Played: Arkham Horror

Game On!

I recently finished a game of Arkham Horror. This counts as a victory, as previous attempts ended when one or more participants suddenly realized that they actually hated the game, and would run off screaming.

Arkham Horror was originally designed in the '80s, when the quality of gameplay was judged solely by how many cardboard tokens were crammed inside the box. There are tokens representing life, sanity, cash, clues, monsters, portals to other dimensions, free passes to avoid being sucked back into these portals, good magical sigils, bad magical sigils, horror, terror, closed doors, the numbers one through three, and "The Button". If you get bored with that, you can play around with the baker's dozen of card decks, or the character sheets for the players and the elder god that's trying to break into the world and eat its cookies.

Everyone at the table plays a group of god-fearing 1920's archetypes, running around town and putting paid to the tentacular ner'do'wells that keep popping up around the place. Eventually, your goal is to jump into portals leading to various lands of dread, survive two random encounters there, and then turn off the portal by reading a book at it or shooting it down. In other words, it's exactly like the way I ran Call Of Cthulhu when I was in high school, right down to the importance of keeping a stick of dynamite with you for special occasions. What this has to do with horror is anyone's guess, because a Will -2 roll is only so unnerving, even when it's backed up by the threat of losing your last brain token and being sent to the asylum for the fifth time.

In short, this is the kind of game designed for fans of this kind of game. It seems enjoyable enough, but it's ultra-cooperative feel actually causes the game to drag in the end. You have a pretty good idea whether everyone wins or everyone dies, so why continue? Also, if your gaming opportunities are as limited as mine, Arkham Horror will have to compete with games that don't require players to remember when the Horror Meter causes the Terror Meter to rise, and exactly how big the Outskirts Stack can become before it causes the General Store to close up shop.

Zerg Rant

Forgive me. I know it's hypocritical given my vehement, entirely non-apologist proselytizing of Lost, but allow me to rain on someone else's period. No, I'm not going to rant about Heroes. This goes out to South Korea.

And I meant "parade".

If you keep up with this type of thing, by now you've seen the trailer for Starcraft II. If not, you can check it out...oh, here. Or keep reading and I'll spoil it for you. It proves beyond a doubt that power armor is stupid. You're wearing a metal suit that has to be screwed together by robots, which means you can't take it off, yet your face is protected by a mere retractable shield. What happens if just one of your mechanical legs goes bad? Or if your faceplate gets splattered with luminescent blood? Do you drop to your knees and wait for a drone to come patch you up? I'm guessing this is why people who read Starship Troopers had such a problem with the movie. The trailer doesn't even hold up to suspended disbelief--video game suspended disbelief.

And yet you can clearly hear people cheering in the background throughout.

Here are two ways to interpret this reaction:

1. Imagine a world where every new version of Carcassonne/Puerto Rico/Ticket to Ride or any other well-balanced German strategy game was announced as the Second Coming via full-motion video or...

2. Imagine a world where people took non-player characters ripped off from Warhammer Fantasy/Whatever K seriously and wanted to know what happened to them.

Both options are pretty embarrassing.

I haven't played Starcraft since the single player campaign refused to acknowledge my accomplishments ("I must sacrifice myself to destroy the hive." "Dude, I already killed it!"), but I'll give the multiplayer the benefit of the doubt. Given its longevity in the international market, it may well be the closest that any RTS has gotten to board game perfection. Fine. But you know what? When I discovered their was a deluxe version of Kill Dr. Lucky, I only went "Woo!" in the privacy of my own home. It was not a spiritual experience.

As for possibility number two, you've got to be kidding. "Yay! We get to find out who lives and who dies no matter what we do!" In WOW parlance, this is "lore". In real role-playing games, we call that rail-roading.

I'm disappointed. Starcraft II, World of Starcraft, Diablo III...I was crossing my fingers for something new. Bookworm Adventures and Puzzle Quest deserve more hype than this announcement.

Chicago To Los Angeles For 16 Points

For those of you wondering what happened to Mr. Bile and myself, allow me to direct you to Ticket to Ride. It's the on-line version of the board game of the same name, and it's free and easy to play.

You start by drawing destination tickets (say, Winnipeg to Duluth and Seattle to El Paso on the US map), and then try to draw the proper train cards to connect the two cities. You only have three options each turn after that: pick up more destination tickets, more trains, or lay tracks. Extra points are awarded to the player with the longest continuous route at the end of the game, and the more destination tickets you complete, the greater your score. But if you fail to connect your destination tickets, you lose the points they would give you.

It's free, it's fun, and you can generally find me there after 2 AM PST. Join us, won't you?

Played: Kill Dr. Lucky

Kill Dr. Lucky is the story of 2 to 7 players who gather at a Clue-like mansion, each with the intent of killing the eponymous Doctor. Players take turns sneaking about the premises, laying in wait for Dr. Lucky, making attempts on his life, and foiling the assassination attempts of the other players. (The game takes place in a time before Internet message boards and instant messaging, so none of the players realize that everyone else in the mansion wants Dr. Lucky dead, too.) The bare bones Director's Cut is available through Cheapass Games, and Titanic Games produces a deluxe edition. One version or the other should be available through your Un/Friendly Local Game Store.


In addition to providing pawns, a very pretty board, and cards of high quality stock (the philosophy of Cheapass Games is that you already have game pieces, dice, etc., so why not pay 5 to 10 bucks for a game instead of 30 to 50?) the Titanic version gives you spite tokens. In previous incarnations of Dr. Lucky, the only way to fail a murder attempt or increase the value of an attack on the Doctor was to play the right cards. Spite tokens offer an extra wrinkle. Every time a player attacks Dr. Lucky and fails, they gain a spite token. These add one point to all future attacks on Dr. Lucky, and, yes, I quadruple-checked, they are not spent in this manner. They are only spent to contribute to a failure, at which point they are given to the player who failed.


Allow me to explain how a board game night involving Kill Dr. Lucky usually runs. During first game, which takes 30 minutes to an hour, everyone learns or slowly remembers the rules. The second game lasts half that time. A third game is suggested, now that everyone knows what the hell they're doing and can plan against what went wrong on their second try. The third game doesn't end until the player who is the second most and second least stubborn throws the game.

On a typical board game night, I am the least stubborn person, allowing games to go on far too long after I realize that we've either screwed up the rules or we broke it. Meanwhile, the most stubborn player won't give up because, damn it, we kept at it this long, and they still have a good chance of winning.

The problem with spite tokens is that unless you're playing with people who openly adhere to the Jander School of Failure Cards, the game will never end. In the original Dr. Lucky, failure cards are kept unseen in a player's hand. Spite tokens, however, are on the table. So it's easy for the other players to conclude, "I'm not going to waste failure cards on this attempt, because I know the last guy has enough tokens to take care of it."

Which gives the attacking player more tokens. After all failure cards are spent, the game becomes a tedious exercise in keeping the player with 14 spite tokens away from Dr. Lucky while slowly siphoning those same tokens to other players until their combined efforts can't stop an attack. Or alternatively, the session ends when the second most/least stubborn player says, "Fuck it, I don't want the guy to my left to win."

Which is what spite tokens are all about. The player with the least spite is most likely to harbor the most.

This is not to say that I don't endorse spite. I highly recommend the deluxe version. Spite tokens embrace the gameplay attitude that Jander always understood: "I have two spite tokens here. But if you leave it up to me to save your ass, I'm not spending them. That's why they're called spite tokens."

Risk: Godslow (Supersized 11/25/06)

That took longer than expected. "That" being a friendly game of Risk: Godstorm and preparing Straight Guy Ambrosia. What made it straight? The fact that I can't properly peel or cut fruit. Without Rachael Ray as my guide, I probably couldn't slit my wrists. Of course, having her there to instruct me would be added incentive to get the job done right.

As it turned out, the ambrosia dish was a bit of misnomer. The only person not to partake of the Straight Guy Ambrosia was the straight guy. I followed the directions in my Williams and Sonoma salad recipe book and it called for several fruits that I don't eat.

I inflict board games on my friends once or twice a year, usually on holidays. I hope to increase that frequency in the future, perhaps running Advanced HeroQuest on Valentine's Day and Descent during Fashion Week. (I can't believe I forgot to put that on my Christmas list!) I also have a wedding anniversary to plan each year. But in case I continue to slack on the board game front, I have some helpful advice for my future self.

"Dear Narraptor,

Hi. Has Lost Adama Caused the Destruction of the Colonies'ed yet? LOL. ADCtDothC is the new Raped By a Panda. Should I worry about Bernard and a polar bear? No spoilers!

It's been six months, so you've probably forgotten about what happened last time and are thinking of having a board game night. You might want to break out the tokens the day before and play two rounds. That way you can avoid game-breaking misinterpretations and rules omissions that need to be re-looked up on the Internet before the real session reaches the point of no return. In the case of Risk, that's two hours, after everyone has finally placed their armies.

Oh, and unless you plan on taking it, make sure the card that sinks Atlantis is in the proper spell deck next time, though that did lead to an amusing chase scene on the Atlanteans' part.

See you in May."

After consulting Mr. Bile, I came to the conclusion that there are four annoying player archetypes common to board gamers:

1. The guy whose turns take too long
2. The guy who gets bitchy when he decides he doesn't understand how to play
3. The guy who throws the game
4. The guy who can't tolerate being back-stabbed in back-stabbing games

You'll notice all of those examples are male. In my admittedly limited experience with unconventional games--the ones that you won't find at Toys 'R Us--the only time I've ever seen a female player pissed was in response to the intelligence scores of female brains in The Great Brain Robbery. Our first reaction was, "Aww," but it quickly became scary. That's why Kate the Simple Housewife has an extra zero added to her IQ with a Sharpie.

Mr. Bile pointed out that each archetype may have different reasons for acting the way he does. One might take too long on his turn because there are too many options, another might find it necessary to calculate every single one. The guy who throws the game might do it because he no longer sees the possibility of winning, or maybe he refuses to ever use a failure card on principle.

Full disclosure, I myself fall into the second archetype, as I learned when I was exposed to Robo Rally. Mr. Bile acknowledges to exhibiting tendencies of the first.

I bring this up because board games are a social activity, and I think it's important to know under what circumstances you start to ruin it for everyone else. For example, in our second round of Godstorm, I succumbed to my board game shadow. After depleting many of my troops in spite I sat back, had another half-tumbler of wine, and remembered there were other people there trying to have fun. Why should I throw off the game balance just because I hadn't got the rules right from the beginning? After that, I did the best with what I had, just like when I resigned myself to sending all of my Johnny 5's into the same pit round after round in that stupid robot game that doesn't make any sense.

I lost terribly.

I had hoped to play Puerto Rico, but it's been so long I can't remember why I liked it. With only vague memories of fun, the gameplay instructions don't make it an easy sell to newbies. "The players go from round to round in different roles and initiate the associated actions." Hell, yeah!

A Final Lack Of Gaming

In a few days, the Playstation 3 and the Wii come out, all my game systems will be obsolete, and I'll no longer count as a gamer. I suppose that I can eventually convince myself to purchase a Wii based on cheapness, and perhaps join hands with the Gamers Who Hate Games that the Wii is marketed towards. Not that I blame them, after seeing a friend manhandled by Bully's "We use every button on your controller, even the ones you didn't know existed!" design. The fact that the game waits to give instructions on how to use button #13 until a chase scene probably didn't help. It'll be interesting to see if cutting down on the number of buttons will end up making a more intuitive game or just an entirely different skillset to memorize. Replace "interesting" with "frustrating" in the previous sentence if the Wii experiment fails.

So, last week I never really did talk about games I didn't play, but still ought to. Here's a pair for your consideration.

A Game Of Thrones is a smartly designed boardgame that works in all the ways Axis-and-Allies style games usually don't. For one thing, a lot of the action happens simultaneously, so you don't have to deal with thirty-minute breaks in between your turns. Also, while there's a welcome element of randomness in the game, combat is wholly strategic. (At least, I'm happy about that, seeing as how I can count on my dice to betray me more often than not.) Unfortunately, the game balance pretty much requires that you have the maxiumum of five players. Otherwise, get used to the despairing wail of "King of the North!" as whoever plays the Starks gets beaten down.

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is the less-popular sequel to the original Carcassonne. Control an entire tribe of French cavemen struggling to score you points in a gleefully passive-aggressive game. Instead of attacking your opponents, you just happen set up tragic accidents wherein they're kicked out of prime hunting grounds. Since a number of the people I play with react poorly to being assaulted, this is quite a good thing.

The original Carcassonne is also fairly decent, but its scoring system feels unbalanced, although that is partially fixed in a number of complicated expansion packs. But it's the only version I ever see in stores when I remember that I need to buy my own copy of Hunters and Gathrers since I've moved, and I'd rather not pay thirty bucks for its weak sister.

Today Is Not That Time

During the last blog post of Canned Food And Shotguns, we will break all of our rules with gusto. Until then, I suppose I'll have to endure these unnatural restraints. It's much easier to obey the common-sense laws of Canned Food and Shotguns. For example, we don't need a prohibition on using the phrase "Jump The Shark." A healthy desire to maintain our self-esteem is more than enough to keep that at bay.

So instead of meager excuses for late posting, I offer swagger and braggadocio. Last night, I ran a game of Unknown Armies with players who I can trust to outsmart me nine out of ten times, and the tenth time is usually because they forgot about an obtuse comment mentioned by one person three months ago in the middle of the night. Plots were hatched, mysteries were plumbed, and I managed an accent that didn't careen into "Not Even Close To Sounding British."

And do not let Narraptor fool you with his devious trickery! Even though I've burned out on almost the entire genre of wacky card games, I still enjoy Give Me The Brain. Games like Munchkin, Chez [EDITED BY BRAIN GREMLIN], and Gloom have not been so lucky. The gameplay for each of them is disturbingly similar. The first few times, you have to learn a set of rules that feels a touch more complex than it was meant to be, and made more so by some very vague definitions. Then someone plays a card that has new rules printed on it that take precedence over the ones everyone else has been playing by. The card's grammar and syntax are puzzled over, someone is hosed, and the game continues.

As familiarity with the set of cards sets in, you get down to the serious business of applying deep strategy to a game that doesn't have any. You start basing strategies on whether or not the Big Unfair Card you need will show up, and praying that the chaff that makes up half the deck ends up in someone else's hands. Then, everyone gets sick of the game and it's either time to pony up for a new expansion featuring more wacky cards (Do you think "Auntie Paladin" is funny? What's wrong with you?) or move on. Alternatively, someone in the group can get an official Munchkin T-Shirt that gives him bonuses in the game. That will bring the game to a much swifter ending, especially if alcohol is involved.

The revised edition of Give Me The Brain is another matter altogether. The rules are only as complex as they need to be, and each card has a sense of fitting into a fairly balanced whole. Six years of playtesting turned out to be just what the game needed.

Finally, I might as well expand on Guitar Hero 2. The game provides you with a mostly complete single player game and a good enough multiplayer mode. If you can put the two together, you'll end up with a complete game. Other facts of note:

Playing on Easy and Medium are easier than in the first game
Playing on Hard and Expert are harder than in the first game
There is no difficulty level in between Medium and Hard

A practice mode is included in the game, to help facilitate the endless replaying you'll have to do once your natural talent runs dry.

As I mentioned before, expect to play through all of Medium difficulty before you even touch the multiplayer game. If you want to unlock more than just a few characters and all the available songs, expect to plumb the mysterious depths of the fifth fret, and the best of luck to you.

The song list has a bit less goofy fun and a bit more angry metal and arrhythmic guitar wanking than I care for. That said, it's the only licensed rhythm game made that doesn't force you to play A-B-C, making me more than willing to forgive songs like Yes We Can. I've even made my peace with Freebird, since the last song I'd want to play is the last song that I have to play.

As an added bonus, the vocals in Killing In The Name Of are performed by a man who only pretends he can't sing.

Skeletor Runs Bartertown

If the last haunted house I went to is to be believed, the Post-Apocalyptic World Of The Future is now considered haunted. Similarly, the one I visited earlier in the week featured a foam rubber monster that had escaped from Doom. Questionable themes aside, both had effective moments and fun ideas, especially in a group where each of us was alarmed by different triggers. I was the one that twitched and giggled whenever people leapt out at us. Also, I discovered that haunted houses are more impressive when one is suffering from an acute lack of sleep. Not that I can remember what impressed me so much, but that's the price one pays for sensory overload.

I didn't go to the haunted house that's right next door to me, though. Which is a shame, since I'm told that it had much less of the actors-jumping-at-you scares, but did feature wandering alone through very dark hallways for five minutes at a time.

Next week I'll be discussing games I no longer play, and at least one of them will be filled with praise. Considering how many bad games I've played, this also means "exactly one post will be filled with praise." I won't even be discussing video games, because it's already expected that once you beat a game, you turn it into Gamestop for a complementary fifty cents credit voucher.

Are you in, Narraptor? Surely there's a centuries-long game of Jenga or two you'd like to talk about...