Weekend Gaming 8-9th October

It has been a very rewarding weekend as I played 2 games that I really wanted to table again and I finally understand why one of them is rated so highly. Lets take a look!

LOST VALLEY

A rather compact valley to explore

I brought out Lost Valley again because I wanted to see if it will last in my collection. This time though it did not feel as fun as with the previous group. I think it felt like a chore to the others. So far in my games I have never bought any extra wares or items as it did not feel worthwhile to trek all the way back to get any. Also in both plays, players tend to explore a lot and thus the last piece of the river seems to be placed fairly early which sets up for the end of game. Its kinda average for me right now but I'll give it 1 more go before it is up for trade.

DOMINANT SPECIES

4 hours of struggling and wheeling and dealing!

I enjoyed playing Dominant Species the last 2 times i played it. It had a lot of thinking and brain-gyming (as i call it) that got me all flustered and excited at the same time. Dominant Species the card game was SO disappointing then to me when I got it. So I went out to get myself the latest edition of Dominant Species. Been wanting to break it out and last weekend I got my chance. We played 1 round first to let everyone have a good grasp of mechanics before we reset and went for a full game. With 5 players, it took us almost 4 hours to play the game but it was a very fun 4 hours. A lot of cajoling and misdirection here and at the last round, I chose a lot of Competition which gave me the opportunity to become dominant in several more areas. I won in the end as these dominant areas brought me a whopping 45 points, much to the anguish of several players. Fun game, fun game. I would love to bring it out with the group of librarians I play games with and see how the biological aspect of the game appeals to them. :)

ANDROID:NETRUNNER

2 games and I won both! I had fun as the runner 

Sunday I managed to snag some 2 player game time. First up is Netrunner. After my first play as the Corporation, I wasn't too sure what all the hype was. Now after 2 games of this on sunday as the runner, I realised why this game is so fun. Granted I may have had victory-biased (I won both games) but I think after these 2 games the whole concept and gameplay clicked for me. I was no longer still comparing it with Magic the gathering but able to appreciate it by itself. Good game and I hope to bring it out to expose more people to the game. Hopefully we can get a deck building aspect going and have at least a regular session going!

MILESTONES

I seldom have the roads so far extended in the map

Next, we tried Milestones 2 players. I never tried any of my multiplayer boardgames with just 2 but I brought along Milestones because I had thought the game will be fast. Indeed it went pretty fast (maybe about an hour) and its more vicious because if your opponent makes mistakes and you are in a position to make use of the mistaskes, you can really run away with the points you score. This is also the first time I had roads built all the way to the end of the board. I went with the coins technique again which won my first game for me when I was at GENCON 2012. I will try that again to see if that is a sure-win strategy.

MORELS

Fun first game! Did not cook a lot but won by 2 points.

Last game we played was Morels. I have gotten my copy quite some time ago and I have been yearning to give it a go and I was glad to bring it out yesterday. After going through the rules and some clarifications, we managed to complete a game. We did not really manage the decay pile very well though and it quickly grew too big for any of us to take. We also did not cook a lot of mushrooms (only 2 pans of it each) so our score was rather low. I expect this will get a few more plays with me because its light, easy to teach and play and not a bad little game. Recommended! Getting the extra pieces like walking sticks and pans does spruce up the game a little but its not necessary.

So all in all, a great weekend gaming session! Hope you all had fun as well!