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Cliff
United States
Western Great Lakes - Owashtinong Aajigaaning
Michigan
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I can only design print-and-play board games and study rule sets for so long. I'd love to pull out the solitaire Pocket Civ but video games keep coming out.
I've been on again, off again with Rome: Total War Anthology (daaaaaang, I've only just conquered the 20th of 50 regions in half-a-year) and Fallout: New Vegas (dlc [downloadable content] heaven!). I think Fallout might be the distraction from Rome Total War. 
Sooooo, along comes temptation and I finally succumbed, this holiday weekend to one of them:
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - roughly the same rpg engine as Skyrim, but I refused my kids pleas and demands to join in yet.
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare - After being introduced to Left For Dead and Left for Dead 2 just looking at a different zombie multiverse, game and engine with an awesome soundtrack and ambience was awwwwwfully tempting. There should be time to take a quick spin round the old west US/Mexican border.
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Dead Space 2 - This was it. I'm more board game than video game these past several years and so I'm not well versed in the many different titles. So, for me, this is the first time, a game felt like walking through the video game equivalent of the first 'Alien.' And I'm not including 'Aliens' as much as I love it for what it served up. Think I'll get back to this before province #21 of the proto-Eastern Roman Empire.
Note: Searching for the Dead Space 2 link showed me there were two expansions and/or dlcs for the original. And the kids said the base game was only $15 somewhere. w00t!
Sun Dec 25, 2011 10:28 pm
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Cliff
United States
Western Great Lakes - Owashtinong Aajigaaning
Michigan
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College semesters and internships suck up time. I look at 'Games Played' on the survival-basis of month-by-month. If I'm going to make it through this, it's because I've got game.
This season for acquisitions has been a little different. For the first time by objectives have been Essen-oriented and have been few but big ticket (Poseidon's Kingdom, Trajan - links below) especially since I haven't been able to position myself for the pre-order yet. This could be just the experience to catalyze that.
On the flipside I've been lucky to find support (thanks!) and/or the resources to start the print-and-play (pnp) projects of Adobe, Stone and Steel and The Big Time!. Pnp projects like these can make the final product feel even more value than a big ticket item even if I'm not personally able to create a polished product.
In early holiday updates and by means of reprinting my post on the Holiday Loot thread:
I gifted to various family members:
Mondriaan 2020 & Battlestar Galactica (could be played by family for the first time! with my non-big-gamin' wife, even!
I had to make sure that I ordered:
Poseidon's Kingdom
Prêt-à-Porter
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Trajan (co-sponsored by Dad)
and Dad ordered:
1812: The Invasion of Canada
from the collection: Tonight I'm eyeballing Bargain Hunter and Gang of Four as games to tempt a card player into playing new and different things. We have a few other possibilities as well.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Sun Dec 25, 2011 10:14 pm
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Cliff
United States
Western Great Lakes - Owashtinong Aajigaaning
Michigan
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addendum: hottest Doctor Who gaming around seems to be the 2009 rpg (see item below)
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Cliff
United States
Western Great Lakes - Owashtinong Aajigaaning
Michigan
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The temperature surged into the mid 80s today (only to storm right back down 20+ degrees before daybreak tomorrow). So we steamed towards Port Sheldon and Holland (Michigan, USA). We made our way down to the just opened Tunnel Park where there is a tunnel under a dune for access to Lake Michigan. The tunnel was amazing because it's too early for all the winter-blown sand to be cleared by Parks and Rec Dept. There was so much sand in the tunnel (about 25 feet/8 meters or so) that I had to crouch just enough to keep my head from scraping the top of the tunnel. And that was damp from the humidity condensing inside. So, we break out and I see shoes in the distance, driftwood and a funny box!
I had to approach because the box was curiously sandy colored with a bright graphic. Surely, the reason anyone would approach. It was clearly flotsam that made it in on the lunar high tides. And the driftwood said it all. Must've been a superfreighter container ship that sunk off the razor-sharp shoals of Holland.
The treasure was a beauty! It was clearly a freighter that plied the Miss'ippi River up from the Texas valley. Probably came down the Rio Grande, passing Asian carp and into the Chicago River locks (bigger than the Sault Ste. Marie locks, I hear) to enter Lake Michigan from Chicago.
It was clearly imported from Egypt but from what antiquarian age? The beautiful papyrus sack contained marble tiles but the winds were blowing near-gale force - a fierce southwesterly Nor'easter. We could've set gamepieces out but I feared sand entering and spoiling the contents. So, we waded in da waters (freezin' cold!), scouted for da Bears and green Packers (a strange fish (Vincus Lombardicus)! And packed it all up and headed into the city of Holland proper for windmills and stops at Thrift stores that unfortunately did not turn up rare Avalon Hill or any other interesting recreational items. We missed out on peanut paddle ice creams at the Nut Company (closed) but paid homage to the annual gathering spots of 36 Hours of Games at Hope College and waved at our flgs - Out of the Box as we drove by headin' for home!
Can't wait to play this game ...
again!
Ra
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Cliff
United States
Western Great Lakes - Owashtinong Aajigaaning
Michigan
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I'm double billing a role-playing game and a board game.
The past few weeks I've been involved with a Play-by-Forum (pbf) group with the role playing game Diaspora. I secured it for our public library system and was preparing a kind of The Morrow Project prequel setting. I was thinking an adventure or two or three to get a nascent interstellar program running.
And then RPGG folks started talking a second round and critical mass was achieved and launched. The results are here in our [geekurl= http://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/DiasporaRPG-Local_Gro...]Local Group campaign wiki[/geekurl].
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Props to a local gaming friend. I've been cajoled, hostile traded, stock and company dumped and more in learning [geekurl= http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/19/18xx]18xx games[/geekurl]. If you've played Age of Steam or other stock games this is all of that, rolled up into one and a bag of poker chips.
I thought I was on the way out with 18xx games but I've been playing a few of them electronically lately. I can't recall the last time I played it live, but it's been good to get back. But nowhere near as fun to play live. Everything was reinvigorated with 18Mex and, just yesterday, a play of 1846.
I've turned a corner. I'm going to purchase my first 18xx game (and re-started work on 18AL/GA). I can't wait to sit down with my dad to play a recommended good 2-player version like 1860: Railways on the Isle of Wight or 1825 Unit 2.
Great gaming has just gotten phenomenal.
I still can't wait to get Battlestar Galactica!
18xx
Diaspora
Mon Mar 28, 2011 11:07 pm
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Cliff
United States
Western Great Lakes - Owashtinong Aajigaaning
Michigan
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Whew! A couple of very busy months down and winter starts to close! And I love winter...I've missed snowshoeing and egg nog this season, finally got to the big sledding hill, and, very importantly, managed to restart some gaming by managing some of the busy-ness.
I've been able to blur some lines and get some gaming going on at school. There have been free-times for potpourri and I've worked - lightly - to revamp a game.
There was room to work Apples to Apples in to the mix - just come up with some new vocabulary card, and use everything else. I wanted to make it a little more teacher interactive - especially if an excuse for too much hilarity ensued - so I brought in some flat beads. We didn't end up using it - there was a substitute teacher that day - but the idea was that the judge, instead of awarding the apple card as a point - could award a bead - 3 points - for the answer that best fit. 1 point for the most interesting, funny, whatever. Both beads could be laid on separate cards or combined on the same card. And, if needed, the teacher could award the 'Cursed'-bead (a la Dominion) of -2 points if awards were given willy-nilly or based on 'You're my buddy.' But just using the 1 and 3 point markers seemed to work out in our one pilot run.
Conquian was introduced to me. It may be the earliest form of rummy there is. And it's no simple rummy. It's a worthy game and great to sit down with students and enjoy it. I can't wait to finish learning the rules. In the mean time I've shared Take 5! & Tien Len.
Free gaming has included:
Ticket to Ride (some students enjoy coming back to this)
Carcassonne
Topple
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Sorry! Sliders
We used Once Upon a Time for a writing exercise. Although we haven't place the game per se, we have taken cards with pictures, handed out a hand of five and asked the students to use 2 or 3 of them or more and included them in a five+ sentence creative writing. Maybe the game, too, soon.
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Taking more classes of my own towards a degree this semester and I'm starting to think I can incorporate some game mechanics in some presentations, too.
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Cliff
United States
Western Great Lakes - Owashtinong Aajigaaning
Michigan
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What a great day with everyone and I still have plenty to play with I haven't played with in forever (or ever).
I came in planning on seeing Dad sometime later and possibly getting in a game with Caylus with a friend and someone who posted to the Midwest forum on our gameday if we came across him. In the meantime:
-Two copies of Railroad Dice showed up, but they didn't get played. Yet! So, I figure they get the Coincidental Obscure Showing - Unplayed Category
-A few of us opened up with San Juan but it was with expansion. My whole total-immersion boardgame initiation came with San Juan when a friend loaned me his copy. The whole family played and played and I thought we'd be gamers... together... forever. But my wife dropped out post-San Juan and over the next couple of years so did the kids (though they theoretically could be found over at videogamegeek).
-We couldn't find the third person interested in Caylus so we hooked up with a couple of others and played Homesteaders. Another gamer friend recommended that getting that ol' western theme rolling with Carson City would be a good way to go. I mentioned that Carson City: A New Beginning was on its way.
-On to an introduction to a chemistry game by a chemistry professor - Organic Soup. I really can't ask for much more of a better introduction. And all the chemical puns everyone was throwing around? Greatness! We got a couple of those games in.
-It's been many, many moons since I had played my sophomore game of Battlestar Galactica. I was kindly invited as the seventh player in the latest expansion. It was a sprawling board that included the Pegasus expansion board and the Exodus stuff. Incredible wonderfully laid-back pace and freakish Cylon assaults. I had to go cylon after "parsec" 4, but still took a shot at missing killing a couple of centurions that were one step away from ending the game. Then the humans unfolded all sorts of +2 bonuses and made me shoot my toasters. It was time to go for the cinematic flourish so I visited Admiral Cain, whispered conspiracy and Kat was lethally ended smokin'! I wasn't planning on Starbuck replacing her, though. President Roslyn revealed as a Cylon and then the Crossroads phase and it seemed like suddenly there were slugs (trauma tokens and temblors) ricoheting everywhere. It was a done deal for the humans. ]
-We finally rendezvoused with my dad and got a late start with Caylus that didn't finish. Man, I was rusty with the rules and hadn't played in sooo long, but it was a nice reunion. Only got the scoring the castle walls though.
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