Space Race

Our first Catan Starfarers game was quite a space race, with all three of us staying within a few victory points of each other. I pulled ahead toward the end and came within a point of winning, which led Matthew to focus his efforts on spoiling my relationship with one of the four alien species. As Matthew tried to win by forging friendships with aliens, and I pivoted to building colonies, we both kind of lost track of Nathaniel, who quietly put himself in a position to terraform an ice world and build a colony, which gave him enough victory points to claim the win!

Catan Starfarers

Matthew got Catan Starfarers for his birthday and our fledgling empires (I'm red, Matthew is white, and Nathaniel is blue) are just now beginning to push beyond our core systems (at the bottom of the photo) into the vast reaches space! Loving it so far!

Johnny...Gameseed?

I've been on the road this week, and my reputation seems to have followed me. Yesterday, one of the folks at the plant I'm visiting heard through the grapevine that I'm into strategy games, which led to a conversation about different games on the market these days. I provided a quick overview of some of today's heavy hitters -- the Catan series, the Pandemic series, etc. -- but to give them a taste of something easy and fun, I went out to a local Target last night and picked up a copy of Exploding Kittens. This afternoon, I got a bunch of colleagues together in a conference room and we played through a single game of Kittens, which they all enjoyed immensely. The laughter could be heard through the walls of the conference room, and although we might have disturbed some nearby meetings, it was well worth it. I left the game for them to enjoy and share with others. I have no doubt they'll play it again, and I hope it encourages them to look into some of the other games I mentioned. I think I ought to leave a game at every plant I visit, spreading gaming goodness across America!

Detour to Catan

Our oft-delayed futuristic Shattered Realm campaign took a back seat this weekend to Matthew's swim meet. While his brother was swimming, Nathaniel perused the Starfinder Beginner Box. He created an android mechanic -- going straight to the online Starfinder SRD when the Beginner Box
character creation rules weren't comprehensive enough for him! -- and then proceeded to badger us incessantly about playing. Matthew drafted a (an?) ysoki soldier and, because I had the day off today, we had planned on running through the adventure that's included in the Beginner Box. I woke up with a splitting headache and upset stomach, however, which kept me in bed for most of the day. Amy came to the rescue by joining the boys for a rousing game of Settlers of Catan, which lasted for much of the afternoon while I rested. Still looking forward to giving Starfinder a whirl, once I finally succeed on that Fortitude save...

Settlers

Check out this brief CNN video about the creator of Settlers of Catan.

Ameritrash...and proud of it!

A term I wasn't familiar with until I started getting heavily into board games is Ameritrash, which refers (disparagingly, as you can probably guess) to games with a strong genre theme (sci-fi, fantasy, zombies, etc.), usually involving individualized characters and a kind of narrative that unfolds during gameplay. Mansions of Madness, for example, would fall into this category. In contrast to Ameritrash games are the more "critically acclaimed" (scare quotes added to be snarky) Eurogames, such as the members of the Catan family and Carcassonne. Eurogames tend to have streamlined rules and very little dice rolling, and focus on competition for resources rather than direct combat. I don't have anything against the Euro style, and I own and enjoy many such games, but I'm kind of getting sick of the board gamers who look down their noses at anything that comes with plastic minis. I've got
Ghostbusters and Zombicide on order, and damn, they both look like a lot of fun. Isn't that the whole point of board games, anyway?

Game Time!

Kevin is in town for the weekend, and already we've inundated him with games. He squared off against Nathaniel in X-Wing and then we all played a game of King of New York, in which Kevin's giant robot was the last monster standing. Next up, we'll bring out Forbidden Desert, Ticket to Ride, and probably some form of Catan.

Forbidden Desert

Our family D&D night -- featuring the Tyranny of Dragons adventure path -- was on hold for the past couple of weeks while we were vacationing in New York. It's Friday again, but it looks like Tyranny will have to wait yet another week -- we've got Forbidden Desert on tap for tonight, and everybody is pretty stoked to try it out.

I knew we had a winner as soon as I opened the metal box that contained the game's many goodies. There's a cool little plastic airship (the objective of the game is to find the ship's missing components and repair it so that you can escape from the desert before you die from dehydration or get buried by the raging sandstorm), cards for the various adventurers (each with their own special abilities, as in Pandemic), equipment cards featuring a nifty steampunk design (sorry, Amy!), variable tiles to ensure that no two game maps are ever the same (like Settlers of Catan or the various D&D cooperative board games that have been released over the last five years), and more.

But is it a good game? We won't know until we try it, but the rules are simple and elegant, and I think we'll be up and playing in a matter of moments. I anticipate it will be loads of fun, but also very challenging -- our adventuring party may well die many horrific deaths in the scorching desert before we at last escape on that airship!

Hail to the King, Baby!

Nathaniel seems to have become obsessed with King of New York. And why not? It's a top-notch board game, right up there with X-Wing or any of the Catan series. He and I have played quite a few one-on-one games of King over the past week, and I'm impressed by his emerging tactical acumen. He doesn't always make the optimal choices -- but then again, he's four-and-a-half. Most kids his age are playing Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. It's fun to watch his mind grow -- even when his T-Rex develops web-shooting powers and ensnares my gigantic fish-piloted robot.

Catan Dice Game

So among the many Settlers of Catan products there's a dice-based Catan game (click here). We picked up a copy today at Target -- seems like a fun game for road trips and such.

Catan Kids

We went over to my sister-in-law's house for dinner last night, which gave Matthew and Nathaniel the opportunity to introduce their older cousins (ages nine and thirteen) to Catan Junior. Matthew jumped out to a big early lead by buying up lots of parrots -- sounds weird if you haven't played the game, but a lot of people consider it to be an optimal strategy -- although his progress stalled when he didn't have enough resources to buy the ships and forts needed in order to win the game. It was four-year-old Nathaniel who earned the victory, defeating the three older kids to the astonishment of everyone but himself. He may be the youngest of the bunch, but he can hold his own in board games.

New Edition of Catan

A new edition of Settlers of Catan is in the works...just in time for my boys to graduate from the children's version to the full game! Click here for more details.

Catan Junior

Amy is out of town this weekend, so the boys and I have been toolin' around on our own. We paid a visit to the game store up in Reno (I may have increased the size of my Rebel fleet, so don't tell the Emperor...or Amy...), where I inquired about Catan Junior, the kid-friendly introduction to the Settlers of Catan series of games. They were sold out, so we picked up a copy at our local Target instead. The Target checkout lady (no, not that Target Lady) was mystified by my obviously inadequate attempts to explain Catan and similar board games and their appeal to young and old alike. She just shook her head and said, plaintively, "My son is twenty-eight and he still asks me to buy him Captain America stuff."