Danger Planet open gaming. 6-player When Darkness Comes, 3-player Pueblo, 3-player Goldland.
Players were Karl (playing Kirk), Cindy (playing Sharon), Chris/Stephen (playing Robert), Eric (playing Brian), Rich/Nancy (playing Steve) and myself (playing Valerie.) We were all new to the game, except for Rich. What a convoluted list -- actually, Rich decided to drop out after helping set up the game. Chris decided to drop out after listening to the rules to the game (because he was drawn to a game of Puerto Rico) and Nancy dropped out a quarter-way through the game because it was getting late for her. We played the scenario "The Last of the Tzimovars."
Since none of us were familiar with the rules, we spent an hour going over them (without even going over the full flavor text.) This is more of a gamemaster-less role-playing game which I would say is a combination between Zombies!!! and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It uses an interesting die rolling mechanic in which progressively higher ranking Yahtzee rolls determine target values. It has nice bits, with pewter characters, thick cardboard tiles and tokens. The scenario we played involved getting equipment we need and continuing on to destroy the vampires and free their hostages.
We started Cindy, Karl and I started off exploring the Church. We flipped over the tokens in the Church and just kept them. Since I didn't read the setup instructions, I didn't realize these were actual items (crosses and holy water.) Stephen, Eric and Nancy went ahead and explored the clinic. An initial encounter with a guard dog got them kicked out, but they re-entered and dealt with security. At that point, we were ready to move on to the gunshop.
Halfway through the game, we're on our way to kick vampire butt
After an hour of gaming, we decided to stop, because we messed up some of the gameplay. This was a good practice run, and we'd get a decent game in next time we tried it.
I think this game will be fun once we get over the initial learning curve of the game. It did seem to drag with five and six players, though. Keeping closer to four players should be a good balance between pace and variety of player interaction. Need to make a list of what gives victory points for quick reference during the game.
Players were Karl, Cindy and myself. Cindy was new to the game, and Karl took five minutes to explain the game to her.
This was an interesting game in that we were about evenly matched. I thought I kept my color covered, and it looked like Cindy had a lot of her color exposed -- at least from my point of view. The game ended at a half-hour.
End-game and scorecard. (Nice that the score actually fits on the card -- if only Carcasonne were like that!)
Click here to buy your own copy at FunAgain.com.
Players were Karl, Cindy and myself. Cindy played for the first time. To avoid confusion with the rules, we used the decisive Yahoo SpielFrieks message with Goldland rulings.
This game felt like it moved faster than last time. Even Karl enjoyed it more, learning from his mistake last time. Cindy generally went diagonally towards the temple. Karl went up the left side of the board. I went across the top. I had the easiest time, with only one adventure across the top. We played with the rule that we could go back to the start and pick up a fresh set of starting tokens, but I think it was a mistake. Cindy and Karl went back there, and I took advantage of it by getting to the temple. Karl was able to get to the temple, but missed the starting gold. Cindy didn't make it, but made up for it by spending time earning adventure tokens from Karl and me.
Fully Explored Goldland at the end of the game
Click here to buy your own copy at FunAgain.com.
