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February 8, 2010

Games

Unity Games 16: Do Not Leap Out Houses

Filed under: Games — Dave @ 7:00 am

Another Unity Games has come and gone and we had a great time. I’ll get to the games in a moment, but first let me tell you about the event in general.

I don’t know what you think of when you hear “gaming event” so let me explain. It’s a hotel ballroom with tables set up for people from around the area to bring and play boardgames. (Not Monopoly, not Pictionary, but more complex European-style strategy games.) The room is also ringed with tables and everyone brings some games. They put them in a space on the table and people are invited to take whatever they want and play it, returning it back to the table when they’re done. In this way we all get to try out new and new-to-us games. There is not competition (other than each game itself.) It’s just a lot of people having a good time playing games. Admission is $12.50 and it lasts from 9am until midnight.

Becky makes fun of the excitement and preparation we make before each of these events, but it really is a big deal for us, and we greatly look forward to it.

About a month ago a math trade for Unity Games started on Boardgame Geek (BGG). It’s hard to describe a math trade, but it basically involves you throwing games you want to trade away on a list with other people who are putting games they want to trade on the list. Then you pick which games you’d like to trade things for and a computer program goes through everyone’s wants to try and find a large chain of trades. I got rid of a lot of things that weren’t seeing any play time and grabbed some new things, such as Endeavor, which I was very excited about getting. Being able to trade a game I’m not playing for one I will is awesome (and since all the trades are made at Unity itself, there’s not even any shipping involved).

I also managed to sell some other games before Unity, again through an auction list on Boardgame Geek. (And I increased my monetary take by losing on all the items I bid on in the auction except one!)

So, with all that done even before the day arrived, Unity already was a success! Saturday could only make it even better!

Matt and I headed out to Boston at 7:30 in the morning, picking up Eric (and coffee and donuts) along the way and got there around 9:30 or so. We met up with others in our group and picked out our first game to try, Alea Iacta Est, a dice game Eric had been interested in.

This was a fast-paced, fun game with a lot of character and cute theme. Not one I’d buy, but I’d be up for it if someone else brought it out to play. I ended up winning — my only victory for the day.

We finished that by 11:30, and I had to run to go teach a game. People can volunteer to run “teaching games” at Unity so that folks can be guaranteed a chance to learn a game they’re curious about. I had a full house of five waiting to learn Small World, so I busted out my copy and started teaching. The group picked it up quickly (it’s pretty easy to teach and learn) and got into the spirit right away, hammering at each other and talking trash. Erica, at the right in the photo below, won, and three of the players said they planned on buying the game.

After that I ran into Kiri, who was looking for a game, and I found a copy of Ad Astra, a game I’ve been dying to try out. Kiri was up for it, we found three other players, and we dove in.

This is a Settlers of Catan-like resource development game, but with a lot of neat things added on that reduce the randomness and increase the strategy. I was really pleased with it and am probably going to end up buying it.

It was now 3:30 and I was due to teach another game. There had been a list on BGG where people could say what they were bringing, ask others to bring things, and arrange games with other players. Someone requested the game Steam, and said they were interested in learning it. As I’m a big fan of the game, I offered to run a teaching game at 3:30.

I found five people wanting to learn the game (one of them being one of the Ad Astra players) and I taught them how to play. In these teaching games I usually don’t play myself, so that the players are all on equal footing and I can help them out without any problems. In Steam there’s also the advantage that I could take care of some of the bookkeeping in the game, letting them instead focus on the action on the board. They all took to it pretty well and enjoyed it, and I was glad to have given the game some new fans.

I took a little time to finish up the trade and sales stuff I had to do. I had given people my cell phone number to contact me with but forgot to bring the actual phone with me. Luckily, I was able to find everyone and give them games or money. (One person I bought a game from on BGG has the musician Laurie Anderson as her avatar. I found myself scouring the room to Laurie Anderson as though she herself was the person I was looking for. I managed to find the person despite this dumbness on my part.)

There’s a place on the room called the “quick start area”. If you want to play a game and need players, you head over to it and hold up the game. After I found Laur–er, Carol, I was walking past this area and saw someone holding up Tobago, one I was dying to try, so I got in on that game.

This is a great little game. You drive SUVs around an island looking for buried treasure, the location of which is gradually revealed by clue cards that narrow down where it could be located. It’s then a race to pick up the treasure and fight the other players for the contents of each chest. There are two CURSES that can be found in the chests that majorly screw with the player who finds them and GUESS WHO FOUND BOTH. Between that and my near-fatal surfing accident I’m wondering if this tiki idol is lucky after all.

In the middle of Tobago the others came to see if I was up for some dinner, but out game was in the middle, so I told them to go ahead without me. To be honest, I was more interested in playing more games than losing time at a restaurant. But by the time Tobago ended I found myself more than peckish and instead refueled myself with chicken quesadillas and Jack Daniels lemonade at the hotel bar.

They got back as I was finishing up and we all headed back upstairs. Normally I play a lot of stuff at Unity with my friends, but this time I had more or less gone off by myself after the first game, so it was cool to meet back up at this point. We found a copy of Hansa Teutonica, which had gotten a lot of notice at last year’s big boardgame show in Essen, Germany, so we gave it a try.

Maybe it was the terrible rulebook. Maybe I was tired, still a little hungry, and had just had a big ol’ glass of whiskey. Hansa Teutonica seemed to be exactly the type of game I’ve become tired of, pushing bits of wood around a board to achieve some vaguely-defined purpose. None of us were overly thrilled with it, though we did enjoy this bit from the rules:

With only about 45 minutes until they would throw us out at midnight, we squeeeeezed one more game out, which was Experiment, one of the things I had traded for.

None of us were crazy about it, but honestly by that point we were all kind of worn out. We packed up our stuff and headed back to the untamed wilds of Western Massachusetts, dreaming of what we would get in the inevitable upcoming game order.

We all had a great time and played some great stuff. And even with that exhaustive account I still haven’t mentioned:

  • Seeing Curtis and Michelle, folks we had gamed with until they moved away for work. They came back for this event and it was great to see them again, though I didn’t get to play anything with them.
  • Comics creator and boardgame developer Jason Lutes (Berlin, Jar of Fools) was there and did a favor for me! More on that later.
  • The scads of games there I wish I’d been able to play: Dungeon Lords, Thunderstone, Campaign Manager, Factory Manager, Carson City…Unity needs to be two days!
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Tags: boardgames, unity_games

February 7, 2010

Comics

You Still Got It! by Bryant Paul Johnson

Filed under: Comics — Dave @ 7:00 am

Interplanetary Insurance, Inc. will return next week, but don’t worry, I still have something awesome for you today!

Remember when Bryant Paul Johnson drew me a Space Cabby picture? Well, I was tidying up in the office and when I came to the print he sent me I noticed something I didn’t originally notice. In addition to the color piece, he had sketched a little cartoon on one of the boards that protected it in the mail!

It is cracking me up as we speak!

Thanks again, Bryant!

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Tags: space_cabby_gallery

February 6, 2010

This Del.icio.us Week

Filed under: Uncategorized — Dave @ 9:00 am


Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user
Legomancer

February 5, 2010

Music

Here Lies Love

Filed under: Music — Dave @ 1:59 pm

So, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim are doing a concept album about Imelda Marcos. Hey, it worked for Eva Peron!

Here’s the first single from it. I have to admit…I’m intrigued.

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Tags: youtube

February 4, 2010

Comics

The Previews Blues

Filed under: Comics — Dave @ 1:08 pm

You know, every month I go through Previews — look forward to doing so, in fact! — and I find some stuff I like and a lot more stuff to make fun of and we have some laughs and maybe learn a little something. This month, though, I don’t know what happened, but somewhere around the Toys/Statues/Models section I just got absolutely disgusted with the whole thing and wanted no part of it. Even the things I liked I no longer wanted because they were all part of this same loathsome heap.

It wasn’t caused by any one thing in particular, and there wasn’t even a point of “that’s it, that’s the last straw”. It was as if I just suddenly got overwhelmed by not only the crap that was in this particular issue, but the combined force of all the previous crap as well.

I think I’m okay now, and ready to give people money for junk again, but we’ll see if this second trip through provides the same experience.

It wouldn’t be a new Previews without Dark Horse having a Hellboyverse trade, and this time it actually features Hellboy! So I am definitely down for Hellboy: The Crooked Man (p. 44).

Skipping past DC’s “Blackest Night 2: Blackester Night” event, there’s DC’s Greatest Imaginary Stories Vol 2. (p. 88) Silver Age goofiness? Oh, yes.

To preserve the experience, Neil Young’s Greendale (p. 110) comes with a guy to read it to you in an irritating warbly falsetto.

I forgot to mention before that there’s another Demo (p. 113) series coming out, this time from Vertigo. Remember Demo? Remember how it shot down the mountain into a field of jagged thorns and poison oak? Vertigo’s pushing it back up the mountain for another ride!

I already own Stuck Rubber Baby (p. 119) and it is a classic of the medium. Well worth your money.

On page 149, Image United is called “The Crossover Event of the Century” which is good news for people who hate crossovers, as it indicates that they’re not going to be making any more after this.

I won’t be getting it, but King City #9 (p. 165) includes a playable board game! That’s kind of neat.

Okay, so here is The Weird World of Jack Staff #4 (p. 168). Now, I like me some Jack Staff, as you know. But I have also decided that I’m not buying single issues anymore. If I don’t get this, will it be collected in a trade at some point? Image is pretty good about trades, but I’m pretty sure a lot of the later issues of just plain Jack Staff won’t be collected. WHAT TO DO?

I enjoyed RASL vol 1 well enough, so I’ll be getting RASL Volume 2 (p. 228).

PICK OF THE MONTH

Wilson (p. 249) The solicitation blurb (unlovable loser finds long-lost daughter, tries to connect with her and ex-wife) seems like crushingly familiar indie comics territory, but given Clowes’ other work, I’m more than willing to give it a try.

What about Weathercraft (p. 256), a graphic novel from Jim Woodring? Yes indeed. I’m feeling those old Previews Blues slipping away!

Alas, ixnay on Doctor Who #10 (p. 268). I don’t dislike the stories, and if I found a cheap trade of them I’d probably get it, but it’s not something I want to get in single issues at all.

But Atomic and the Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #3 (p. 288)? That one I will get as a trade.

Viz has a new manga series I’m interested in: Saturn Apartments (p. 301). I checked out the preview here and decided to give it a whirl.

Hikaru No Go vol 19 (p. 302) is a must…am I right in reading somewhere that this series is about to wrap up?

I’m now at “Toys and Models”…dare I go further?

I’ve hit the region that gave me the creeps before. Pages 381-383. That’s the point where the sheer amount of worthless plastic junk becomes unbearable. How many “Iron Man 2: Whiplash Bobble Head”s can we just go ahead and bury in landfill to save time? Why do geeks need to own little plastic representations of shit they like? Stuff that does nothing except take up space? What do you do with all this crap except eventually try unloading it to some sucker on eBay?

See, now I’m in a grouchy mood again.

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Tags: previews

February 3, 2010

Politics

A Confederacy of Dunces

Filed under: Politics — Dave @ 5:08 pm

The results of this poll are horrifying enough:

But if you check out the more detailed data (with bonus questions!) you’ll see one trend. In each case, no matter how stupid the rest of the country was, the South was always stupider!

You know, maybe we should re-think this whole “secession” thing. Let’s not be too hasty on the “preserving the Union” idea.

But honestly, the whole thing just makes you want to throw up your hands. Can we really come to any kind of meaningful agreement with people who really think Obama “wants the terrorists to win”? These are people we need to placate?

Does the Right still throw around that “Conservatives think, liberals feel” canard? Because these results sure don’t indicate much thinking.

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Tags: yee_haw

February 2, 2010

Misc

The Chair is Dead, Long Live the Chair!

Filed under: Misc — Dave @ 1:32 pm

When we bought this house we inherited a recliner in the TV room which we kept because, hey, free chair. But we’ve gotten tired of it, so for Christmas this year Becky got a new chair. And a real one, too! We went to a real furniture store and like picked out the model and the fabric and everything!

It arrived today and behold!

Beebo looks HUGE in it but really it’s just an optical illusion because the back of the chair is kind of low.

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Tags: esthela_post, sexy_furniture

February 1, 2010

Games

Unity Bound!

Filed under: Games — Dave @ 5:30 pm

This Saturday is Unity Games 16, an all-day boardgaming event in WOO-BIN, just outside of Boston. As always, the gang is totally keyed up for it. (Becky thinks it’s funny how we approach this like a military operation every time.) There’s been a math trade already over on BGG, in which I got rid of some old stuff and got some new stuff (including Endeavor, which I’m pleased to own), and there’s an auction going on right now in which I’m doing the same. (Trades and auctions are always great for these events, since there’s no shipping involved.)

We’re also discussing via email how exactly we’re caravaning up there, and are including, as per tradition, a stop at the Fifties Diner (its actual name) to fuel up beforehand.

The doors open at 9 in the morning and close at midnight, and we’re usually there until they kick us out. We squeeze every ounce of value out of our twelve bucks!

I’ve signed up to teach people how to play Small World, and I’m also doing an unofficial teaching game of Steam as well. I’ve been making a list of things I want to keep an eye out for to try out, and requesting on BGG that people bring things I’m curious about.

If you’re near Boston and want to have fun boardgaming times, consider dropping by Unity Games!

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Tags: unity_games

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