A New Year's Eve Filled with Board and Party Games

Rather fitting that my first blog entry of the year concerns my final activity of 2015. What was that final activity you may ask? Why as title states: playing board and party games! With the exception of two games, I had never played any of them before. So did beginner's luck win out? Read on to find out as I present the highlights of each game.


Pretense - throughout the course of the evening this meta-game was playing in the background. My task was to convince someone to take my picture. Since I don't usually ask people to take my picture that wasn't going to happen given the games parameters. Was quite happy when I unwittingly succumbed to some other person's task and had to surrender my card to them. I could see Pretense working in a more focused gaming session, in which the participants are committed to playing two games at once.


Tsuro - Longest a single game lasted was, maybe, ten minutes, tops. Fairly easy game that I didn't fully-grasp until I was eliminated. It's like Poker and a board game had a love child.


g54 - Think Pictionary or charades except replace drawings or miming by selecting concepts with varying degrees of complexity. If I knew, we could un-select a concept much headache would have been avoided. Who knew Johnny Cash could be confused with a rich, black rapper? I did love how I spontaneously grasped that 'bayonet' was one group's choice. One of those quick deductions that afterword I can't explain how I arrived to that conclusion.


Resistance - a fun game that requires much observation. Also had no idea what I was doing so I accepted everything. Guess, that threw some people off.


Two Rooms and a Bomb - How much fun you have depends on how much you bring to it. As I was lucky, or unlucky depending on one's point of view, to be the President twice (and thus the target for bomb), I played it coy both times. Got blown up both times too. Think the game is more fun with the expansions thrown in. Played the drunk who was selected to be the leader only to discover he was the President the entire time. That game I didn't get blown up. Quite a rush.


At some point, we split into two groups.


Money - a fairly easy game. Also a game that I didn't discover how poorly I understood it until I lost. A quick game to play in-between more demanding ones.


Legendary Villains - Legendary is a subject for a future entry as I want to play at least one more game. Yep, Legendary is one of the two games I played previous. Some mechanics notwithstanding, Villains is much like the main game. Probably the biggest hassle was setting up the game as it was the first time that that specific set was used. The shuffling was not in our favor. The Heroes rescued the Bystanders and won. Have to say the Villains recommended starting game plays more difficult than the recommended starting scenario in the original.


Coup Rebellion - I played Coup once so I am not sure how much Coup differs from Coup Rebellion. Played three games. Some of the options greatly change the dynamics of the game. Won two of them because people thought I was bluffing when I wasn't. Would be interested to see how it plays in larger groups.