Session Report September 17 2008 - Where have all the Gamers Gone?

Report in from Dana -

So, bit of a slow night. Brian and I were the only two to show up, so we decided to go for a potluck. Started out with Lost Cities in Brettspeilwelt and used the Continue feature. Of course, I agreed before I realized that the score was cumulative and I’d lost the first round by more than 100 points. I actually managed to win the second round. By 4 points. Not catching up that way. Third round was like the first round, but not quite as severe. He had positive points and I…didn’t. So, score one for Brian.

Then we decided to flip to Gameboardonline and tried out Turbo Hearts. It is not the nicest Hearts interface I’ve seen (personally I’m partial to the Puzzle Pirates Hearts interface), but it is the only TURBO hearts interface I’ve seen and allows you to play with bots if you don’t have 4 people. For those that don’t know, turbo uses the normal rules but has four special cards that affect the score of whomever takes them and plays for a set number of hands. Queen of hearts is worth 13 points, ace of hearts doubles the point value of all hearts, ten of clubs doubles all point values taken and jack of diamonds is worth -10 points. You can also “charge” (reveal the cards face up before the trick starts) to double their value, but you can’t play them on the first trick of that suit. You can use charged cards in combination. So if you capture a charged 10 of clubs and charged queen of spades, you get 104 points for the round. If you capture 4 hearts and a charged jack of diamonds and a non-charged 10 of clubs, you get -32 points! Anyway, Lisa watched over my shoulder and the game was a lot of fun, but the scores REALLY flop around and in the end, a bot managed to take the win. Score one for computers.

I wanted to let Lisa see 10 Days in Africa since I’d almost picked it up at Gencon. Had a good setup. Actually, the problem was I had two good setups that just didn’t work with each other at all, so I wound up replacing all of one of them. We almost went through the whole deck, each looking for a specific card before Brian found what he needed. I’d tried swapping things up a bit and managed to have 9 days in Africa. Still, score another for Brian.

At that point, we decided to call it a night. Good games.

Session Report September 11, 2008 - Close the windows, it's cold outside

Greetings!

A nice session of gaming this past evening, with a couple games being played.

Things started out really nice and friendly like with Karen kicking butt in a game of San Juan against Dana and Brian




















Beth joined later, and they playd Thurn and Taxis. Here's Beth's report:

Hi Pete,

Just thought I would send you the second game stats that we played tonight.

Karen, Beth, Dana, and Brian played Thurn Und Taxis. Dana and Brian were trying to avenge themselves since Karen had thoroughly creamed them in a game of Puerto Rico. Beth had just joined at 9:45, and had never played Thurn Und Taxis before. Brian and Karen were doing well at the beginning of the game with some early runs and chit collecting. Then Dana was making long runs which bumped his score up. Beth ultimately finished the game with the first run of seven, but Brian pulled it out in the end. Very close game.

Brian - 23
Beth - 21
Dana - 20
Karen - 8

Thanks for the submitted reports!

Pox Nora

Pox Nora is an online CCG. I can't tell if the individual games are for 2 players, or what. It's sort of cool? Base game is free, but then you get hooked in to buy expansions.

http://www.poxnora.com