The First Riverton Game Gathering

I think everyone who knows anything about me knows I love board and card games. There's nothing better to me than sitting down with friends to a fun game. Lately though, it's been harder and harder to get time to sit down with friends to play. So my long time friend and roommate Tim and I decided to have a monthly "game" day at our apartment. Last Saturday (10/20) we had our first of these game days. The premise of this game day was we set up tables at our apartment and then tell our gaming friends that they can come anytime they want during the day and just play games. That way people don't feel they have to come at a certain time and can work around their schedules. The idea is that if we invite enough people we'll always have at least enough to play a game. We began by invited about 15 or so of our friends we knew enjoyed games. We figured if we invite 15 probably about half will actually come which would be a good number for our first meeting. We had the game day at our apartment which is not big but the living room joins with the kitchen and is enough room for three tables, so it's big enough. We actually had a good number of attendees. There was always at least three and at one point we had eight. I would have liked more, but I think for the first meeting it was probably good we didn't have too many people. So here is a run down of the day. Next time I'm going to try to take pictures of people playing the games but I didn't bother this time.

Age of Empires III

(Tim, Kent, Jesse, Shaynee)

We told everyone that we would start around ten (I didn't really expect anyone to come that early but didn't want anyone knocking on our door at 8 am either). The first two arrive were our brother and sister friends Jesse and Shaynee. They came about 10:45 I think. We decided to start the day off with a game of Age of Empires III. This is a "eurogame" loosely based on the computer game. Eurogames are known for having easy to learn rules but complex strategies. Most of these games are created by European designers, hence the "euro". Although over the last few years these games have become very popular in the states and now there are many American designers of "eurogames". At any rate this is a very fun game that I don't think is anything like the video game. There is very little or no war involved. It is all about settling the new world and making discoveries. Our game was very fun and lasted about two hours. Tim took the lead right off the bat when he was able to build 3 capital buildings in the first 2 turns. Capital buildings seemed to be his strategy right from the beginning and he ended the game with an incredible amount. Jesse and Shaynee were both new to the game which put them at a disadvantage but they did do alright. Jesse took the approach of building as many specialists as he could which isn't a bad strategy as it helped him gain dominance in several of the new world countries. Shaynee tried to focus the colonization aspect buy was frustrated by the small size of the colonist boats. For myself, I decided to try to focus on discoveries since it seemed to me that that is where most of the victory points came from. It was a close game between me and Tim. In the end I managed to win by four points with Tim in second then Jesse and then Shaynee. For more info on the game go here: http://boardgamegeek.com/game/22545

Guillotine

(Tim, kent, Jesse, Shaynee, Becky, Sara)

As we were finishing up Age of Empires, our friends Sara and Becky arrived. We decided rather than dividing into 2 groups we would play a six player game. Guillotine is a fun game that plays well with six so we decided to play that. Jesse and Shaynee were new to the game but it's super easy so that was no problem. As you can see from the picture this is a card game in which the goal is to collect the heads of the most notable nobles of the French Revolution. Throughout the coarse of thee rounds of beheadings you use action cards to move the nobles whose head you covet to the front of the line on your turn. This is one of my favorite games and was a nice light brainer to rest the mind after Age of Empires. Sara won as I recall in a close victory over her sister Becky and Tim. I finished dead last. For more info on Guillotine go to:
http://boardgamegeek.com/game/116

Formula De'

(Becky, Sara, Jesse, Tim, Kent, Shaynee, Connie, and Sheryl)

A couple more gamers arrived after Guillotine. This time is was a couple of Tim's friends, Connie and Sheryl. Again we decided against splitting up and started an eight player racing game of Formula De'. Getting started was a little rough since Tim and I were the only ones who had played this game. However, everyone seemed excited to play and after a couple of explanations they caught on quite well. I won the second second poll position but my good fortune did not last. The race began with Tim and mine cars jumping out to a good lead but due to some bad rolls I was quickly passed up by half the field and by the second turn I was fighting just to stay out of last place. Tim, Jesse and Becky battled for first place the rest of the way. In the end, a gutsy move by Jesse gave him the lead on the second to last turn and he ended up winning rather easily. Tim second and Becky third. I believe I ended up finishing sixth. At one point in the game my car hit into Sara's car and wrecked her out of the race. I felt bad because she had to sit watch the rest of finish the race while her car sat upside down in the middle of the track. Sorry Sara. I'm sure she got pleasure from seeing me struggle the rest of the race to stay out of last. For more info: http://boardgamegeek.com/game/173

Last Night on Earth

(Tim, kent, Shaynee, and Jesse)

After Formula Day finished Sara, Becky, Connie, and Sheryle had to leave which dropped us down to the four of us again. We decided, since Halloween is coming up, to play this fun Zombie game Tim had just purchased called "Last Night on Earth". After randomly selecting cards to choose sides we began the game with Tim and I as the Zombies and Shaynee and Jesse as the would be victims. Shaynee controlled the High School Prom Queen and the Mysterious Drifter, while Jesse controlled the Farmers Daughter and the Catholic priest. I controlled the Brown Zombies while Tim controlled the Green ones. In order for survivors to win they had to kill 15 Zombies before a set amount of turns. In order for the Zombies to win we had to Kill two of the four survivors. Due to a lucky roll Tim and I started the game with a high amount of brain hungry Zombies to chase down the heroes. At the beginning this game seemed to be very unbalanced in favor of the Zombies. We just kept spawning more and while the heroes were able to beat them back they were not able to kill very many. They also had the problem of being separated from each other. The only hero having any success was the drifter who managed to find a cleaver in an old airplane hanger and used that to carve up a couple of zombies, before he was joined by the very unlucky high school prom queen who took the cleaver from him only to get eaten by the zombies on the next turn and become a Zombie herself. The Drifter, now cleaverless made a run for it and the Zombies had their first kill while only loosing 3 of their own kind. At this point it seemed like it was going to be an easy win for the Zombies. Wrong! The heroes finally managed to get together in the old barn. Here they made their last stand against throngs of Zombies. The priest refused to fire guns but did find a flame thrower which I guess didn't challenge his pacifist beliefs. What even more amazing is that he was able to torch Zombie after Zombie with out lighting the wood barn full of hay on fire. Me and Tim continued to throw wave after wave of Zombies at the heroes, confident that we could overwhelm at least one of them but in the end the combined strength of the heroes proved to be to great and they killed the 15 required Zombies. As you can tell, I really enjoyed this game. It's thick in theme and creates a really fun narrative, and I'm not even a big "Zombie Movie" fan. For more info on this sweet game go here: http://boardgamegeek.com/game/29368

Carcassonne

(Jesse, Shaynee, and Kent)

After Last Night On Earth, Tim had to leave for an evening meeting leaving Jesse, Shaynee and myself. We decided to play a game of Carcassonne, Shaynee and Jesse were new to the game but caught on quickly. It's tile laying game that is pretty easy to learn but involves fairly complex strategies. I really enjoy this game for that reason plus it's one of the few "quick" games that I own and acts well as a filler between longer games but it's not a rest for the brain like guillotine. I was behind most of the game and Shaynee who proved to be a natural at it won with ease with some key field claims. Jesse finished second and I was dead last. Here is the link for more info on Carcassonne: http://boardgamegeek.com/game/822

RuneBound
(Jesse, Shaynee, and Kent)

It wasn't looking like anyone else was going to show up and we had at least a couple of hours to kill before Tim got back so we decided to get geeky and bring RuneBound to the table. I was happy to play it because this meant I would not have to explain the rules since Jesse and Shaynee had played the game before. RuneBound is a fantasy adventure game where the goal is to move your character around the board and defeat baddies in an effort to make your guy strong enough to defeat the main bad guy at the end before someone else does. We began the game by randomly choosing our heroes to play. Jesse drew the wolf rider, Shaynee drew the magic Witch, and I drew the mighty Dwarf. Once again I managed to jump out to an early lead thanks in large part to acquiring a very strong ally who did most of my killing. Jesse also was progressing at a solid rate but Shaynee's witch was struggling. I must admit the game makes it really tough for magic users early on while favoring the ranged attackers. But as was the case with most of the games that day my good fortune eventually turned south and I started to struggle while Jesse and Shaynee really started to come along. By the end of regular play we were all pretty even. I was slightly ahead in advances so I had to make the first attempt at getting to and killing the main bad guy. This is hard since you have to defeat some of his minions before facing him. I killed the first two but was done in by the third. Shaynee went next and nearly beat the last guy. Jesse went last and with some luck from the dice managed to defeat the baddie and win the game. For more info see: http://boardgamegeek.com/game/21523

Midnight Party

(Tim, Kent, Jesse, and Shaynee)

By the time we finished Tim had returned but it was getting late and after playing games for 12 hours strait (minus a break for pizza) we were pretty tired. So we chose a light minded affair Midnight Party. This game works perfectly as a closer. It's short, easy to play and loads of fun. Plus it was another Halloween type game. Everyone has several "party guests" that they control. The guests move around the promenade until Hugo the ghost comes up from the Basement. Then every one tries to get their guests in the room before Hugo catches them and takes them down to the basement. The game is played in three rounds and you try to win by having the least negative points (you lose points if your guest is caught) I really like this game and if I had my way would end every game day with it. Although I did not do well. Tim ended up winning the game. More info here: http://boardgamegeek.com/game/444

Overall I would call the day a success. Everyone who came seemed to enjoy themselves and the games they played. I know I had a ton of fun even if I only won one of the games. It felt good to see everyone leave with a smile on their face, that to me is what gaming is all about. As a side note, I included a link for each game's page on Boardgamegeek. I would encourage anyone who likes games to check this site out. Although I've always enjoyed games I would never had known about most of the games we played had I not read about them on this website. As for now I look forward to November's game day and hope it will be even more of a success.