torkell | Entries tagged with gaming

Crossposted to both old and new blogs

So my sister and I were discussing Pokémon teams and nuzlocke runs today and we came up with the idea of doing a Gen 1 run (Red/Blue) using only Pokémon that you get through events of some kind or other.

This first came out of a run using just Eeveeloutions (she's tried that with an action replay and it worked surprisingly well), and then a run using just legendaries (sounds awesome... but you'd have to do most of the game with just your starter) and then playing around with other ideas until we got something workable. And we think we've got something here:

- Your starter (we reckon Bulbasaur would be best)
- A Magikarp you can buy, which is rubbish at first (because Magikarp) but will become awesome later when it evolves into Gyrados (alternatively there's a Lapras you can get, but that be after the point at which you need Surf)
- A Snorlax that you wake up
- Eevee! (we reckon this would be evolved to Jolteon so it could learn the Flash HM)
- An Aerodactyl from a fossil
- And either Kabuto or Omanyte, from another fossil

That gives a full teams of six, and between them they should be able to learn the necessary HM moves (Cut, Strength, Surf, Flash - strictly speaking Flash isn't necessary but the cave sections would be very hard without it). It should give fairly decent type coverage as well - while it's missing Fire from the traditional rock/paper/scissors, that's mostly covered off by Aerodactyl's Flying type. The lack of Psychic isn't a problem either when it comes to Team Rocket's Poison-type Pokémon as Bulbasaur is dual-type Grass/Poison.

I'm very tempted to see if I can dig out Pokémon Red and give this a try!

Current Mood: curious
Current Music: The Nest of Iniquity [Profesor Layton and the Azran Legacy]

There's quite a few games in the Nintendo Direct, so here's what caught my eye...

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania: I'd completely forgotten about this series! I'm tempted to dig out Super Monkey Ball 2 and give Monkey Dogfight a few rounds...

Mario Party Superstars: This could be a good one for pasta night - my sister and I borrowed one of the GC-era Mario Party games from a friend years back and spent many afternoons playing through it.

Metroid Dread: I claim that Metroid games are really horror games in platform form, as anyone who's been ambushed by a Metroid will know well. There's an excellent moment in the first Metroid Prime where you first discover a Metroid (fortunately trapped in a containment tank), scan it to be told that it's a Really Scary Thing... at which point the Metroid smashes its way out of the containment tank and noms your face off. Prime 3 turned that up to eleven by having you walk through a whole corridor full of Metroids-in-tanks, only to have to let them all out at the end of it...

WarioWare Get It Together: This looks every bit as bonkers as the original Wii version!

Tony Hawk Pro Skater: Wow, now this is a blast from the past!

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope: What.

Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity DLC: Want! I've actually completed the base game (well... I've not done all difficulty modes, but I have completed all challenges) which is a first for me with the Hyrule Warriors series - the challenges in the previous ones felt very repetitive and geared towards hardcore Dynasty Warriors players, while in Age of Calamity they were more varied, and in particular don't have impossible-to-achieve-but-required-to-unlock A ranks.

Skyward Sword HD: I've been umming and ahhing over this one - on the one hand, Zelda, on the other hand, I do have Skyward Sword already. But I have also picked up Twilight Princess HD and Wind Waker HD over the years... and it looks like they've tweaked the motion controls (which when they worked were amazing, though were also an absolute pain at times). And come to think of it, last time I tried it my Wii couldn't read the Skyward Sword disc either.

Zelda Game & Watch: Oooh, shiny! Again, between my sister and I we've already got multiple versions of just about every Zelda game (including the three on this)... but it's so shiny...

Breath of the Wild 2: So... some sort of Skyward Sword / Breath of the Wild / Twilight Princess (remember the city in the sky dungeon?) crossover with zombie Ganondorf? WANT!

(Bonus extra not in the Nintendo Direct) The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles: Interesting! It's been a while since the last Ace Attorney game...

Current Mood: excited

Today's random discovery: Math Rescue is still a thing!

elemnar and I used to spend ages playing this when we were small. As with so many games, we invented our own two-player version of it as well. I think I moved the player and

elemnar gunged the enemies? That's often how we ended up turning single-player games into co-op ones.

We kept doing that even into the Wii era - with the Wiimote/nunchuck setup each person can have half of the controller. One of the better games for this was the shootouts in Rayman Raving Rabbids, as the wiimote did point/fire and the nunchuck did grab/reload. Usually it was a race to see which one of us would splat a rabbid first!

Current Mood: nostalgic

Yesterday was pasta night with an old game and a new game!

First up is the confusingly-named 6 nimmt! card game, which is one of those games where it's possibly to spectacularly lose a round and go all the way from first to last place if you're not careful or the cards hate you. The rules are simple though a little confusing: the cards are numbered 1-104 and are worth various amounts of penalty points. Everyone gets dealt a hand of cards and then 4 more are placed faceup in the middle (forming 4 stacks). Then everyone secretly selects a card from their hand, simultaneously reveals their chosen card, and then in ascending order places their card at the end of the stack with the highest card less than theirs (i.e. price-is-right rules). If someone places the sixth card on a stack, then they pick up the other five cards and place them in a score pile. If someone can't place their card (e.g. because they had the misfortune to be dealt "1"), then they select any stack they like, pick up the cards, and place theirs as a new stack. Repeat until everyone has run out of cards, then add up the penalty points in the score piles. Then shuffle and deal a new round. First player to exceed 66 total penalty points ends the game and the lowest score wins.

It becomes easier to understand after playing a couple of rounds, honest!

Afterwards we played what Kyle described as a "toddler simulation game" - Human: Fall Flat, which is a physics simulation game a little in the style of World of Goo except with humans instead of goo. The particular mechanic here is that your character can grab onto just about anything, and by doing so move boxes, climb walls, move platforms (by grabbing the wall and "walking" the platform)... and you have to solve various puzzles while a voiceover snarks at you. Or start co-op mode and then play tug-of-war with another player.

Current Mood: silly

It's been far too long since pasta night was a thing - for one reason or another, after the 8th April it wasn't until last week that I could make it to pasta night again.

Last week was mainly spent nattering and catching up, followed by a short session of Smash Bros wherein I reminded everyone to ph34r the pikachu, or at least take it semi-seriously. The final match of the night went surprisingly well for me - somehow, and I really don't know how, I achieved an almost flawless victory against Jonners, Matt and Kyle, taking most of the KOs as well. I haven't been practising, honest!

This week we ended up giving Power Grid a go. It's one of those games that comes with a bajillion complicated-looking rules, but actually has a fairly straightforward play sequence (though not helped by it continually mixing up "rounds", "turns", "phases" and "stages"). The aim is to buy and fuel power stations, and at the same time build cities to power. Buying power stations works by bidding in turn until only one bidder is left, fuelling then happens in a single pass in reverse turn order (so the last player gets the cheapest fuel), and then city building again happens in one pass of reverse turn order. Then everyone consumes fuel to power their cities (or as much as possible), fuel is restocked, and players get money based on how well they did. Simples!

The complication, as always, is from the strategy, and that happens on many levels. I ultimately managed to shoot myself in the foot by successfully bidding for a power station that I didn't want to get, which gave me cash-flow problems for the rest of the game (we ended it probably about two-thirds through due to running out of time). Beth on the other hand managed to do stunningly well both with power stations (concentrating early on renewable ones, which are more expensive to buy but don't need fuel) and city locations and was the ultimate winner. Definitely one to play again, though maybe when we've got a bit more time (then again, having played it once next time should go quicker).

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Roger Joseph Manning Jr - Sandman

Tonight I played just the one round of Dominion (combining the Intrigue and Seaside sets) with Matt and Kyle (while the others got stuck in to Agricola - having watched them play, I want to give that a try as well). Unusually I managed a runaway victory with 47 victory points, so go me!

We all played with very different tactics. Matt did his usual trick of turning coppers into silver and gold, which he then used to buy provinces outright out of treasure in hand each turn. Kyle put together a very effective engine for producing 6 money each turn which he spent on the harem card (costs 6, worth 2 money and 2 victory points). I however had spotted the pirate ship card and aggressively bought those, which I then used to steadily increase the tokens on the pirate ship scorecard. This worked out very well in two ways: once I'd built up about 6 tokens, the second ability of the pirate ship became useful and I could reliably buy a province a turn. And the first ability was moderately useful in slowing Matt down by trashing odd treasure cards, but utterly crippled Kyle's deck by turning his harem cards into liabilities. Since a harem counts as treasure it's vulnerable to the pirate ship ability, and the luck of the draw meant I was forcing him to trash them almost as fast as he was buying them. It didn't help when all the harem cards had been bought and Kyle's deck suddenly found itself with never quite enough money for the provinces needed to stave off myself and Matt.

Current Mood: surprised

elemnar brought a new game to try tonight: Chain Reaction. Having played it I've got mixed views - it could work well, but I'm not sure it fits our group. Or perhaps we need less tired people and to pay more attention to the game - while members of each team are supposed to answer the question/challenge in order without help, some got carried away and shouted out answers without waiting for their turn, while others on both sides tried to give clues (not always helpfully). And half-way through we lost track of which colour was which team on the scoreboard, and we weren't counting the scores consistently between the two teams.

I think it's a game that we might end up playing every so often only to remember why we don't play it, a bit like with Munchkin. It's all academic anyway as

elemnar is borrowing it and has to give it back soon.

Afterwards we filled the remaining time with Jackbox 5, playing first Split The Room and then Mad Verse City. Split The Room backfired spectacularly - I completely failed to split the room at all with my first prompt, and couldn't gain enough points from my second prompt to move up the scoreboard. Mad Verse City went even worse with zero points in the first two rounds. I did get some points in the final round when I gave up entirely on trying to make things rhyme though. Meh, bring back Survive The Internet!

Classic FM threw up a rather eerie choice of music for the drive back from pasta night - An Ocean of Memories, from the Titanic soundtrack. This came on as I passed Coultershaw Bridge and continued for the climb over the downs past Duncton and through Upwaltham, with the moon illuminating a few wisps of cloud in the night sky. While I don't think I've heard this song before, the wordless singing seemed very familiar (and no, I don't mean the part that's the Titanic theme). I can't quite place which piece it reminds me of though.

Back to pasta night, and tonight's game was by overwhelming popularity Jackbox 5! We started off with the classic You Don't Know Jack, which was as bonkers as it was back when we played it in the Brighton house in 2006, huddled around Nik's computer. The Screw option seems to have been tamed down a bit - when we played it before, in one incarnation it let you fire a whole slew of screws into the screen as fast as you could hammer the keyboard, covering all the answers up. This time it just flipped everything upside down, which is a bit anti-climatic when one can workaround it by just rotating your phone 180 degrees. Somehow despite trailing for most of it I managed to claim a solid victory with the rapid-fire questions at the end.

Next up was Split The Room which is strange - you get a question with a fill-in-the-blank portion, and the aim is to complete the question such that half the room will answer Yes and the other half No. You get more points for the closer you are to a 50/50 split. I didn't quite get into the swing of this one and ended up last.

We then played Patently Stupid, wherein you get a prompt to design a silly invention and then have to pitch it to the room. Whoever gets the most investment (votes) at the end wins! In the second round we all get the same prompt - for us, it was something along the lines of "When you need more salad". My invention was a...

Salad Cannon! For when you need all the salad! Sadly while it did score enough to get investment (and bonus points), Jonners stole the win with his anti-salad statement:

Finally it was time for Mad Verse City, a game of epic robot rap battles read out by some very bored-sounding text-to-speech engines. In each round you get two pairs of a prompt for a word, followed by the game generating a line with it and getting you to add a rhyming line. It does rather put you on the spot with trying to come up with words that you can rhyme and then trying to fit your rhyme into whatever insanity the game came up with. Ultimately it came down to a duel between Kyle and Louise, with Kyle looking strong but getting demolished by Louise in the final round.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Titanic - An Ocean of Memories

'Twas something of a wild ride to get to pasta night - the drivers around Portsmouth seemed completely bamboozled by the rain, and later I crested Bury Hill to discover torrential downpours with sporadic lightning. Fun.

Anyway, tonight we had time for two games! First up was Wits & Wagers, essentially a betting/guessing game. Someone will draw a card with a number-based question, such as "How many cups of coffee does the average American drink in a year". Everyone writes a guess for the answer on a card and the guesses are all sorted. Then, each player gets to pick one or two answers that they think are closest. Finally the answer is revealed, and those who guess right get points. You get a better reward for answers further from the median. Kyle managed to storm to victory on that one with a succession of good guesses, combined with betting heavily later on (you can bet your points - if you're right, then those multiply your resulting score).

Afterwards I unleashed the Super Mario Bros Power Up Card Game upon the pasta night group - we quickly got the hang of the rules after playing a test round, and then got stuck into it in earnest. Louise was the surprise winner here - despite being passed a whole slew of terrible cards from Kyle, she managed to build up a war chest of question block cards and held on right to the very end. I think this is one we may play again.

Current Mood: sleepy

It's November, which means it's once again time for NaBloPoMo! And time for NaNoWriMo, which one year I might actually attempt.

This year I'll open by finally posting the answers to a Name That Game I posted back in March. This one seems to have stumped everyone - either that, or the usual commenters missed the post or have drifted off to other blogs. Anyway, I'll end the suspense and reveal the source of all the quotes now...

Believe in your strengths... Believe...
Happy Mask Salesman, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Science Team believes the Metroids can be trained. After several cycles of trying, I believe Science Team has vapor for brains.
Space Pirate computer, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
A true gentlemen leaves no puzzle unsolved.
Hershel Layton, Professor Layton
Farewell, my shadow, you who stand at the end of the path I chose not to follow. I wanted my own world, so I don't regret my choice. I would make the same choice all over again. I will continue to choose this path!
Lloyd, Tales of Symphonia
There's also a chance, if all goes well, that I might be able to get you back to the place that you came from.
Atrus, Riven
Faker? I think you're the fake around here. You're comparing yourself to me? Ha. You're not even good enough to be my fake.
I'll make you eat those words!
Shadow and Sonic, Sonic Adventure 2
The Great Mizuti never lies nor tricks. Maybe only sometimes. Rarely. Once in a blue moon.
Mizuti, Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
The wind fish in name only, for it is neither.
Owl statue, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
Master, that synthetic life-form... There is a 99% chance that it was the pirate described by the captain. I can't help but admire the tenacity it has displayed in staying alive and functional all these years.
Fi, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Lightning brings the cactus pain.
Now it all begins again.
Gurdy, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles
I am Blockhead! I guard this place so that all shall pass! Er, wait... I mean, none shall pass!
Blockhead, Ōkami
Agents are... GO!
Commander Kahn, Elite Beat Agents
Never give up. Trust your instincts!
James McCloud, Starfox 64
Did you just do what I think you did!? God damnit girl, I just spilt my joe all over the keyboard!
Mercury, Mirror's Edge
I'll be waiting for you-- every day, in front of Hachiko... till you come back.
Shiki Misaki, The World Ends with You

Perhaps I'll stick with song lyrics for these quizzes?

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: The Ever Living - Stung By Something

We've come up with a new game at pasta night that I don't think I've blogged about before: Cards Against Apples. Basically you combine the prompt cards from Cards Against Humanity with the answer cards from Apples to Apples, and then play with the normal rules. The combination we find works very well - Cards Against Humanity gives you better prompts to play with, and Apples to Apples makes for less awkward and more fun answers.

We've also tried Apples Against Humanity but that doesn't work quite as well. The Cards Against Humanity answers don't fit well with the Apples to Apples prompts.

After that we still had some time and I've picked up one of the Jackboxes for the Switch ('twas on offer), so we hooked that up for a round of Fibbage and a couple more of Survive the Internet. Hilariously

jonners99_uk managed to win the final game despite not actually taking part - he'd gone to do post-pasta-night tidying, but a mixup meant his phone was still active and so he joined in without being in front of the TV. I have considered running a remote session of Jackbox as it all goes through a central server and it looks like you get just enough information in the prompts to take part, though ideally I'd want to livestream the main window as that's the only one with the scoring.

Discussing Smash Bros at pasta night...

Kyle: ...so you know wavedashing?

elemnar: No, I just know how to use Jigglypuff.
Kyle: O_O

Ph34r

elemnar when she puts on her "kid sister" face and plays Smash Bros - she will pick the girliest pinkiest character and utterly destroy you.

Today's voteamabob was very close, but placed Machi Koro (with the Harbour expansion) and 5 Minute Dungeon as joint winners. So as there were 7 of us and those games max out at 5 players, we played both! I played Machi Koro and managed to do a lot better than I have done with previously games of it at SWARM. I don't think I had much of a strategy to begin with, but ended up going heavily in on red cards (take money from the active player) and blue cards (gain small amounts of money from the bank on anyone's turn) - these initially gave a very low income and it took me a lot longer than everyone else to construct whatever card lets you roll 2 dice. However once I managed that and got a Tax Office card my deck suddenly started raking in money and I managed several rounds where I had about 25 coins to spend (and usually lost it all during the round to regain it on my next turn). I was left just needing to get the final victory card and just could not quite get the 30 coins needed for it, and ultimately Kyle manage to grab it before me. Still, second place is not to be sneezed at and I got to the about-to-win point first!

Tonight's pasta night was a bit different - instead of digging out a board game or two, the voteamabob overwhelming selected Jackbox! So we gathered round the TV with a collection of tablets and smartphones, and gave a few games a try (they're all fairly quick games to play).

First up was Bidiots, wherein everyone scribbles stick figure art and then enters an auction to bid on the art for various buyers in the hopes of turning the most profit. And, being a Jackbox game, part-way through the option to quite literally screw another player (by forcing them to bid) appears. Jonners and I mutually screwed each other in the hope of gaining lots of points for ourselves, but also inadvertently gave each other points as the artwork we bid on turned out to be high scoring.

Next was the Trivia Murder Party, wherein we all fail at answering trivia questions, fail at not getting our adorable sackcloth ghosts killed, and then fail at escaping the haunted mansion (except for Jonners who successfully fled the mansion by getting the last question right). The trivia questions were surprisingly hard in that one and I was first to get my ghost killed - got the first question one, then choose poorly on the try-not-to-die minigame.

For a change we moved away from Jackbox and instead tried Use Your Words, a fill-in-the-blank game. This felt a bit lacking compared to the Jackbox equivalents, but it had its moments - one of the modes is complete-the-subtitle wherein we get a few seconds of a B-movie clip to subtitle.

We then returned to Jackbox for Guesspionage, wherein Jackbox have used their vast network of surveillance robot hummingbirds (or perhaps just lots of online surveys) to work out the answer to such questions as "What percentage of the world has laughed at a Garfield strip?". The active player guesses a percentage, and then all the other players guess if the true answer is higher or lower - the active player gets points for accuracy, and the others get points for guessing right.

After that it was our old favourite from last time we played Jackbox: Survive the Internet. This one has a few different rounds but they all follow a similar theme: first off everyone gets a different prompt to submit a comment (or hashtag, or review). Then all the comments get shuffled, and each player gets shown a different one and picks what post (or tweet, or location) would make that the most awkward comment. Then it's off to voting, and you get points for the best burn (with whoever answered the original prompt getting a reduced amount of pity points). I don't know what this has that Use Your Words lacks, but this feels much snappier to play and much more fun.

Finally we gave Bracketeering a try - essentially it's a showdown where we all contribute to a bracket on a topic (such as "what is the worst bedtime story to avoid giving your child nightmares") followed by a series of duels where only the best answer may win. To mix things up you get to try and predict the result of each bracket for more points.

All in all a completely bonkers evening! It reminds me of playing the original You Don't Know Jack games at the Brighton house, all those years ago.

Current Mood: sleepy

Pothole count: 36. At least. I know I avoided a few when I was overtaking lorries (the lefthand lane has more), but I also encountered one that was a good few car-lengths long which must count as multiple potholes. On the plus side the Highways Agency are about to start resurfacing chunks of the A27, but on the minus side that means nightly diversions along the A259. Eh, that can't be worse for potholes.

Tonight's game of choice was Apples to Apples, which the voteamabob throws up every once in a while. In theory it's a fairly civilized game... in practice, it all depends on what the cards throw up and what everyone is happy with. We do have a house rule for this (and Cards Against Humanity) that you can discard and redraw cards that you find too offensive, and it seems like we've gotten quite good at judging what level of insanity different people in the pasta night group are comfortable with. In this group we usually end up trending towards crazy and surreal humour instead of becoming crude/offensive - after all, why pick a really offensive thing-card when "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS" is an option?

And sometimes the cards just end up being plain weird. This collection appeared on one of Matt's turns, and as he read out each card he commented that they were forming a very strange story...

We ended up playing beyond the official 6-card winning threshold for our group size and kept going for an hour or so of total play time - the winner was I think Jonners with Beth second (or was it the other way round - I'm not sure?), while myself and Sarah were joint third.

Current Mood: sleepy

Wandering round Tesco's this evening, wearing this t-shirt...

"Starfox!"

"Yes?"

"Love it! Where did you get it"

Yes, that is a photo of me in the mirror

Current Mood: surprised
Current Location: Tesco

This is what you get when random inspiration strikes...

Name that Game, round 3!

Pick some of your favourite games.

Find a quote from each game.

Post them here for everyone to guess, with comments screened so everyone gets a chance.

Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it.

Update with the answers in a week or two.

No searching TVTropes for the quotes!

Let's rock and roll!

Believe in your strengths... Believe...
Science Team believes the Metroids can be trained. After several cycles of trying, I believe Science Team has vapor for brains.
A true gentlemen leaves no puzzle unsolved.
Farewell, my shadow, you who stand at the end of the path I chose not to follow. I wanted my own world, so I don't regret my choice. I would make the same choice all over again. I will continue to choose this path!
There's also a chance, if all goes well, that I might be able to get you back to the place that you came from.
Faker? I think you're the fake around here. You're comparing yourself to me? Ha. You're not even good enough to be my fake.
I'll make you eat those words!
The Great Mizuti never lies nor tricks. Maybe only sometimes. Rarely. Once in a blue moon.
The wind fish in name only, for it is neither.
Master, that synthetic life-form... There is a 99% chance that it was the pirate described by the captain. I can't help but admire the tenacity it has displayed in staying alive and functional all these years.
Lightning brings the cactus pain.
Now it all begins again.
I am Blockhead! I guard this place so that all shall pass! Er, wait... I mean, none shall pass!
Agents are... GO!
Never give up. Trust your instincts!
Did you just do what I think you did!? God damnit girl, I just spilt my joe all over the keyboard!
I'll be waiting for you-- every day, in front of Hachiko... till you come back.

Current Mood: curious
Current Music: Dame Kiri Te Kanawa - The Holly and the Ivy [Christmas with Kiri Te Kanawa]

It's been almost an entire year since I last played Eclipse...

( To the glory of the Hegemony! )

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: M83 - Fields, Shorelines and Hunters

For several years now I've tended to head to Brighton for my Christmas shopping - the Lanes and North Laines are full of so many quirky shops that are excellent for silly presents - and this year was no exception. For a change I drove down (to avoid having to rely on Southern Rail, or Southern Fail as they are known as these days), and it was actually a fairly straightforward drive. I even managed to park in Churchill Square with no problems.

I ended up meeting

talismancer in town for lunch, followed by investigating various random shops in search of presents before he had to head off elsewhere. It's interesting to see all the changes in the shops - some old favourites are still there and have even expanded (Daydream Nation has moved from being well-hidden at the top of a clothing store to less well-hidden and taking over half the shop), some have evaporated (there used to be a good model shop near Churchill Square), and others are ticking over quite nicely (Dave's Comics and Dave's Books are exactly where they were in my university days). Anyway, I found a few presents for different people, and even one for myself - a small painting/print of West Pier caught my eye in a art shop that I've walked past several times, so I entered to discover a veritable Aladdin's Cave of random artwork. I swear extradimensional space is involved.

After shopping I trundled across to Sussex Uni for my traditional annual SWARM visit, where I hardly recognised anyone. It does look like less and less of the old SWARMites are turning up, though there's a few people I did remember from other visits and I ended up playing a couple of games (though not Magic, oddly enough). First up was Race for the Galaxy which I was managing a reasonable showing at until Kat stormed ahead to victory, followed by a new one for me: Machi Koro. This is an interesting construction game where actions can happen on anyone's turn - each player takes it in turn to be the active player and roll some dice, but depending on the resulting number and what other players have built it could be their opponents that benefit. Kat after a slow build once again stormed to victory (I'm beginning to spot a theme here...), but I'm happy as at least one long-shot strategy of mine paid off (a Tech Center with a ludicrous amount of tokens stashed on it, which I activated once and got nearly 30 coins out of).

elemnar: Oh, I'm winning, this probably means I should start paying attention

The bonkers gaming has spread to Settlers of Catan! We gave the Forgotten Tribe scenario from the Seafarers expansion a try tonight - it seems complicated, but the turns went fairly briskly compared to previous scenarios - and

elemnar won by an absolute landslide with 15 points (out of 13 needed!). It turns out that grabbing the 2:1 brick port and surrounding a high-probability brick hex with cities is a very effective way to build whatever you want. My tribe didn't do anywhere near as well, with a final score of I think 6 points - it was a bit higher at times as

allegramente fought back and forth over longest road, until she joined two of hers up and had the Very Definitely Longest Road (and then

elemnar swiped it for the win). I went for a very risky starting position in the bottom of the map which really didn't work out at all, not helped by The Gnu cutting me off from the rest of the map with a east-west road.

My latest distraction is Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire's Conspiracy (because I clearly don't have enough in-progress games at the moment - how many Zelda games was I blogging again?), which is the latest incarnation in the Layton series. It's an interesting twist on the classic Layton gameplay - there's definitely a much more episodic style to it, in that there's a series of individual cases with an overall plot thread running through all of them. The puzzles seem to have less importance to the plot, though the game still throws no end of them at you to solve.

It puts me much more in mind of a Phoenix Wright game than a Professor Layton one.

That said, this game has an unusual twist in that there's a tie-in website with 50 real-world puzzles to find and solve. Some of those puzzles are surprisingly tricky!

Current Music: Terl & Jules Bryant - Water into Wine

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'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

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Entries tagged with gaming

Pokémon nuzlocke ideas

E3 WOT WOT!

Math Rescue

Pasta night

Pasta night!

Dominion!

Chain Reaction?

Jackbox 5

Pasta Night!

Name that Game, round 3: the answers

Pasta night!

Beware elemnar using Jigglypuff...

Pasta night!

Pasta night

Starfox!

Name that Game, round 3!

Eat more snacks and take over the galaxy again!

Brighton! SWARM!

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May 2025

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