Category: Board games
Power Grid: A day late, a dollar short

Power Grid: A day late, a dollar short

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“Damnit, I’m a dollar short!!”

This sentence basically sums up the awesome game of Power Grid. I hadn’t played this game in a long while (and it actually is one of the first games I owned), but recent back-to-back games of it reminded me of how much fun and strategic this game is, especially when you play with 6 players. It’s not super hard to learn the rules of the game, but it all comes down to balancing your resources, utilizing turn order, and making sure you don’t run out of money.

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Board gaming and a birthday

Board gaming and a birthday

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And I’m back! I took some time off to celebrate my birthday in two states — California and Arizona. I enjoyed spending time with my family and then with my BFF kicking back to awesome bands at the Kaaboo Music Festival. We had a blast and are already seriously thinking about going next year. When I got back to Phoenix, I celebrated this past weekend with my friends by grubbing and playing board games at a house party.

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Glass Road … a short Uwe game!

Glass Road … a short Uwe game!

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Let’s take a trip back 700 years ago to the Bavarian Forest where the tradition of glass-making resides along the Glass Road. This is the setting of the Uwe Rosenberg’s game Glass Road. I love, love Uwe’s games (here I talk about Agricola and Le Havre), even backing a Kickstarter campaign to get board game T-shirts. Hell ya, Uwe is my homeboy! His games are well made, and Glass Road especially has a genius mechanic of the production wheels. But Uwe games tend to be on the longer side, which I totally don’t mind but understand how that can turn off people from his games. For such a brain-burner of a game, Glass Road is actually quite short.

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A return to my gaming group

A return to my gaming group

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The summer of fun is officially over. In Arizona, fall classes start in mid-August. This means family responsibilities, classes and other priorities take the place of board-gaming time. In other words, no more holiday-weekend binge sessions and gaming with my usual peeps 3-4 times a week. I seriously think it’s been over a month since I last played Battlestar Galactica. Also, I’m super bummed that one of my oldest gaming friends is moving out of town. He patiently taught me (and countless others) how to play BSG. More importantly, he taught me how to not get caught as a cylon. Alas.

So what’s a lady to do? I recently returned to my old main gaming group to see what new games and people are out there. I love, love gaming with my usual folks (and the fact that they live nearby), but unless one of us buys a new game, we don’t get much exposure to what else is out there. Granted, we get really, really good at the games we play, so that’s always pretty awesome. But it’s always nice to mix it up every now and again. My old gaming group, who meets at a substantial distance from my home, knows that I prefer the heavier games but I’m willing to learn and play a new game at least once. This has led to some pleasant surprises at recent meetups.

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Things I backed on Kickstarter

Things I backed on Kickstarter

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Hello, friends of the Internet! I had a home emergency last week that took up a lot of time to get repaired. Board-gaming, blogging and a couple other things just fell by the wayside. My home AC broke. Ugh. In most other places in the U.S., this would not be a major issue. But in Arizona, where temps hovered around 110 degrees last week, this was a BIG. FREAKING. DEAL. So now I’m sitting in my condo, basking in the coolness of central air blasting out of my new energy-efficient unit. Woot woot! Anywhooo …

I recently backed two projects on Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a global crowdfunding platform, where creators introduce projects they need funding for, and people of the Internet pledge to give money for said project. I personally haven’t encountered any negative experiences on this (*knock on wood*), but I have only backed projects from established companies that I’ve purchased items from before either in person or online. I’ve heard horror stories of items missing deadlines by years and other shady transactions.

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Not much gaming this week

Not much gaming this week

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It’s been a busy week of not much gaming among my core group of gaming friends. Sometimes life gets in the way! But I did see Social Distortion this week at a sold-out show so life isn’t all that bad. A friend of mine mentioned that it feels weird that an entire week goes by and not one single game of Battlestar Galactica has been played among us. The game has come up more frequently the last month now that I actually own the game, and we don’t have to rely on somebody else. We did get in a game of Nations earlier this week, and I unfortunately got crushed. Ugh.

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Playing board games online

Playing board games online

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I’m not a video gamer by any means (though some friends think it’s right up my alley with the amount of board gaming I do), so I was a little skeptical when a friend of mine suggested playing online at boardgamearena.com.

I recently signed up online, and I’m already getting sucked into it. I know, I know, it’s not the same as playing with people in real life, but I can already see how fun it is. The website is free and it keeps track of all your gaming stats.

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To sleeve or not to sleeve

To sleeve or not to sleeve

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I finally decided to really crack open my copy of Battlestar Galactica. I recently purchased this game so that I can hold up my own copy for my epic BSG photo at Phoenix Comicon. Yes, I’m that nerdy. Anyway, I was up until 3 a.m. earlier this week getting my copy ready for game day. (I was having trouble sleeping and thought this was better use of my time rather than getting frustrated tossing and turning.)  I had to add the resource dials to the game and punch out the cardboard bits, but what took the most time was sleeving 238 cards.

For the base game, there are 110 large cards and 128 small cards. I ended up purchasing 2 packs of Mayday Chimera sleeves and 2 packs of Mayday Mini USA sleeves for the game. Why would somebody spend extra money to sleeve their cards? Because, my friend, in hidden role games, it’s crucial to keep cards in pristine condition so that nobody can figure out what you have.

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Get your peppers in Scoville!

Get your peppers in Scoville!

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Wilbur Scoville in 1912 developed the Scoville test, which is still used today to measure the heat of chili peppers.  And according to the Scoville board game, the town of Scoville was founded in honor of Wilbur Scoville. Each year the residents gather to host the Chili Pepper Festival, and the grower who plants and breeds the most heat from their peppers will win the trophy.

Scoville is a 2-6 player game that plays for about 60 to 90 minutes. I first saw buzz about the game some time at the end of last year on social media. What really drew me in was the great looking components from the game. It comes with 134 pepper pieces in 10 different colors! Yes, I’m a total sucker for cute thematic pieces in well-developed board game. In addition to the peppers, the game also comes with 6 farmer meeples (also very cool),  auction cards, market cards, recipe cards, plaques, coins, bonus action tiles and breeding charts.

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Building your empire in 8 minutes

Building your empire in 8 minutes

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Great things come in small packages. Case in point -- Eight Minute Empire!
Great things come in small packages. Case in point — Eight Minute Empire!

Eight-minute Empire may come in a small box but it’s a great strategic filler game that lasts probably about 30 minutes. The box itself is 6 inches by 9 inches, so it can easily tuck away in your bag to bust out when you’ve got some time to spare.

The game plays 2-5 players and game play can be varied depending on the total playing. It comes with a sturdy map that when unfolded is about the size of a sheet of paper. The basic mechanics of the game is area control and card set-building.

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