Table Top Game Club Week 17: Good Things in Small Packages

Hey folks!  This week we busted into the new year with our first game session of 2016.  To kick off the new year, we celebrated Micro-games, great little games that are quick to play, and although they're not particularly long, they are loaded with solid strategy.  We played all three games on both Tuesday and Friday, and they were exceptionally well received.  Our games included:

Rumble in the Dungeon: I think this is a great little game, and is especially endearing to fans of Dungeons and Dragons as there are little visual references and homages to the classic game.  Rumble in the Dungeon begins with the quick creation of a dungeon using colourful two-sided tiles, and then adding a treasure room and exit.  The treasure room gets a small plastic treasure chest, and then twelve cardboard standees are placed throughout the dungeon, one per tile.  Secretly, each player is designated two-three characters (depending on how many people are playing), and then the game can begin.

      Players decide to move or eliminate characters until one is left standing with the treasure chest.  The trick is to eliminate certain characters while preserving your own, but not be too obvious that you are favouring your secret tokens.  It's not the deepest game-play experience, but as a quick micro-game, it serves its purpose, and the art has some humorous notes.  As a group, it was well received on both game-days.

Age of War: Look at that box art!  I love a good samurai, and Age of War delivers a nice little experience of strategy and conquest in a "push-your-luck" dice-rolling game similar to Yahtzee, with an interesting mechanic for acquiring and protecting territory.  Some students felt too much was determined by luck (it is inherent to the game's mechanics mind you). Others got into the subtle strategy of trying to manipulate what territories other players should be interested in, while at the same time trying to reach their own goals.  Three-way grabs for territory can get very intense.  This is a new game for the club, and I think it was a success.





No Thanks!: This is easily the best micro-game for one's money.  Who knew a simple math game could pack so much fun and strategy?  No Thanks! is like combining blackjack with a game of Russian Roulette.  It blends pushing your luck, a little bluffing and manipulation, and some decent strategy.  Considering how some games with massive production values and price-tags sometimes fail to deliver, it's great to see an iexpensive math game strike a chord with the students.  This was easily the game of the week as we played it multiple times.  That said, all three micro-games were well received, and the variety was a nice way to start off the new year.

Next Week, time for some co-operative gaming as we try our newest accquisition, The Big Book of Madness.