Three More Days

A Month Without Gaming. Ok, not entirely true, but close enough in my mind. We've been sharing space in my parent's house since mid-January. We close in three more days on March 29th (8:00 AM is the earliest they would do it) and with any luck, April will see the return of some gaming. You see, all my games are boxed up in big moving boxes and are essentially in storage in the basement. I was able to find 80% of them and dig through, but there were still a couple I didn't find. Even so, there just wasn't time to go out and find a game group. With the new house, we have a yard so the dogs can take care of their own business (which I'm sure they will appreciate as much or more than I). The other thing we will be "getting" with the house, is a return to my computer being set up. That alone should send my plays back through the roof, as I can get back to VASSAL gaming with Jason, Dion, Bobby and whomever might be interested.

So, what am I looking forward to? Well, there are a couple folks I've communicated with from the BoardGamegeek who live here in Omaha. After we settle in, I'd like to have at least one guy over for some two player goodness (Battlelore and Twilight Struggle are sounding good - though I'll have to get a new copy of TS since mine is being traded to Jason Maxwell as soon as I find the box its in). I'll probably consider something along the line of a group playing more towards the May timeframe. We expect to add a considerable amount of furniture in early May - new dinning room set, new couches and TV, bedroom set etc. The gaming key in that is the dinning room set. We are likely going to get one of those nice tall tables and a set of 8 chairs/stools. That should allow me enough room to host at least 5 other folks. I also am going to be able to get my games out into the open! Yes, I've been given permission to put my collection out in the office. I'll need a lot of nice shelving, but having games out in the open means that non-gamers will see them and start asking questions. My collection isn't that big (150 games), but I've got a lot of things that display nicely - Alea big box series, my Ah/Hasbro collection, etc. We've also met a nice couple about our age-ish, with kids our age-ish. Possibly we can get them over once in a while and maybe I can teach them stuff like Pompeji or Ticket to Ride (at this point, I have no idea if they like games or whatnot). while the kids play.

What else? My son is now a little over 3.5 and has shown a lot of interest in counting lately (we have to count everything fishsticks, the number of kicks to kick a ball to someone, the number of steps up or down, etc). I'm still of the mind that he's still squirrly enough that rules to any game might be a bit much, but if he's interested enough, he might force himself cooperate. I'm trying to decide on how to get him started gaming. Trouble! would almost fit (simplified of course). There is a single die that cannot get away or be played with. The track is made of posts, so movement is definitive. If we each got one piece, he could count and learn to take turns (and learn to move pieces). I had thought about grabbing Candyland to teach him the turn thing, but there are far more interesting games (from the mind of a Dad that has to play with the kids) than Candyland and he already knows his colors very well. There are a couple other games I've seen from various sources on the geek that I will probably start trying to acquire (Gulo Gulo comes to mind) - in three more days.

March 17, 2007 - Cards

Luke and Annette Wallace (friends of my folks - Steve and Cathy) came over to play some cards. The first game played doesn't have any name that I've ever been able to determine. (UPDATE - Jason Maxwell identified the game as Crummy Rummy). You take three decks of cards including jokers. Twos and jokers are wild. Each round, you start with a different number of cards and have a goal for going out.

For the first round, you get 6 cards and need to make at least two sets of three cards to lay down. The next round is 7 - one run of four (same suit) + 1 set of three, then two runs of four, three sets of three, one run of four and two sets of three, two runs of four and one set of three, three runs of four, and finally a run of 7 and two sets of three.

Each turn, you can take the face up discard, or pass it and the top card to the next player and take the top card. You then may play your initial requirement of melds, or discard and pass. Once you've played your melds, you may add to the sets or runs of anyone's cards on the table. The goal is to go out. When a player goes out, any cards held are counted - 5pts for most cards, 10 for face cards, 20 for aces and twos and 50 for jokers.

I got killed and didn't get down at least twice. I was in last most of the night. After that we played some Frank's Zoo. Unfortunately, Luke was in a mood this night and he got stuck badly a couple hands which resulted in some card throwing. Everyone was pretty tired, so we called it halfway through the second game.

March 11, 2007 - Samurai

Finished another game of Samurai via MaBiWeb. This game was against Dion Garner, Jason Sato, and Kirk Bauer. After my last 4-player game I made a conscious effort to nail down whatever piece it looked like I had the best shot at - in this case rice. I was doing decently enough, but made a critical mistake with two turns left (I thought I was taking the last rice piece, but I didn't notice one other one on the board and so the game didn't end) and ended up with too much rice and only 3 other pieces, which wasn't even close. Jason and Kirk each managed 5, with the tie-breaker going to Jason.