And for all of those who’ve managed to make it past the post title: Welcome to this Saturday edition of Ludocracy Now! Earlier in the week I had placed a clarion call for Friday night gamers. Thankfully, Christina and Jake are equally disposed to a weekend game night as yours truly. They came over for a night of binge gaming and moderate(?) drinking. “Why am I the only one double fisting?” -Christina.
Taluva
Apparently I have a huge hankering for tile placement, especially if those tiles are hexagonal. That, combined with my predilection for skull-adorned leather thongs made Taluva an insta-buy after I got my tax return. This game combines building a three dimensional board while at the same time crushing your opponents settlements. What is not to love about that?
Although we were a little unclear about the winning conditions (to my advantage?) I was the first to place my two towers and all of my huts to take the win! Jake finished his huts directly after me and took second place. Very high praise all around for this one.
And very high praise for the home made salsa that Jake made!
Reef Encounter
The first time Jake played Reef Encounter, he was giggling the whole time because he just thought the game was so neat. This time, however, there was much more gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair as his green shrimp were doomed to guarding impotent groups of coral.
Really, it was unfair—Christina had fueled up on a thematically appropriate dinner and dressed in colorically appropriate clothing—she was destined to win. Not only did she eat some tasty sushi, but she also ate two very large, very valuable groups of pink and black coral all the while saying “I’m not really sure I get this game.” Thanks for that, Christina. Thanks.
Christina - 28, Joe - 25, Jake - refused to say his score audibly but somehow managed to have three colors of coral in his parrot fish even though he only ate once? Only losers cheat, Jake.
Innovation
We were two games and a few cocktails in so I brought out some of the lighter fare. You’ll notice that, no, we didn’t play Indonesia (even though I did spend over an hour reading session reports and getting a game boner about it) but we did play another “I” game that I really enjoy: Innovation. This game is sort of a devil to teach, Jake is the only person I’ve successfully imparted the wisdom of the game to so whenever he’s involved in a Ludocracy Session I like to bring it out. I had tried, and failed, previously to teach Christina but some of it must have stuck because she sort of remembered the mechanics.
“These cards are shit.” - Jake. There is a lot of reading in this game. I, however, take the approach of just looking for big groups of symbols and colors and then reading the text later. This game took us an hour to play, and Christina was nice enough to give me all the points I needed by playing a high scoring dogma effect that I had crown dominance in. I took my fifth achievement and the game was over in the seventh age.
Here is Jake lecturing Christina. The title of the lecture: “How not to let Joe win the game 101.” Christina’s counter point was to threaten to slap him.
Taluva Redux
We were sort of leaning toward Ticket to Ride but it was late, and I didn’t feel like teaching something new so I brought out Taluva for a nice bookend for the evening. I also demanded to be in some pictures, because I am a diva and I got my hair cut.
Jake was feeling very vindictive about his O-fer and was constantly trash talking.
I was trying some weird (read: bad) strategies and basically every time I got something started, Jake and Christina erupted a volcano all over my shit.
JERKS.
And now some weird product placement/art house shots by Christina:
Is she trying to balance my head on that beer bottle? Who knows!
“Perspective from a coffee spill” or “Caribou shill”?
“Night falls on Taluva”
“Please make sure Jake isn’t cheating”
Jake wins his first game of the evening!
My life is measured in coffee spoons and board games so last night was a roaring success. These three games are some of my favorites with Taluva becoming somewhat of a darling after last night. I highly recommend all three—they are all highly confrontational which is how we Ludocrats like it! Until next time, burgeoning internet following!
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