PnP Partay!

For an assignment-- yes, I can't believe it either-- we were required to print out some games and play them. AWESOME! So I tried three different games in my spare time, two of which frustrated the crap out of me and one that I enjoyed thoroughly for the brief time that I played it.

The first game that I played was a single player game called "Pocket Civ".

"Ooh, Ominous."

This delightful tree-destroyer (there are about 17 pages of cards and information to print out) was actually the most successful game I played, in my opinion. Even though I was playing by myself, I really enjoyed the strategy of it. You are given eight empires that you must keep from being destroyed by the most... random of tragedies. From famine, to lightning strike, to plain ol' misfortune... This game has it all. The catch of this game is the fact that it doesn't have an official board you can print out and play on, which I found to be kind of detrimental, but it does come with "scenario" cards with pictures of what your empire is supposed to look like. So I ended up drawing it on a piece of paper.

Now, I think I wasted around 3 hours playing this game by myself. Each game lasted around 20 or 25 minutes, and usually ended with my cities getting destroyed. There is an alternative way to win, however, which is your motive to keep playing. If you can survive all eight eras-- as the game gets more intense-- you win the game. You survived!

My favorite aspect of the game was managing resources. It is necessary to keep certain parts of the world alive in order to keep the resources from them incoming, so you can implement more cultural cards to benefit your society. Stuff like Laws to prevent your villagers from killing themselves, Farmhouses to keep the crops from totally dying off, etc. etc... Something I'd definitely like to consider implementing in my table top game... Oooh...

...I also played a few quick games that took under 10 minutes with my good friends Kevin and Hugo. These games were... frustrating. We understood them, but the rules were so oddly explained and vague for BOTH that we just... gave up after three games or so.

First of all, a game called "Shape Up." For the most part, this game made sense... until the end game. Scoring was DIFFICULT. It was hard to wrap our heads around.

"As you can see, Hugo just got three points! Or... two points?... One?... Ten? Do we even know?"

The main problem was how the symbols were repeated on each card. It would be a little easier to score if we had some design-oriented way to tell what associations gave us which amount of points... Which goes to show design is key! Make sure your game is designed CLEARLY, please, thank you!

And, finally, a game called "Bad Grandmas". This game was... alright. It was quick. The directions were a little vague, but the visuals were hilarious and entertaining for all of... 15 minutes. The point modifier was an interesting way to try and spice up the game, but since it only took a few minutes to play it would get boring fast. I mean, I totally understand the guy made it for his friends as a joke, so that's cool. Hope they had fun with it!

In conclusion... I really enjoy large-scale single player survival/adventure-esque games. Yes.