Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Scattered Thoughts


This week I finally broke down and bought Ticket to Ride (the original version). I resisted for a long time since I don’t really need another light game but when my husband announced he wanted to invite people from work over for a cook-out, I had visions of finding someone who showed an interest in all the funny-sounding games I have laying around. Luring someone to the dark side is a dream I have yet to fulfill and Ticket to Ride sounds like the perfect bait. Of course, the reality will probably be horseshoes, Guitar Hero on the PS2 and, if I’m really unlucky, a bunch of drunks gathered around for a rousing game of LCR. Send good thoughts my way, please.
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My husband and I played a few games of Blokus Trigon this week but I don’t enjoy keeping track of two sets of pieces so we created our own Trigon Duo. Actually, we shrunk the board in 2 ways for 2 different kinds of play. First, I marked off the first two rows facing each player and one row from each of the four side edges. This makes an almost perfect size for 2 players. Second, I marked off only one row facing the two players and two rows off of each of the sides. This creates a very tight, almost impossible, sized board which we played as a two-player puzzle trying to fit as many pieces on the board as possible.
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If you’re interested in card games that you can play on your computer against AIs, check out the Thanos card game site. The downloads are all free and the interface is pretty nice. This is a good way to try out many types of games from simple trick-taking games to point trick-taking games; from climbing games to rummy type games.
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My most-played game for the first six months of this year is a war game—Command & Colors: Ancinets.
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Until next time, if you can’t stand the heat, turn on the air conditioner and play a board game.

Mary

4 comments:

Gerald McD said...

TtR is fun, if you like light, mostly non-confrontational, Eurogames (and our family does). Hope you get some enjoyment from it. Good luck with the party -- hope you get at least one convert.

Thanks for the card games link. I haven't been able to download one, yet, but will keep trying.

Gerald McD said...

Ah ha -- the games download site is currently down for maintenance. Will try later.

Anonymous said...

As much as I enjoyed Blokus, I was very disappointed with the Trigon version. Since you can place up to two pieces on each endpoints instead of one, it's almost impossible to block your oponent! And the game plays only up to 4 players?! The board has 6 sides!! With 6 players everything would have made sense....I'll try your puzzle version, maybe it will make the game worth playing. What is the size of your playing field?
And by the way, good luck with your evil plans!!

Bryan

Coldfoot said...

I'm glad you asked, Bryan, since it made me discover I'd made an error in my original post. :p

I took masking tape and taped off the first 2 rows that face each player which gives you 14 rows across. Then I taped off the other 4 sides by 3 rows which makes 12 rows across both of those directions.

To play with a slightly bigger board and just 2 colors, move the tape facing each player forward a row (giving you 12 rows across); move the 4 side tape back a row (14 rows across).

I agree that the original Blokus is more fun and tougher but this is nice for a change once in a while.