Season 3, Week 2: Formula D, Splendor, and Junk Art!

The second week of the Table Top Game Club brought in large numbers once again.  I’ve decided that for the foreseeable future, featuring two games (one for larger groups and one for four or less) should be able to accommodate the turn-out of enthusiastic gamers.  This week we featured Splendor and Formula D.

Last year, we played Formula D in Week 27.  Here is what I wrote then:

 In anticipation of the bigger group, we were ready with another game featured on Table Top, Formula D, a racing game for up to ten players.  Formula D is a wonderfully tactile game, with tiny model cars and personal dashboards complete with moving stick shifts.  The game uses a very clever technique for movement.  Although it looks like a simple roll-and-move mechanic, different gears are represented by different polyhedral dice (fans of Dungeons & Dragons will recognize these right away).  The lowest gear represented by a d4 and the highest represented by a d30.  As players shift up and down in gears they get to roll different dice.  The dice are also numbered specifically to represent a range of numbers.  For example, unlike a typical d6 that is numbered 1-6, the d6 representing second gear is numbered 2-4 (2,3,3,4,4,4).  That way gearing up to higher levels guarantees a decent amount of movement (you’ll never roll a one on a d20 for example; its range is 11-20).  This simulates the anticipation and excitement of being able to open up the engines on straightaways, but as the saying goes, “speed kills”.  Turns on the track are dangerous.  Players must stop a prescribed amount of times at each turn, for overshooting a turn causes stress and damage on the vehicle.  In a one lap race there is no pit stop, so there is a great sense of risk and reward.  Open up the engines into a higher gear to speed ahead, or play it safe and let your opponents flame out before the finish line.

This week, the game was enthusiastically enjoyed by the players, especially our German exchange students.  A couple of the German students knew of the game from before.  Formula D has been a staple of European gaming since the 1990s.  There is something exciting about playing the game with a group of enthusiastic students from another country.  It seems fitting that a game about Formula 1 racing in Monaco inspires excited table talk in a variety of languages, giving our race a real international flair.  In the end team Germany finished 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd, with team Canada trailing behind.  Alas, but it was still a very fun session.

The other table had three students and our library-tech play a few games of Splendor.  I love Splendor.  I find the game scratches a similar itch as Ticket to Ride, and considering they both involve set collection, the comparison makes sense.  Splendor, like Ticket to Ride, is also a wonderfully tactile game.  The goal of splendor is to purchase sets of cards, each card featuring a gem (red, green, white, blue, and black).  To purchase the necessary cards, players collect gem tokens that are printed on colourful poker chips.  The poker chips have great “heft”.  They are solid, weighty, and since they must be organized quickly, they are also stackable.  Through purchasing certain gem cards, the players earn “prestige” which are the victory points of the game.  The early rounds of the game are very relaxed, but as the collections get bigger and the prestige points are awarded, the tension begins to mount.  It’s fun, challenging, and also plays relatively quickly, so multiple games can be accomplished in our two hour session.  The students really enjoyed it, and a couple had played it the year previous, so they jumped at the chance to replay an old favourite.

I knew Friday’s session would be sparsely attended due to a massive field trip for music students, so I took the opportunity to test a new game. There was six of us, so we decided to try JunkArt.  The game is a fascinating experience that is simple in its design, but very engaging in execution.  Junk Art comes with a massive selection of wooden blocks.  There are sixty blocks in all, fifteen shapes in four colours.  The shapes are designed to be stacked, but only if you have skilled hands.  These aren’t Jenga blocks or Lego.  Some look like tiny flowerpots, others like miniature barbells, etc.  The game comes with a deck of cards representing the pieces, and a second deck representing a number of cities.  Each city card features a set of specific rules for that round.  A typical game consists of three rounds, or three city cards drawn at random.  This is a clever mechanic to increase replayability.  The core mechanic of the game is to stack blocks and build sculptures on a small wooden base.  One round might have players draft cards and use corresponding pieces to create a sculpture.  Another round will have all the players building a common sculpture, eliminating one another through fallen pieces.  A great variant has the players start a sculpture, and then switch places to continue building on someone else’s work. 

It’s a fun game with the right players.  That’s the tricky part.  This is not a good game for players who fidget or are hyper-active.  Touching the table or fiddling with the pieces often results in toppled sculptures.  We had a couple instances of players losing in frustration and then tossing their pieces back into the pile, only to have them ricochet into another sculpture.  However, if everyone can keep their wits and energy in check, it’s a clever, fun, and engaging game.

Thanks for reading folks!  See you next week for our club's coverage of Five Tribes, Camel Up, and Codenames: Pictures.

SEASON 3, Week 1: The Return!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back.

Hey folks!  It's been a while, but I have returned to update the blog.  Now that Summer is over, the school year has been underway for three weeks.  I held off restarting the club until we had our first full week of class.  Holding off on our first session allowed me to get my courses ready, but also allowed me to do a little advertising for the club.

This is the third year in a row I've been running the Table Top Game Club, so I'm going to call it Season 3.  If you're reading this and you want to review how my first and second seasons started, you can check out the Board Game Geek forum here for Season 1 and the start of Season 2, and look at this blog's archives for most of Season 2.

Season 3 brought some interesting challenges and changes.  Going into this season, we knew we lost only one or two grade 12s due to graduation.  A couple members from last year moved away, so I wasn't sure what the turnout would be like.  We also lost a staff advisor who is taking a year off to travel.  If our weekly turnout is large, I would need another staff advisor to teach games and oversee the operation of the club when I can't make it. 

In the first two weeks of class, word started to get around that the club was returning.  New grade 9s started asking me about when the club starts, and I realized that I may have an overwhelming number of players for just one advisor.  I also knew that the first couple of games we feature should be playable by larger numbers.  Lucky for me, an additional advisor arrived, courtesy of a retirement from last year.  Our previous library technician retired, which meant we had to bring in a new staff member.  As it turns out, our new library tech is a huge fan of board games, and offered to help out with the club.  Thank goodness, because the turnout for the club was big this week.  Luckily, we were ready; we featured King of Tokyo and Diamonds.

I'm not going to go into the specific details behind King of Tokyo.  Next to Catan and Ticket to Ride, King of Tokyo might be the most recognisable title in the gaming community.  I chose it because it has instant "wow-factor" (standees, big fun dice, monsters), it's a very easy game to play, and it plays six players.  The students who played were really into it, and I know when a game works when afterwards they're still talking about the game, and strategies for "next time".  I don't think I've ever encountered a player who hates King of Tokyo, and I'm eager to try the expansion King of New York: Power Up.  This expansion will add Evolution Cards to the KONY monsters, and allow them to be played in KOT!  I can't wait to show the club.

Diamonds is a fantastic trick-taking card game that has a nice twist on the suits and taking tricks.  Diamonds comes with a deck of sixty cards in the classic four suits (although there are no face cards).  The centrepiece of the game is the collection of gems, a nice pile of "diamonds" and "rubies" (five diamonds = one ruby).  Diamonds also comes with six cardboard standees called "vaults".  Each player has a vault that acts like a miniature shield, sort of like a tiny GM screen.  While playing and taking tricks, players either score points by grabbing diamonds from the pile, stealing diamonds from other players, or securing diamonds into their vault.  The game-play is elegant, easy to learn, and wonderfully tactile. For added flair, I purchased a large piece of black velvet for the gems to sit on, making them look like a display in a jewellery store, adding to the theme of the game.  Students like this game, as classic card games like Hearts and Kaiser are big in Saskatchewan.  The crew felt at home with the mechanics, and the diamond scoring system is brilliant.

Friday's open gaming session brought three surprises:

1. Germans!!!  This year, a number of students, veterans of the club, signed up to be partnered with German exchange students.  They brought the German students to the club, and big surprise....the students from the country that brought us Essen Spiel and the board game renaissance we are experiencing today LOVE board games.  Their enthusiasm, energy, and overall joy towards the games is an exciting addition to the club.

2. Citadels.  I know nothing about the game.  I don't own it nor have I ever played it.  I have heard positive rumblings about the 2016 edition due out later this year, so it is on my radar.  However, our library tech owns the game and offered to bring it to the club.  This is great, in that it allowed us to split the turnout into two groups, and she knows her game like the back of her hand.  An extra expert makes a game session smoother, and students can seamlessly move from one game to the next.  It also allowed me to focus on surprise #3....

3. Spyfall.  This game came to my attention this summer when I started listen to the Shut Up and Sit Down podcast. I picked it up because the podcast discussed game sessions they've had with the game, and that it accommodates up to eight players.  The rules are incredibly easy to learn, and it can expand from a single eight minute round to a longer session effectively.  Players can drop in and out to try the game once an eight minute round is over.

The game play is fairly easy to learn; the dealer hand out cards from one of thirty small deck.  Each deck features a location and occupations found in that location.  For example, the Hotel deck features occupations like a maid, a security guard, a guest, etc.  One card in each deck just says "SPY".  Players can look at their cards to reveal the location and their specific occupation, but their cards are hidden from everyone else.  The goal of the players with the location is to find the spy.  To do this they must ask each other subtle questions that only someone in that location would answer.  Say you are at the theatre, you might ask "So...Mike...How do you like your seat?"  Mike could respond, "It's great...and considering what I paid for it, it should be!"  Based on Mike's answer, you have a decent idea that Mike knows you two are at the theatre.  The spy, who has been listening to this exchange, might think the group is at the theatre...or...an airplane?...a train?  The group wins if they can identify the spy, usually because they answer or ask a question one would not make at a given location. For example, if the group is in a submarine, why would someone complain about the rude customers?  That person is definitely a spy!  The spy wins if they can guess their location based on people's questions and answers, or if no one is able to identify the spy by the end of the round.

We loved this game.  It was a great game in learning the art of subtlety.  The students had to really think about their words, and there were quite a few moments of a player (me mostly) stopping the clock, revealing they are the spy, and declaring with great confidence and swagger "I'm the spy, and we're at the circus!", only to have the students flip over their cards and raucously reveal that in fact we're at a corporate party.  It was tremendous fun, and a great exercise for our EAL students.

It's good to be back.  I bought a few new games for the club over the summer, and I can't wait for them to hit the table.  I'll do my best to keep up with the blog and weekly or bi-weekly reporting.

Thanks for reading!

Table Top Game Club Week 36 and 37: Blood Rage, Avalon, and I Suck at Bluffing

Week 36:

Blood Rage

This was a hotly anticipated game.  Once students got a look at the figures, they couldn’t wait to get this on the table.  Blood Rage is an area control game that we felt had some similarities to Mission: Red Planet.  The players control one of five Viking clans (normally four, but I bought the five player expansion).  Each clan is represented by a number of figures, including a Viking ship.  There are also a number of gorgeous monster figures that can be recruited by each clan.  The fire giant and sea serpent are especially stunning.  The game is played over a series of rounds called “Ages”.  In each Age, players draft cards to give them the ability to fight, go on quests, and recruit monsters.  They then attempt to gain control of territories, pillage and compete for glory, and gain certain stats to help them in the next Age.  At the end of each Age, a portion of the world is destroyed, and troops head to Valhalla.  There are multiple strategies people can use to win.  Some players are hungry for territory (fulfilling the conditions of Quest cards), while others can gain points for losing battles and dying, because a glorious death and trip to Valhalla will nab them a victory.

 

The students really enjoyed this game.  The models are great to look at, and the students picked up on the mechanics and strategies very quickly, however, the players were struck with heavy doses of “analysis paralysis”, so each game took much longer than was indicated on the box (60-90 minutes).  The game length would become more manageable as players get familiar with the rules.  My big issue, the thing that may have changed my mind as to whether or not I purchased the game to begin with, is the figures themselves.  Even though I mentioned earlier that I love the figures, I take issue with the Snake Clan.  

Lagertha

The Snake Clan is an army of female warriors, and even though they are heading into battle, they don’t wear much clothing.  They are revealing a tremendous amount of breast in the “underboob” style.  As a game club for teenagers in a public school, I shouldn’t have to have conversations about sexism and objectification of women while I’m simultaneously trying to explain the mechanics of card-drafting.  Considering that the majority of this year’s game club are female, I didn’t feel 100% comfortable with the faction being used, and yet I wanted the maximum amount of students to get a chance to play.  If the game’s developer, Cool Mini or Not, wanted to include female Viking warriors in the game, they could have modeled them after the shield-maiden Lagertha from the show Vikings.  Notice how she’s dressed for battle and the weather.  I don’t consider myself a prude, but I’m running a club for young people in a public school.  Again, had I known about the nature of the art design, I may have not selected this game for the club, and yet my students had tremendous fun playing it.  We played it for both sessions that week.

Week 37: Avalon

For our final gaming session of the year, we played Avalon.  Avalon is essentially a re-skinning of The Resistance, a game we played quite early in the year.  There are some interesting variants, but there's no reason to own both games unless you want to adjust the themes.  I won't go into great details about how the game is played, because I covered the mechanics when I discussed The Resistance.  From our final game of the year, I learned a couple things about the game I hadn't realised before; it's a tough game to play when you're tired, and I suck at bluffing.

This late in the year, fatigue was starting to set in, and I couldn't get in to the game.  At their hearts, The Resistance and Avalon are improv exercises for those who draw a traitor card.  I kept drawing a traitor, but I was so tired I couldn't muster the energy to meticulously swerve the other players into believing I'm loyal.  I realised that every time I've played and enjoyed the game, I was loyal, so I didn't have to break out any acting skills.  Still, the students had fun, and that was the point after all.

Thus concludes the end of my Table Top Game Club for the 2015-2016 School Year.  Come September, the club will pick up, and I'm anxious to see how many new Grade 9s will join.  I've been researching and acquiring new games to inject into the club, so I'm looking forward to trying The Grizzled, Lost in R'lyeh, Thunderstone Numenera, and Zombicide: Black Plague.

Thanks to one and all for the support and readership.  I'll be back to regular posting come September.

Table Top Game Club Meets the Magic Man

That’s right…Magic: The Gathering.  

Originally I had not planned on featuring MTG for a couple reasons.  First, it’s essentially a two player game.  Sure, there are variants that include multiple players, but the goal was to get as many people involved as possible in a given game.  Then there is the cost.  I’m probably ignorant of how MTG is produced and marketed, but I was there when it began over 20 years ago, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.  The game seemed to benefit those who could afford the best decks, or were lucky enough to pull the best cards.  Not knowing enough about the game, I also lost some cards in a bad trade that I would later learn were quite valuable.  It soiled the game for me.

 

Magic also has a ton of rules.  Although the core of the game is simple enough: tap the land, cast the spell, attack, block, repeat...but with each expansion Magic introduced new abilities.  I felt it would be a challenge to teach new players.

But over time, I changed my tune.  The game is still fun and deeply engaging.  I enjoy the variety of strategies, and the art and mythos of the game is quite intriguing.  I do like the online versions of MTG, and I’ve played them on the iPad and XBOX Live.  The game is also quite popular with students, and I’ve witnessed many students over the years playing in the library or Commons during lunch or spare periods, but the idea of introducing Magic to the game club still did not occur to me.  The only way I was going to introduce Magic: The Gathering was if I was somehow provided with preconstructed decks that were balanced to be competitive, engaging, and yet easy to work with.

 Lucky for me, that’s just what happened; I met Bill O’Dell.

Bill is married to one of my coworkers.  He is also a huge fan of Magic, as well as an advocate and proponent of the game.  He writes for and moderates a number of different blogs, including one for his culinary talents (http://www.rgf-chilihead.com/), and one for his love of Magic: The Gathering (http://planechasing.com/about) .  He also contributes to a number of other fandom sites in the realm of Geek culture.  Please check out his work.  It’s incredibly inspired.

I met Bill face to face at a literary conference, I being an English teacher, and he at the time managing a successful book store.  We talked about the game club, and he made an incredibly generous offer: from his colossal collection of cards, he would construct decks for my game club, free of charge.  Each deck would be colour specific for simplicity, but balanced so they could compete with each other.  A couple weeks after our conversation, his wife presented me with five decks.  I bought colour coded card sleeves, and voila... the Table Top Game Club was infused with Magic!

For Friday's special Magic session, I let the students know well in advance so Magic players could bring their decks, but more importantly, veterans of the game could teach the game to new players.  This proved to be incredibly valuable, as we had a number of new players, and the veterans actually enjoyed teaching the game to new players, and the new players had a blast.

 Like I said, the decks were designed to be easy to play but effective.  I tried the green deck against a new player who grabbed the red deck,  The red deck was built around goblins, and cards that buffed each other based on the number of goblins on the table.  Having never touched the game before, she looked at her hand, and said "Oh...I get it...summon lots of goblins and swarm you!".  She beat me three games to one.

It was a great session, and I plan on featuring Magic much earlier in the year for next season's Table Top Game Club.  I know it will become a "go-to" game for quite a few students on open gaming sessions, or those days when there are more players than the feature game allows.  Magic is a solid addition to the club, all thanks to the generosity of Bill.  Like I said, check out his blogs and Twitter posts.  You'll be happy you did.      

Table Top Game Club Week 35: Among the Stars and Magic: The Gathering

Week 35:

Among the Stars

I really like Among the Stars.  It scales nicely to accommodate a decent size group of players (once the expansions are added), it has gorgeous art direction, it can be as simple or as complex as desired, and it has a great tactile components.  ATS is a card drafting game, where the cards represent the rooms and components of a massive space station.  Points are awarded for strategically placing rooms in certain locations.  The goal is to construct a space station that operates with synergy based on certain characteristics.  Weapons systems and the fighter launch bay may not work best next to the intergalactic shopping mall, for example.  Players also have to maintain a certain level of energy reactors to run their operations.  Aside from denying opponents certain card during the draft phase, “attacking” other opponents is optional.  There are cards that allow the game to be more confrontational, but they are not a necessary requirement.

We played one session of ATS this week, and it was quite fun.  One student thought getting a monopoly on reactors would secure a win, but he ignored the goal of constructing a viable station.  The two who finished first and second really did well.  They grabbed the strategy right away, and had a blast.  This will definitely hit the table next year.

Magic: The Gathering 

For Friday's Open Gaming session, we featured Magic: The Gathering.  To describe the session, I wrote a special post for just the occasion. Check it out here.

Table Top Game Club Week 32, 33, and 34: Knights, Trains, and Rockets

Week 32: Shadows over Camelot

Shadows over Camelot was an easy game to get into, following our experience with Dead of Winter.  Like DOW, Shadows over Camelot is a cooperative game with a hidden traitor mechanic.  Players take on the role of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  Each knight has a special ability, and work with fellow knights to solve quests like the search for the Holy Grail, the quest for Excalibur, and opposition of the Saxon or Pict invasions.  Each player has a hand of cards representing fight strength, special rule changes, or goals for each quest.  Like many cooperative games, there is one way to win, and multiple ways to lose. 

Our club had two sessions.  Tuesday’s game was a loss for the players (except for our traitor).  Part of our loss was due to an unfamiliarity with the rules, part was due to the efforts of our traitor.  Friday’s session was a win for everyone involved due to no one drawing the traitor card, and the fact we were more familiar with our strategies…oh, and we also cheated…

Which brings me to what our club found so incredibly frustrating.  According to the rules, a player cannot directly reveal what cards they possess.  They can only hint about what they have, and this gets a little tricky.  A player cannot say, “I have two Grail cards”, but they can say, “I can help you on the quest to get the Grail”.  This gets tricky when it comes to matching up specific cards into sets, and almost everyone breaks the rule.  It’s a difficult rule to enforce, especially if the traitor has not been revealed or there is no traitor to police the rule.  Dice Tower featured a video about this very issue.  You can check it out here.  The rule is in place to allow the traitor to manipulate the success rates for the quests.  Dead of Winter does a better job of allowing the traitor to anonymously manipulate the situation.  The “illegal” table-talk is difficult to manage.  The club enjoyed the game, but the rule was frustrating, and the victory felt a little tainted.

Week 33: Ticket to Ride- Europe

A short week meant we had only one after-school session, so it was time to bust out Ticket to Ride: Europe.  Most of the students were already well-versed in Ticket to Ride, so the Europe expansion was a simple matter of learning some new rules (tunnels, ferries, and stations) and adjusting to the new map.  The European routes are quite congested, and the board filled up quickly with five players.  The students enjoyed the game, but after playing the deluxe version of the original Ticket to Ride, switching to the original, basic pieces was a little lackluster.  Also the terminology used for certain locations was a bit antiquated, making the search for key cities a little more difficult.  They did enjoy the game however, so I’m glad they got a chance to experience this variation.

Week 34: Mission- Red Planet

Some of my students played Mission: Red Planet before as we tried it out on one of our open-gaming sessions earlier in the year.  I also included it in my list of the Top Five Board Games for the Holiday Season for 2015.  You can read that review here.

Giving the game more attention last week, we got to see more of the strategies involved.  Like all Fantasy Flight games, the components are well crafted and are of great quality.  The game comes with excellent little plastic miniatures representing each player’s astronauts.  The board is a large map of Mars, along with a smaller piece representing the moon of Phobos, and a third location representing a cosmic graveyard for dead astronauts.  The mechanic for launching ships is quite clever, as players set miniatures on cards representing spaceships to different territories.  Here is where we ran into a bit of a snag; the locations on the map are named after actual places on Mars, which are given rather antiquated and complex names such as Sinus Sabaeus and Mare Serpentis. These names become a bit cumbersome as one is trying to strategize key moves.  Players did enjoy the playing of cards to load up the rockets, using a system much like Libertalia.

Like many games in the genre, players also draw objective cards called Missions, that grant bonus points if certain areas are controlled or certain conditions are met.  These Mission cards are what drew the biggest criticism from the players.  Some Missions grant bonus points if certain areas are controlled, or if players have a monopoly on key resources.  Some Missions were seen as overpowered, such as the one that granted bonus points for every one of your dead astronauts.  Considering how easy they are to kill, drawing this card can secure you a pretty substantial bonus.  Personally, I enjoyed the game, but considering I won one of the sessions, it's no wonder I was left with a positive take on the product.  The students were less pleased (a fellow teacher won the Tuesday session, I won the Friday), but they did enjoy the space theme.

With only three weeks left for the club this year, the plan is to play Among the Stars, Zombicide: Black Plague, and Blood Rage.  I also want a special Friday session to invite all the Magic: The Gathering players in for a big session.  Wish me luck, and thanks for reading.

Table Top Game Club Week 29, 30, and 31: Dwarves, Fish, and Undead

Week 29: Saboteur

Saboteur is a fun little card game.  In Saboteur players take on the role of a group of mining dwarves.  The players are dealt a role card face down.  Either they are a friendly miner or a Saboteur.  Like The Resistance, players try to convince others they are friendly miners working toward a common goal: discovering a huge chunk of gold.  Players take turns laying down cards that represent tunnels to get to the gold.  Saboteurs attempt to stop the plight of the miners.  They can be overt and build dead ends, but the real trick is to create suspicion within the group.  This can be done with map cards that let players peek at the potential gold location, and then tell the others lies to throw them off the trail.  Players can also destroy each others' equipment to halt digging.

The students found Saboteur very easy to learn, and they really enjoyed it...to a point.  It's a great game for a short term session, but maybe not the best way to spend two hours after school.  After a while, students were disappointed if they weren't a Saboteur.  Eventually, the game gave way to Coup and Star Fluxx, but Saboteur is a great little filler.

Graham (TED) Talks:

It was in this week that our school engaged in a rather interesting experiment in professional development.  Rather than have a standard staff meeting, our principal, inspired by the TED Talk movement, encouraged our staff to give presentations to our colleagues about topics of interest.  They're called "Graham Talks", named after of school (Marion M Graham Collegiate).  I gave a 25 minute presentation I called "The Board Game Renaissance: Bring your Hobbies to School".  I gave a power-point presentation about the history of table top games, the renaissance of table top gaming, and my experiences running an after school game club.  It was tremendously satisfying.

Week 30: Abyss and International Table Top Day!

Week 30 saw the return of a favourite from last year, Abyss.  The game generated a great deal of attention for its art-direction.  Abyss is a gorgeous game, but I found it to have some substance as well as style.  At its heart, Abyss is an auction game with an interesting combination of set collecting and press-your-luck mechanics.  Each player spends pearls (money) in an attempt to auction and bid for the control of undersea allies (squids, crabs, jellyfish, mollusks, and seahorses).  These allies are used to buy the influence of undersea lords, powerful politicians, merchants, soldiers, and other assorted individuals.  These lords grant additional powers and provide influence points, which each player is attempting accumulate in order to win.

Part of the appeal of Abyss is the components.  Players collect tokens, earn keys, unlock territory, and collect pearls.  The tokens and keys are high quality card-stock, and the territories are beautifully illustrated.  The lord portraits a stunning, but the most appealing aspect seems to be the pearls.  Pearls are and excellent thematic way to capture the concept of currency.  The game comes with little plastic dishes shaped like clam shells which are used to hold the pearls.  This is the only problematic aspect of Abyss; every player loves to swirl the pearls in the shell cup like ice cubes in a tumbler of gin (at least as they appear in movies).  This swirling usually causes a pearl to fly out and roll across the table/floor.  The temptation to play with the pearls is akin to not breaking bubble-wrap; it's virtually impossible to ignore.

Students really enjoyed Abyss.  It's an easy game to play once you get into the pattern of the auctioning, and everyone quickly picked up on the strategies.  In spite of the multiple components, everyone had a clear vision of what was important.  They enjoyed both sessions of the week.

The deep sea strategy of Abyss carried into the weekend for International Table Top Day.  I brought the game to Dragon's Den, our friendly local game shop, which was running open gaming tables all day.  I taught Abyss to some new players, but I made sure to replace the pearls with little poker chips.  This prevented the swirling loss of any pearls.  It was fun to just open up the game and draw complete strangers in to a session.  I hope they had fun.  International Table Top Day continued as a number of us teachers got together for an evening of gaming, including games of Concept, Saboteur, Pandemic, and Code Names!
Week 31: Dead of Winter

Arguably, this is my favourite game in our collection, and I included this in my post about the best board games for the holidays (which you can read here).  The sessions aren't always stellar, but when they're good, they are awesome.  Unless you've been hiding under a snowdrift (and we get plenty here in Saskatchewan), you've heard of Dead of Winter.  For the uninitiated, Dead of Winter is a semi-cooperative game of survival during the perfect storm of a blizzard and a zombie apocalypse.  Players each take on the role of a group of survivors, and these groups of survivors form The Colony.  Every round players take turns fighting zombies, searching for important items, exploring the neighborhood, feeding the survivors, meeting requirements of the round, and contributing to the goals of the game's win condition.  Each turn players are also confronted with moral dilemmas in the form of Crossroads Cards that require a crucial decision or a vote from the players.  The reason may people refer to Dead of Winter as a semi-cooperative game is due to hidden agenda cards.  Each player has a secret goal they are trying to reach in order to score a "true win".  This secret goal could could also mean a player is a traitor, secretly working to lose the game for everyone else.  This is where the true genius of the game begins to shine.  The paranoia and potential for exiling players begins to mount, and the challenge and immersion begins to build...if you're lucky enough to have a traitor.

Both sessions we played this week had no one draw the traitor.  Teaching the game was a touch time consuming, but once students got into the rhythm of playing, it was quite fun.  Perhaps it was best that no one was the traitor, because in order to be an effective traitor, you first have to know how to play well with others.  I was a player in the first session, but I ran the second session so more students had a turn.  Everyone enjoyed the game, and I think its only drawback is the time it takes to set up.  Dead of Winter has a ton of components, from multiple tokens, huge stacks of cards, cardboard standees, and scores of dice.  Clean up is quicker, but the initial set up takes time.  That said, it made for two great sessions this week.

Next week...more backstabbing and skulduggery... time to play Shadows over Camelot!

Thanks for reading.