I taught Legendary twice, once during the first week, and again for the cooperative games day on Monday. Both times we got two games in during the time we had to play.
The first time we played I had in one of my favorite heroes, Spiderman, but discovered he did not have good abilities for first timers, so the second time I taught, I kept him out until everyone had played through a game. The best way to teach was just to start everybody playing and slowly explain cards as they came up. There is too much variety for me to explain everything up front and then never get to see some of it.
The first time teaching, I was just assisting everyone with learning the game, after that I joined in playing the rest of the games. I shared a lot of strategy, regardless of whether I was playing at the time or not. Eventually everyone got the hang of the game and started playing enthusiastically, I was surprised how into it some of the girls were.
I am generally very good at picking up games myself, and most of my introductions to new games have been similar, throwing me in to the deep end and just jumping right into playing the game, so I don't feel like this experience has changed how I play games very much. I am glad that so many people got to enjoy Legendary with me, since that is why I bought it.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
Stone Age & Cuarenta
The first game we played was introduced as very similar to the video game Age of Empires, which I have played a lot of. I chose to sit at its table for that reason and I am glad I did. The game consisted of gathering resources in order to purchase cards and "hut" tiles for neanderthals to live in. The person teaching us had only played the night before and gave us strategy hints that he had observed, for example, the player who gets to go first should generally increase his agriculture, because that means guaranteed free food for the feeding phase at the end of each round. I noticed that I played with a very similar strategy as my Age of Empires games, stockpiling resources and then spending them to get large numbers of victory points. We did not get to finish the game, but I like to believe that I was well on my way to winning.
The second game was a card game called Cuarenta. It was very confusing to understand at first because we felt like we were doing things wrong (maybe we were, maybe we weren't) and we were getting the directions in sections at a time. I would have liked to see someone play an example round and then I am sure the rest of us would have asked a lot fewer questions. It was also annoying playing the rounds with only half of the directions, because our group always ran into a situation where we needed the extra directions right before they were explained and by the time we realized what we should have done differently it was too late. For example, the other team beat us 48 to 4 because they got a clear and a match in the same turn. It would have been nice to know about the mercy rule that keeps them from reaching 40 so fast after getting to 36, we might have been able to catch up a little better.
The second game was a card game called Cuarenta. It was very confusing to understand at first because we felt like we were doing things wrong (maybe we were, maybe we weren't) and we were getting the directions in sections at a time. I would have liked to see someone play an example round and then I am sure the rest of us would have asked a lot fewer questions. It was also annoying playing the rounds with only half of the directions, because our group always ran into a situation where we needed the extra directions right before they were explained and by the time we realized what we should have done differently it was too late. For example, the other team beat us 48 to 4 because they got a clear and a match in the same turn. It would have been nice to know about the mercy rule that keeps them from reaching 40 so fast after getting to 36, we might have been able to catch up a little better.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Wizard & 7 Wonders
I felt like Wizard was just another version of Up and Down the River where we only went up. I was disappointed that this trick taking card game was not as exciting of a new game as most of the other games available to play during this time slot. I'm not sure it is even worth the cost of the cards to play something that would work just as well with a regular deck of playing cards.
The second game I played was 7 Wonders, which I feel is fully worth the investment. It is a quick game with a limited amount of time possible to spend playing and a set number of decisions to make, and yet it is never the same twice. It accommodates up to seven players but is just as playable with fewer, which is nice for the group that I would be playing it with outside of class as well as in class. The idea is to play cards in order to gain the largest number of victory points at the end of the game when all three "Ages" decks have run out. Some cards require resources available from other cards, so playing them in order really makes a difference. I really liked this game and am thinking of purchasing it myself after interim is over.
The second game I played was 7 Wonders, which I feel is fully worth the investment. It is a quick game with a limited amount of time possible to spend playing and a set number of decisions to make, and yet it is never the same twice. It accommodates up to seven players but is just as playable with fewer, which is nice for the group that I would be playing it with outside of class as well as in class. The idea is to play cards in order to gain the largest number of victory points at the end of the game when all three "Ages" decks have run out. Some cards require resources available from other cards, so playing them in order really makes a difference. I really liked this game and am thinking of purchasing it myself after interim is over.
Evil Baby Orphanage
On the day I taught Legendary, I learned how to play Evil Baby Orphanage. It is a card game where each player is a time traveling nanny, that rescues evil characters from history as babies and attempts to stop them from causing chaos. It has historical dictators like Fidel Castro and political figures like Al Gore in it, making each new baby card something to laugh at. I thought it was really funny that the backstory for the creation of the game was a couple of YouTubers goofing around and talking about how great a game this idea would make and then realizing that they could make the game.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Game Design
It was interesting to hear about game design from people who have had both quick success and long, drawn out processes. I did get a few ideas from them about starting with a theme and figuring out a game mechanic from that in order to build a game. I am not sure I agree with the idea of starting with a small amount of things going on and then building off of that. The way I think about it is to plan what I eventually want it to look like and then figure out small increments at a time that can be built up. I figure that if I have too much to start out with I will be able to produce something rather than nothing.
After the discussion we played one of the games that the designers had brought with them. It was for kids, but all of us playing it tried very hard to put our pieces in the place that would score the largest amount of points. When we finished that, some of us switched games and started playing Puerto Rico. I have played this game a few times, including a few times on the iPad, which makes it a lot faster and easier to play, but I still enjoyed the game and wished we would have had time to finish.
After the discussion we played one of the games that the designers had brought with them. It was for kids, but all of us playing it tried very hard to put our pieces in the place that would score the largest amount of points. When we finished that, some of us switched games and started playing Puerto Rico. I have played this game a few times, including a few times on the iPad, which makes it a lot faster and easier to play, but I still enjoyed the game and wished we would have had time to finish.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Settlers
It was interesting to see a bunch of different, well thought out variants for Settlers.
My group played the 2-teams-of-2 variant, first with a regular sized board and then with the 5-6 player expansion added for more space.
The other team seemed to be at a clear disadvantage because one of their players had miss-categorized himself higher than he should have. I could tell something was wrong when he tried to place his second settlement 1 away from his teammate after he first tried placing his second road and settlement in different locations. Later, when he needed a cheat-card to remember how to build a settlement, I realized why my team was doing so well. At first I thought it was just the fact that I'm getting married to my teammate, but that was probably only part of the reason we got to 17 points so fast.
We really saw the importance of good initial settlement placement in that game, and so in the second game the other team chose much more carefully and stayed ahead of us by 1-2 visible points for much of the game. (Not counting the hidden largest army waiting in the ranks.)
While we were playing I kept wondering how a few simple rule adjustments would impact the game. For example, what if longest road and largest army were shared between the teammembers. Would it make sense to allow the teammates to use each other's roads to build places, or to let them build 1 away from each other using a double wide road to link themselves? How could those rule changes be made fair and consistent?
I look forward to trying some more of these variants after the class has finished with my friends who are abroad this interim.
My group played the 2-teams-of-2 variant, first with a regular sized board and then with the 5-6 player expansion added for more space.
The other team seemed to be at a clear disadvantage because one of their players had miss-categorized himself higher than he should have. I could tell something was wrong when he tried to place his second settlement 1 away from his teammate after he first tried placing his second road and settlement in different locations. Later, when he needed a cheat-card to remember how to build a settlement, I realized why my team was doing so well. At first I thought it was just the fact that I'm getting married to my teammate, but that was probably only part of the reason we got to 17 points so fast.
We really saw the importance of good initial settlement placement in that game, and so in the second game the other team chose much more carefully and stayed ahead of us by 1-2 visible points for much of the game. (Not counting the hidden largest army waiting in the ranks.)
While we were playing I kept wondering how a few simple rule adjustments would impact the game. For example, what if longest road and largest army were shared between the teammembers. Would it make sense to allow the teammates to use each other's roads to build places, or to let them build 1 away from each other using a double wide road to link themselves? How could those rule changes be made fair and consistent?
I look forward to trying some more of these variants after the class has finished with my friends who are abroad this interim.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
First Day
On the first day of class we split into three groups. My group played Apples to Apples. This is a game that is billed as a party game, but it felt like our party of 13 was a little bit too large to enjoy the game as much as I have with smaller groups. This game was supposed to be an icebreaker, but it felt like it would have been more enjoyable after we had had a chance to get to know one another better. The group that played the dice game first probably had a much better time laughing and joking with Apples to Apples because they had had a loud game full of talking and interaction first.
The second game we played was not that interesting. Paper telephone is always funny at the end, but really feels very slow and quiet during the majority of the game play. I was surprised that my message was the only one to stay relatively similar to the original throughout the game, although the message was negated somewhere along the lines.
The dice game was the most fun of the three games we played that day. It took thinking, and no knowledge of other group members was required to succeed in calling their bluffs. This game was also played in smaller groups, which made interaction much easier. It was the game that we had the most freedom to have tabletalk during, because it would not interrupt the flow of the game to have side conversations going on.
The second game we played was not that interesting. Paper telephone is always funny at the end, but really feels very slow and quiet during the majority of the game play. I was surprised that my message was the only one to stay relatively similar to the original throughout the game, although the message was negated somewhere along the lines.
The dice game was the most fun of the three games we played that day. It took thinking, and no knowledge of other group members was required to succeed in calling their bluffs. This game was also played in smaller groups, which made interaction much easier. It was the game that we had the most freedom to have tabletalk during, because it would not interrupt the flow of the game to have side conversations going on.
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