2007.02.24
Posted in Board Games at 1:36 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Last night, Jason gathered together a slightly larger group than usual for an evening of boardgames. We decided to play Bang! followed by Arkham Horror, and both were quite enjoyable.
Since one of the guys was running a bit late, we decided to play Bang! (with the Dodge City expansion) while we waited for him to arrive. Of the four of us who were already assembled, I was the only one who had played before, so I quickly taught the basics, we drew our roles and characters, and started playing.
Dave wound up drawing the unenviable position of the Sheriff, and the cards started flying. There was a lot of back-and-forth as everyone grew accustomed to the flow of the game, and then things started getting interesting. I was the first player knocked out of the game, and revealed my role as an Outlaw. Almost immediately afterwords, Chris was killed courtesy Dave’s little gift of Dynamite. Chris revealed himself as the Renegade, leaving Jason and Dave to battle a very tense fight to the finish. Dave’s second Dynamite card made it around the table and came back to bite him, which made for a pretty level playing field. Jason and Dave frantically tried to deal the killing blow to each other, and finally Jason came out victorious after a couple of lucky draws.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the game, but by this time, Jason H. had arrived and so we started setting up for a game of Arkham Horror.
Of the five of us, the only one who hadn’t played before was Jason H., so after quickly running through the rules during setup, we got started. Jason H. caught on quickly, which was good, because Shub Niggurath had a few nasty tricks of her own. I never realized just how much harder the game is when all the monsters have one extra toughness.
We did fairly well for a while. I had drawn an Elder Sign early on and managed to close and seal a gate very quickly, and started taking out a few monsters as I had time. For a while it looked like we were marching quickly toward victory, but then bad things happened. Chris took a risk with a gate at the Silver Twilight Lodge that ended up costing him his chance to close the gate. I had some rather annoying problems in Yuggoth, being first delayed then winding up lost in time and space.
By this point the gate situation had gotten out of hand, and Shub awakened. I was immediately devoured (being lost in time and space), and Jason, Chris, and Dave were all also immediately devoured, having no monster trophies. So Jason H. had to face Shub alone. Shub would have been hard enough if 4 or 5 of us were still around, but Jason H. didn’t have enough attack strength to deal damage quickly enough, even if he somehow managed to roll perfectly on every turn. So we conceded the game, darkness covered the land, and all that jazz. Oh well – I found the game highly enjoyable even if we didn’t win.
It was a fun evening, but Arkham surprised me a bit. I’ll have to discuss our strategy with Jason and see what he thinks, but I suspect we should have done something a little different with the gates than we did.
We’ll get you next time, Shub.
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2007.02.21
Posted in This Site at 7:15 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I’ve always more or less followed a set of unwritten rules about the articles I post to this weblog. Until now, I’ve never really taken a step back and examined those rules and their impact on the site. Nor have I singled out the exceptions to these rules for further dissection. It is now time to do both of those things.
As best as I can determine, here are the rules which I have been abiding by:
Rule 1: All content must be written by me, Jeremiah Wittevrongel.
Rule 2: I cannot post anything I would not freely acknowledge as my own.
Rule 3: I cannot post anything which is either illegal or would violate my own morals and ethics.
Rule 4: I cannot knowingly misrepresent myself.
Rule 5: I must adhere to W3 standards in the construction of this weblog.
These self-imposed rules all stem from a desire to take advantage of the Primacy and Recency effects. This weblog is the first result returned by Google whenever someone searches for “Jeremiah Wittevrongel”. It’s their first impression of my digital self. In addition, because the content on this weblog is presented in reverse chronological order, the first thing someone sees is going to be the most recent post on the weblog. Every post is thus doubled in importance from a psychological standpoint. Thus every post needs to accurately reflect myself while also seeking to leave a generally good first impression. All five rules target this goal. This is not a pseudonymous weblog; I publicly present all of the content as my own, and so I need to have some guidelines in place. Even something as simple as following W3 standards is important, since the technically-minded among my readers will take notice.
These rules do have an interesting effect, though. Certain topics are completely or mostly taboo on this weblog. A quick glance at the politics category indicates that this is so – I seldom choose to voice any sort of political opinion here. There are also several aspects to my life which receive absolutely no comment here, and I believe my reasons for this decision are sound.
This form of self-censorship raises an interesting question: by self-censoring, am I violating Rule 4? Is omission tantamount to misrepresentation? Or is this merely a by-product of the inevitable editing process? I’m leaning toward the latter, but perhaps not everyone agrees. There are a number many myspace profiles out there that reveal a lot more about their owners than this weblog does about me. In my opinion, some of them go too far in terms of personal information.
Perhaps it all boils down to this: since this is my weblog, I can set rules that I’m comfortable with. In and of themselves, the rules are representative of who I am. Within the framework they provide, I can feel comfortable about my content, and feel good about posting it. That’s what really matters.
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2007.02.21
Posted in Board Games, The Web at 1:13 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I’ve listened to a couple of Dice Tower podcasts recently, I’ve also watched a few of Scott Nicholson’s vidcasts at Board Games With Scott. Jason’s recent post prompted me to wonder which people cards from Chez Geek best correspond to the various personalities. So far, here’s what I’ve got:
I’m sorry, Skip Hampton (from the Dice Tower), but you’re definitely the whiner. I realize you’re trying to be humourous, but you come across as merely annoying. Nice try.
As for Scott Nicholson, well, he’s definitely Mr. Gamer. For better or worse.
Nothing else really jumped out at me from a quick look through my Chez Geek and Chez Greek cards, although I did have a few laughs as I rifled through the deck.
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2007.02.19
Posted in Board Games at 5:40 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Along with Kingdoms, I also picked up Fury of Dracula this weekend.
I’ve been thinking about getting the game for some time now, and after doing a whole bunch of research, decided it was time to take the plunge. The gaming group I usually play with enjoys Lord of the Rings, Arkham Horror, and Runebound, so Fury of Dracula seemed like it might be a good fit.
While it is mostly a cooperative game, one of the players gets to control Dracula and be the bad guy, which adds an interesting dimension. This aspect of the game is somewhat reminiscent of Scotland Yard, a game I remember playing when I was younger, and which I mostly enjoyed at the time. The implementation of the mechanic is different in Fury of Dracula, though, so it’s difficult to make a direct comparison.
Jason and I played a partial game on Saturday, mostly to puzzle out the rules and ogle the artwork. The rules booklet is quite lengthy and I didn’t much care for the layout. It jumps around a lot, with lots of cross references, and there’s no index included. Thankfully, Fantasy Flight has posted an index in PDF format on their web site, and they’ve also posted a four-page errata / FAQ document (which is mostly just minor rule clarifications). The quick reference cards for the hunters and for Dracula are also a great addition, though I wish there were a quick reference for the following things as well:
- Combat, especially the various symbols
- Dracula’s powers
- How the hospital works
- What all of the encounters are
There is a reference for the encounters on the outside back cover of the rules booklet, but something a little smaller (and less unwieldy) would be preferable. Perhaps I’ll have to put something together for this when I have the time.
But on to the game itself. My first impression is that I really like it. In addition to the partial game on Saturday night, Dave joined Jason and I on Sunday night for our first full game. I played the role of Dracula, while Dave and Jason each controlled two of the hunters. Since they spread themselves out over the continent, I decided to start in Madrid, somewhat near one of the hunters, but not close enough that I was overly concerned. I putzed around Spain for a while, setting some traps and a vampire encounter before the hunters managed to reveal part of my trail. I hung out a while longer and ended up fighting Mina at night. That battle went very poorly for me, and I had to resort to Escape (bat) to get the hell out of there, but not before losing a fair bit of blood. As dawn broke, I made a break for the sea and then set foot on terra firma in Hamburg. From there, I headed southeast, hoping to double back to western Europe and slip through the dragnet the hunters were setting for me.
Then things got messy again. I got cornered in Munich, but managed to get away without too much nastiness. I set up a roadblock mostly as a deception to make them think I was going west when in fact I intended to head for Castle Dracula. Jason saw right through my ploy and discovered me before I could get to castle Dracula. Luckily for me, I had a Rage card, and Jason spent the entire battle trying to run away while I kept hitting him as hard as I could in the daytime. I had a brief respite, but not for long. All of the other hunters quickly came to join the fray, and I slipped into Castle Dracula just as I managed to mature a vampire encounter in Vienna (luckily for me).
I was pretty much trapped in Castle Dracula at this point – the Heavenly Host left me only one route out, right into the middle of all the hunters. Luckily, it was night, and I used Wolf Form to slip past the hunters in an attempt to fight them individually instead of as a group. It worked, and eventually I was able to confront Mina by herself, and get a bite that would win me the game, giving me the final two points I needed. The game was very tense and close – had things not gone well in the fight with Mina, I would almost certainly have lost, my only real hope to run like hell for Western Europe and wait out two more days.
I really enjoyed the game, although it took us just about four hours to complete it. I’m sure we’ll get a lot quicker at it as we get used to the rules, but this first time out took a bit longer than we expected. I’m sure I’ll be playing this game more, but I’d really like to try it from the hunter’s perspective soon.
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2007.02.19
Posted in Board Games at 4:55 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I picked up a couple of new board games this weekend, one of which was Reiner Knizia‘s Kingdoms, published here in North America by Fantasy Flight Games. Jason and I took it for a test drive, and we both enjoyed it a lot.
Basically, It feels a lot like a tile-based version of Lost Cities (another excellent Knizia game), and it supports up to four players. I suspect it might get quite chaotic with four, but it plays very well with two. It works well as a warm-up / filler game, and the rules are quite straightforward and easy to teach. I have the feeling it would be a good game to take to work as well as a good game for those rainy afternoons at the cottage.
I’ll definitely be looking to play this one more often, and it will be interesting to see how well it works with more than two players.
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2007.02.12
Posted in Board Games at 9:49 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Once again, we returned to Dunwich (and Arkham) this weekend to do battle with Azathoth. Though this time, things were different.
For one, Jason beat me to the punch and blogged about it before I could. I don’t remember the last time that happened.
Secondly, we actually managed to win the game, despite playing with the Dunwich Horror expansion. If there’s one universal truth about Arkham Horror, it’s that each expansion’s primary function is to expand the number of ways in which Bad Things Happen. It was definitely a hard-fought battle, but we managed to more or less stay on top of things. Only two of the rules tripped us up this time:
- Jason was mistakenly using his Lore value during combat, thinking that he was able to do so when using magical weapons (which is actually an interesting variation on the official rules).
- We got the order of things mixed up a bit when you end your movement on a space that contains both monsters and an open gate, but discovered our error pretty early in the game.
I guess this means we’re finally getting the hang of all the little details.
And since Jason’s blog doesn’t allow for comments, I’ll confirm here that the maniacs were, in fact, chanting in Egyptian before they formed a charming little mob outside the asylum (as he suspected).
I was a little surprised that it took us about three hours to complete the game, but I didn’t really notice the passage of time, so I was obviously enjoying it. Perhaps next time we’ll manage to get through a game without our careless picknickers showing up, but I suppose that as long as I enjoy it, they might as well contribute to the mayhem.
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2007.02.12
Posted in Sports at 7:53 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
And the verdict is: it’s over. The regulars have reclaimed the gym as the iPod-toting fashionplate new year’s resolution crowd have officially given up on their workouts after a scant six weeks.
I’ve been avoiding the gym during my usual workout hours (peak hours) since the beginning of January since it’s been much more crowded than usual. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed a definite change in the crowd – it’s a lot smaller now. I suppose it could be weather-related to some extent, but I suspect it has more to do with people losing their resolve (in a very literal way).
It’s a little bit sad in a way since I think people don’t get enough exercize on the whole, but at the same time, it is kinda nice to not have to wait for equipment. Now I have ten and a half more months until the cycle begins once again…
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2007.02.09
Posted in Music, Technology, The Web at 7:51 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
According to last.fm, I’ve listened to 20,000 songs since March 15, 2006. And that’s just the stuff that actually got tracked to last.fm, so in reality, I’ve listened to more than that. That’s a lot more than I would have expected in just under a year.
So what’s hot on my iPod these days? Well, if recent history is any indication, it’s Tom Novy‘s dance track Take It. Though I still maintain that Madonna rocks out to Faster Kill Pussycat on her iPod. Unless Miss Thing decides to settle the matter once and for all, I guess we’ll never know for sure.
Part of why I got a last.fm account to begin with was to see the stats on what I actually listen to. Some of the numbers don’t surprise me, but there are a couple that do. Apparently I really like the Chrono Cross soundtrack, because 光田康典 (Yasunori Mitsuda) is my top artist according to last.fm. I listen to that stuff quite frequently at work, which I guess accounts for the fact that it’s what I’m listening to more than 5% of the time.
And considering I was waffling on even buying the damn album in the first place, I would say it turned out to be money well spent.
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2007.02.07
Posted in Short Stories, Writing at 8:16 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
“It was like a train wreck – you didn’t want to watch, but you couldn’t look away.”
I snap out of my daydream and regard my lunch companions, realizing I have no idea what they are talking about. No doubt it was some anecdote from a drunken frat party a few years ago when the four of us were in university together. It’s easy to wax nostalgic about those days, now that all of us have real jobs in the real world. This entire road trip is really an attempt to recapture some of the magic of those days, though none of us would admit it.
Where the hell are we, anyway? We made it as far as Kelowna yesterday before Joe announced that we were all starting to stink and that we needed to find a hot shower pronto. Nobody argued, and I think we were all glad for the break and a rest. Steve’s 89 Tercel was a little small for us four guys.
But now we’re a half day further down the road, a half day I spent sleeping with my neck uncomfortably propped on my jacket as a pillow. Downing the rest of our lunches, we head back to the car. I notice a few signs on the way. Hope, BC. We aren’t far from Vancouver now. The plan is to spend a couple of days there, then head south to Seattle or Portland, maybe further. So long as we make it back to Calgary in ten days, it doesn’t really matter to any of us.
The lull of the engine and the gentle vibration of the vehicle as it reaches highway speeds make me realize how tired I am. I curl up as best I can on the sticky vinyl seat, and quickly fall fast asleep.
“Dave. Dave!”
“Mmmph?”
“Dude, you’re snoring. Wake up!”
“Mmph.”
My eyes finally blink open, just as Mike opens his mouth to say something. “‘Morning, sunshine! We’re just about at Hope, and we’re gonna stop for some lunch.”
“There’s a great little diner just off the main drag,” Joe chimes in. “You’ll love it – straight outta the 50s. Almost like it’s still stuck there.”
“Hey, wait a sec – You said Hope, right? I thought we left Hope already.”
“Dude, it’s only 11:30. We didn’t even leave Kelowna until 9:00. This pieceashit don’t move that fast.”
I guess it was a dream. Except why would I dream about a diner in Hope, BC? Maybe as I was dozing in the car I picked up on the guys talking about it. That must be it.
“So there’s this guy at the party. Don’t know who invited him, but there he was. Maybe he was crashing or somethin’,” said Joe, in between gulps of cheeseburger. “Anyways, he was about the saddest thing you ever saw. Clothes straight outta the 80s, and a mullet. I mean, come on, the mullet went out of style in what, 1986?”
“I’m not sure the mullet was ever in style.” Steve, ever the fashionista. “I never had one, thank god.”
“Well, I’m not sure the Tercel was ever in style, and certainly not in 1989,” quips Mike. He had never lived down his 3rd grade class picture, and it’s still a bit of a sore spot with him.
Everyone laughs, and Joe continues on with his story while the rest of us continue eating.
“So this guy, OK, nobody knew who he was. He looks around the party for a bit, then walks straight up to the most beautiful girl there, and straight out asks her for her number. She totally shuts him down, but undeterred, he turns and starts talking to one of her friends and asks her for her number. By this point, half the people at the party were just standing there, watching this guy. It was like a train wreck – you didn’t want to watch, but you couldn’t look away.”
“What did you just say?” I interject.
“Dude, haven’t you been listening? This guy was a total dork…”
“Yeah, I heard ya. That last bit, though. Whadja say about it bein’ like a train wreck?”
“Yeah, like a train wreck. Didn’t want to watch, but couldn’t look away. Come on, you must’ve heard that one before.”
“Oh, sure, I guess so.” My poor attempt at a cover fooled anyone, but nobody had the wherewithal to call me on it.
“Well, I’m stuffed”, says Joe, and follows it up with a loud belch as punctuation. Where he had time to eat with all his talking I’ll never know. “Let’s make like a shepherd and get the flock outta here.”
Lost in my own thoughts, I follow the rest of the crew back to the Tercel. Had it just been a dream?
Steve’s driving, and Mike’s flipping through tracks on the iPod, looking for something. Next thing I know, we’re all being assaulted with the opening guitar riff from Faster Kill Pussycat.
“Aw, come on, dude. Not again. We’ve already listened to this disc like three times this trip. You’ve got what, like, 12 gigs of music on that thing? Why not something else?” complains Joe.
“Cuz this is the shit! I bet this is what Madonna rocks out to when she cranks up her iPod.”
“Who cares what that tramp listens to?” retorts Joe.
“And how d’ya know she even owns an iPod?” asks Steve.
“Everyone knows that, stupid.”
The banter continues, but I’m not listening. I’m yawning. Why have I been sleeping so much lately? Oh well. Being well rested when we get to Vancouver is a good thing – these guys will want to party all night. So I doze off.
“Hey, Dave. Dave! Wake up, dude.”
I open my eyes and stretch, taking in my surroundings groggily.
“Hey, it’s still light out. We in Vancouver yet?”
“Does it look like we’re in Van?” asks Steve sarcastically, guesturing out the window. “We’re almost in Hope, and I’m starving. Everyone cool if we stop for some grub? I know a great little diner…”
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2007.02.06
Posted in Board Games at 10:26 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
This weekend I was finally able to give Kanaloa a try.
In essence, Kanaloa is a variation on Kahuna that can accommodate up to four players. We played without the god powers to keep things simple, since it was our first game.
All in all, I really enjoyed the game. While the mechanics are similar to Kahuna, there are some important differences:
- There are only 2 scoring rounds, not 3
- You only go through the draw deck twice, not 3 times
- Replacing an opponent’s bridge with your own only costs 2 cards, not 3
- Being in last place going into the final round means that you have the option to take the final turn of the game
- Scoring is based inversely on how much control you have over an island. The fewer bridges you have to control an island (and therefore the larger your risk), the more points you will score.
The last two items mean that islands tend to change hands a lot more often than in Kahuna. item #2 means that paying attention and manipulating the draw pile for the second round becomes even more important. Item #3 means that you might think twice before blazing an early lead.
This is a nice change overall since the strategy of locking up a few islands as tight as you can (which can work so well in Kahuna) might mean that you score very few points.
I’m still not sure what strategies I should be employing, but I’ll definitely have to play a few more times and figure it out.
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