fast food It's another reaction game, but this one will open your eyes. What some hamburger? Well, you need to win the ingredients first! When I first saw this game, I think the box is designed very well. You see? Every thing can be set up like a really meal. And After I played it, I found out that the system of the game is great, too. Players who likes reaction game should definitely try this one. To start the game, put the burger in the middle of the table and distribute the ingredient cards first. Players take turn flip uot their cards. Watch the ingredient cards and hit the buzz-burger first when you see a match. Get all the ingredients and build your burger. Careful...If you put the same ingredient on twice in a row it will ruin your burger. The person who get all the ingredients wins.
Another week and another good game. The star this week is called Jungle Speed. It's like the poker game Heart Attack that challenges your reaction.
The game consists with a totem and a pile of cards. To start the game, put the totem in the middle of the table and then divide the cards equally to the players. Players take turn open a card, and if there are two cards with the same picture, the two players have to grab the totem. The faster one win the turn and give the other one his opened cards.
It's a really exciting game. Some of the cards looks similar so someone will make a mistake. Although I didn't win the game everytime, I still love this game; but my friends don't like to play little games very much, pity.
I think this may be the most well0known game between beginners in Taichung. It's called the German Heart attack in Chinese, because it is very similar with the poker eart attack.
There are 56 playing cards showing four kinds of fruit in groups of 1 to 5 and a bell of the type found at hotel reception desks. The deck is distributed evenly between the players. Hold your deck face down; deal one face up in front of you. As each player reveals their next card, the instant you see a total of five of one kind of fruit on the table, hit the bell. If you're correct, you pick up all the played cards and put them into your deck. If you're wrong, pay the others a card each. When you run out of cards, you're out. When 2 players are left, they have one more strike, and then the taller deck wins.
It's not my favorite game, and I played only a few times. However, I think it is worth introducing.
Animal Upon Animal I think Taiwanese still think Jenga the most classical stacking game, which means there are still a lot of stacking games without wooden bars. And this week, the game is called Animal Upon Animal. When i first met it, it's titled in German, Tier auf Tier, which means the same. Maybe it's because it's in English, so I feel it's not so...elegant. It maybe be worse if we translate it to Chinese directly by it's meaning. In some place, it's called the animal pyramid or tower.
Well, the point is, the game consists with 29 wooden animals and 1 die. The die is different with usual dice that marks dots. The six surfaces show 1, 1, 2, a hand, a question mark,and a crocodile. I'll explain the meaning later. The crocodile is the base of the pyramid. First, put the crocodile in the middle of the table, put the crocodile in the middle of the table, divide the rest animals equally to the players, and then the game begins.
When it's your turn, roll the die. Numbers means the animals you have to place ON the crocodile parallely. Hand means you can choose an animal and then choose a guy to place it on the crocodile for you. Question mark means others will choose an animal for you, and you will put it on the crocodile yourself. Crocodile means you can put your animal BESIDE the crocodile, still, parallely.
Whenever the pyramid falls, the current player has to pick two animals from the ruin. When someone has no animals, he is the winner and te game ends. Or sometimes it ends when someone doesn't wants to continue. It's a happy party game and it's very suitable for beginners.
(If your don't to read my article, you can just watch the unboxing video below) In this game, there are 25 stars on the table in a 5*5 square. Players take turn to flip the star, push them in a row, or exchange their places. If they are in the place you want, you can invoke the creatures in the myth. With or without their help, your choice, you can summon the Great Old Ones. Every creature has its points. You have to get ten points to win this game.
After I heard about this game, I had looked forward to play this game because it is just my type. And after I have played it once, I still like it although I didn't win. However, many people don't like this game, because the down time, the time you use during your turn, is too long. You have to wait a long time for your next turn, and when it is your turn, others already mess up your stars.
The game sounds easy, but it's difficult to decide your moves, and that's why it take times.
The game I'm introducing this week is called Dominion. It was published in 2008, but is still often talked about. Why? It is fun, but the main reason is it's unlimited expansions. So far there are two expansions and it's said to have more than ten. Expansions are published in a speed of about once six months.
In the game, players are monarchs who desires to extend their own kingdoms into dominions. Everyone has some money and a small land at the beginning. Everyone can buy cards to extend your deck. Some cards are minions with abilities in different career you can use. Some are for you to enhance your fortress and make your kingdom more civilized. However, at the some time, there are other monarchs that have the same ambition, too. They also wants to expand their kingdom, so they will do anything they can to stop you, such as spying, cursing, or steeling. At the end of the game, the winner is the player with the biggest land, represented in cards.
Last year, I played this game for about hundred times, and after the expansion published one after another, I was tired of it. So all I did now was just appreciating those cards.
The game of this week is called Aquarius. There are two editions and the 1st one is no longer available, Which I really want to have one
There are three types of cards: Elements, Goals, and Actions. There are five kinds of elements: air, earth, fire, water. ether; and each of them represents a goal. To start the game, palyers draw a goal card and secretly look at it. During the game, every one place a element card on the table, attaching to previous ones. The point is that the elements on the both card's attaching side should be the same. The player who connects seven panels of one particular element wins. How about the action cards? Well, during the game, you can use it to disturb other players.
left:playing, right: the goals
The game is fast and interesting. You can guess other people's goals and then bluff about it. I really like this game. It's ust I don't like the 2nd edition's drawing, although many people think it's not big deal.
As usual, the game I'm introducing this week is called Pow Wow. You may have seen it on TV that people attach poker cards on there forehead so they can't see their own number and have to guess the sum of all of the cards. I wonder if the show copied this game. However, the different point of the game is the theme: Indian, native American Chieftain. The numbercards are made in leather shape, attached to colorful headbands, which makes everyone looks like Indians.
The other specialty of this game is the number and function of the cards. There are not only positive numbers but also negative numbers, zero in addition. That makes the game more exciting.
Every turn, after everyone attached a card on their forehead, the bidding and bluffing and the guessing begins... can either challenge the previous player's bid or increase that bid. Just like the TV show, you can use your tool to pass or reverse the players order, or draw another card and put it on other players head. When a challenge inevitably occurs, everyone takes off their feather cards and totals up the values to determine whether the bidder or the challenger has lost. If the challenger lost, he has to put a lost token on his headband. When a person collected three tokens, he loses the game.
That's not the end. The game has a punishment forthe loser. Others put all the card on his head and then take a picture of him as a chieftain.
I played this game several times and it is really a exciting game. Luckily I seldom loose. Haha.
Further punishment can be discussed. This is a example of my friend being punished, but he didn't have all of the cards on his head obviously.
The game I want to introduce today is called Dixit. It was published last year and was soon sold out. It won;t be available until this May. The reason why it is so popular is because of the beautiflul pictures which rarely appears around board games.
Each player at his turn plays the storyteller. He is given a single picture, while the other players get a hand of six pictures.The storyteller says a sentence or a word connected to his picture, then each player chooses one of his pictures to bet upon. All pictures are showed face up, and every player has to bet upon what picture was the storyteller's. If nobody or everybody finds the correct picture, the storyteller scores 0, and each of the other players scores 2. Otherwise the storyteller and whoever found the correct answer scores 3. Players score 1 point for every vote gotten by their own pic. The game ends when the deck is empty. The greatest total wins the game.
The other attraction of this game is the scoring meeples are Rabbits. I think it was first seen and they are so cute!
I have played this game several times, but it turned out not so fun. People say short words and aren't high. I don't know how to make this game funner. I tried to say more things when I was the storyteller, but it was really hard to express my card and to make it funny.
A whole new semester comes, and game introductions will keep on, so stay tuned!
The game I'm introducing this time is Gene Pool. This first version was published in Fall 2006 as a limited edition of 200 copies. The second edition was available October 2009 and was sold out immediately.
The designer, Mark Goadrich, is an Assistant Professor and the Broyles Eminent Scholars Chair in Computational Mathematics at Centenary College of Louisiana. He teach courses in both Computer Science and Mathematics. He made this game just for fun, not for profits. That's why it's an limited edition.
The game is for only two players, who are DNA engineers that are fighting against rare genetic diseases. Players repair important genes with gene therapy by modifying and rearranging a common DNA sequence. Using strategies and spatial thinking to mutate, invert, delete and insert DNA. Compete with the other player to see who is faster in finishing researches, and the winners wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and the game!
I like this game because it is really brain exercising. It takes a little strategy. You have to try to complete your own task in fewest moves and opponent's move must be considered. I didn't win often and we played the wrong rules at first, but I still like this game.
However, I don't have much time playing games this semester, but I'll do my best to make the blog content.
