1/2 Featured Games

Hello current and prospective FNDers!

First and foremost, Happy Belated Holidays and Happy New Years!  Hopefully if you're reading this you had a blessed season and are continuing to do so.

In the midst of this busy time, we have one more thing to add to your list - our upcoming session on Friday, January 2nd, 2015 at 6:30 PM!  What better way to start of the new year than with some board and card games?!  I sure cannot think of one!

This upcoming session we will be featuring Games We Got For Christmas!  By "we" I don't just mean Beth and I, though those are the ones I'll be writing about, but rather everyone who comes!  So bring your new games and let's give 'em a go.  Or, if you want to play some games you've owned for a while, that's fine to.

Here are some of the featured!

Concept

Concept is a game I absolutely love - it is one of my favorite party games.  It is essentially 20-questions with pictures instead of verbal clues.  Well... Kind of.  On your turn, you get a word or phrase (anything as easy as Polar Bear to as difficult as "It is what it is").  On the table is a large board with many pictures, each a simple clip-art style image depicting some kind of 'concept.'  Using pawns of various types, you must get your team to guess your word.  If you got Polar Bear, for example, you could use a pawn to indicate it is a white animal.  If they still didn't get it, you could further indicate it is cold.  It requires a surprising amount of logical AND creativ
e thinking, which is why I love it so much - it really uses both sides of the brain.

No Thanks!

No Thanks! is a quick and light card game.  We'll probably play this between games at some point.  On your turn you either take the current card (which has a numeric value of either 3-35) or pass on it.  If you pass, you must put a chip on it.  If you're out of chips, you have to take it.  The catch is, you don't want points, so you never want cards.  But you have to take some.  When you take a card, you also get the chips that are on it - so maybe that 26 is rough, but it has 10 chips on it so it's not as bad.  Finally, if you have cards that make 'sets' of sequential numbers, only the lowest is counted.  So where as having 33 and 35 would net you 68 points (enough to give you last place almost certainly), having 33, 34, and 35 give you only 33 points.  It's fun and easy but still allows for interesting decisions, which is exactly what I look for in a card game.

Snake Oil

This was the Christmas of party games for us as we also got a fun one called Snake Oil.  This game is similar to Apples to Apples (or another game that comes in a Black Brick that shall go unnamed) in the sense that on a player's turn all other players are trying to win your vote.  In this one, on your turn you draw a card telling you what kind of  customer you are - you might be a cheerleader, or a homeless guy, or a pirate.  Then, from their hand of six cards, each other player combines two words to make a type of item.  This could be Joy Closets, or Stalker Vests, or Urine Bombs - and then they have to try and convince the consumer why their product is the one they want.  It is hilarious.

Imperial Settlers

This is the one I am most excited about.  This game just recently came out and is by the same designer as Robinson Crusoe - one of my personal favorites.  This is a civilization building game and it feels like it.  You are building an infrastructure based on cards that you put into play - some allow you to take worker-placement style actions, some give you production each round, some give you one-time scoring bonuses.  By the end, you want to be the civilization with the most points.  It is a very popular new game and is supposed to be quite excellent.

Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game

This game I've had for a while, but I received the Rebel Aces expansion for Christmas, which features a fancy new A-Wing and a fancy new B-Wing.  Last time we did this with like six players - probably a bit too much - but still had a good time.  We have enough ships where we can definitely do teams of two.

The Ancient World

This last one didn't actually come for Christmas, it just happened to arrive via Kickstarter around the same time.  This is a worker-placement game with the most beautiful artwork I think I've ever seen in a game - it is truly stunning.  The game itself seems quite enjoyable as well and it is about the same complexity level as Lords of Waterdeep.

So those are the games that WE got - feel free to post in the comments what you all got and bring 'em along to play!  Hope to see everyone out this Friday!!

12/19 Featured Games

Hello Friends of FND!

This upcoming Friday (one week from the day this is being posted) is our next FND Session!

The past two sessions have been exceptional - over the course of them we've had five new people show up and have averaged around 16 people per night.  It's been great.

This upcoming FND is particularly exciting because it is our final one of 2014!  Our gaming group is approaching our one year anniversary in a few months, having started in Spring of 2014, and it's great to see how the group has grown.  Our first session had around six people.  Now we average fifteen and have had well over fifty total different people show up.  We look forward to seeing that growth continue!

As this is the final gaming night of 2014, we will be celebrating all of FND's favorite games of 2014!  Now the GCOM webpage has a system for ranking our most 'popular' games based on the amount of times they've been played, but I'm not strictly going to use that so much as the simple eye-test for what people seem to really enjoy and also play a lot.  Of course you are more than welcome to bring games not on this list and play them :-)  Our featured games are always just an outline, not a strict set of rules!

Splendor:

We've played this SO much over the past three months.  It's not my favorite game of 2014, mainly because personally its a bit abstract and light for my tastes, but it is highly enjoyable and is many people's top game of 2014.  It was the runner-up for the Spiel de Jahres (the German Game of the year award) and many thought it should have won.  In this game you either are taking gems or buying things with gems on your turn.  The things you buy make it easier to buy subsequent things.  They also give you points.  You want the most points.  Sound simple?  It is.  And it's very fun!

Lords of Waterdeep:


Lords of Waterdeep is probably the #1 most played game at FND.  It is a very intro-level worker placement game but it is great fun.  In this game you are different factions in the D&D universe competing for the most prestige in town (aka points).  You recruit different people (warriors, rogues, mages) to go on stereotypical fantasy quests.  Who ever has the most points at the end wins.  This is a great gateway game doesn't take too long provided everyone is efficient with their turns.

Battlestar Galactica:

The first night we played this at FND was somewhat of a revelation.  Nobody had played it before and it was such a great time - there was in-character banter, accusations, and monologues.  It was exactly what you wanted a game of BSG to be.  Since then we've played a few more times and it's always been great.  I've also picked up the Exodus and the Pegasus expansions since our first time and am anxious to implement some of those components.  I think we're going to try and start with this game so that we definitely can finish with time to spare.

Telestrations:

Everyone loves Telestrations (or mostly everyone). You draw, you guess, you repeat.  Laughter ensues.  This game is the 'telephone game' with drawing.  If you're good at drawing it's fun.  If you're bad at drawing it's a riot.  Some of the hardest moments of laughter in my life were while playing this game and most of the top levels of hilarity at FND have occurred while flipping through Telestration's flipbooks.

Kingsburg:

Kingsburg hasn't hit the table a ton at FND, but each time it has everyone has walked away enjoying it.  And that's also true in my experience outside of FND.  So maybe this one is a bit of stretch, but when thinking of 'games people seemed to enjoy more than others' this one was near the top of the list.  In Kingsburg you are rolling dice, placing them, and taking resources.  It sounds simple (and it is) but it's a good deal of fun.


Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game

I almost didn't put this one on here because it is so similar to BSG but I've had SO many people say they've thoroughly enjoyed this game, myself included.  This is one of the best games (in my opinion, THE best game) of 2014.  It, like BSG, is a semi-cooperative game in which everyone is trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.  However, somebody might be a traitor.  Everything you do is highly thematic and the game itself is such a delight to play.  It is also very hard to find in the USA right now so if you come just to play a copy, I'm totally fine with that!

Ultimate Werewolf

How could I not list this?  We play it at least once a month.  People request it.  It's great fun.  People get lynched and eaten.  If we're going to feature FND's favorite games of 2014, then this had to be on the list.  Hopefully we'll have a large crowd and can get a 15+ player game of this going.

There are so many more games that we played in 2014 and very rarely did it seem like people had a bad time playing.  Again, these games aren't the only ones allowed to be played, so feel free to bring your own and join in the fun!  If this is your first time coming, we're glad we go to see you at least once in 2014!!

Many blessings and hopefully we'll see you all Friday!