Alhambra – Board Game To Build A Palace
Alhambra is a board game with the goal of building the best palace. Game play is fairly straight forward, the primary actions are; pickup coin, buy palace piece, or re-arrange existing palace piece. Each player has their own palace and the goal is to score the most points by having the most palace pieces of a specific designation. There are various rules about how the palace can be constructed which increase the level of complexity. The game is broke up into 2 scoring rounds with a final scoring round when all the palace pieces are in play.
Within 90 minutes we were taught the rules and had a very fulfilling first game. By chance I did win but I assure you that has no bearing on my appreciation for the game *wink*. My only complaint is that it was perhaps too isolated between players. The only direct interaction between players in the game is when players are deciding what palace pieces to buy.
The game reminds me of Cleopatra and the Society of Architects but with less confusion.
In attendance was AM (game leader), RT, CT, and me. It didn't take long to grasp the finer points of palace construction but unfortunately the first game resulted in several gee-I-won't-build-like-that-again moments. CT scored big in the end with a wicked long wall. RT was well rounded but stuck with several unusable pieces at the end of the game. AM had a fierce palace with some intricate but useless internal palace walls that tripped him up. My green pieces and modest outside wall were decent scoring each round.
It lacks the fierce competition of a game like risk or the fun frivolous player interactions between turns but it is a decent family game worth playing.
Apartment Party and Drakon
Today was the day Drakon came out of her box! It was my first attempt to get some of my friends hooked on a game that has been a lot of fun for me. To sweeten the deal I cooked lunch. The afternoon was rainy and overcast so it was a perfect day to be indoors.
Have my friends warmed up to Drakon? I'm not sure, it will take another game to find out. LI, BL, VG and I were in attendance. The victory was almost mine until BL tripped me up which paved a way for LI to sneak in with the win. Beginners luck, this time 
Settlers of Catan – I’ve Been to the Island!
Surprising, but this is a game day posting. I had not planned on a game day posting for some time. But life, just like Settlers of Catan, is always exciting. New found friends exposed me to the game. I'm sorry I haven't played it sooner because it would have been a great game to play with my family.
The Settlers of Catan is great clean fun, unless of course you happen to be a little to over zealous with the robber when a 7 is rolled! The game was fast moving in the beginning and started to slow near the end as everyone tried to make the most of every opportunity. Even as it slowed the turn based trading and building helped to keep the interaction frequent and interesting.
Townsfolk vs Spooks
I’m sorry to say this will be the last game day with the guys for a long time and can’t remember what we played or how to describe the game. Regardless of the details being back with the guys was a blast. Playing the game is only half the fun because everyone brings something unique and fun which guarantees no two games are ever the same. Until I game (with the guys)… caio
Execute robot program delta! Go go go….
Just think how many people thing logic isn't fun. Gesh, are they missing out. Of course, logic gets tossed right out the window when you play a game like this. You not only have to program the robot to navigate the board but also contend with other robots that might happen to be slightly mis-programmed. RoboRally is either really fun and spontaneous or mind numbingly frustraiting depending on the cards dealth.
BE was AWOL. It was WO, JK, JZ, CF and I that played the first game. MR joined us for the second. JK won the first game because he was sneaky and drove his robot into a pit so it could respawn closer to the final goal. The second game I took the prize with a lucky bump onto the final flag from JZ. What luck!
Game day was all wet
Lamentably game day was canceled. WO left early and BE was busy with some fall projects. DA was off buying a guitar of some sort. JK, MR, and I were the only ones to show. The highlight of the week just swept under the carpet, how sad.
JK had a great idea, swimming at the verona open pit. Yaw! MR tagged along but wouldn't put a suit on. We appreciated his company none-the-less and he was able to snap a few pictures.
The water was cold after the first jump, cool after the second jump, and swimable after the third. Perhaps it was because our skin was de-sensitized from hitting the water (or maybe our brains were a bit mixed up from the fall).
The evening was beautiful as the trees hinted of the fall colors that were about to abound. To my dismay the exotic teal green color of the clear water was gone and everything seemed so much darker as the sun poked in and out of the evening autumn clouds.
Together we go to get the dragon’s gold
Tonight we played a new game from BA's collection. Dragon's Gold is a card game where only the Dragon's die and the loot is split between the players who battled the dragon. The tricky part is no defeating the dragon but negotiating how the treasure is split. If all of the parties can't settle on the split within 1 minute the treasure is lost and no one gets any. There are ample special ability cards to throw some very interesting twists into the game. After all the dragons are disposed of the treasure is counted and a winner is decided based on point value of pieces and sets. If you really want to know more BoardGameGeek has a good write up with lots of pics.
I sat out the first game because its only a 6 player game. WO, CF, DA, JK, MR, and BA played the first round. All I can comment on the first game is you have to keep an eye on CF - don't let him fool you into thinking he doesn't have a good plan. He managed to win by a landslide because he read the point card and won with the black diamond and lots of gold, silver, and ... umm red peices. Magic orbs I think. It was quite an upset but everyone had a good time.
The second game I joined in for. JK and DA stepped out so the 5 of us played again. There wasn't much squabbling among the players about how to split the treasure in spite of some instigation on BA's part. Of course he had other reasons for his "helping" other players divide up the treasure. He drew a special card that allowed him to steal treasure from the dragon's pile as long as he doesn't get caught. It didn't last very long as I busted him in the act. He had a great game face trying to deny it; I almost felt bad turning him in because he was such a smooth thief. It was all for naught because MR managed to, dare I say, horde, most of the precious gems. He won with like 3 sets and the majority of 3 of the 5 precious gems. After such an impressive win with so many gems I think MR would have been sent out to spent it on a round of grog! (Or root beer depending on your persuasion)
Humans and zombies, the conflict continues
Humans!!! This game had "different" written all over it but it didn't meet my expectations. Don't get me wrong, its a fun game but it wasn't quite as different as I thought it could be. The stereotypical scenario is a zombie outbreak forces all humans (well, atleast the smart ones) to flee the zombie invasion and fend them off. This game wasn't any different except the humans were inanimate and you played the part of the zombie trying to get the humans - instead of the human trying to fend off the zombie.
My initial expectation of the game before I knew the rules was considerably different. I was expecting the zombies to be in the minority, trying to survive in a world full of ignorant humans out to destroy the zombie specie. I mean, come on, zombies are dead, they can't help it if they like to eat flesh and are infectious. There have been times were little kids are just as bad. Think, "You brought what disease home from school?!" or "You put what in your mouth? Yuck!". Yet many of us have children and our specie continues to procreate. At any rate, I digress. Instead of poor zombies trying to survive the onslaught of a human invasion it was just an all-you-can-eat buffet of flighty humans that you had to catch and either eat or infect.
The game was well balanced and it was difficult to eat or infect a human figure. If one of the other zombie players didn't trip you up then it was worrying about the human escaping.
BA, JK, WO, CC, MR and I all had a good time playing. There were a couple really funny situations and chatter that came up. BA was full of witty zombie monologue. Unfortunately that was almost a week ago and I don't remember much beyond who was there and enjoying the game.
Out of the graveyard
The end has arrived. I'm running from house to house trying to survive the zombie infestation that is monotonously limping from the graveyard in the center of town. I only have to survive for 10 days before help arrives. If the zombies don't get me by then I just have to worry about fending off my lunatic neighbors... I mean.. friends.
Back to reality; game day was a bit mixed up. WO couldn't make it so everyone was supposed to come to my house. Only JK and MR showed.
We played Zombie Town. It was a good game but it gets really hard to play if everyone decides to turn against one player. Normally there is enough balance so no one player can dominate the game unless they happen to be very lucky.
Divisions on Game Day
Game day was crazy! Everyone decided tonight was a good night to play. There were too many people to play any one game. We split up into two groups. The games we played were Betrayal at House on the Hill and Risk 2210. I opted to play Betrayal at House on the Hill instead of risk so I'm going to focus on that game.
Betrayal at House on the Hill is a board game that is very dynamic. The board (aka the house) is built at random one room at a time by laying down room cards to explore new rooms. There are artifacts to find and haunted events that happen depending on the type of room. Each of the character cards have different starting levels of mental and physical abilities. The abilities come into play when the player needs to perform a die roll to overcome a haunted room or do battle with a monster. Depending on who and were the haunt is triggered the game gets split into two groups. One person becomes the betrayer and receives one secret objective and the remaining players are given a secret objective. Normally the betrayer has to prevent the other players from doing something, finding an artifact, escaping the house, etc.
JK, BE, and I played the first game. It didn't last too long, JK (with beginners luck on his side) became the betrayer. He turned into an evil rat lord who needed to get to a special room to complete a ritual to kill BE and I. He also had about 6 rat tokens on the board to slow our advance, but it was all for not. The room that he needed to get to just happened to be right next to the room where he was. So he was able to get into the room, complete the ritual and kill us without much of a fight.
More people played the second game because two of the Risk 2210 players left in mid game leaving the games in shambles for CF and MR.
The second game was pretty intense. Within the first or second torn the haunt was revealed and MR become the betrayer. His goal was to protect some demons and get them to kill everyone using a special ring. As a group we managed to kill MR and get his ring. I was the best person to use it because I was the Priest. My mental ability was high but I had been wounded by MR before he was destroyed. By the time I got the ring I was too weak to get into position to do any damage.
JK found a hand gun item and was running around trying to shoot the demons. It didn't work very well because the demon lord can't be hurt or stunned by fighting. CA was on an expedition to find items in unexplored parts of the house. JK decided to do the same in another part of the house. That just left BA to reclaim the ring, fight the demons, get out of the basement, and get within a hairs distance of doing damage to the demon lord. He had some incredible die rolls but it ran out right at the end. In the end, evil won again. 
Betrayal at House on the Hill is great, its a very structured game but allows for some very interesting plots and interactions among the players. The turns are fairly quick and the game moves along easily.
Pictures to follow.....