Dinner With The Dark!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to dine in a darkened room, surrounded by glowing decorations, whilst playing a strategic party game with a group of strangers? Well, the option is now available!

Dinner With The Dark will take place on 25th March 2016 in Antwerp, and it will be quite an evening of surprises and fun! Guests will be invited into a dim room that will be lit up by various glow in the dark decorations, then throughout the meal they will be participating in the party game DEER LORD. Each guest will receive five glow sticks and five 'do something' cards that tell them what to perform during the meal. These things could be as subtle as scratching your head, making up a story or as blunt as banging your head on the table. The guests must act out what is on their cards without getting caught, if they do then they lose a glow stick to their accuser. But, if the accuser is wrong...then they lose a glow stick to the accused! The dinner guest with the most glow sticks at the end of the meal is the winner. The game is all about deceiving and being coy; a bluffer's dream come true.    

This unique and unforgettable event is being organised by Nebulous Dinners, a group of BBA students from KU Leuven in Brussels. Their combined passion for gaming and helping others brought them together for a school project that has led to Nebulous Dinners being formed, with the proceeds going to the charity Restos Du Couer. They have set up an impressive campaign on Indie gogo for funding and so far have received over 21% of the goal.

Board games can liven up any party and break the ice. Adding the extra elements of having the room eerily lit and playing a game that is all about outfoxing each other in subtle ways makes for a very interesting night.          

Dinner tickets are available here. If you can't make it to the meal, like myself, but fancy playing the game and helping out, then you can pledge for the PnP of Deer Lord and other merchandise. You could then host your own crazy dining experience with friends and family! 

Thanks for reading.

Marisa xx

Patchwork

Last week the popular game by Uwe Rosenberg, Patchwork, came to the IOS and Android and I have been playing it quite a lot. I know nothing beats an actual physical game, and the only things that hold me back from buying up all the games I enjoy are money and space! Seriously, some games are HUGE and I live in a teeny place where my walls are mostly stacked boardgames. But buying this game as an app was a great idea and totally justified as I see it as sampling a game before committing to buy. Also, sometimes it can be nice to curl up in bed with a game and play under the snuggly duvet. Shut The Box used to be a bed favourite as the rolling dice is contained in the box, but I'm not sure if the neighbours appreciated the constant dice rolling noise and the wooden slabs being flicked over.

Patchwork is a relatively simple game to play, and like many games it has a greater depth to it that emerges the more you play. The game had a few bugs on the initial download but these have been rectified and it plays smoothly now. The game emulates the tradition of patchwork quilting in the USA, where generations of families diligently work on creating beautiful patchwork quilts to pass on down. Now you can try your dab hand at it without the pain of stabbing your fingers with the needle. 

In this two player game, you compete to create the most attractive and high scoring quilt. The game fuses elements of puzzle-solving, time management, spatial control and strategy. At the start you are given a 9x9 grid to make your quilt on and are given five buttons. Buttons are the currency of the game, and the victory points. Buttons are worth one point and any leftover holes on your quilt are worth minus two points. To make a nice attractive quilt it must have minimal holes, I am still working on that part.

The score is kept by a time track on a separate board, which not only keeps track of the points but it gives you little perks to make the game even more interesting. Another interesting thing to note is the mechanism of the time track. After each turn the player who is behind or on top of their opponent's token goes first. So you could end up taking consecutive turns, if you play your *buttons* right!  

At the start of each turn players are given the option to choose from three of the available patches to buy and sew onto their board, or players can select the Pass option by sliding the button at the bottom of the screen. This allows you to move your time token one space in front of your opponent, then collect one button from the bank for each space moved. A good way to stock up on buttons when you are low. 

Each patch for sale is worth a certain amount of buttons and takes a certain amount of time to sew. Both of these are shown on the patch. Some of the more bizarre shaped patches display buttons too.

Once you have purchased a lovely patch, you can flip it diagonally and horizontally to make it fit nicely, but patches cannot overlap each other. Make sure you flip them using the buttons on the screen and not manually flipping them with your fingers, that did not go well! Once you are happy where you have placed your patch you sew it in and gain points for covering up holes. Sometimes life does not hand you buttons and you find you cannot afford any of the patches, if this happens then you select Pass and collect some buttons for your next turn.

Remember that time track and it's little perks? There are five 1x1 patches on the time track, whoever passes a patch first claims it and may place it on their board to fill a gap in the quilt. If you are anything like me, there will be a few holes on the quilt! Those awkward shaped patches that display buttons on them come in handy here too. On the time track there are buttons placed on the route, and when you move past a button on the track you receive as many buttons as you have on your quilt from the bank. It is raining buttons! Happy day. This button downpour happens to both players, regardless of whoever passes it first. 

There is also a bonus incentive for the first player to create a 7x7 quilted area. I am yet to do this as I tend to pick up the more abstract patches with the buttons.

This is a really fun, light and engaging game for two players who enjoy a little strategy and buttons. I look forward to playing a physical copy and holding all of the buttons in my greedy paws. 

  

Panic Lab; Living up to it's name!

Sometimes I like to play lovely calm games like Tokaido and chill out, but sometimes I like to be toppled over and play games that get me all panicky and excited. Panic Lab definitely falls into the latter category. At the laboratory there has been an incident and all the amoebas have escaped, you must find them quickly before the other scientists (players). To do this, you shuffle the 25 square tiles and arrange them into a big circle. A randomly selected player rolls the four dice to determine which amoeba you must find first, then everyone plays simultaneously and the madness begins!

The dice represent the Shape of the amoeba, the Pattern of the amoeba, the Colour of the amoeba and the Labs. The Lab die shows which lab the amoeba escaped from and which direction it went, players start from there and have to identify the correct amoeba by touching it. If the correct one is found then that player gets a token. The winner is the first player to collect five tokens.

There are a few twists to the game, of course. These slippery little suckers can escape through air vents! If you come across a vent whilst tracking an amoeba then you must skip all squares until you reach the next vent. If you reach the third vent, you must ignore all tiles until you return to the first vent and then continue the search. That has not happened to us yet, they usually get caught after one vent or get mutated.

What is that, you ask? Mutated? Yes, that is exactly what you wanted to hear. What on earth are these scientists playing at, leaving hazardous mutation rooms open for anyone to waltz in? Amoebas can change colour, shape or pattern by passing through these squares. The delicate little amoebas will not survive four mutation rooms in a row, though, if that happens then they vanish. That does not mean the round is over, as the player who touches the last mutation room the little dude slithered through will win the token. This is when the game really kicks off and lives up to it's name of Panic, ensuing a frenzied hunt for the constantly changing amoebas against the greedy eyes of your opponents.     

For those of you with younger children or for the faint-hearted, there is the option of simplifying the game by removing the air vents and mutation rooms, making the game less frenetic. 

The amoebas are cute and colourful, even if they do put years on me. The components all fit neatly in an attractive little tin, so we tend to take it on holiday and end up playing it on the floor of the hotel room or a coffee table. Panic Lab is for 2 - 10 players, age 8+ and the gameplay can last for 10 -30 minutes depending on how many players you have. The set-up time is is short, and it is not a complicated game to learn. Throw in the bonus that it is an inexpensive game, and enjoyable too. A game of quick-thinking, good reflexes and very alert eyes!

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

      

Adventures in Dungeons & Dragons

This year I have broadened my horizons even further in the gaming world and have delved into the realms of role playing games and tabletop miniature wargames. So far, Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer 40k are the ones I play the most. I have even been trying to paint the miniatures for these games, as if I don't have enough things to do already!

I will be honest, prior to playing D&D I had very limited knowledge and little idea of what it actually entailed. I remember loving the 1980s cartoon Dungeons & Dragons, and wanting a short unicorn that sounded both squeaky and gruff, but that was probably the closest I got to any D&D action. One thing I knew for certain about this game was that there would be a lot of dice rolling, and rolling a natural one was bad! I am the expert when it comes to low rolls, so I knew from the start my characters would have a hard time.

When I asked about D&D I was told by many people that it is all about storytelling, that you and your companions are weaving a fantasy story together and none of you know what will happen in the unfolding chapters. Even the Dungeon Master (who controls and organises the game) will not know the outcome for definite, they have a plan but will keep that a closely guarded secret. In this sense, it feels like an incredibly unpredictable and compelling experience. Armed with a drawstring bag of colourful dice, slightly blunted pencils and some paper, I boldly marched into the scenario. I was introduced to the 5th edition D&D; a beautifully illustrated Player's Handbook and not as daunting as I thought it would be. I was also given a character sheet to fill out. Oh, the choices! I chose to go with a homebrew race; Merfolk Erectus. This could have been a very bad choice for my first character, but I went with it as I liked the idea of a Mer-person with legs who needs to consume gallons of water every day in order to stay alive. In a separate campaign at the local games shop I was given a pre-gen character sheet, so it has been fun playing in different ways.

Playing out these campaigns with a crowd of strangers is interesting, and it is funny how we know each other's character's names but perhaps not our real names! After a few sessions the true names are remembered a bit more. We all refer to the Dungeon Master as the DM, even though we've known his name for ages. I have been quite lucky with Dungeon Masters so far, they all possess a great depth of knowledge of the world, and they have played enough times to know what works and how to keep everyone stimulated. They have also been very versatile and patient with beginners, such as myself. No one in our campaigns has been stuck on a rigid quest or killed off for making a tiny mistake...yet. I must say, my characters have suffered many misfortunes for their poor life choices. The last campaign with my pre-gen character did not go too brilliantly. My bereaved halfling had just laid her husband to rest (he made a VERY poor life choice, bless him. Involving bandits, no useful weapons and no back-up) when she was attacked by a were-boar and started to show signs of changing. On that day, she ate a priest by accident, stole a lot of bread and copper coins, ate a goblin's face, conquered the thieve's guild and then got bitten by a vampire in the night. To their credit, her companions did not reject her or turn her in. They may have purchased some shackles and a muzzle, just in case.

My Merfolk Erectus guy, Merlot Von Whet, has had a bit more luck than my halfling. He was just a name and a few abilities in the beginning but now he is so familiar to me and has his own unique personality. He is rather flamboyant, as he is of royal blood, but was banished for inappropriate behaviour in the palace. He always seems to have a heavy purse, despite his banishment. He is a druid, and can use Wild Shape to shape shift into various animals. As he has levelled up, so has this spell, and it has gotten him and his companions into a few...situations. It is not entirely his fault, as I am still grasping when it is ideal to shift and when I should let him stay as he is. The occasion when Merlot was a mouse and shifted back to humanoid form whilst crawling in someone's trousers was a valuable lesson to learn. Rolling low for initiative meant that the man was wearing metal armour and Merlot was horribly wounded. Luckily he is a bit of a healer, and time heals all wounds, right?

The sheer amount of trouble my companions and I get into is insane, we are only trying to do good deeds and help local villages out but things do not always go to plan. I guess that is the beauty of the D&D experience, because things would never go smoothly in real life. The most recent 'mishap' in the campaign at the games shop involved the slaughter of what we thought were a group of bandits. It turned out they were not bandits at all, they were emissaries for the Royal Fleet, and we ended up feasting with one of their brothers! There was a lot of guilt at the table as we listened to him speak fondly of his noble brother and how eagerly he anticipated his arrival. Gulp! We still finished the banquet and stayed in their castle, though. it would be rude to decline such an invitation.    

My next campaign date is late April, which gives me plenty of time to paint up my halfling. I look forward to finding a cure for my vampirism and breaking the curse of the were-boar affliction, with the help of my D&D posse. As true in any quest, all you need are good companions and good (ish) ideals. But don't shape shift whilst messing about in someone's armour, it does not end well.           

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

I finally finished updating my game plays of 2015 the other day, it took a rather long time as I had to log plays from December 2014 to June 2015. Yes, I have been very bad at logging plays...but I promise I will keep on top of it this year. After logging them all meticulously onto Boardgamegeek I checked the final count and I was thrilled to learn that I played 1,992 games in 2015! That is not too shabby for a relatively new gamer. Those games were an eclectic mixture of brief filler games, medium card, dice and strategy games, more robust boardgames and larger meatier games.  

It is funny to think that I was totally oblivious to this expansive and wondrous world of gaming just over a year ago, and it is interesting to see how I dove head first into the throngs of tabletop games. I was seduced by the shiny dice, the beautifully crafted boards and components but, most especially, by the unity and interaction that comes when playing a game with another person. 

To immerse oneself in a game, for me, is much like getting lost in a good book or trying out a new move in your skates - the same kind of thrill is released. You are using brain power; strategy, dexterity or even just counting your lucky stars. It is strange to say it, but being introduced to tabletop games has affected my life in a positive way. It has made me gain more confidence, given me the inspiration and the platform to start writing again, it has taken me on some great road trips around the country in pursuit of new games and experiences and has led me to make new and welcoming friends. 

So, that was my mushy little ramble! I look forward to writing a lot more, and gaming a lot more. I have lots of gaming adventures planned this year already, including more trips to new board games cafes. Quite a few fresh ones need to be checked out, and their cakes need sampling too.

Thanks for reading

Marisa xx