Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The End of Everything
Well, my hockey season is now over. The Blues never made it to the playoffs, and the Capitols got knocked out last night in an overtime game 7. I'll still watch some games in the remaining rounds of the playoffs, but I don't have a team to root for anymore.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Home Can Be Nice, Too
A few weeks ago I posted some pictures from the office that I was working from in Seattle. I realized today that the view from my own home office in St. Louis isn't too bad, either. The above is photographic evidence that St. Louis is also cool, in its own way. BTW, the fact that the horizon is slanting has everything to do with my inability to actually hold the camera phone properly; it's actually pretty flat right around here.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Zombies!!!
This time up on my treck through my game collection we come across one of my favorite games of all time, Zombies!!! The basic premise of the game is the same as those "B" grade horror films; you are stuck in the middle of town with zombies all around you, and you have to escape. Of course, this being a competitive games, only one person can escape, so you don't really play cooperatively with the other players. No, you stab them in the back, hopefully at the most inopportune moment possible, because it is much funnier that way.
Mechanically the game is very simple. Each player gets three cards, which can be used to either help you or hurt another player. When your playing piece is on the same space as a zombie, you roll a six-sided die to fight it. Roll a 4 or higher, and you defeat. Roll a 3 or less, and you lose a life point. Unless you use bullets. Every player starts with three life points and three bullets. Each bullet expended lets you add 1 to a die roll. When you run out of life points, you die, your score goes back to 0, and you go back to the starting space in the middle of the town. This is all rather simple, which makes the game easy to teach new players.
What really makes the game interesting to play, though, is the board. There is no set playing board. Rather, the board is created as the game progresses by the players. The board consists of a number of 3" x 3" tiles, and on each player's turn, they get to place a new tile anywhere on the board they want. Thus, the map is different each time the game is played. Also, some tiles include specific buildings like the Fire Station, the Hospital, the Lawn & Garden Store, the Toy Store, etc. These named buildings have extra life and bullet tokens available to whoever gets there to claim them first, and some of the player cards also allow you to gain special items when your playing piece is in the correct building. For example, in the Military Surplus store you can get a hand grenade, which does to massed bunches of zombies pretty much what you'd think it would. With these advantages, players will try to get the buildings they want close to their own playing piece, while keeping them away from other players. It is a fun dynamic. The board placement and keeping other players from winning with a well-played card are what makes the game so much fun.
The game is popular enough that a bunch of different expansions have been created for the game. The most recent game I played was with the Zombie Corps(e) expansion, which was the first one created for the game. This expansion set adds new cards to the game, along with a new set of tiles that make an army base that attaches to the town. Other expansions add a shopping mall, a university, and a forest that you have to race through while chased by zombie dogs. None of the expansions really change the base rules, they just add new challenges and flavor after you have played the main game a dozen times or so. Still, I really like this game and the expansions. Because it's just fun to watch your friends get eaten by zombies, while you fly away in the helicopter to safety.
Mechanically the game is very simple. Each player gets three cards, which can be used to either help you or hurt another player. When your playing piece is on the same space as a zombie, you roll a six-sided die to fight it. Roll a 4 or higher, and you defeat. Roll a 3 or less, and you lose a life point. Unless you use bullets. Every player starts with three life points and three bullets. Each bullet expended lets you add 1 to a die roll. When you run out of life points, you die, your score goes back to 0, and you go back to the starting space in the middle of the town. This is all rather simple, which makes the game easy to teach new players.
What really makes the game interesting to play, though, is the board. There is no set playing board. Rather, the board is created as the game progresses by the players. The board consists of a number of 3" x 3" tiles, and on each player's turn, they get to place a new tile anywhere on the board they want. Thus, the map is different each time the game is played. Also, some tiles include specific buildings like the Fire Station, the Hospital, the Lawn & Garden Store, the Toy Store, etc. These named buildings have extra life and bullet tokens available to whoever gets there to claim them first, and some of the player cards also allow you to gain special items when your playing piece is in the correct building. For example, in the Military Surplus store you can get a hand grenade, which does to massed bunches of zombies pretty much what you'd think it would. With these advantages, players will try to get the buildings they want close to their own playing piece, while keeping them away from other players. It is a fun dynamic. The board placement and keeping other players from winning with a well-played card are what makes the game so much fun.
The game is popular enough that a bunch of different expansions have been created for the game. The most recent game I played was with the Zombie Corps(e) expansion, which was the first one created for the game. This expansion set adds new cards to the game, along with a new set of tiles that make an army base that attaches to the town. Other expansions add a shopping mall, a university, and a forest that you have to race through while chased by zombie dogs. None of the expansions really change the base rules, they just add new challenges and flavor after you have played the main game a dozen times or so. Still, I really like this game and the expansions. Because it's just fun to watch your friends get eaten by zombies, while you fly away in the helicopter to safety.
Busy Day
I am a big fan of taking it easy on Saturdays. Maybe play some board games, maybe read a book, maybe just generally goof off. Not yesterday, though. I spent over 3 hours working in the yard laying down topsoil, seed, and fertilizer. Then I went and got my haircut, picked up some items at GNC, went grocery shopping, and then brewed up a batch of homemade root beer, which is currently fermenting in the basement. I was able to fit in a little bit of soccer on TV in the morning, and then I caught part of the Memphis/UCLA game in the early evening. It was a full day, but it was a good one, too, as I got a lot done that needed to get done. Even if I did have to skip out of a game of Twilight Imperium to make it happen.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Monsoon Season
If I was a more enterprising man I'm sure I could look up statistics online to verify this claim, but I don't feel like doing that. Now that I have sufficiently prefaced this statement, I would like to state that I think this is the wettest firest three months of a year since I started living in St. Louis back in the '80s. It just won't stop raining. Granted, this isn't really a bad thing, as we were in drought last year, and we need to replenish the water table. It is getting ridiculous, though. The weather forecasters are saying we will get four inches of rain today and tomorrow. That is quite a lot. In fact, we are in what to this midwesterner feels like monsoon season. When I was in Seattle last week it rained most every day, but it was a misty rain for the most part, or it would last for an hour and then quit. This stuff here in Missouri is a hard rain that goes all day. Totally great for my grass seed, I know, but not so great for the psyche.
Also not great for the psyche, the St. Louis Blues are coming into the end of the season the way a runaway train does, with lots of wreckage and noise. They have been realistically out of the playoffs for the last two weeks, and may be setting records for finding ways to lose games they should win. There is no other way to put it, these guys are bona fide losers, because they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory almost every game. I would not want to be John Davidson this off season, trying to decide whose heads should roll to pay for this pathetic slide into a high draft pick. I was at the game on Saturday night against Chicago, and they were just bad, with almost the same players that looked so good in the first half of the season. They better figure out what happened, or they will see leakage in season ticket sales, for sure.
Also not great for the psyche, the St. Louis Blues are coming into the end of the season the way a runaway train does, with lots of wreckage and noise. They have been realistically out of the playoffs for the last two weeks, and may be setting records for finding ways to lose games they should win. There is no other way to put it, these guys are bona fide losers, because they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory almost every game. I would not want to be John Davidson this off season, trying to decide whose heads should roll to pay for this pathetic slide into a high draft pick. I was at the game on Saturday night against Chicago, and they were just bad, with almost the same players that looked so good in the first half of the season. They better figure out what happened, or they will see leakage in season ticket sales, for sure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)