Sushi Dice

I thought I would start the morning off with a game that would awaken my senses and make me alert, Sushi Dice by Sit Down! Games is perfect for that. I picked up this game from Travelling Man at London MCM Expo in May, and it has become one of my favourite dice games. You are playing as a sushi chef, preparing delicious sushi platters in haste against your opponent. A deck of cards highlights the different sushi platters that need to be made, three cards are drawn from this deck before the game starts and are laid face up on the table. You and your opponent must try to create these dishes by rolling six dice each simultaneously and matching up the symbols on the dice to one of the cards. When the game begins you start rolling your dice like crazy to make the platters, setting aside the correct symbols and keeping on rolling the other dice until you match the dice to the card. When you have matched up the symbols you ding the service bell and take the card. That card is then replaced by a new one from the deck and play resumes!

 Sounds rather frantic? Well, the craziness is pushed even further to the extreme by the "Yuck" factor. On three of the dice in your hand there are little black skull symbols; the "Yuck" symbol. This means that your sushi dish you were slaving over went horribly wrong, one of the other chefs has tasted it and deemed it unsuitable for consumption. If you roll a "Yuck" and your opponent notices, they can say (or scream, as it often happens) "YUCK!" and that forces you to re-roll all of your precious dice. In a two player scenario, the first player to collect six cards is the winner, the victorious sushi chef from a cut-throat kitchen of critics. 

      

The star symbol on three of the dice is a wild card, it can count as any other symbol in order to help you complete a sushi platter. The star symbol is a life saver in most situations!

Sushi Dice is a fun and quick game, a great prelude to a gaming session and also quite addictive. It can be played with 2 -6 players and is suitable for ages 6+ so it is a good group game for families and friends. Even though the box says it takes 15 minutes, it could last all night, if you take the pressure of the kitchen. The frenzy of rolling your own dice to match the symbols, but also keeping a watchful eye over what your opponent rolls in case they should roll a "Yuck", is not for the faint-hearted!

The rain won't ruin my summer this year!

Every summer I have dreaded the rain coming, as it meant that I would not be able to skate outside or my pic-nic would be ruined. I was always desperate for glorious sunshine or I would become undone and sulk until the weather cleared up. But this summer I have finally found indoor activities to keep myself from despair. It is pouring down with rain today but I am not sad one little bit, as I have just joined a gym to release some energy and at home I am surrounded by fantastic games. My skates are sitting upstairs looking glum, but I will find a roller disco to give them a good roll. As for now, I have a very busy afternoon ahead of me...

I have set up a little conveyor of games to play. First up is the tile placing strategy game, Blokus, which was one of the first games I was introduced to last year that started me getting hooked. Then a spot of Famiglia, which is a deck building Mafia game I picked up at the UK Games Expo in May. after that we have M80, which is a great and tense card game I got on Kickstarter this year, I will be going into more detail on this game and others by the same games designer later next week. Last but by no means least, we have Coup on the table. This is another one of my favourite bluffing games, I hope I can claim victory in this round!

Wish me luck! :)

Marisa xx

What to play first tonight?

I have a nice little spread here of games, and I just do not know which one to start with. Why, you ask? Because I want to play all of them right away! It has been a few days since I have had a reasonable fix of gaming, so I am eager to dive right in. Perhaps I will ease into it with Pairs or Just Desserts, or go straight for the jugular with a frenzied game of Sushi Dice. Only time will tell...  

Board Games night at Marquee Models

This week I went to Marquee Models for my first board gaming night in the store, and had such a good evening! There were lots of new and friendly faces there and stacks of new games to try out, as well as a few old favourites perched on the table. I ended up playing Sentinels of the Multiverse, Skull, The Resistance, Werewolf, Breakneck Blitz and King of Tokyo. It was an interesting mix of playing co-operative games, bluffing, sabotaging, negotiating and a dice rolling game to end with. There was so much going on I could turn this post into an essay, but instead I will just write about a selection of the games I played.

I have played Skull before many times, and it is one of my favourite bluffing games. The coasters are beautifully designed and the game is really simple, yet effective. In your hand you have three flower cards and one skull. Each player lays a card face-down on the table, then each player in turn adds one more card face-down. On your turn you have the option of adding a card to your pile or you can say that you bet you can turn over a certain number of cards without revealing a skull. Other players may then challenge you, saying that they can turn over even more cards without revealing a skull, or they can Pass. This is when things get exciting and tense, as you must turn over your own cards first then choose someone else you think may have just laid flowers. The challenger could be serious or they could be baiting you, leading you into a trap because they know you have laid a skull and were bluffing.

This game is really fun and perhaps requires a straight face when challenging. Many a time I have laid a skull in my pile and have tried to bluff it, but ended up having to reveal my own skull because no one challenged me!

Werewolf was a crazy game. We had fourteen people huddled around a long table with suspicions growing already from past betrayals in bluffing and deduction games. The moderator handed out the cards and I was one of the werewolves! I knew this would end badly for me, all the villagers would sniff me out quickly as I am terrible at acting innocent when I know I am the blood thirsty killer. Although, I am also terrible at acting innocent when I truly am innocent, I suppose I just have a guilty-looking face. 

During the game, everyone shuts their eyes and the moderator tells the werewolves to open their eyes and choose someone to eat. Then when everyone opens their eyes they are told who is dead and they discuss who they suspect is the wolf, then vote on whether to run after them or not with pitch forks to kill them off! This game makes me imagine how a small medieval farming town would act if it were plagued by a werewolf, and how paranoia and fear would fester making everyone suspicious of their neighbour. A few innocent villagers were killed in our game before the werewolves were revealed. I was the first werewolf to be discovered; typical. I need to work on my poker face.

King of Tokyo is a fighting dice game, with a Japanese movie/TV monster theme. Think of Godzilla or Gamera smashing up a city, then turning on each other! You play as giant mutant monsters or robots who are destroying Tokyo and beating up each other to become King of Tokyo. On your turn, you roll six dice up to three times and can choose to either hit your opponent/s, take health points, take victory points or take energy cubes that you can save up and buy energy cards with them. I do not know how I pulled it off but I managed to win the second round with just one health point left! Naturally, I had to take photographic evidence of this.

So, Board gaming nights are a great thing and a good way to try out new games. It is also nice to meet people with a passion for games. People bring their own games to introduce to others, to share the experience and to pass on the joy. I shall be returning to Marquee Models for more mayhem next month.

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

 

Welcome to Tabletop Stop

Welcome to my blog; the experiences in tabletop gaming from the eyes of a rookie. Like a lot of people, the vast majority of my past experiences with board games had been the usual family games that you find lodged in corners of pubs and rental cottages. Although some were entertaining at the time, they could also be a bit tedious and I longed for something more. I rather liked the social aspect of board gaming and how we weren't staring at a screen in silence, we were interacting and thinking, sometimes working as a team and sometimes there was a bit of friendly competition.

Last year I was introduced into a whole new dimension of tabletop games that blew my mind. These games were engaging, they were fun, some were gorgeously designed - they were unlike any games I had encountered before. Now I am hooked; totally addicted to table top games and have started my own little collection too (which is growing steadily). I love the feel of the printed linen cards, the small components and counters, the custom designed dice and the attractive boards; all of these things are more precious to me than a pair of designer shoes and a handbag, which confuses my family!

In my new adventure into gaming I have noticed that there seems to be a game for everyone. Last week I found a card game about collecting and cooking up flavoursome wild mushrooms, a memory card game about identifying actor's masks in a Japanese theatre and a push-your-luck game where one of the players is essentially dared to go on a dungeon crawl. The sheer variety of games available is wonderful, from the long and strategic games to the short and frenzied games. Often, my mood dictates what kind of game I desire to play, so I am pleased to have an array to choose from.

I hope you enjoy following me on my journey into the tabletop games world. I will be posting about the games I am playing, writing about my experiences, what shops or events I am visiting and in the near future I will be talking to game creators and enthusiasts. Please tell me about your favourite games too, and tell me your recommendations, as I am always on the prowl for something to add to my collection. So far, I feel like this community is a warm and welcoming crowd, that want to get others involved and I cannot wait to wade further into this pool of dice and decks!

Thank you for following.

Marisa xx