A Day of Games
Jul. 19th, 2009 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aA long day of games today. Joe and Aaron are both leaving us soon at Endgame, so today Aaron hosted a farewell day of gaming.
I played 15 games today, about 11 hours worth, running from 12.30 to a bit before 12. That included four super short games of Finito! and a few longer ones, like Goa and Liberte, with the rest in between.
The game of Goa was truly impressive, because we had a three-way tie (in a three-player game). I won on the tie breaker, which was money, though I've never too fond of a game using something as a tie breaker that it's already awarded points for (which is indeed the case in Goa with money).
The Liberte game was interesting, because we played it with three players. I wasn't at first convinced that it'd work, but my final assessment was that Liberte works really well with three. Now, if only Valley Games could get their edition out, and if only Mike Doyle doesn't destroy it. (The original has some severe graphical problems as well, but those are just the result of unfortunate color matching, as opposed to egotistical ruination of a game's playability for the sake of "art").
Among the other games were two games of Race for the Galaxy, my second and third with the new expansion, and my first where we actually used the takeover rules. I think we generally agreed that the takeover rules are much ado (and much fiddling of pieces) about nothing. If the next supplement doesn't make takeovers a more common option, I'm not convinced they were worth adding.
Allong with the gaming, I also got a very nice bike ride, up to El Cerrito del Norte and back on the Ohlone Greenway.
The noontime ride north was beautiful. Much of the ride, especially when you get into El Cerrito, is through native California brush, and the smell coming off of it in the sun was the same warm, weedy smell as you got up in Ed Levine Park, over Milpitas, where I used to go to summer camp when I was young.
The midnight right south was fun. I'd actually been looking forward to it, because I've never ridden the Ohlone Greenway at night. It's just barely off the street, but at nightime it's enough to feel like you're riding in the middle of nowhere, with a tiny tunnel of light marking your whole existence. I did have to ride carefully; though much of the BART track has lights, there'd occasionally be a few feet that were dark. When you got in Berkeley, it actually got really challenging, because there were points were there were thirty or forty feet that were pitch black.
That's especially bad because the Greenway curves a lot in Berkeley.
Bad Berkeley! No donut.
Fortunately I know the Greenway pretty well, so I'm aware where it twists and turns. (And I did have a light on my bike, of course.)
I'm falling down tired right now. I can probably get to sleep, despite the fact that I just did a 6-mile ride an hour ago.
I played 15 games today, about 11 hours worth, running from 12.30 to a bit before 12. That included four super short games of Finito! and a few longer ones, like Goa and Liberte, with the rest in between.
The game of Goa was truly impressive, because we had a three-way tie (in a three-player game). I won on the tie breaker, which was money, though I've never too fond of a game using something as a tie breaker that it's already awarded points for (which is indeed the case in Goa with money).
The Liberte game was interesting, because we played it with three players. I wasn't at first convinced that it'd work, but my final assessment was that Liberte works really well with three. Now, if only Valley Games could get their edition out, and if only Mike Doyle doesn't destroy it. (The original has some severe graphical problems as well, but those are just the result of unfortunate color matching, as opposed to egotistical ruination of a game's playability for the sake of "art").
Among the other games were two games of Race for the Galaxy, my second and third with the new expansion, and my first where we actually used the takeover rules. I think we generally agreed that the takeover rules are much ado (and much fiddling of pieces) about nothing. If the next supplement doesn't make takeovers a more common option, I'm not convinced they were worth adding.
Allong with the gaming, I also got a very nice bike ride, up to El Cerrito del Norte and back on the Ohlone Greenway.
The noontime ride north was beautiful. Much of the ride, especially when you get into El Cerrito, is through native California brush, and the smell coming off of it in the sun was the same warm, weedy smell as you got up in Ed Levine Park, over Milpitas, where I used to go to summer camp when I was young.
The midnight right south was fun. I'd actually been looking forward to it, because I've never ridden the Ohlone Greenway at night. It's just barely off the street, but at nightime it's enough to feel like you're riding in the middle of nowhere, with a tiny tunnel of light marking your whole existence. I did have to ride carefully; though much of the BART track has lights, there'd occasionally be a few feet that were dark. When you got in Berkeley, it actually got really challenging, because there were points were there were thirty or forty feet that were pitch black.
That's especially bad because the Greenway curves a lot in Berkeley.
Bad Berkeley! No donut.
Fortunately I know the Greenway pretty well, so I'm aware where it twists and turns. (And I did have a light on my bike, of course.)
I'm falling down tired right now. I can probably get to sleep, despite the fact that I just did a 6-mile ride an hour ago.
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Date: 2009-07-19 09:25 pm (UTC)I think Doyle's efforts are hit and miss, but on balance OK in the games I've owned. The art for Container was OK, but I wasn't fond of the physical quality of the components (or the game itself, really). I'm quite happy that I sprung for a copy of the "Deluxe" edition of Caylus, because I rather like Doyle's art there. The rule-book, on the other hand, I can't say I'm a big fan of, and I'm pretty sure that his art design there makes it much harder to use and not easier. To me this isn't a huge deal, but for newcomers to the game I can see that it would be (but how many people are going to be new to the game with this particular edition?).
I have my original copy of Liberte and I'm unlikely to part with it, colour/matching problems aside.