While we had a great time with the 4th Anniversary party, we certainly did more than just eat, vote on favorite games, and socialize this week at game night.  What's the point of celebrating game night if you don't play games, right?

Coloretto [BGG]

Soon after I got to Hypermind, I found myself at a table with two of my oldest friends, Kenny and Steve.  We were waiting for another friend of Steve's before jumping into a deeper game, so we spent a little time playing a game of Coloretto.  The 3-player game is really tight, and I kept feeding Kenny fairly decent cards, so that even though he picked up more negative points than I did, he also completed two sets (of 6 cards each) to edge me out for the win.

Time: 13 minutes
Score: Kenny 42, Me 36, Steve* 30
Ratings: Kenny 7.5, Me 8, Steve 7

Pandemic [BGG]

Once Tim (Steve's friend) arrived, we pulled out Pandemic since it was the game that Steve most wanted to expose him to.  Just to make sure that he got the "full experience" from the game, I set it up using 6 epidemics.  We got started, and on the 6th turn (just after every player had one chance to go), the world melted down and we lost.


Black beat us down in the first game, but we got back at it by eradicating it the second time around!

Of course, that's just the perfect invitation to set it all up and try again, but this time we used 5 epidemics and the mutation challenge.  We really fell into a nice stride for most of the game, beating back both red anmd yellow a few times as they threatened to swell into dire proportions.  After concentrating hard on moving cards around between us, we were coming down to the end of the game and were able to assemble (but not yet play) all of the cures to the four standard diseases.  I don't know that we had the mutation figured out yet, but while it would certainly be close, we could just begin to see a glimmer of hope that we might be able to pull it off.  And then, as it often does, Pandemic squished that hope into teeny-weeny little bits when an epidemic prompted yellow to burst into virulent death for all of mankind, exactly one turn before I (as the Medic) would have been able to head it all off.   

Time: 12 and 47 minutes
Game 1: Pandemic (6 epidemics) - Win; Humans (Charles, Kenny, Steve, Tim* & Me) - Lose
Game 2: Pandemic (5 epidemics + mutation) - Win; Humans (Charles, Kenny, Steve, Tim & Me) - Lose
Ratings: Charles 8, Kenny 8.5, Steve 9, Tim 8.5, Me 10

Pandemic continues to be awesome.  Yet another convert was made! 

Zombie State: Diplomacy of the Dead [BGG]

Moving then from one deadly plague to another, most of us joined back together after the "festivities" to play a game of Zombie State: Diplomacy of the Dead.  While I think that the "Zombie State" part of the title is pretty cool, none of us could figure out what exactly is diplomatic about the game.  There's some opportunity to screw over your neighbors by shunting zombies in their direction throughout play, but not really any chance to or benefit from working together in any way.  I could actually see some neat house rules that could be added to the game to include some cooperation/diplomacy, but they would probably only extend a game that is already pushing the limits of play time.

But anyway, after we laid down the board, we all just sort of claimed the nation/region that was closest to.  I ended up being the South American He-Man Woman-haters Club or whatever it was actually called, with Brad being North America, Tim being Europe, Kenny being Africa, and Steve being Asia. 

Based on my first play, I decided to try a strategy of pushing hard on the tech pyramid and getting to the Cure as soon as I could.  So my initial choices involved getting the technology that gives you bonuses to research further techs and then grabbing up Evacuation to shuffle around my population both to save it and to make the Zombies more likely to move towards my neighbors (Brad and Kenny), since they move towards the highest populations.  I totally ignored building any military units, and still managed to have some moderate success in keeping my outbreaks under control.

My next big move was to research and use Quarantine, which basically makes the zombies ignore the population of one area for a turn.  It's pretty effective (since it protects your people and makes the zombies move away from them), but it also requires continual investment of resorce cards and freedom points each turn to protect regions.  Brad, on the other hand, was getting ravaged and decided to start building walls (using the Raze/Raise Borders tech) to keep the zombies away.  Doing that requires a larger investment, but produces a permanent barrier against the zeds.  But this also seemed to leave more holes for the zombies to sneak through, because each territory has multiple adjacent territories that you have to seal off, while one Quarantine marker prevents any zombies from coming in no matter how many areas are adjacent.


On the other side of the world, Steve's military strategy was working brilliantly.  He actually managed to rid his region of undead at one point, and we all feared that he would pull off the auto-win of having no zombies for an entire turn.  Thankfully, when we all had the chance to Raise a Border due to a random event, Tim (who was struggling pretty badly in his first play) made an abdolutely brilliant move (pictured to the right) that would guarantee some of his zombies moving into one of Steve's areas.  We also then realized that we had totally forgotten about Hawaii for most of the game, and that it should have been sending zombies shambling over to Asia all along.

Pretty soon, I was able (despite having only a few actions to spend every turn while keeping up my quarantines) to develop the Cure and start recovering population.  Once I got back solidly on my feet, I was able to free up more freedom points and cure even faster, moving quickly towards the possibility of an auto-win myself.  Tim, however, lost his battle against the zombies and was totally wiped out, triggering the end of the game before that could happen.  When all the remaining population was counted up, I found myself a pretty clear winner!      

Time: 190 minutes
Score: Me 39, Steve* 23, Kenny 22, Brad* 12, Tim* 0
Ratings: Me 7.5, Steve 7, Kenny 7.5, Brad ?, Tim 7

I had a lot of fun playing Zombie State this week.  It did seem to go on a little too long, but for the most part, I was engaged and enjoying myself the whole time.  Some of us were a little distracted when we should have been planning, and I think that repeated play would definitely reduce play time since you'd be able to plan out your turns more efficiently (and hopefully minimize analysis paralysis).  

But as of right now, this game is continuing to occupy my thoughts from time to time throughout the day.  As I just mentioned, that's a very good sign for getting it played again, and I hope that I can find some opponents to help me get it done.  The tech pyramid definitely provides room to try out a lot of different strategy, and I'd love to explore a few different paths through the game.  My only real concerns at this time are (obviously) time and the sneaking fear that there may be an absolutely optimal strategy (which may be what I did).  But maybe I'm just being egotistical and there are still several other things I can try!   


My mostly zombie-free region at the end of the game!
7 Wonders [BGG]

Once again, it was getting pretty late, but I had missed the two previous game nights and I wasn't about to leave without giving the Game of the Month! a play! This was my first 3-player game of 7 Wonders, and it went pretty well.  I thought I was even doing well, since I was the only one collecting green (technology) cards, but I guess I was too one-dimensional and ended up losing pretty badly. 

Time: 27 minutes
Score: Keith 61, Kenny 57, Me 48
Ratings: Keith 7, Kenny 8, Me 7.5

I still like 7 Wonders, but I just don't understand why I'm not getting it.  Can someone please help me???!!!


Other Games Played

7 Wonders
Time: 29 and 31 minutes
Game 1: Carry 64, Sceadeau 57, Shawn 43, Alton 40, David 37, Chip 37, Charles 37
Game 2: Charles 62, Chris 59, Shawn 54, Alton 47, Keith 36, Chip 34
Ratings: Alton 8.5, Chip 8, Chris 8.5, Keith 7

Can't Stop
Time: 29 minutes
Score: Chris 4, Keith* 2, Chip 2
Ratings: Chris 8, Keith 8, Chip 8.5

Egizia
Time: 56 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 129, Michelle 102, Chris 79, Shawn 57
Ratings: Sceadeau 10, Michelle 8, Chris 8, Shawn 9

Factory Fun
Time: 44 minutes
Score: Chris 85, Keith 68, Chip 62, Alton 41
Ratings: Chris 7.5, Keith 7, Chip 7, Alton 8

No Thanks!
Time: 23 minutes (for 2 hands)
Score: Dennis* 51, Chris 74, Keith 79, Michelle 88, Brad* 111
Ratings: Chris 7.5

Ra
Time: 35 minutes
Score: David 97, Beth 93
Ratings: David 7.5, Beth 9

Thurn and Taxis (with Power and Glory Expansion)
Time: 37 minutes
Score: Keith 22, Chip 12, Alton 8
Ratings: Keith 8, Chip 9, Alton 9

Unspeakable Words
Time: ??
Score: Tim* 101, Beth 85, Kenny 107 (and insane), Steve 103 (and totally nutso)
Ratings: Tim 7, Beth 10, Kenny 8, Steve 8

* First play for that Person