Category: Medium games

Game takes about an hour

You Have To Babysit Lil’ Cthulhu!

Lil’ Cthulhu is another Kickstarter game. You are cultists of Cthulhu, and he has given you a challenging task: babysitting his young son, Lil’ Cthulhu. And you thought his Dad was bad!Lil' Cthulhu

You make toys for Lil’ Cthulhu, play Dark Toys to foil with other cultists, and endure many a Tantrum from the Lil’ Brat himself. I enjoy playing this with a plush Cthulhu to play out the Tantrums. One particular time, the title of a Tantrum card referenced “My Father”, as in, Cthulhu. My plush acted this out well:

Lil’ Cthulhu (as acted by my plush) “I’m telling my Daddy!”

Me: “Shut up, Malfoy.”

I have only played against Mom, winning twice out of three times. There are two ways to win: be the last with sanity or make Lil’ Cthulhu’s three current favorite toys (picked at random from the deck of 6).

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I’m A Chrononaut!!!

Want to film the Creation of the Universe? Want to go to the future and bring back a cure for cancer (in easy-to-swallow pill form)? Now you can, in Chrononauts!Chrononauts

Everyone has an ID with a timeline containing 3 things that either need to be changed or need to stay true in history. For instance, in 1939, instead of World War 2 initiating, fair-goers could enjoy German cake! You also have a mission involving what artifacts you want, like the Shakespeare’s Last Play. These are how you win. (There’s also the evil giant cockroach that wants the world to explode, which happens if there are 13 unpatched paradoxes).

Rewrite history and collect artifacts to make the world a better place (or, you know, to win)!

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English Lesson: The English word “chrononaut” comes from the prefix “chrono”, meaning “time”, like in chronological, and the suffix “naut”, meaning “traveler”, like in astronaut. Thus, “chrononaut” means “time traveler”.

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Gold Ahoy!

Gold Ahoy! is a game my godmother, Marinda, lent us. (Marinda was also mentioned here.) It is really fun and simple, so I’m going to put some role-playing in this post. You have been warned.Gold Ahoy!

Ahoy, Mates! Ye shouldn’t be here! Me hears pirates washed ashore here! Right Boys? Argh!!! Aye, we be thinking ye should leave. Maybe take us with, ay? We don’t much fancy pirates! Hehe.

If ye be staying, let us tell ye our tales of woe. We be shipwrecked here, with only our cutlass and Polly here as company. We be loners in a wide ocean. And we be taking that ship o’ yours, too. What’s that? A contest over the ship? We accept, eh Polly? What it be about?

Oh, finding treasure, eh? That’ll be easy as steering a ship, eh? We be each finding paths to the treasure. Whoever finds the most paths wins, eh? Sounds fun, eh Polly? “Polly want a mango! Polly want a mango!*“ Aye, Polly, a mango be nice.

Aw, ye won by one chest. We just be waitin’ for the next scurvy seadog to come around. They always do, eh Polly? “Polly want a mango! Polly want a mango!” Aye, Polly, we best get back to our ship and sail home. We get a new ship next time.

In other words, I love this game. It’s simple and doesn’t take very long.

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* Because Polly doesn’t really want a cracker, aye?

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Rally the Warhamsters!

Rally the Warhamsters! Prepare for the greatest race of all time… in Warhamster Rally! Warhamster Rally is a wonderful game involving strategy, luck, and sabotaging the other players.Warhamster Rally

In it, you choose a Dork Tower character. This is your character for the game. Each character has a special power that can be used once. Each space has an arrow on it. Whichever way it’s pointing is the way the Warhamster wants to go. Thus, at the beginning of the turn, you take your card that you chose last round, align it so the arrow on the card matches the one under your character, then move to where it says to go. Your goal is to get to past the Battle Budgie on the far end, cross the Post, then cross the post on the other side behind the other Battle Budgie.

To make a long story short, you drive a giant Warhamster around the board in a mad attempt to win a pointless race! Well, its not pointless. You know what I mean.

I recommend this for geeks who aren’t afraid to get their Warhamster butts kicked.

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Geek Battle!

Geek Battle is a board game for very intense geeks. In it you have a choice of which character you want to play: Elf wizards, Mutant Robots, Space Heroes, or Brainiac Aliens. It’s really the geeky version of Trivial Pursuit.Geek Battle

Let me give you an example: In normal Trivial Pursuit, the question might be something like, “Who was president during the end of the second World War?”. In Geek Battles, they have questions like, “Weird Al Yankovic won a ‘Best Comedy Recording’ Grammy Award in 1984 for his version of which Michael Jackson song?” (The answer is “Beat it!” which he parodied to “Eat it!”)

In Geek Battle, the questions like the one listed above are used on your normal turn. If you land on a Geek Battle spot, you chose another player to compete with. Then another person reads a card with multiple answers, and both players alternate giving an answer until someone repeats one or says something that isn’t on the answer card. One example of a Geek Battle question is, “Name Monty Python Films.” (The answers are And Now for Something Completely Different, The Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Live at Hollywood Bowl, The Meaning of Life, and Almost the Truth.)

Warning: Not for the faint of heart or short of Geekdom.

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Sales in Camden!

Camden is a wonderful game, illustrated by John Kovalic, who might have also illustrated oh, I don’t know… Munchkin? *grins* You’re all business owners with a dream and 10 pounds. No, I don’t mean you’re extremely light. Camden is actually a market area in Britain. Thus I mean the British currency: pounds.Camden

First, chose your colour. I mean color. Or is it colour? Blasted American English against the original English. It’s messing up my spelling! First, there’s player A. Player A is the red token and specializes in clothes sales. Player B is my favourite, and is yellow and selling food. Player C is green, selling a large variety of antiques and random debris. Last is Player D, who is blue and sells comics and books.

Each turn, you will collect income based of the number of entrances to your shop, draw a tile, search for and initiate special effects, place the tile, and then if it meets your fancy, purchase another shop. The first person to reach 50 pounds wins.

Special effects vary, and they’re not always set off. If the letter on the tile matches your player letter, the sign around the letter kicks a special effect into order. The first special effect is basic: Fire. It burns down the largest shop and any shop sharing the tile with it. The second special effect is the Bobby. The police come and empty the largest shop. The final one is the least devastating: Holiday. Every player gets their income’s worth right then and there.

This is a wonderful, reasonably simple game. And has hit my favourites list. Or is it favorite? Or…

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Off To Tokaido!

Tokaido is a beautiful game about Japan. In Tokaido, you are a traveler. You are walking across the board, stopping for cash and enjoyment along the way. The happier you are, the more points you get at the end. So let’s start that vacation!Tokaido

On the board, there are 5 inns. You must stop at each inn. Movement is simple… the person in the back moves anywhere up to the next inn. When you reach an inn, you look at that round’s meal cards (number of players + 1) and chose one if you can afford it. The only rule about which one you pick is you can’t have already had one. Each character tile has a special power. My character’s power was I could draw the top card of the meal deck and get it for free. This is because my character was the orphan.

In between inns, there are many places you can visit. There are the hot springs, where you draw a card and receive points. There are also panorama spots, where you take a break to paint a part of one of 3 panoramas.  There’s the farm, where you get some money, or the encounter space, where you draw an encounter card. You can donate money to the temple. Last but not least, you can purchase some souvenirs! Draw the top 3 and pick whichever ones you can afford.

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Bank It!

If you really want that bike, save up money and Bank It! Bank It is a game where you are trying to get ten dollars in your bank account. First, however, you have to purchase something from each of the 4 stores (Pizza Palace, Barnes and Books, Toy Store, Sports Corner) and donate to a charity.Bank It

The most common spot on the board is one of the most important. It is the Bank It spot, and it is how you can get money consistently. Each Bank It card will have a different amount of money for you. Will you get $1.50 for chores… Or will you get $0.25 for Flower Power?

One of the worst encounters is with the Do You Have It space. This appears twice on the board.  Depending on which one you land on, you either break a window or buy a gift. Either way, you drop $0.50 on the ground.

There are many things to get. That Novel you’ve always wanted to read, that Stuffed Toy that’s oh so cute, that juice that looks so delicious, and that baseball bat you believe could withstand anything. Or maybe you want that printer, or that ooey gooey slice of extra cheese pizza, or that irresistible board game. Who knows? Find out for yourself in Bank It!

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Chateau Roquefort!

Salut! Château Roquefort is a wonderful game full of twists and turns where a bunch of competitive mice split into teams of 4 and race to get 4 pieces of cheese. There is, however, a catch. The rooftops they’re running on are shifting under them! They risk falling into a mouse trap!

Château Roquefort

The roof tiles are only uncovered when the mouse is on that tile, so these blissfully oblivious rodents with unusually small man-made brains* could be set up to fall in a hole! The rules with the cheeses are that each mouse team may only have 1 of each type of cheese. On your turn you may choose to push the blocks once as one of your 4 moves.

When you push blocks, you take the spare piece and push a row. This pushes all the blanks, mouse traps, and cheeses in that row. Otherwise you could use 4 moves to move and uncover roofs. Once you are done with your turn, if there are unoccupied, uncovered roofs they get recovered.

Château Roquefort is the rodent equivalent of the Hunger Games, but with official teams, not just a “You don’t kill me, I don’t kill you” scenario. Instead of finding weapons, you are searching for cheese, for the 1 with 4 cheeses rules them all!  (So long as they don’t cut their cheeses,)

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*I’m not sure whether they actually made brains in the mice, but wouldn’t it be cool? Besides, it’s a cute jumble of words, right?

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Would You Use Snake Oil?

Snake Oil Elixir is a game kind of like Apples To Apples, but with a few changes. For instance, instead of choosing a random adjective as the subject, you get to pick between 2 “customers”. The other players then chose 2 of their cards which they put together to make a product for you. They throw a sales pitch and you chose which you think would be better.Snake Oil

Choosing has a few options. You could be practical, but where’s the fun in that? I know people who vote for the most random, crazy thing possible. I personally go for the most wild, crazy, but distantly relative choice.

The person who wins the round gets the Customer card. The person to the left of the previous Customer gets to be the new Customer. The process repeats until everybody has been the Customer. Then the person with the most Customer Cards wins, unless there’s a tie, in which case you keep playing. In both games we played my mother won.

I like this game because you stretch the boundaries of reality to make the most ridiculous, odd and amusing inventions to please our customers. Of course, its nothing I can’t handle as I effectively do that every time I write fiction. Some things we came up with included Fairy Pickles and Pearl Musket. One thing to note is the more people, the better the game play is.

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