Finally got some gaming done, it’s been a while
A couple of trick taking games first
Boast or Nothing, hard to get hold of, so I used a deck of Phase 10 cards, just needed 1 thru 11 in three suits, plus some “pass” cards, and value 12 cards to use for the trump ranking. Normal trick taking rules – have to follow suit if you can. The three suits start ranked randomly, but change during the round. If you win a trick with a suit, that suit goes on the bottom of the ranking. What you’re trying to do is win the correct number of tricks, for a 3p game, this is three tricks. You get a point if you get the exact number, two points if you win zero tricks, and nothing otherwise.
Trick-Taking in Black and White, another game I had to make myself. You have a deck of games with a white and a black value. Values run from 1 to 36, and the total always adds up to 37. So the card with a 1 white has the black 36, for example. Whoever opens says if they are using the white or the black number, and then people have to play white or black to follow. The object of the game is to take as many white tricks as black. If you do this, you get the value of all the tricks you’ve won. If you fail, you get them as negative points. Easy to play, fun filler.
12 Chip Trick, and yet another game I did myself. The original game uses chips, I tried to do it with coin capsules but my test one didn’t look too well, so I just did it with cards instead. The game is named because there are only twelve chips/cards in the original game, but there are actually sixteen chips/cards for 4p. The chips are in red and blue, the red chips are numbered 4 to 9, and the blue 1 to 3 and 10 to twelve. I used a standard deck of cards, so marked up a Jack as 11 and a Queen as 12.
To play, each person plays a card, highest card wins. You don’t have to follow colours, you can play anything. The winner of the trick takes one of the cards from the trick. You have to take red cards first, but otherwise can take anything. Each player takes a card, but the winner places their card in front of them, and that card can’t be used again. Everyone else takes a card back into their hand. When someone has no cards left, the round is over. You add any cards in front of you, and anything you might still have in your hand. If you have a total over 21, you’ve gone bust, but there is a variant where you get half your points if you’ve gone over.
Very interesting game with very few cards, good filler.
The Loop, some cooperative fun. We’ve never won at this game, even at the basic difficulty. We started out pretty well, had three (of four) missions completed, but then more and more bad guys start appearing, and we lost our fourth mission. The game has a tower in the middle, which you throw red cubes into. If any region gets more than three red cubes, it’s lost (and you lose any progress you might have had on the mission). The tower has three exits, so you never quite know how the cubes will come out, there’s a bit of luck involved. A close game, but we just couldn’t get it done.
Aliens: Bug Hunt, a pretty light dice rolling game, but it’s fun. You have a squad of three people, and have to explore the map by adding tiles and defeating aliens. We just managed to win, it was pretty tight.
Very very helpful!
