I was afraid that Gwen would be too uncomfortable for me to come to game night this week, but her mom agreed to come over and help get Samantha to bed, so I was able to make it to game night by my "normal" 7 o'clock time.  My arrival coincided, for a change, with a few games ending, so we were able to jump right into the big showdown of newish dungeon-crawly games.  (And, by the way, I once again forgot my camera, so I'll just throw in a few "stock" photos to break up the text)

Castle Ravenloft [BGG]


Time: 62 minutes
Score: Valiant Heroes (Charles, Keith, Kenny, Britt and Me) - Win; Castle Ravenloft - Lose
Ratings: Charles 7.5, Keith 7, Kenny 7, Britt 6, Me 7

There were a few tense moments, but it was actually a rather easy win.  Sceadeau and I were talking after game night, and his opinion is definitely that the base game is way too easy.  I'd mostly agree with him (since we only lost our very first play of the game), but I also reserve judgement a little bit until I get to some of the scenarios with more advanced monster placement rules (where you can actually have up to 3 monsters on a tile).  But there's also enough resources in the box that you could come up with some variant to increase the difficulty in a number of ways.

Castle Ravenloft is an interesting phenomenon for me.  It's not really all that great of a game.  Heck, I'd barely say that it was a good game.  But despite it weaknesses in mechanics, it succeeds for me mostly because of the fact that it fills a vefry specific niche in my collection.  It is a cooperative dungeon-crawl, and it can be played solo.  Coop, solo, dungeon-crawl.  Just writing the words makes me happy, and at least until something better comes along with those same three descriptors, it's going to have a spot on my game shelf.
 
Dungeonquest [BGG]

I've heard a lot about Dungeonquest over the years, and probably even more in the last few weeks with the release of the new Fantasy Flight version, so I had some expectations going in.  I knew that it was wildly random and that characters could die at pretty much any time based on the flip of a card/tile or a bad die roll.  I was actually pretty cool with that, and was looking forward to a wild and crazy, lighthearted dungeoney experience.

As we started, Charles fell into the bottomless pit on his very first turn and died.  Expectations met so far!!!

We let him restart, of course, and he and Keith actually did a pretty good job of making their way to the dragon's horde in the center of the board.  Keith just moved through rooms and corridors above ground (dodging a demon on the way), but Charles (playing the brother of his first, ill-fated character) made a path through the catacombs as part of his journey.  Keith and Charles ransacked the dragon's lair, racking up a good amount of treasure before waking the beast and being blasted with flame.  They didn't learn their lesson, though, and when they went back to get more (so they wouldn't leave empty-handed), the wurm woke again and fried them both to death.

Britt also found an entrance to the catacombs, but he didn't fare quite as well as Charles did.  Instead, he had 3 or 4 turns in a row where he basically lost his turn and just sat there.  When he finally got to play again, he was soon killed by some odd creature or other, and sat out the rest of the game.

So, what crazy hijinks did I get myself into?  I failed to get through a door for a turn or two, and then once I got in, I couldn't get back out.  Literally, I explored exactly two rooms in the dungeon all game long, picking up a measely 200 gold in searching said rooms.  So when everyone else died (or were looking close to it), I finally managed to get out of the room and decided to leave.  Because I had some treasure and made it out alive, I won.  Not that it matters in this kind of game, or that it was in any way was an accomplishment or indicated that I had any significant level of fun while playing... but I won. 

Time: 63 minutes
Score: Me (alive with 200 gold) - Win; Britt, Charles & Keith - Dead Losers
Ratings: Me 5.5, Britt 7, Charles 6, Keith 5.5

Dungeonques was a failure for me, so even though Castle Ravenloft isn't exactly a raging success, it still wins the showdown.

DQ didn't fail because of the randomness.  I was prepared for that and maybe even excited about it.  It failed because it was, for me at least, incredibly boring.  Going back to my expectations, I was thinking that it would be a series of big risk/big reward turns, where you did cool things and got smacked around in dramatic ways.  Instead, I beat my head against a door over and over again until I just gave up and left.  Britt did a similar thing, losing turn after turn and doing nothing of significance.  And even though Charles and Keith had some drama at the end of the game, I would still consider most of their turns to be pretty much boring.

I guess I was thinking it would be more along the lines of the experience I get from Tales of the Arabian Nights.  Not every turn in that game is exactly revolutionary, but they at least advance the story and are somewhat interesting.  But to just lose turn after turn because the door card you drew said "door jammed" or because you failed a strength roll to raise the portcullis is just ridiculously boring and pointless.  I would have been a crapload happier with the game if each of the complications and failures had just done some damage or caused some lingering bad effect on me, but still let me continue to advance in the dungeon.  And actually losing turns is just so 1980's, because (for the most part) modern gamers have realized that we do not want to play games where we spend a lot of time not playing them.

A lot of people have have complained about the change that Fantasy Flight made to the combat system, where they added in this somewhat complicated card-based thing to resolve battles.  I agree with the complaints that it, in general, takes too long, especially when compared to the speed with which most other bad things happen to the players (draw a tile, fail a roll, and die).  But the thing is, the times I spent playing out combat were probably the most fun moments I had in the game.  It let me participate in the game even when it wasn't my turn (because the player to the left plays the monsters on the current player's turn), and it is actually a nice little tactical card game with some interesting choices to make.  It doesn't fit with the rest of the game, but maybe it actually points to the fact that Fantasy Flight should have done a lot more of an overhaul on the game in order to make it palatable to modern audiences (as they did with Fury of Dracula or even Warrior Knights).  

Again, I can see myself liking a game very similar to this.  If I felt that I was actually accomplishing something on most of my turns (even if I was getting beaten up severely in the process), then it might have been fun.  If the rewards were more in line with the risk I was taking (big payouts to match the big dangers), then it might have been fun.  But to take pointless turn after pointless turn only to win a pointless victory was no fun at all.   

Money [BGG]

I've played a good amount of Money on my iPod, but never done so in person.  Graham (who has done much of the same thing on his iPad) discovered that the store actually had a copy of the game a month or two ago, so he pulled it out for us to play next.  I fumbled with the rules with lots of help from Graham (since I realized that I was blind to many of the details handled by the iPod) and we got started.

The game played quickly, and I managed to put together one entire type of money except for the 50, along with some other scoring from one other currency and a few yuan.  Matt came close to me, completing one entire currency, but having nothing else to go with it.    

Time: 19 minutes
Score: Me 600, Matt* 500, Graham 410, Chip* 360, Keith 260
Ratings: Me 7.5, Matt 7, Graham 9, Chip 7, Keith 8

I really need to play this more.  It's such a cool little auction and set-collection game.  The scoring rules are a bit complicated, but gameplay itself is very dynamic and interesting.  I definitely had a lot of fun with it, and only wish that the current version weren't so expensive for what you get.

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer [BGG]

I got in 2 games of Ascension this week, and they played out very differently.  In the first play, we ran into a glut of really big demons early on, and we had a lot of trouble defeating and/or banishing them from the center row.  We therefore focused a lot on buying up Mystics and Heavy Infantry, and the Honor pool depleted rather quickly from all of our killing of demons and cultists.  The difference in the game was probably when I managed to kill off the 7 strength Avatar of the Fallen, which then lets you either defeat or acquire any other card in the center row, so I killed off Xeron, Duke of Lies (strength 6) and used its ability to steal a card from both other players and add them to my hand.  Altogether, it was a direct addition of around 10 honor on that move alone, and it slowed down both other players while giving me even more ammunition, so I managed to pull out a close win over Chip.

In the second game, I barely bought any Mystics or Heavy Infantry at all.  Instead, all of the Mechana constructs showed up that were totally absent in the last play.  In addition to some smaller constructs, I put together 2 copies of the Watchmaker's Altar (which gives more runes to buy other mechana constructs), the Rocket Courier X-99 (which lets you put an acquired construct directly into play), the Hedron Link Device (which makes all constructs count as Mechana), The All Seeing Eye (draws a card each turn), and to top it off, the Hedron Cannon (which gives you 1 might for each Mechana construct you control).  It got a little ridiculous, and on the last turn alone, I killed something like 9 cultists because no other demons were around to defeat.  Obviously, I won. 

Time: 32 and 29 minutes
Game 1: Me 66, Chip 60, Keith* 47
Game 2: Me 78, Brandon* 53, Keith 46
Ratings: Me 8, Chip 7.5, Brandon 8.5, Keith 8

Ascension just gets better and better for me.  I know enough of the cards now that I can sort of go into a game with an idea of what I'd like to try.  But like so many of my favorite games, you can't pursue a strategy blindly, because you also have to adapt (and sometimes scrap it completely) based on what the game and the other players give you.  I don't need to say much more about it right now ('cause I've sort of raved about it for a few weeks straight now), but needless to say, it's one of my favorite games of the year at this point.


Other Games Played

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer
Time: 43 and 28 minutes 
Game 1: James 72, Chris 71, Tommy 61
Game 2: James 71, Tommy 63, Chris 55
Ratings: James 9, Tommy 9, Chris 9.5

Command & Colors: Ancients
Time: 55 minutes
Score: Kenny - Win; Graham - Lose
Ratings: Kenny 9, Graham 6.5

Container
Time: 105
Score: Sceadeau 196, Cody* 135, Michelle* 122, Alton* 75, Shawn* 73 
Ratings: Sceadeau 10, Cody 9, Michelle 8.5, Alton 8.5, Shawn 8.5

Sceadeau just raves about this, so I really need to get in a game sometime. Of course, sometime may be in 6 weeks or so...

Space Hulk: Death Angel
Time: 45
Score: Genestealers - Win; Space Marines (Kenny, Graham, Matt & Brandon) - Lose
Ratings: Kenny 7, Graham 6, Matt 7, Brandon 6

Founding Fathers
Time: 45 minutes
Score: Chip* 25, Chris* 14, Graham 12, Tommy* 11, James* 7 
Ratings: Chip 7.5, Chris 7, Graham 7, Tommy 5, James 3 (sour grapes, methinks)

Fresco
Time: 77
Score: Chip 73, Michelle 69(?), Chris 66, Shawn* 36
Ratings: Chip 7.5, Michelle 8, Chris 7.5, Shawn 7.5

Masons
Time: 45
Score: Sceadeau* 96, Alton 93, Ken 92
Ratings: Sceadeau 6.5, Alton 7.5, Ken 7

Race for the Galaxy
Time: ??
Score: Sceadeau 31, Michelle* 19, Shawn* 18
Ratings: Sceadeau ?, Michelle 7.5, Shawn 8

Thurn and Taxis
Time: 47
Score: Sceadeau 29, Brandon 17, Alton 14, Kenny 13
Ratings: Sceadeau 7, Brandon 9, Alton 9, Kenny 9

For the first time that I can remember, no one actually played the Game of the Month! on game night.  I tried to push for it later in the evening, but only one other person was really interested, so I let it drop.  Especially since the "final table" has been a pretty big deal over the last 3 months or so, I was a little freaked out that hardly anyone cared to get in another game.  But it's all about having fun, I guess, and apparently Cyclades was not how they wanted to have fun this week.

* First play for that Person