No Batteries Required

[calzephyr]

It's been a fun weekend despite the snow and not being able to finish my project. We learned how to play Settlers of Catan with Timban and Wolf. I don't think I'll ever get tired of that game - there's so much strategy and luck involved. The board is a hexagon made of smaller hexagon resource cards such as wood, brick, stone, grain and wool. Each resource gets a number, and a roll of the die determines who can get resource playing cards to trade or build cities and roads. The robber pawn can wreak havoc if a seven is rolled, so it is also important to not amass too many resource cards. The coolest thing about the game how the resources are distributed - one resource might be precious in the beginning, but freely traded by players towards the end. I highly recommend it! It's like Stronghold without the frustration or Monopoly without tears.

The other game, Munchkin, was hilarious but a little more complex. It'll probably take a few more games before it flows more easily because it seemed like there were too many steps and if this, do that...it was truly written by or for programmer types. The games were pretty timely, I just finished a book called The Real Toy Story, but that's another post.

Comments

[mrs-dragon.livejournal.com]

*points at icon* I LOVE Munchkin! : D I never considered it particularly complex, but I guess I fall into the "programmer types" group. : )

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

To me the Munchkin games I have played were less complex than either Magic or AD&D, but did not allow the creativity of those games.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

I haven't played Magic, and the only D&D I have played recently was computer based...I can appreciate the class/item figuring out that the game engine does. How goes Baldur's Gate 2?

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

In fits and starts. Today I was playing a crayon physics style game instead of that or working. There was a problem with a disk last time I played, and ocasional crashes - maybe not entirely compatable with current OSX. I had enough money to move on to Chapter 3, but wanted to do more sidequests first.

[mrs-dragon.livejournal.com]

Oh yea, Munchkin is WAY less complex than Magic. I've never played AD&D although I know people who have, so I've heard a (tiny) bit about it.

Mostly, I just enjoy their sense of humor and the fact that it's relaxing enough that you can talk about other things too. Magic was more complex than I cared to put in the effort for. Especially when the people I was playing against were often very very skilled. I like semi-thinking games I guess. : )

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

I loved the humour too, it's definitely long overdue. I'd love to see a NWN mod that makes fun of gamers...occasionally it sneaks into a game though.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Aha!! I got the card with your dragon on it and I knew I had seen it somewhere before :-) I found the flow chart on the website useful for next time. It was just a matter of knowing when to play cards, when to draw, when to help out, etc. I was a dwarf cleric btw :-)

[mrs-dragon.livejournal.com]

: D

They have a flow chart? I think I just played enough Magic before meeting Munchkin that it never really struck me as needing one. I have played with people that got quite lost though. We just talked them through it. It's not really about the game anyways. : )

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the flowchart is definitely needed...we played for two hours and didn't manage to finish! But it was fun :-)

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

And there's so many lewd jokes you can make about trading sheep for wood! :-P Unfortunately T$ got tired of it a couple years ago, while I haven't, so I haven't played it in forever.

There are many Munchkin games. They are mechanically complex, but not particularly interesting to me. They have much of the cons of RPGs without all the pros.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I think we've found all of them :-) The first game we played was the tutorial one, the randomized games made things a lot more interesting!

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Sure, send that info along and I'll take a gander.

Games are so much more interactive, movies get a little passive sometimes, unless your MSTing them :-)