“Twelve minus three is eleven.”

Amara

Said during a game of Eclipse. She was so convinced, I felt like I was the insane one for a few seconds.

Mike invited us over to his family’s house for his birthday. Great food. The main dish was steak. Too bad we’re vegetarians! He picked up three new games, only one of which he heard about before. Who does that?!

He bought Alcatraz, which we he and his friends played the night before. They said it was pretty fun, and it sounded like it was. It’s a prison break game, where you’re forced to leave one player behind as the scapegoat. We did play Room 25‘s traitor variant. It’s like a mini-Betrayal at the House on the Hill (which is the third game he bought). We had no clue what to do, and even though Mike was the hidden traitor, he only had to waste his actions rather than actively stop us to win the game. Oh, and Amara and I let a teammate walk into an Orb of Obliteration. But he could’ve been the traitor! We didn’t know! At least it was a quick death.

I sheepishly brought Resistance along, as I know Mike loves that game. I would’ve bought Avalon for his birthday if I was invited more than two days in advance :/ We played three times, and those were the worst three plays I’ve ever experienced. I tried the Lady in the Lake variant once, which the creator supposedly uses in every game. It did not fare well with the group. People didn’t seem to want to figure out who was who. Some Resistance members just went with the flow. When that happens, the Resistance loses. The other players enjoyed my table antics, at least. By the end, it became a game of Confuse Anthony.

Last night I invited Alida, Leo, Anthony, and Gabbi (GabÉ) over for six-player Eclipse! And it was just as unfun as two-player. The others enjoyed themselves, but I think that was due to the newness factor.  I played twice previously, but only with Amara. I warned them the game takes three hours. It took six. SIX. And I lost handily. Amara got pretty much wiped off the map near the midpoint of the game. By her ally, no less! I had no strategy, and felt bottlenecked. Everyone was laying the tiles out to prevent completing warp gates with their neighbors as much as possible. At least people made diplomatic ties. Can’t do that in two player.

Aaaaaand it’s twelve hours later, I want to play again. Friggin’ Eclipse.

We ended up catching the tail end of Tacoma’s first gaming convention, ConTac, and I had a blast! They had a ton of games to , plus quite a few things for sale. There were about 25 people playing at any one time. It was a very chill and much better than expected.

We got to try out Kings of Tokyo. Very disappointing, since I read nothing less than outstanding reviews. I think I just rolled shitty, and couldn’t evolve my mutant, the King Kong dude. And when I did, the evolutions weren’t as great as the others I was seeing.

Then we played some Carcassone, since Jin and Jessica have never played before. Amara got first place, and I got second. Somebody else got a distant third. It was sort of embarrassing. We played with two of the expansions. Inns and Merchants and Lakes and things. I didn’t get why they’re considered essential to the game.

At the end, I tried scoring a promo card for Spartacus. The head guy said I could have one, but then never gave it to me. 🙁 Even after buying Dominion: Intrigue. Oh, and I really wanted Prosperity, but they didn’t have it. Still should be a fun expansion.

Funny story. The seller asked where we heard about the con. I said Reddit. After a pause, he asked where. I said /r/ boardgames, Amara said /r/Tacoma. Later in the car, we realized he heard “read it”, and was asking where I read it. Saying /r/boardgames probably didn’t help us. It turned out okay in the end, though, since he gave us a flyer with a link to their meetup group at the GameMatrix store. Fun times ahead!

Other thoughts: nobody introduced themselves to us. We read Ryan’s namecard. He owned the games we played. ConTac and GameMatrix really need to hire designers and SEOs; googling for game stores doesn’t bring them up, their website is awful at a glance, and their pamphlet they gave us looks like it was created by a middle schooler with no help from his parents. And why is it every time I go buy games, the most awkward interaction I have at the store is with the cashier? Maybe it’s just coincidence. Maybe it’s just me.

Rereading everything, it’s a wonder I enjoyed myself as much as I did. I think I just like playing board games. A LOT.

Nearish.

According to Merriam-Webster, it means ‘rather near’.

Take that, everybody else playing Boggle with me on Sunday. Nearish is totally a word!

We played four games of Dominion last night. So fun we missed out on running at the Y :/