Zero

I just got done playing a pretty cool new board game, one that I had something of a stake in. Well, maybe not a stake, but I was certainly involved. That game would be Zero by University Games.

To create this rather unique trivia game, the good folks at University Games surveyed around 500 people (I was one of them; so was my brother-in-law) to see who answered what and how often. For example, "Name countries that start with the letter 'I.'" So they asked those 500 people and saw how many answered what. The trick is, you want to pick the one people said least often. For every ten percentage points on the answer card, you move forward one space (i.e. if an answer rated a 50, you move forward five spaces). The object is to not cross the finish line, to be the final player on the board. There are ways to "rewind" and go backwards.

All in all, it's pretty fun. I worry that it's possible to run out of cards eventually; people with a good memory might start filing away the best answers pretty quickly. But it's certainly worth the play.

Fyrdwisa

So I was poking around on the Kickstarter page and I ran across this gem:



I'm a sucker for board games, especially strategy games like this one. It's a shame that this guy is so far from his goal with only 33 hours left (as of this writing). If you have the time, check out the video. If you have a few spare dollars you can pass on to a fledgling game designer, that'd be even better.

Gaming Two-fer

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I love playing table top games. The weirder, the more complex, the better. The sad thing is I don't get to play them that often. But this past weekend, I was able to take two new ones for a spin, so here we go...

First we have the Catan Dice Game. My introduction to what I like to call "geek games" came through the Catan series. One of my cousins brought the original Settlers of Catan game to a family Christmas. I fell in love. I have the original, the Seafarers of Catan expansion (never played it), and a Christian variant called The Settlers of Canaan. While I love the strategy of these games, I usually wind up losing. Actually, I take that back. I usually win the first game I play with a new group while I'm teaching them the rules. Then I can never beat those new players again.

I've seen the card version and wasn't all that interested. And then Jill, my darling wife, spotted the dice version. Intrigued, I went on-line where I was able to play a solitaire version on the game's official website. That gave me enough of a taste to go out and get it.

Basically, each player gets a score sheet with a miniature version of a Catan map, complete with roads, settlements, cities, and knights. To build those items, you have to collect the right resources by rolling six dice. You do this three times, keeping the stuff you want and re-rolling what you don't. You then get points for what you can build and are penalized if you can't build something.

The mechanics are straightforward and easy to follow. The real strategy comes in what you keep and what you re-roll. When I played the first game with my dad, sister, and brother-in-law, we all wound up scoring pretty low. Or rather, I scored low. They kicked my butt. My only gripe is the size of the score sheet and the relative darkness of the Catan map. I often lost track of what I had built already, often winding up saving dice for something I couldn't build yet.

So that was last night. This morning, my brother-in-law Chris and I broke out another new game, namely Carcassone: The Castle.

I've never actually played the original Carcassone. I do own the Christian variant, namely Ark of the Covenant. For those of you unfamiliar with the basic game, you build the board as you play, laying tiles and then placing people on said tiles.

The Castle is a two-player variant of the game. It comes with a scoring track that frames the play area. The tiles have towers, houses, courtyards, and paths on them in varying combinations. You build the interior of the castle as you play, playing people on the various structures to claim them and then score points as they are finished. As you move around the track, you also gain one-shot bonus tiles that can make or break your game.

Again, this game was pretty easy to pick up. The only real problem I suffered was that the rules were a bit different from Ark of the Covenant. In Ark, you can score points for partially completed roads and cities. The same is not true in Castle. And while there were some new rules to contend with, they were pretty easy to understand.

The whole game lasted about an hour or so, which seemed a little long. I blame the fact that it was the first time for both of us. The corner tiles, the one-shot bonuses, were a good addition. I think they're why I was able to win pretty handily.

If you like a good strategic game, one you can share with non-hardcore gamers, these two are good ones to try. Consider them "gateway" games.

Venus Needs Men

I always enjoy a bizarre board game. The more pieces, the more complex the rules, the better. I could probably do a whole month's worth of posts on some of my favorites, but tonight, I got to try a new one, namely Venus Needs Men. If you like '50s sci-fi, this is a game that you should enjoy.

The premise is simple: the players take charge of an alien race (Venusians, Martians, Plutonians, the denizens of Ganymede or Titan). You can also be in charge of Earth's defenses. If you're one of the alien races, your goal is to build spaceships, fly them to earth, and abduct as many humans as you can while fighting off your opponents. If you're the Earthlings, you're out to protect as many of your people as you can.

Jill and I bought this for her brother for his birthday a few months back (he likes complex games as well) and we had the chance to break it out tonight.

There are two sets of rules for the game, the "basic" and "enhanced." Tonight we tried out the basic rules. You can basically build new ships, move them, land them, abduct humans, and then head home with your prizes. If you happened to wind up near your opponents, you could attack them as well.

The Zap cards added some extra fun. These could be used to force opponents to skip turns, destroy their ships, or otherwise mess with them. It helped break up the simple play. Oftentimes we found ourselves pushing the little plastic ships around on the board and picking up the little "population chips."

While we didn't try the enhanced rules this time, we will in the future. It appears to add a layer of strategy to it as it tosses in special abilities (such as the Martian ability to take control of opponent's ships or the Titans' ability to infect humans) and technology upgrade cards.

There were a few drawbacks to the game, namely some holes in the rules. For example, there was some initial confusion regarding combat. The "quick reference" cards were vague enough that we weren't sure what constituted a successful attack. The rules did clarify things. We were also unsure what happened to abducted humans if the ship they were on was destroyed.

So if you like kitschy sci-fi, this game is probably for you. And if you do play it, you probably will want to skip right to the enhanced rules.