Game Night

Friday Sept. 18, 2009 - Gamer's Inn
I started off this gaming night with Dion Garner and I declining to join in a game of Battlestar Galactica. Though I want to try this out, I just wasn't in the mood for this sort of deal this evening. Dion had a couple different games available and pulled out Mr. Jack for the two of us to try out. I knew this was a two player deduction game, but nothing else other than it got good word of mouth. I was surprised to find a game that was pretty fun and I recently traded for this. Dion played Mr. Jack and I was actually able to figure out the truth of the matter in about 4 turns, which was just about when Matthew and Amelia showed up.
Next up was another new game to me - Medieval Merchant. I've had this for a while, but hadn't gotten it out before. Matthew Frederick and Steve Bauer went through the rules for everyone (myself, Amelia Boli and Richard Aronson) and we got started. This was one of Jason Sato's favorite games and I can see why. It is hard to describe the game - it is something of a push your luck, area control (but not quite), investment (but not quite) euro. I sucked at it of course, not optimally using my special power token early enough. Final scores were: Charles-33, Amelia-32, Richard-40, Matthew-42, Steve-43
Since the 19th (the next day) was Talk Like a Pirate Day, I had brought along Pirate's Cove. Richard left for home, so Steve, Matthew, Amelia and I set about to plunder the seas. The two times I've played this, I have gotten just killed - either I pick the same as someone else, or the Dread Pirate Roberts (or in this case Blackbeard) follows me around beating the crap out of me. This night was a good example and I started with three moves to the same island as Steve and Blackbeard. I somehow managed to shake Blackbeard and he then managed to hit Matthew something like 4 times in a row as he tried to bury his treasure. It was pretty funny really (mostly because it wasn't me for a change). We ended the night with scores of Matthew-16, Charles-17, Amelia-18, Steve-26.