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Gaming Weekend D term 2008
Apr. 1st, 2008 04:37 amThis past weekend was Gaming Weekend for the SFS. My goals were threefold - play stuff I haven't played before so I could find new games I might like to add to Sunday Random Gaming, try to find people to playtest some of my game prototypes, and run a Spoils demo. Goal 1 was barely met, goal 2 failed completely, and goal 3 wasn't even an option because Tenacious never sent me my demo kit. = P
I arrived to find that there were even more games available than I remembered from previous years, and was thrilled. I tried lurking among them for people to come in a pick out a game, so I could ask if I could join them. In practice, people didn't come in while I was there, or if they did it was to pick out a game like Yahtzee. ...the hell? Anyway, I switched to watchinig people play other games, and hope to snatch up players when a game ended. Somehow I always managed to be watching people who left Gaming Weekend completely after they finished their current game. I seriously considered just going home. This obviously wasn't working.
Finally I spotted someone I sort of know - I know their name, anyway, and have talked to them a couple of times. They looked at the scheduled events and noted that 1000 Blank White Cards was supposedly going on. That wasn't really the sort of thing I wanted to play, but I figured it was better than nothing, and maybe I could get them to play something else when we were done. We learned that it wasn't happening quite yet, but would start "soon." To kill time, someone suggested a game of Fluxx, or possibly Zombie Fluxx. I'm not a big fan of Fluxx, and I consider it to be more of an Activity than an actual Game. There's no real strategy to be had, and I always seem to hit a collection of rules that leaves me playing everything from my hand every turn, and all I get to decide is what order to play the cards. Not really all that interesting. Zombie Fluxx, however, has at least a tiny bit of strategy to it, because you have some control over who gets zombies and whatnot, and you can sort of try to work towards zombie goals or non-zombie goals. So I agreed to play that because at least I'd then get to play 1000 Blank White Cards when it was over. Alas, it was a rather long and kind of annoying game in which I, as usual, spent most of my turns forced to play everything in my hand. When it was finally over, it was clear to us that 1000 Blank White Cards was not going to happen, so I'd just wasted all that time. Bleh. Worst of all, two of those players decided to go home, so I couldn't even waylay them for some other game.
A bit later I finally caught a break, and got to try Shadows Over Camelot. Alas, there were only 3 of us playing, and it seems like that game plays better with 4-7, but at least it was something I haven't played before, and it was interesting and fun. Afterwards we were tempted to play again, but one of the players really wanted to play Munchkin. Sigh. I really don't like Munchkin. About half of the cards are funny, but that doesn't actually make playing the game fun. I agreed to play hoping we could play Shadows or something else afterwards. My first several turns consisted of kicking down doors and getting hit with curses, or running into the inevitable high-level monster that you run away from. I hate that until you are lucky enough to hit a low-level monster and pick up a level and maybe a useful bit of loot the game is pretty much nothing but running in terror from stuff. This particular game of Munchkin was also marred by real-world weirdness. A girl came to our table, sat down, and proceeded to regale us with a strange and rambling story that amounted to the fact that she tried to steal something, was caught, and was now stuck with a $150 fine. She appealed to us to lend her this money, and also to join her in her indignation that she was forced to account for her actions in spite of the fact that she was "cute." Annoyed by this, I told her that I didn't think she should get away with it, at which point she looked all hurt and said "don't you think I'm cute?" I said that wasn't even relevant, and that I didn't think people should be able to get away with things just because they were cute. She then shifted tactics and directed her attention more at the other two guys, and offered sexual favors if we'd give her the money. At that point I pretended she no longer existed, and thankfully she was soon ushered away by a friend. I can only hope that she was as drunk as she seemed. It was creepy. Anyway, eventually the horror was over, but after the other players left to return the game to the stacks they disappeared. Aargh!
Some time later I ran into them again while I was reading the rules for Race for the Galaxy (while other people were already playing it, unfortunately), and they wanted to get in one game of about an hour or less and then head out. There wasn't time for us to all learn to play something, so we settled for playing something I knew how to play. Out of the options presented we chose San Juan. I do quite like that one, and it's easy enough to learn that we didn't have any problems with them figuring out the game. It went really well, and I had a good time thankfully. I hung around for a while after that and got in a game of Tsuro, and then it was time to head home.
There was one other positive bit, which was that the t-shirts came out pretty cool. I saw several people wearing them...probably most of them were officers who got them for free, but at least they were wearing them. I did see a few people actually buy one, and even overheard one person who commented that they liked the art on the back, but the slogan on the front made it perfect. I told them that it was my design and that they had made me so happy. = )
I arrived to find that there were even more games available than I remembered from previous years, and was thrilled. I tried lurking among them for people to come in a pick out a game, so I could ask if I could join them. In practice, people didn't come in while I was there, or if they did it was to pick out a game like Yahtzee. ...the hell? Anyway, I switched to watchinig people play other games, and hope to snatch up players when a game ended. Somehow I always managed to be watching people who left Gaming Weekend completely after they finished their current game. I seriously considered just going home. This obviously wasn't working.
Finally I spotted someone I sort of know - I know their name, anyway, and have talked to them a couple of times. They looked at the scheduled events and noted that 1000 Blank White Cards was supposedly going on. That wasn't really the sort of thing I wanted to play, but I figured it was better than nothing, and maybe I could get them to play something else when we were done. We learned that it wasn't happening quite yet, but would start "soon." To kill time, someone suggested a game of Fluxx, or possibly Zombie Fluxx. I'm not a big fan of Fluxx, and I consider it to be more of an Activity than an actual Game. There's no real strategy to be had, and I always seem to hit a collection of rules that leaves me playing everything from my hand every turn, and all I get to decide is what order to play the cards. Not really all that interesting. Zombie Fluxx, however, has at least a tiny bit of strategy to it, because you have some control over who gets zombies and whatnot, and you can sort of try to work towards zombie goals or non-zombie goals. So I agreed to play that because at least I'd then get to play 1000 Blank White Cards when it was over. Alas, it was a rather long and kind of annoying game in which I, as usual, spent most of my turns forced to play everything in my hand. When it was finally over, it was clear to us that 1000 Blank White Cards was not going to happen, so I'd just wasted all that time. Bleh. Worst of all, two of those players decided to go home, so I couldn't even waylay them for some other game.
A bit later I finally caught a break, and got to try Shadows Over Camelot. Alas, there were only 3 of us playing, and it seems like that game plays better with 4-7, but at least it was something I haven't played before, and it was interesting and fun. Afterwards we were tempted to play again, but one of the players really wanted to play Munchkin. Sigh. I really don't like Munchkin. About half of the cards are funny, but that doesn't actually make playing the game fun. I agreed to play hoping we could play Shadows or something else afterwards. My first several turns consisted of kicking down doors and getting hit with curses, or running into the inevitable high-level monster that you run away from. I hate that until you are lucky enough to hit a low-level monster and pick up a level and maybe a useful bit of loot the game is pretty much nothing but running in terror from stuff. This particular game of Munchkin was also marred by real-world weirdness. A girl came to our table, sat down, and proceeded to regale us with a strange and rambling story that amounted to the fact that she tried to steal something, was caught, and was now stuck with a $150 fine. She appealed to us to lend her this money, and also to join her in her indignation that she was forced to account for her actions in spite of the fact that she was "cute." Annoyed by this, I told her that I didn't think she should get away with it, at which point she looked all hurt and said "don't you think I'm cute?" I said that wasn't even relevant, and that I didn't think people should be able to get away with things just because they were cute. She then shifted tactics and directed her attention more at the other two guys, and offered sexual favors if we'd give her the money. At that point I pretended she no longer existed, and thankfully she was soon ushered away by a friend. I can only hope that she was as drunk as she seemed. It was creepy. Anyway, eventually the horror was over, but after the other players left to return the game to the stacks they disappeared. Aargh!
Some time later I ran into them again while I was reading the rules for Race for the Galaxy (while other people were already playing it, unfortunately), and they wanted to get in one game of about an hour or less and then head out. There wasn't time for us to all learn to play something, so we settled for playing something I knew how to play. Out of the options presented we chose San Juan. I do quite like that one, and it's easy enough to learn that we didn't have any problems with them figuring out the game. It went really well, and I had a good time thankfully. I hung around for a while after that and got in a game of Tsuro, and then it was time to head home.
There was one other positive bit, which was that the t-shirts came out pretty cool. I saw several people wearing them...probably most of them were officers who got them for free, but at least they were wearing them. I did see a few people actually buy one, and even overheard one person who commented that they liked the art on the back, but the slogan on the front made it perfect. I told them that it was my design and that they had made me so happy. = )
