Pow Wow

Pow Wow

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.

Dixit

Dixit

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.

Gene Pool

Gene Pool

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.