hwango

For those of you reading this who don't know me in the analog world, one of my few social activities is playing board games. I frequently attend a Meetup for this on Mondays, and much less frequently a different Meetup for it on Tuesdays.

A week ago, a couple of people posted to the website for the Monday Meetup with comments about new games they had that they might bring. One was Tiny Epic Kingdoms, and the other was Abyss. I had vaguely heard of both, but knew nothing about them. I looked up Tiny Epic Kingdoms and thought "meh, maybe." The person bringing it was a friend, at least. I looked up Abyss and almost immediately lept to my feet and screamed that I had to play this game right now. Well, maybe my reaction wasn't quite that extreme, but I was definitely interested. Because the game has jellyfish. And squid.

But wait, not just jellyfish and squid, but JELLYFISH AND SQUID ALLIES. Also technically seahorses, shellfish, and crabs, which is great and all, but jellyfish.

And so I was terribly disappointed that the person who was going to bring Abyss never actually materialized on Monday. Now I had to find some other way to try this game, because as magical as the theme might be and as pretty as the art is, gone are the days that I buy a game that's $60.00 until I've tried it at least once.

The following Monday that Abyss-owning person did not show up again. I was, however, going to attend the Tuesday gathering this week, and I sent a message to the group asking if anyone in that bunch had Abyss and if it was any good. One person replied that they had played it and it was okay, and it turned out that they'd played it with the person who had been talking about it in the Monday group. Apparently, he also is in both groups.

This meant I desperately hoped that he would show up on Tuesday, and he did! And, once I was done playing the weirdly non-interactive and kind of dull tech-tree game Progress, we played Abyss! And I think I kind of confused and alarmed him with my enthusiasm to ALLY MYSELF WITH JELLYFISH AND THEREBY SEIZE CONTROL OF THE WATERY DEPTHS. I mean, sure, I allied myself with all manner of sea life (except, weirdly, seahorses, who seemed to avoid me for some reason), but really it was all about the jellyfish. And my glowing purple minions did indeed secure me gelatinous victory. And I guess everyone else helped.

Also, it was fun, and I'd play it again. It's not perfect, and it didn't play quite like I thought it would (for one thing, you don't actually take over that many locations...probably not more than two or three per person), but I think I'll probably try to get my own copy. Because, really, unless it was terrible, how could I not?