Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Thursday, October 22, 2009
DeanCon '09
On Saturday, October 17, 2009 we had our first boardgame day at my new house. A bunch of us meet up every year at Unity Games to play games, and last year I said, "Why are we paying $15 each to meet in a hotel ballroom and play boardgames when we could meet at my house for free?"
So we did.
The day started out with Chaos in the Old World, a game based on the Warhammer 40K universe, I think. Here's the best review of the game:
DowntimeTown Episode 6: Chaos in the Old World from Robert Florence on Vimeo.
Present were Kevin McGuire, Rob Palmer, Jason Lutes, Dan Tennant, and myself. We actually started with waffles and a syrup-off because Kevin brought real maple syrup from Maine, and Jason brought real maple syrup from Vermont. After waffles (which weren't all that great, I've made better) there was no clear winner on which was the better syrup.
Since Dan was late, we went right to Chaos while he munched on waffles.
It's only a four player game. I played Korne, the Blood God. I was losing miserably on the victory point chart and really didn't have a prayer, but there are four dials which afford an alternate way to win.
Basically you place units, fight, and try to dominate lands. If you dominate a land enough you corrupt it, and if you corrupt it enough, you ruin it. When you ruin a land, you get mega points. I was unclear on the way corruption worked, but it didn't matter. The Blood God just wants units to die. You don't have to win a battle, you just have to kill something, and if you kill something in enough places, you get to turn your little wheel.
Since it was clear that I wasn't going to win on victory points, everyone kind of ignored me. I decided to just spoil all their plans, so I started playing cards that forbade corruption to be played on specific areas. Then I attacked everywhere I could.
I won. It was weird.
Break for BBQ and some House of the Dead: Overkill on the Wii. Then we playtested Jason's game, which is based on pulps from the 20's and 30's.
I played the Arch Villain. It's a big, sprawling, long game with hilarious characters, and the mechanic of building wonderfully cheesy stories. I killed Dan's character, but was basically getting my ass handed to me by Dr. Radium (Kevin). He was an amazing Dr. Radium, with an authentic accent. I tried to seduce his sidekick, Gunther, who had a tommygun and dynamite. I would have totally wiped out Dr. Radium, but Gunther kept his wits and resisted my wiles. Damn you, Gunther!
That's Kevin as Dr. Radium. We were about halfway through when we noticed it was 8pm, so we took a vote and decided to call it in order to get a third game in.
The third game was... Battlestar Galactica with the Pegasus Expansion!
We've played this before, but not with the expansion. Rob played Admiral Caine, Kevin was Baltar, Jason was Starbuck, Dan was Tigh, and I was Dualla, so Caine and Dualla were the new characters. There's also a new type of character-- a Cylon leader. I was torn as to whether to take one of them, but it would seem to deny the whole "who is the Cylon?" aspect of the game, which is the best part.
We had our usual crisis at the beginning of the game, got out of it, and then had a relatively quiet period. Once the second round of "You are a Cylon" cards came out, Baltar (Kevin) used his power to see if Caine (Rob) was a Cylon. He then made Caine vice president, in order to show that he trusted Rob. Unfortunately, no one trusted Kevin, especially Rob. Rob had Baltar executed, thus proving that he was human, AND once Kevin came back (as Roslyn) there was no way for the new character to ever become a Cylon. So it was clear to everyone that Caine and Roslyn were human.
That left Tigh, Dualla, and Starbuck, and two of the three were probably Cylons. Yikes!
In these games, everyone always seems to think I'm the Cylon (because I usually am). I knew I wasn't a Cylon, and the next turn Jason revealed himself. That meant that Dan was the Cylon, but Rob was looking to execute someone:
See that look in his eyes? Yeah, he was murderous. I took my chance and had Tigh thrown in the brig. If we distrusted Tigh enough (and we did), then Caine could have him executed, which Rob did.
I've got to say, that if I were the Cylon, it would have been a masterstroke. Accuse the human of being a Cylon, get him executed, then reveal myself and throw the fleet into a pit of despair. On the other hand, it got rid of our Cylon and didn't allow him to do whatever nasty thing his card said he could do when he was revealed.
Then it was pretty much a numbers game on New Caprica. Without the expansion, the game usually deflates once the Cylons are revealed. This still had a good bit of tension, but it was like having to learn another game at the tail end of this one.
In the end, Dualla's power of moving civilian ships around saved us, and for the first time ever, the humans won the game. Well, not ever, but the first time that I've played it.
We finished about 1:30am for a total of about 14.5 hours of gaming goodness.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Chinese Takeout pt. 2
I was merrily following the main plotline, and checking off my little To-do's, when I come to a part where I have to rescue some kids from some slavers. Here are the little twerps:
Yeah, they're cooling their heels in a slave pen. That's fine. I could just walk through the camp gunning down all the slavers and set them free (that's what Joe did, except with his sledgehammer), but I have to go around and talk to all the slavers first. I find out I could go round up some slaves. Heck, I could even just go out and capture "evil" people (and I get to determine who is evil), and sell them into slavery. I don't want to have anything to do with slavery, aside from freeing slaves, but wanton slaughter seems to lack finesse. I can sneak into the somewhere and hack a computer and that'll probably work (I'm very good at both sneaking and hacking).
But first I meet this guy:
Yeah, I know. Vanilla Ice is now starring in his own videogame. It turns out that Pronto here runs the local gun shop. It's kind of a crappy gun shop, but he's got grit and spunk, and the boy wants to make something of himself. If he could only get his hands on 20 Chinese Assault Rifles, he could break them down for parts, and he could expand the business.
Now, faithful reader, Chinese Assault Rifles are pretty scarce in the wasteland. Basically every small gun seems to have a Chinese counterpart that does a bit more damage. The history here seems to be that America went to war with the Chinese when they invaded Alaska (via Russia? Who knows!) and there are Chinese infiltrators lurking about. I could just wander the wasteland and hope that I'll run into things (some Super Mutants can be armed with CARs) that shoot me with them, but they're really few and far between.
No, I'm going to head down to where Joe found the factory. From watching over his shoulder I remember it was even somewhere along the southern end of the wasteland. I even remember finding a radio signal that was broadcasting in Chinese when I was trying to get to the Arlington Library. I'll start at the library and work my way west.
I do so. It takes me a week of real time. Along the way I find a Nuka-cola plant, a hotel, various Enclave camps, another Vault, a metric butt-ton of Raiders, and even some zombies. What I don't find is a radio signal broadcasting in Chinese, or a single Chinese zombie.
This is going to require some research. I can't just go wandering the wasteland willy-nilly. I'm going to need some help.
Yeah, they're cooling their heels in a slave pen. That's fine. I could just walk through the camp gunning down all the slavers and set them free (that's what Joe did, except with his sledgehammer), but I have to go around and talk to all the slavers first. I find out I could go round up some slaves. Heck, I could even just go out and capture "evil" people (and I get to determine who is evil), and sell them into slavery. I don't want to have anything to do with slavery, aside from freeing slaves, but wanton slaughter seems to lack finesse. I can sneak into the somewhere and hack a computer and that'll probably work (I'm very good at both sneaking and hacking).
But first I meet this guy:
Yeah, I know. Vanilla Ice is now starring in his own videogame. It turns out that Pronto here runs the local gun shop. It's kind of a crappy gun shop, but he's got grit and spunk, and the boy wants to make something of himself. If he could only get his hands on 20 Chinese Assault Rifles, he could break them down for parts, and he could expand the business.
- Get 20 Chinese Assault Rifles
- Break them down for parts
- ...
- Profit!
Now, faithful reader, Chinese Assault Rifles are pretty scarce in the wasteland. Basically every small gun seems to have a Chinese counterpart that does a bit more damage. The history here seems to be that America went to war with the Chinese when they invaded Alaska (via Russia? Who knows!) and there are Chinese infiltrators lurking about. I could just wander the wasteland and hope that I'll run into things (some Super Mutants can be armed with CARs) that shoot me with them, but they're really few and far between.
No, I'm going to head down to where Joe found the factory. From watching over his shoulder I remember it was even somewhere along the southern end of the wasteland. I even remember finding a radio signal that was broadcasting in Chinese when I was trying to get to the Arlington Library. I'll start at the library and work my way west.
I do so. It takes me a week of real time. Along the way I find a Nuka-cola plant, a hotel, various Enclave camps, another Vault, a metric butt-ton of Raiders, and even some zombies. What I don't find is a radio signal broadcasting in Chinese, or a single Chinese zombie.
This is going to require some research. I can't just go wandering the wasteland willy-nilly. I'm going to need some help.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Fallout 3: Chinese Takeout pt. 1
I got Fallout 3 over Christmas when everyone else bought it, but it sat, unplayed, until May because, based on my experiences with Oblivion, once I started journeying in the Capital Wasteland, I wouldn't be coming out anytime soon. That's exactly what's happened.
Fallout 3 has a different quest structure than Oblivion. Actually, it has the same structure for some quests, but different structures for others. Oblivion had quest chains, where you talked to someone, they gave you something to do, you did it and went back to them, then they said, "Come talk to me again when you want something else to do."
When you had a quest, it showed up in your quest journal. You might have subtasks to do on the way to the main task, and those would show up too. That way, if you put the game down and came back after awhile (or just got sidetracked with some other quest chain), you could check your journal and pick up on a quest at any point. If you finished a quest it would disappear from your "Active Quests" page and go to the "Completed Quests" page, and if you didn't want your active page cluttered up with tons of things, you could not take the next quest from the quest giver until you were ready. This gives players a satisfying To-do list at all times, and a feeling of accomplishment as things were checked off. You could even look back through your completed quests to see all the things you had done and get a further sense your progression in the game.
Fallout 3 has quests and quest chains, it has a journal where your To-do list is kept, and it keeps track of your progress in the main quests. It also has many, many things to see and do that aren't listed in any quest chain. It has random encounters that may lead to other discoveries, it has buildings that tell stories, and many of the things you do change the world, just a little bit. It even has real moral choices, but I'll get to that later.
The largest quest I've done doesn't appear on a quest chain. It isn't contained inside a building (in fact, it takes place over most of the capital wasteland). It doesn't appear on any of the strategy guides or FAQs, and I'm not even sure the designers ever intended to make it a quest.
It starts, fittingly, on Memorial Day, while I was over at my friend Joe's house for a cookout. We got to talking about Fallout 3, which he had played, but abandoned because it was a lot of the same thing over and over. He hadn't progressed very far on the main story, he had just been wandering the wasteland killing people and taking their stuff. We ended up at his computer, so he could show me his character build. Basically he could hit just about anything with his sledgehammer and it would explode. He cursed another friend who told him to take the Bloody Mess perk, because he ended up having to scour the landscape looking for bits of his victims in order to take their stuff. In the low scrub covering most of the wasteland, it was a pain in the ass.
He showed me. He happened to be inside a factory full of zombies. He walked up to one as it shot him with an assault rifle, hit it with his sledge, and boom, it was pulp. Other zombies spotted him and started screaming things... in Chinese.
"Is that Chinese?"
"I guess so."
"So these are Chinese zombies?"
"Yeah, this whole factory is full of them."
"Huh."
I didn't think anything more about it. There are a whole lot of weird things out there in the wasteland, and Joe had found a factory full of Chinese zombies. But that day started my quest, even though I didn't know it at the time.
Fallout 3 has a different quest structure than Oblivion. Actually, it has the same structure for some quests, but different structures for others. Oblivion had quest chains, where you talked to someone, they gave you something to do, you did it and went back to them, then they said, "Come talk to me again when you want something else to do."
When you had a quest, it showed up in your quest journal. You might have subtasks to do on the way to the main task, and those would show up too. That way, if you put the game down and came back after awhile (or just got sidetracked with some other quest chain), you could check your journal and pick up on a quest at any point. If you finished a quest it would disappear from your "Active Quests" page and go to the "Completed Quests" page, and if you didn't want your active page cluttered up with tons of things, you could not take the next quest from the quest giver until you were ready. This gives players a satisfying To-do list at all times, and a feeling of accomplishment as things were checked off. You could even look back through your completed quests to see all the things you had done and get a further sense your progression in the game.
Fallout 3 has quests and quest chains, it has a journal where your To-do list is kept, and it keeps track of your progress in the main quests. It also has many, many things to see and do that aren't listed in any quest chain. It has random encounters that may lead to other discoveries, it has buildings that tell stories, and many of the things you do change the world, just a little bit. It even has real moral choices, but I'll get to that later.
The largest quest I've done doesn't appear on a quest chain. It isn't contained inside a building (in fact, it takes place over most of the capital wasteland). It doesn't appear on any of the strategy guides or FAQs, and I'm not even sure the designers ever intended to make it a quest.
It starts, fittingly, on Memorial Day, while I was over at my friend Joe's house for a cookout. We got to talking about Fallout 3, which he had played, but abandoned because it was a lot of the same thing over and over. He hadn't progressed very far on the main story, he had just been wandering the wasteland killing people and taking their stuff. We ended up at his computer, so he could show me his character build. Basically he could hit just about anything with his sledgehammer and it would explode. He cursed another friend who told him to take the Bloody Mess perk, because he ended up having to scour the landscape looking for bits of his victims in order to take their stuff. In the low scrub covering most of the wasteland, it was a pain in the ass.
He showed me. He happened to be inside a factory full of zombies. He walked up to one as it shot him with an assault rifle, hit it with his sledge, and boom, it was pulp. Other zombies spotted him and started screaming things... in Chinese.
"Is that Chinese?"
"I guess so."
"So these are Chinese zombies?"
"Yeah, this whole factory is full of them."
"Huh."
I didn't think anything more about it. There are a whole lot of weird things out there in the wasteland, and Joe had found a factory full of Chinese zombies. But that day started my quest, even though I didn't know it at the time.
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