Wives and Gaming

Well, I finally got Sheila to try Infernal Contraption , I really thought this would be a game she would like, she caught on how to play it fairly quickly, which lead me to believe she might be liking it, but after about a half hour into the game she said, "I don't like this game can we quit?" Well I immediately said, "are you sure you don't like it, its not that difficult" anyway long story short, she thought it had too much reading, and then she said she might like it better if she could memorize what all the cards do I tried to tell her that after a few plays you would learn what they do....oh well if she doesn't like it she doesn't like it.

It sometimes surprises me what games she will like are dislike, I thought for sure she would like this one, but I guess I was wrong. I am pretty lucky tho that she likes to play any games at all, heck she LOVES Runebound, and that game doesn't seem to me like a game she would like. it just takes soo long to play, so rarely hits the table.

She seems to like pretty much any Euro game I have her try, Ra, Thebes, Taj Mahal, Attika, to name a few. She can regularly spank my butt at Lost Cities, I have a love hate relationship with that game, its a very cool game, but it is so frustrating sometimes. It is also commonly known as the "perfect wives game" by many people in the board game community, and a very good gateway game to get your wife into the hobby of gaming.

All in all I consider myself very lucky that I have a wife that will play boardgames with me, especially in my situation where I had to leave my regular gaming group behind when I moved. but that will be another topic later...

Scott and Ed gaming session 9/1/07 to 9/3/07

This was day two of our three day marathon, we played a total of 22 games, we would have played more but we took a break to go to the races at Wenatchee Valley Super Oval. if you click on the picture you can see a closer view of the games we played, I think I included every game we played except for Robo Rally.




This game of Robo Rally was one of the best games Scott and I have ever played, it was very close all the way to the end, in fact it was so close that Scott got to the last flag while I was just one space away from it. this game was intense the whole way through, at the end there was some hollering and about 30 minutes of reminiscing about the game. And speaking about reminiscing, that is one of the things I love about gaming, long after a game is played, sometimes even for years to come when we all get together we can talk about certain things that happened in games just like it happened yesterday, Scott and I can still tell stories about when we used to play Axis and Allies. back when we thought there couldn't possibly be anything better out there to play.

Tigris and Euphrates
Well well well, Scott, it would seem that after numerous attempts at playing this game either online at BoardGameGeek
or face to face, it would seem that I am usually the winner! including this last game we played, I thought you said the reason you couldn't beat me was because it just didn't feel the same playing it online? Ha ha! I'm just razzing you. I am well aware that you cannot be beaten at Battle Lore and also it would seem I cant beat you at Memoir 44 Either, so it is all good! wait a minute who won the first game we played of Tigris..oh yeah it was ME!!!! he he, OK Scott, its your turn to rant......

Thebes

Scott, Sheila and I playing Thebes. Wow! what a cool game, I couldn't get enough of this game When Scott brought it up here, so much so I bought it as soon as he left. I really like the "Time" Mechanic in this game, I think it is one of the neatest innovations in game mechanics Ive seen in a long time, I hope to see this applied in more games in the future. I think it is so cool how you can manage your "Time" spent doing certain actions like studying, digging,and talking to people in the streets for information in such a way that you can plan to take several turns before your opponent gets to take his turn. and on the reverse side of that , you can spend a lot of time doing one action to try to earn a bunch of points, but knowing that your opponent is going to end up getting to take a bunch of turns after you while he catches up to your "time line" It seems to make for a well balanced game because you never want to get to far ahead of your opponent, and at the same time he doesn't want to get too far ahead of you. Right now this game is definitely in my hot top 10 list. And by the way, The wife likes it too so that means I should be able to play it a few more times :-)