Crowded bus games?

I accidentally came up a new term for myself, a crowded bus game.

Originally, I was just talking about Roll and Write games that I could play with a clip board and a dice app on my phone. However, really that includes any In-Hand games like Palm Island or the Zed Deck. Okay, a lot of travel games can qualify but I am really takin about something that works even when your arms are squashed together.

Which isn’t an experience that any of us should be having right now in Covid season and, honestly, I’d probably be just looking at my phone under those conditions. But they are the kind of games I like to play so I can sit in the living room with the family, possibly with a cat or two on my lap. (possibly the two cats fighting on my lap) 

So for me, a crowded bus game is actually a casual, cozy game at home.

In fact, the only game I can see playing on a bus is Warchon, a war game where the map is a book and the pieces are book marks, because that’s the only place I can see playing it.

6 nimmt! has not grown stale

 Ah, 6 nimmt! Also known as Category 5, Slide 5 and a whole host of other names. 

While I’m not taking a copy to any conventions this year, since I’m not going to any conventions in person, some version of this game has gone with me to conventions for many years. Basically because it’s easy to teach, plays up to a whopping ten players and everyone always has fun.

I’m prettty sure that anyone reading this far already knows how to play 6 nimmt!  but here’s the overview: Like golf, the object of the game is to get the fewest points. In the original version, that meant getting the fewest cow heads. (If the theme makes any sense, no one’s told me) The game consists of cards numbered from 1 to 104. Every card has some amount of cow heads with multiples of five and eleven having the most.

Each round, you deal out ten cards to each player then lay out four cards to start four rows. (So, in a ten player game, every card is in play) Everyone simultaneously selects and reveals a card. Then the cards are added to sequential order to the rows. Cards MUST be placed after the card that they are the numerically closest to.

If you chose a card that is a lower number than any card at the end of the four rows, you must take a row and your card starts the new row. If your card would be the sixth card in a row, you take that row and your card starts the new row. And those row cards don’t go in your hand, they go into your ugly score pile. Play all the cards in your hand and the game ends when someone passes a threshold of points, which varies depending on the edition. Fewest points wins.

Oh and there’s a strategic version where you only use cards numbered the player-count-times-ten-plus-four so everyone knows exactly what cards are being used in the game.

That was supposed to be one paragraph and I just paraphrased the entire rule book.

6 nimmit! came out over twenty years ago. I haven’t just been personally playing it for more than ten years, it’s been part of my basic game tool box for that time as well. The game is a bonafide classic.

Part of what makes it a classic is that the actually gameplay is very good. On the one hand, it is very simple to explain and understand and play. At the same time, there is enough room for making calculated risks. You can definitely play smart despite the random factor, although things get more random with higher player counts.

But it’s that up-to-ten-players with simultaneous play that pushes 6 nimmt! into the always pack it in the con bag territory. The ability to handle a large group with everyone engaged and playing at the same time, that is gold when combined with actual good gameplay.

6 nimmt! is a game that is fun even when playing smaller numbers like four or five, although there’s plenty of competition in its weight range for that number. But the flexibility to handle larger player counts without tons of downtime? That’s something that I have barely seen.

There’s a lot of competition for games that only take fifteen, twenty minutes. The fact that 6 nimmit! is still such a contender is strong praise.

Memories of convention first impressions

 Time for more con memories...

I have found that, with board games, first impressions can be completely wrong. It often takes multiple plays to figure out the hidden depths and flaws of a game. I think you can generally get a sense of those aspects but it takes some actual play time to make sure.

And conventions? Oh, they can make for the worst first impressions :P

To be fair, that’s kind of the idea. You are in a strange place that is designed for sensory overload. It’s an overwhelming experience. If someone handed you a brick and told you that throwing bricks through windows was the awesome new game of the year, you’d believe it for a moment. Hopefully a moment that doesn’t involve property damage.

Demos in the exhibit hall are probably the most extreme example. There’s a time limit since more potential customers need to see the game and the salesfolks just want to show you the highlights. Lots of pressure and as many awkward bits filed off as possible. I don’t blame the folks selling you stuff. That’s their job.

But two games that I now actively dislike were really amazing experiences for me the first time I played them. Grave Robbers from Outer Space (which I now dislike more Munchkin which is saying something) and Zombies!!! were games I played at some of my first conventions and they thrilled and chilled me.

In someone’s living, though, they fell apart.

Fortunately, somehow, despite being a game bigger who had a tendency to buy everything in sight, I never actually got a copy of either of those games. I did end up with a lot of bologna that wasn’t that great during my first few cons, though. 

I do wonder how game sales are doing this year with no live conventions. I have a feeling that Kickstarter is helping make upheaval difference.

First acquisitions of 2018

I’ve given myself permission to buy games in 2018 and, over the last couple weeks, I have gotten a couple of games. Albeit in ways that wouldn’t have counted against the rules I set for myself to not buy games last year. (And doesn't count Print-and-Play, which I’ve made about forty, so far. I may have a problem)

I got a used copy of Impulse... basically because it is a Carl Chudyk design and I was able to buy it for store credit. Hilariously, it’s not even the next Chudyk design I’m hoping to get to the table. (That’s Uchronia because I think it will be a gently introduction to his work and easy to play on a work night)

However, based on Glory to Rome and Innovation, I think Impulse has a really good chance at being a game I will enjoy.

 And the other night, Carrie surprised me by bringing home a copy of Bob Ross: Art of Chill Game. (So I technically didn’t buy it myself but that’s definitely a technicality)

It’s been on my interest list since it sounds like it is a tribute to Bob Ross that still manages to be a real game. (To be brutally honest, I’ve never watched much of his stuff but I really like the _idea_ of Bob Ross) Plus, I know that family weight games that can be played on a week night is my current Platonic ideal.

And Bob Ross: Art of Chill Game, with a decent helping of Ticket to Ride but also with a Bob Ross timer and some different forms of bonuses, looks like a good family game. It might be light and a bit random for ‘serious’ gaming but I think we will have a lot of fun with it.

This isn’t how I saw my game acquisition for the year starting off this way but I think it’s a good start.