monkey nonsense

in the last few weeks of 2006, i got introduced to a bunch of new games. they were all fun, but a lot of them were nerdy (i’m not a fan of nerdy games… they require too much thought!) here’s some of the new games i’ve played:

munchkin – i should’ve known something was up when may asked me if i was ever into magic (no, i wasn’t)… this game is similar to that. you’re a munchkin (or something) trying to collect levels and treasures by fighting monsters. the game is kind of interesting because of the different roles a munchkin can have (elf is the only one i know because that was the thing i was); each role provides a pro/con… elfs received a level up if they helped any other munchkin defeat a monster (if you found yourself not powerful enough to defeat the monster yourself, you could seek help from any of the other players)… it was kind of confusing and required a lot of reading of the cards to know what card performed what action, etc. etc. it was doubly confusing because the people i was playing with had all played previously. so they would be like “ohhh! it’s the aibdkwbakbtkie ahsbdjw card!!!!” and i had no clue what was going on. i think the game could get pretty interesting if played more though.

powergrid – this felt like a game that’d be played in econ class to teach people about how markets work. it was a bit slow… kind of confusing (though it could also be because i’m not a fan of reading instructions and this game came with a booklet of rules!) the idea is to connect and power a network of 14 cities. you do this by purchasing up to 3 power plants by auction, against the other players, and “buying” city placements and connections to other cities. most power plants require resources (there were some green power plants) in order to run so you also needed to watch the market price for resources. power plants could become obsolete so you also needed to keep track of when you might lose a power plant. i think the game could become interesting… since it was everyone’s first time playing, we weren’t really strategizing and well, we didn’t know what was the best strategy to try! i think playing again would be more interesting, but i also felt like the game was a little unfulfilling. after sitting around and waiting for everyone to buy power plants (i guess that’s supposed to be the action of the game… the bidding of the power plants), the end result of the round would be placing a city (if any)!! so after 20 some minutes, it comes down to placing little houses on the map… and you might not even place any houses that round!

saboteur – everyone’s a miner, but certain miners are actually saboteurs. there are 3 cards placed face down at the “end of the mine”, one of which is a gold nugget. the object of the game for regular miners is to create paths (done by placing path cards on the playing field) to reach the gold nugget before cards run out. saboteurs win by preventing miners from reaching there. the different types of cards allow you to do different things… dead end cards to stop a path from continuing (useful for saboteurs), path cards to reach the gold, breaking and fixing cards which allow you to break/fix someone else’s axe, wheelbarrow, or light (imaginary things which all miners have and need functioning in order to place path cards. breaking these tools results in the player being unable to place path cards. map cards allow you to peek at one of the face down cards in an attempt to identify where the gold is. i like this game a lot! i played it new years eve with some high school friends and roommates and i think they enjoyed it too.

cities and knights expansion for settlers – i love settlers. i bought seafarers (another expansion for settlers) and thought it’d be really fun. i played it a bunch when i first got it, but soon found it tiring and boring… it was basically the same thing as settlers, just prolonged. but cities and knights!! this expansion is more exciting! it introduces knights who defend catan against pirates who come to pillage the land of catan (at the expense of one city lost if the players lose their battle with the pirates). the regular developments are replaced by new cards which you get with the role of a dice (instead of purchasing) when you “improve” your city. the new cards make the game more interesting. there are cards like “look at all the cards in any opponent’s hand and pick 2″, “move any open road” (great when you’re being blocked by someone else), “determine the roll of the dice by picking the numbers” (great when you’re prone to rolling 7s and you have more than 7 cards), and a lot more that i can’t remember. i think cities and knights is a better expansion than seafarers.

hrm… a lot of these seem quite nerdy…

luckily i got to play pictionary new years eve as well. i love pictionary! i love how little brain work is required and how much fun it can be, even when you suck at drawing!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.