Weekend Gaming

In my post about how I became a professional blogger, I neglected a few other sources of income:

- Reviews: two reviews, for an average of $35 each.
- Donations: three donations, between $15 to $35.
- Selling copies of my game prototype and funneling people through to buy my game; another side-effect of blogging.

Apples to Apples

We had guests for dinner, including a single mom and her three children ages 15 to 22. They are not game players, but somehow I managed to convince the mom and her oldest to try out Apples to Apples a bit after dinner. Tal, Eitan, and Rachel joined us.

A2A has been known to melt pretty hard non-game-player hearts, but, although she did a fair amount of laughing, she blamed this more on the Chardonnay than the game itself.

We played with the party box sized regular edition of A2A; this is the first time I used this version, having only previously played with other versions or the original smaller regular edition. I recommend this one over the original edition which they no longer make anyway.

Like everyone else, mom and daughter weren't happy with any proper noun cards they drew into their hands and discarded them in favor of other cards. I'm beginning to think that these cards are simply uninteresting, no matter what edition.

Blokus

After lunch I played Blokus with Tal. The last time I had a copy of this game I wasn't particularly thrilled with the two-player variant of two colors each, but this time I really warmed to it. Still, just as well play two-player with the travel edition.

Puerto Rico

Nadine invited Rachel and I over for our oft-afternoon game of Puerto Rico.

I was second player and Rachel was third. I deliberately wrecked the standard opening moves, picking Mayor on turn 1 and Settler on turn 2; the net result was short turn loss for me, and I figured that was the way it was going to end.

Rachel decided to try her own variant strategy of Hospice and University. Hospice is actually pretty good with our tweak of allowing you to move a colonist onto it when you buy it. But University still sucked, even at 7 and coming pre-manned. It's all the other buildings you give up when you buy it.

As a result, Nadine looked like she was heading towards victory. However, I made some huge surges in the last five rounds or so, aided by having a coffee monopoly, a strong Harbor and Discretionary Hold, and some good choices. I'm not sure where Nadine stumbled, but she must not have shipped enough, as even with a Harbor she ended with many fewer victory points than me.

I took the game 65 to 57 to 52.

Game News

The United Methodist youth in Nashville are attempting to break the Operation board game world record of 1:02 minutes.

More merging in the game business, as University Games buys Upstarts.

The Lansing State Journal covers pirate games with some surprisingly good choices.

Yehuda