined itself to the limitations of the board and used the software only a tool. My idea is rather, get rid of the confinement of the board. You can make complete software game including card management, resource management, and even strategy management on the software portion. The game itself adds the visuals, but also you need to have physical inputs into the software, in order for the game to manifest itself completely. Did I lose anyone?
Jon, another reason I think I had a good time at this con was I didn't limit myself to Axis and Allies and shogun. I actually went around playing different games, learning and perusing different mechanic/game systems. Also I befriended a lot of people and was invited to join two separate meetup.com gaming groups, one in pomona and one in Thousand Oaks. From different walks of life.
Anyway, it was cool.
Wait did you meet the owner of Kublacon or Strategicon?
Excilis was definitely much better in person. Parsing it on internet video streaming didn't get the overall UI and feel of having the actual miniatures and computer on the table.
my thought however, and I might actually work on this can you imagine using Iphones or Android phones, tablets, instead of laptops which are bulky for competitive, bluetooth interface. Second, Excilis confined itself to the limitations of the board and used the software only a tool. My idea is rather, get rid of the confinement of the board. You can make complete software game including card management, resource management, and even strategy management on the software portion. The game itself adds the visuals, but also you need to have physical inputs into the software, in order for the game to manifest itself completely. Did I lose anyone?
Jon, another reason I think I had a good time at this con was I didn't limit myself to Axis and Allies and shogun. I actually went around playing different games, learning and perusing different mechanic/game systems. Also I befriended a lot of people and was invited to join two separate meetup.com gaming groups, one in pomona and one in Thousand Oaks. From different walks of life.
Anyway, it was cool.
Wait did you meet the owner of Kublacon or Strategicon?
I can't believe you went to Strategicon! That's a blast from the past. I honestly don't know if I could go to that again, it would be really weird. We started going to those 18 years ago or so. Probably the last one I went to was in 2000 or 2001, then the the era of KublaCon began. I randomly met the new owner earlier this year when he bought a game I sold on eBay -- seemed like a nice guy. I remember the dealer room was good about the first three years we went there and after the mid-90s it just went downhill. Hopefully the event has hit a good parity level though.
Did Exilis look fun, Ja-El? Matt mentioned it a while ago and I checked out the website. I couldn't get my head around the multimedia aspects of the game (I love rolling dice, so I was dubious about having the computer resolve stuff for you) but I definitely could be talked into giving it a try.
I looked up Thunderstone. I keep seeing it at the game store so your mention made me curious to check it out. It looks very similar mechanically to Dominion (I'm not sure if you've played that one) with a strong fantasy hero building theme, which could be really cool. Buy it dude!
I picked up Tales of the Arabian Nights to play with the wifey. This is a pretty neat game that basically is a board game combined with choose-your-own adventure. You go around the board having semi-randomly determined encounters out of this enormous book. All kinds of crazy stuff can happen to your character like you can get sex-changed, married, become a sultan or vizier, etc. It's fun to follow along with the crazy crap that happens to your adventurer so it's a very fun casual experience.
Did Exilis look fun, Ja-El? Matt mentioned it a while ago and I checked out the website. I couldn't get my head around the multimedia aspects of the game (I love rolling dice, so I was dubious about having the computer resolve stuff for you) but I definitely could be talked into giving it a try.
I looked up Thunderstone. I keep seeing it at the game store so your mention made me curious to check it out. It looks very similar mechanically to Dominion (I'm not sure if you've played that one) with a strong fantasy hero building theme, which could be really cool. Buy it dude!
I picked up Tales of the Arabian Nights to play with the wifey. This is a pretty neat game that basically is a board game combined with choose-your-own adventure. You go around the board having semi-randomly determined encounters out of this enormous book. All kinds of crazy stuff can happen to your character like you can get sex-changed, married, become a sultan or vizier, etc. It's fun to follow along with the crazy crap that happens to your adventurer so it's a very fun casual experience.
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