Blog O’ Obscurity

With Halloween approaching the perfect board game to go along with the spooky but cliched movies on cable TV is “Betrayal at House on the Hill.” If you have a copy, break it out and give it a play. If you don’t, then hope that Avalon Hill re-releases the title sometime in the near future. It’s currently out of print.

The game centers on you and your fellow players slowly splitting up (of course) and exploring a very large and strange house. You may find weapons or people or supernatural strangeness, but eventually the ‘haunt’ will start. This is when one of the players is assigned to be the traitor and the rest of the players work to stop his evil plan.

The atmosphere of the game is pretty good and the stories recreate cheesy cable horror movies very well. There are fifty scenarios that randomly get played, each with its own story and goals. This ends up being the main problem with the game. There are so many scenarios with different rules and special circumstances that it seems that many of them were not play tested enough. We were constantly trying to figure out how to make the rules work for certain scenarios. Also, some scenarios are weighted to one side or the other. Some make the job of the heroes very difficult while others make the traitor’s goal almost impossible.

Still it’s a fun game for a medium size group that only takes 30-60 minutes to play each game.

Popularity: 2%

I know that I’ve already raved and raved about how much I love the George R. R. Martin series that begins with the book, “A Game of Thrones”. Last week I finally had the opportunity to play the well-received board game of the same name.

Five players take control of five of the major houses of the land of Westeros. Houses Stark, Greyjoy, Lannister, Baratheon, and Tyrell. Each of the houses starts in a geographically unique position with different starting units and different positions on the various power tracks.

The unique features of this board game are the randomness of many events. Recruiting new units does not happen every round like many other war games. The game contains different influence tracks that players must bid on to take control. However, this event also does not take place every round. In our first game we waited until halfway through the game for the first round of bidding. Being unfamiliar with the procedure, everyone spent all of their available power, and had none to spend when the bidding event occurred two more times.

The army limits also made the game very interesting by limiting the number of units that can occupy the same space. By preventing players from piling up units in one space, the game is made much more interesting and balanced. Strategic maneuvers are absolutely important because of the limits placed on each player.

My group enjoyed this game very much and look forward to the next opportunity to try it again.

But remember, winter is coming, and a Lannister always pays his debts.

Popularity: 11%

No, not the old Bobby Brown group.

Dungeons and Dragons has a new ruleset out. It means a lot of money for the new books and a lot of time spent learning the ins and outs of all the new rules, but things look pretty interesting.

Gnomes and half-orcs are out as player characters but still in the game as monsters. New elves, dragon people, and evil tieflings are in as player characters with all sorts of new and weird abilities.

The entire magic system has been revamped along with just about every other rule. Every character also gets abilities that are at least like magic depending on their class. Can’t wait to give it a try.

They released some videos with interviews of monsters and characters. They’re pretty funny, even for non-D&D fans. My favorites are the mind flayer and the gnome.

Beholder

Teifling and Gnome

Mind Flayer

Popularity: 10%

After years of my brother asking me to play Sheepshead with him, I finally relented and learned how. It is a trick-taking game designed for either three or five players. In the three player version, one player is pitted against the other two to get more than half of the available points. The five-player version sets one person and a random partner against the other three.

An overview of the rules is listed here at Wikipedia.

I tried out the three player version. It seemed very difficult for the one player to win against the other two, but I did manage it once with an amazingly lucky hand. All in all I liked the game and the potential that it has to get better at it. There are obviously some strategies that I need to learn to get better.

Popularity: 14%

Right after the final The Lord of the Rings movie was released a few years ago, a series of board games were released that followed the progression of each movie in a different board game. At the time I was very interested in all sorts of different games and very into The Lord of the Rings. The back of each box for each game showed all of the pieces, as usual, but also showed the unique board system that included three dimensional mountains and towers for the pieces to climb.

Alas, the game went out of print while I was away on business, and I was never able to play it.

Until last week when I managed to find all three games at my local used bookstore (I love those places). So far I’ve played The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Each player can move any of the many characters in the game. Every few places a card is flipped up for the character that crossed it. Additional boards and characters are added as the game progresses. The game is very straight forward with little strategy.

And that’s really the biggest problem. As the characters are moved around the maps of Middle Earth, things just happen to them. There is little control over what happens or who it happens to. There are also little consequences when these things happen. It is very difficult to gain points on purpose, so the winner is decided almost entirely by luck.

I played once with my friends. There were mixed reviews from them, but mostly negative. I played again with my sons, and they enjoyed playing one of the grown up games. I didn’t get the games that I was expecting, but they should be fun for the kids for a little while before they get too much older.

Popularity: 18%

You’re smart, right? You like a challenge, right? Don’t you wish you could get onto “Who wants to be a millionaire?” so you can clean up on the show?

Did you know you don’t have to try out to audition to play trivia games for money? Actually when you go to BreaktheVault.com, you’ll be entering yourself in online contests where you could win a couple hundred bucks with each contest you win. Right now, they’re running a “Who am I?” contest. Everyone has as many chances as they want to answer the question (until someone gets it right) and you’ll receive clues along the way - a new one each day.

It’s free to register so join now. If you’re like me, you’ll then spend 20 minutes trying to figure out the answer and they decide after 20 guesses you’ll need to wait for the next clue.

Popularity: 12%

Last year my husband got very addicted to backgammon. He would play against the computer over and over again and he got pretty good at it. I couldn’t get into it because the easy setting made really annoying errors and I didn’t like the idea of winning because the computer was throwing the game. By this time, my husband was too advanced for me and I didn’t know anyone else who wanted to play. Come to find, the world lives online and I can play against real people with different levels of experience.

There are so many different sites on the net that provide a great place to play backgammon that it can be hard to decide which one you want to spend your time at. It makes sense to see what extras each site provides for you.

Is it popular enough that there will always be someone to play with or will you be sitting and waiting for a partner for a long time? This can be very inconvenient if you’re just looking for a little practice during your lunch break so you’ll want to find a well visited site.

Does it offer a variety of people to play with? BackgammonMasters.com has people from all over the world playing because their site is offered in 14 different languages and they are constantly adding more.

Can you play for fun or play for money or must it be just one or the other? As a beginner I wouldn’t want to play for money but as I improve, it may be something that appeals to me. A site with both options doesn’t require me to acclimate myself to a new gaming environment if I change my mind.

Does it offer other games to learn and play? Maybe you want to learn other games as well or polish your skills at one you’ve already leaned. Backgammon might be just the starting point of gaming for you and, once again, you don’t want to have to relearn the environment when you change games.

There are many things to consider but once you do, you will find the right gaming site for you.

Popularity: 15%

On the same night that I tried out “Memoir ‘44″ I was also able to go through a game of “Frag”. “Frag” is set up to be a first-person-shooter, but on a board game. I was at least intrigued enough to try the game out.

Each player must choose a character and assign it points to health, speed, and accuracy. It seems like there would be a lot of options on how to assign the points, but in reality there are only one or two combinations that really work out. After that players walk around in circles to collect items and weapons, and after they feel strong enough, leave the starting areas in search of people to frag.

The game system is okay but a little awkward. It takes multiple rolls and a little math to figure out each shot. This kept the pace of the game pretty slow. Combined with rules that encourage players to walk in circles hoping to pick up good items and weapons, this game quickly got everybody involved bored.

When you design a game based on first-person-shooter video games, you’ve got to keep it fast, engaging, and interesting. The dice and math system is slow, walking in circles is boring, and some players become uninterested when it’s apparent that they aren’t going to win.

In other words, convince someone else to buy it if you want to give it a shot.

Popularity: 17%

Last week I finally made it over to my local board game store’s monthly board game night. I first played the uninspiring “Frag”, but then very much enjoyed a couple of games of “Memoir ‘44.”

This World War II war game initially looks very much like “Axis & Allies”, but plays more like “Queen’s Gambit”. It is not a worldwide battle like “Axis & Allies” or even a regional conflict like some of the A&A series, but it is war fought at the battlefield level. The multiple scenarios included with the game and available through the expansions offer dozens of battlefield options.

Each scenario spells out the battlefield landscape, starting positions, available units, special unit abilities, and any other peculiarities to the scenario. The variety is nice in a WWII game as I find that games like A&A seem to play the same every time. The downside is that each scenario is not entirely balanced. The idea is to make the battlefield match up to the historical context when possible. Therefore, one side is usually at a disadvantage. (But then again, so is Axis in A&A.)

The gameplay is card-based with each player relying on drawing and playing cards to move certain units. Those units can move, attack, or both. Attacks are resolved using special dice that force defending units to take hits or retreat. Defending units do not roll dice when attacked.

I’m looking forward to getting another chance to play this one soon.

Popularity: 17%

Another board game that has come across the pond from Europe and taken our gaming group by storm is King Me. This simple little game can be played in 30-45 minutes and is fun for all sorts of gamers from the serious strategist to the most casual, even girls.

The game consists of 13 characters (each with a colorful Italian name) that are vying for the throne. Each of the 3-6 players take a card that lists out 6 of the 13 characters. These 6 characters are the ones that will give you points at the end of the game. Each player takes turns placing the 13 characters on various levels of the board. After they’re all placed, everyone takes turns moving the characters up the levels and towards the throne. You can move any of the characters that you want, not just the ones that are on your card. When a character is moved onto the throne, everyone votes whether that character becomes king. When someone gets a unanimous vote for king, the round is over and points are totaled.

The goal of the game is to have your characters in high point levels on the board when a king is elected. If any player votes against a character being king, the candidate is killed and gives no points to anyone. Each player only gets a certain number of no votes, so they must be used strategically. Eventually they’ll run out and someone will get elected.

The player with the most points at the end of three rounds is the winner.

There is even a special rule for the last round that will give you the maximum number of points if you can manage to get zero points with your six characters. Sort of like shooting the moon in hearts.

Popularity: 14%