Lightweight day in Berkeley

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Pandemic, 4 player, we win with 2 turns left. Once again the game felt too easy, even with all six Epidemic cards in the deck. In truth we got pretty luck in card draws, getting two epidemics within 3 cards early on, and several players pulling disease color cards for cures. We didn't have to transfer very many cards. This group is ready for the "On the Brink" expansion, which has some really ugly diseases (and purple cubes!).

Illuminati, 4 player, I played The Network and lost. It's pretty hard to get the special condition for The Network, which is power transfer cards. I would have done better to accumulate 12 groups. The winners were Cthulu and Gnomes of Zurich factions.

Exploding Kittens, 2 games. I saw this come up on the Kickstarter, decided not to back, figuring with however many umpteen million copies the game sold I'd eventually play it with someone who had it. We played two rounds, I can't recall who won either, but it hardly matters. The game does play fast, like 15-20 minutes. Could probably get that down to 10 minutes. This should be easy to find a $5 copy if I ever want to pick it up.

At the end of the day, it turned out to be not quite so lightweight as I broke out A Study in Emerald. This game works really well with four players, and I'm betting even better with five. I won this one as a Restorationist.

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.