The Magic Satchel

my sister made me a shirt once that read, “I used to be in the band, now I just play with myself”

and so I will do on Saturday night, when I am not in Calgary for December’s festive MSGN.

I am sad we will be missing it… we have missed too many now.

So last weekend we finally had the inaugural Kelowna Chapter Magic Satchel Games Night!

It was perfect for a first go, not too many people and everyone who attended came to participate. Having only 7 of us was great because as no one knew all other attendees, the small number allowed and encouraged everyone to get to know each other a little. I think if we’d had a larger turnout people may have grouped themselves with those they already knew.

And we played the first ever double-decker old-school Mille Bornes! No, we didn’t add a London bus card. We actually combined 2 of the original-style Mille Bornes decks. (We did only use one draw/discard tray though… and we did leave in the 2 custom cards… oh “Azal Inhamination” you’re my favourite! [we don't talk about the other one])

There is definite interest in having another one, though it will likely have to wait until January. But we didn’t get to playing Ticket to Ride, Slamwich, or the bean counting game (which I have been assured is much more fun than it sounds).

Speaking of games that are more fun than they sound, maybe we’ll bring Squatter: The Australian Wool Game with us to Calgary this weekend!

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Come play games with me with meeeeeeee! It’s just over a week away but I hope everyone can make it. De_details: I AM A LINK

Dance competition begins at 11pm (even though we’ve already crowned Alan the winner you can still take second place!)

Take off all zig!!

At first glance the game seems pretty simple… you place tiles of various types and values on a board shaped like Japan (a board that expands with the number of people playing) to try and capture pieces representing the three houses – High Hats (ruling), Buddha (religion), and Rice (peasant). It looks like survive in reverse, how hard can it be?

Once you start playing you realize that it isn’t as straightforward as you thought. Almost every tile played impacts 2 pieces at the same time, and with limited real estate mistakes can be costly. You can only change out one tile (using the swap tile) in the entire game…and some pieces can’t be changed at all once they are played. Opposing players can mess with your perfectly laid plan and swap out the game piece at the last second, leaving you wondering why you didn’t act sooner to capture what may turn out to be that all important piece. Pieces that wind up being tied don’t count towards the end result.
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oh where is Midnight Party when you need a good ghost themed game to play in October?

This is just a post to discuss the upcoming games night… not a lot of notice but it is happening on Saturday.

details here, discussion below.

That is the basic message I get when I see all the work that has gone in to making the 360 / PS3 versions of NHL08 so interesting, and then look at what they are trying to pass off as a new game for 2008 on the PC.

PS3 and 360 are getting adaptive AI, one of the coolest ideas I have heard of in a long time. The game will actually adjust to your style of play and take steps to prevent you from always getting the one timer or whatever it is that you consider your money play. Brilliant!

My biggest complaint for the past few years is how easy the game has become to score. It used to be that there was only one move that had a 90% chance of getting you that all important goal, but these days it seems there are a dozen or more. Don’t get me wrong , winning is fun… but I like it to be a bit of a challenge.
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No, I’m not lying to you… how could you think I would do such a thing?

Round 2 begins September 10 (with a possible boat placement email on the 9th so we can have the first turn on the 10th). I will do all the prep work for it so that it will “hopefully” launch smoothly.

anyone need a rules refresher? go here

Yoshirolla Kilomantra’s time has almost come. The big critical push is now. How much mass can we move with little work? We have finally been promoted from our lowly rank of Private to Dancing Private (not dancing privates to be sure). And now for content…

Over the weekend, we were introduced to a new game by Yoshirolla Kilomantra: Squatter. No, it’s not a game of finding an abandoned piece of property and claiming your right to it. The box and rules market it as somewhat of a learning game but Yoshirolla was quick to assure us that it is indeed a lot of fun. The full name of the game is Squatter: The Australian Wool Game. Yes, that’s right, up to six players can be squatters (owners of large grazing property) competing to see which one can improve all 5 of their paddocks into irrigated pasture! I know it sounds incredibly dull but Jen and I had some serious fun kicking Yoshirolla Kilomantra’s ass the other night. The key seems to be to buy and sell pens of sheep (your stock) whenever you get the opportunity. And to buy haystacks to lessen the effects of drought.

Yep, we learn new adventures from Yoshirolla Kilomantra all the time. Next week, he is taking us shopping at the yoshkarola disco pants factory.

Is it wrong that I giggle to myself while I save files called “pouching”?

(hee hee… pouching)

but really, let’s play some games. Survive!, Poo Dragons, or yoshirolla kilomantra, I don’t care which. But let’s us play some games please.

(pouching-sml.jpg … hee hee)

I think things may finally be calming down enough for everyone to attempt a 2nd round of Survive! by email.

Is there interest in this, or do you think we have another game that might be as well suited to playing via email?