Yeah, I'm sorry.  I've been incredibly busy at work lately and haven't had the energy (or time) at home to do any blogging.  So let's catch up on what gaming I've been into over the last two weeks.  I've played 10 different games once each, which I'll run through now...

Back two weekends ago, Gwen and I played a couple of her favorites, If Wishes were Fishes and Qwirkle.  While I'd say that Qwirkle is getting a little boring for me, I really do enjoy IWwF.  I've only played it 2-player with Gwen, and I'd really like to see how it holds up to a greater number of players.  I'd guess that my favorite strategy (hording fish and manipulation of the buyers) would be a lot harder to pull off.  The game is just a lot of fun, but still has enough real decisions in it to keep this hardcore gamer interested.  The best thing about this game of Qwirkle, by the way, was that our baby girl, Samantha, joined us and "helped" Gwen choose her tiles.

At boardgame night that week, I managed to get in several games.  I played Race for the Galaxy for the first time in a while, and actually played (and won) a game of Magic: The Gathering for the first time in a few years.  After talking to Chris Ingersoll after mini-mace II, I was sufficiently interested in the backstory of the new Shards of Alara set and the "spintered magic" idea of the theme decks to pick up a few packs.  I was playing the Bant deck with a few modifications, and beat Tim playing a Grixis deck.  I'd have liked to played in the league of this format, but only have limited gaming time to spare.  Still, it's a great, addictive game that I've managed to escape not once but twice, and I don't plan to get in too deep ever again.

I also managed to get in my first play of the newly-released (in English, anyway) Witch's Brew.  This was the only one of the SdJ nominees that sounded like fun to me, and I was eager to give it a try.  We played it with 5, and the game was a lot of fun.  It's perhaps even more chaotic than I expected, but it played quickly and had some good stuff going on.  All of us were new, and I'd bet that play would improve once everyone knew all the roles better and could make more informed guesses about what others would choose.  Even with Halloween already passed, I'm hoping to get in a few more plays of this pretty soon.

We also got in a game of Age of Gods, which Britt requested since he hadn't gotten to play it back several months ago when I picked it up.  This was an incredibly brutal and low-scoring game, which I lost by one point because my precious Giants were beaten into extinction despite have a +2 defense and fortifications on both their regions.  What's kinda cool is that we've decided to make this Game of the Month! for November, so I'm sure I'll have lots more to say about it in the weeks to come.

Speaking of Game of the Month!, I got in two zombie games that week as well.  The first was the much-touted Last Night on Earth, which I think is a bit overrated.  It certainly looks great, but the gameplay is a bit too simple for me to really get into.  I did like it a little better this time than when I first gave it a shot, but I still feel like I'm just sitting still in buildings, trying to draw random cards until I find the ones I need.  The zombies are more of just a nuisance than a real threat, and while the theme is the big drawing card for the game, it just doesn't seem to be as well-integrated into the mechanics as I'd like to see.

A zombie game that blew my socks off, however, was Zombie Cinema!  You could either call this a light RPG that uses a board or a heavy storytelling boardgame, and either description would be pretty accurate.  Either way, what you have here is a really well-designed game that does a great job encouraging the players to come up with a collaborative zombie story.  There is no GM or anything, and the board is used to track both the players' progress towards "escape" as well as the growing threat from the zombies.  Each player gets three cards that describe important traits of their characters, which they then synthesize into a sentance or two description. 

In our game, Chris A was a rogue scientist at a local biomedical supply company that had somewhat inadvertantly spawned this crisis through his experiments into extending human life.  Jen was a member of a secret organization that had become aware of these experiments and had infiltrated the company, and I was a delusional comic-book-geek teenager who believed himself to be a real superhero and just sorta stumbled into this crisis when he was delivering cats to the company.  Players take turns framing scenes and generating conflicts, first against the other players and then later against the zombies themselves.  In a conflict, the winner advances towards "escape" while the loser backs up closer to the zombies.  On a tie (or if the zombies win later on), the zombie marker itself advances.  When a player is in the same space as the zombies, they are eaten, and can then take on the side of the zombies in future scenes/conflicts. 

I was killed when Chris and Jen tried to stop me from diving into a gang of zombies, causing me instead to stumble right at their feet and promptly get my brain eaten.  The zombies soon sprouted tentacles as their GI system turned inside out, and Jen and Chris found themselves dead just a few moments later when they tried to free Chris' mentor from the psych unit.  It was quick, fun, and easy to pick up (even for people not used to non-traditional RPGs with framing scenes and all), and I look forward to giving this more attention as soon as possible.            

This past week at game night, I had a terrible headache (and fever, as I'd learn when I got home), so I only got in two games.  The first was a quick game of Wicked Witches Way, which is a nicely themed race game using a neat memory component.  The main thing to remember in this game is that you don't want to be in first place for most of the game, because there is a significant penalty for the player in the lead (they can't benefit from the bonus of having a "perfect" spell, which is really not good).

The main game that I got in was finally a play of Fury of Dracula where I wasn't Dracula.  Chris Ingersoll was the Count, while I played Mina and Van Helsing and Chip played Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward.  I don't have the time or energy right now to write a complete session report, but the short version is that we caught Dracula in Britain, and Mina (of all people) managed to stake him a couple of times for the win.  But unfortunately, even the lower number of players and switching up the Dracula role didn't make a significant difference in what the other players thought of the game.  I'd play it almost anytime, but it may be hard to get to the table in the future.

I guess that'll wrap it up for now, but MACE is this weekend, and I'm sure I'll have lots to write about leading up to and as a result of that wondrous event!