We had a pretty incredible game night this week!  Spring Break certainly helped with a number of participants, but we also just sort of had a crazy little energy about us as well.  And unlike some weeks, I had people practically waiting for me as I walked in read for a game of...

Survive: Escape from Atlantis! [BGG]

After getting in my first few plays a couple of weeks ago, I already had some strong ideas about how I this game probably needs to play.  The alternate blue dice are a must, and in the other games that I've played, the "values" of the different meeples seemed to be mostly silly and more than a little random.  So, I suggested that we play with the "Everyone is equal!" variant, where the winner is simply the person that gets the most meeples to safety.

Almost from the very first turn, Shawn loaded two of his pieces onto a boat and made for one of the islands.  Over the next 3 rounds, neither Tom nor I could roll a Sea Serpent, so Shawn jumped out to an early lead and had a big target on his back all game long.  Just like the last time I played, someone else rolled a boat and stole away one of the boats I had positioned for three of my dudes. 


I still managed to get some of my guys moving pretty well, and with all of my and Tom's attention on Shawn, I thought that I might be able to mount a comeback.  In the end, though, my own greediness cost me the game, because when it was time to start sinking mountain tiles, my first choice was to drop a tile containing one of Tom's meeples even though he was in last place.  With a meeple literally sitting in the harbor of a safe island, the tile I turned out to be the volcano and the game ended with Shawn still in the lead. 

Time: 33 minutes
Score: Shawn 6, Me 5, Tom* 4
Ratings: Shawn 9, Me 7.5, Tom 8

At 30 or so minutes, Survive! is a really great filler game.  It's light and fun, with lots of "gotcha" moments to get everyone trash-talking and engaged in the game.  I really like the "Everyone is equal" variant, and since the only issue I see with it is a slight lack of granularity in scoring, we agreed that the numbers on the bottom of the meeples would be a tiebreaker (which, by the way, I would have won if I'd gotten that one last meeple to safety).  

I actually played this with my wife last weekend, and I have to say that I'm not very impressed with it for 2 players, however.  It just seemed way too easy to get your people to safety, and Gwen won because I, again, flipped over the volcano as the first mountain tile when I had exactly one meeple a turn away from safety.  If she's interested in playing it more, I'd definitely want to try out some variant where you either start with a smaller island (less tiles), flip two tiles a turn, or maybe play with two colors each (all the meeples).   


Tom throws some finger mojo on the game...
Shake 'n Take [BGG]

I read the press release about Shake 'n Take a little while ago and got in a review copy because it sounded, well... interesting.  It's a real-time game where you try to "capture" (circle) all the aliens on your player mat.  You do this by rolling a shape die and then circling all the aliens of that particular shape.  You can even re-roll the die if you've got all the aliens of that type, but the catch is that your turn only lasts as long as the person to your right is rolling another die (in a strange little shaker egg thingy) and trying to get the alien face to come up on it.  When they do so, they literally rip the marker from your hand and start their own turn (with the player to their right rolling the alien die/shaker thingy). 

Gwen and I actually played it 2-player over the weekend as well, and had a pretty good time with it.  I managed to get in three more games of it in this week, one with 3 players and another with 7 (in which you have two sets of markers and dice floating around the table).  To put it simply, we had a total blast with this silly little game.  

Shake 'n Take is light and fun and totally a party game, but it's also very unique, and the time pressure makes it way more exciting than it has any business being.  I'm trying to do better with writing reviews, though, and I really hope to get out a full review of this within the next week, so I'll go ahead and stop here.  All I can do is to say check out the ratings below and know that multiple people asked about buying it and wanted me to bring it again, so it's pretty obvious how well it went over. 

Time: 10, 14 and 12 minutes
Game 1: Me - Win; Tom* and Shawn* - Lose
Game 2: David* - Win; Kenny*, Adam*, Josh*, Michelle*, Tom & Me - Lose
Game 3: Adam - Win; Kenny, Josh, Michelle, David, Tom & Me - Lose
Ratings: Me 8, Tom 8, Shawn 7, David 9, Adam 9, Josh 8, Michelle 9, Kenny 9


Win, Lose, or Banana [BGG]

Through winning aa contest on a blog that I read, I had ended up with a copy of the "Cake" promo card for Win, Lose, or Banana.  So when I saw the "whole" game in a store, I pulled the trigger and spent the crazy one dollar to pick it up.  I don't fully understand what the whole point is with WLorB, but we ended up playing the game included in the little booklet thingy that came with it (called "Hide the Banana" or "Who's the Banana" or something like that).

Basically, you deal the three cards out and the "Winner" flips their card over.  But to really win, they have to successfully claim their prize, the Banana.  The other two players therefore try to convince the Winner that they are the Banana.  If he guesses right, then both the Winner and the Banana win, but if he chooses the Loser, then the Loser wins.

I got the "Win" card a lot, but I ended up being the loser most of the time.  I'm usually pretty good at reading people, but the silliness of this game made it almost impossible, and my guessing was just way outta whack.

Time: 10 minutes (for several games)
Score: Tom - lots of wins, Shawn - some wins, Me - one win
Ratings: Tom 6. Shawn 6, Me 6

There's not much to this, but it's worth a buck.  Now I just need to figure out what to do with the "Cake" card, since I can't find anything about it online...

Puerto Rico [BGG]

Due to when I really got into the boardgaming hobby (in 2006 or so), I pretty much missed the glory days when Puerto Rico was actually played a lot.  Of course, I know that some people play Puerto Rico all the time, but I mostly feel left behind by it at this point.  This omission does feel like a big ole' black mark on my gamer resume, however, so I'd definitely like to build up a greater relationship with the game, so I brought it along with me this week as well.  And, as is the case with a lot of games these days, I received a lesson about it at the hands of Sceadeau. 

I don't think that I necessarily did all that bad, especially in choosing roles each turn, but some of my choices for buildings and my overall timing were decisively suboptimal.  Sceadeau, meanwhile, was screwing me and Tom out of stuff all over the place and then scoring lots of extra points every time we turned around. 

Time: 46 minutes
Score: Sceadeau 54, Me 39, Tom* 31
Ratings: Sceadeau 10, Me 8, Tom 8

Puerto Rico is definitely a great game.  It moves so well and has so many choices to make, that I definitely want to keep exploring it more.  Stay tuned to see how it goes...

Fresco [BGG]

It was getting late, and no one had played the Game of the Month! yet, so I set up my copy and invited three new players down to learn it.  I went ahead and included all the expansions sold in the core game box (which I'll call the "gamer's version" from now on), which everyone seemed to understand from the get-go.


We had waaaay too much fun in this game.  It was like we were smelling real paint fumes or something...

I laid back a little more in this game than I did last week, and I don't think that it served me very well.  It's nice to be able to decide when you want to get up, but losing out on some of the really big fresco tiles early on is pretty painful.  I eventually made a big move (getting 3 tiles in one turn) and jumped ahead, and then limped my way through the last couple of turns, thankfully staying ahead enough to hang on for the win. 

Time: 74 minutes
Score: Me 100, Tom* 94, Adam* 93, David* 81
Ratings: Me 8.5, Tom 8, Adam 8.5, David 7

I like the "gamer's version" of Fresco a lot, but I do think that it removes some of the strategic options from the base game and makes it almost completely tactical.  There's still a lot of room for doing cool things with timing and watching the other players to figure out what they're doing, but I don't know that there's a lot of variety in the big picture of what you can do.  Basically, the game comes down to efficiency and timing now, which is still a fun experience, but may have a little less room for trying out stuff that is completely different. 

No Thanks! [BGG]

And then to finish off the night, we played a couple of hands of No Thanks!  I was in second place after the first hand, but then had a massively epic failure in "not taking cards" to get 113 points in the second one and finished in last place.

Time: 16 minutes (for 2 hands)
Score: Adam 57, Kenny 64, Tom 88, Josh 97, Me 142
Ratings: Adam 9, Kenny 9, Tom 9, Josh 9, Me 8

Other Games Played

Factory Fun
Time: 47 and 29 minutes
Game 1: Sceadeau 83, Chip 74, Adam 56, David 53
Game 2: Brad* 54, Sceadeau (expert board) 52, Chris (expert board) 51
Ratings: Sceadeau 8, Chip 8, Adam 8, David 7.5, Chris 9

Ghost Stories (with White Moon expansion)
Time: 85 minutes
Score:  Taoists (Chris, Josh, Kenny, Steve*) - Win; Death's Army - Lose
Ratings: Chris 8, Josh 8, Kenny 8, Steve 8

Memoir '44
Time: 50 minutes
Score: Kenny 6, Steve 5
Ratings: Kenny 8.5, Steve 9

Pandemic (with On the Brink expansion)
Time: 52 minutes
Score: Pandemic - Win, Humans (Shawn, Kenny, Steve, Josh & David) - Lose
Ratings: Shawn 9, Kenny ?, Steve 9, Josh 7, David 7.5

Ra
Time: 35 and ? minutes
Game 1: Sceadeau 58, Chris 37, Shawn 24
Game 2: David 56, Chip 48, Adam 28, Shawn 23
Ratings: Sceadeau 8.5, David 9, Chip 9, Chris 8, Adam 7.5, Shawn 10

Through the Desert
Time: 28 minutes
Score: Brad D.* 56, Chip 56, Sceadeau 50, Adam 49, Chris 39
Ratings: Chip 8, Adam 8.5, Chris 8.5

Thurn and Taxis
Time: 70 minutes
Score: Josh 24, Chip 21, Kenny 4
Ratings: Josh 8, Chip 9, Kenny 9

Zombie Dice
Time: 8 minutes
Score: Josh 13, Steve* 7, Kenny 5
Ratings: Josh 7, Steve 7, Kenny 7


* First play for that Person