I just finished up my last day of school in 2016. Not that we did a lot; we watched some educational you-tube videos. Also, all of my grades are in and locked and so I'm free and good to go. School got out a little bit earlier today. The last hour of school was the students going around to their Winterim classes for 20 minutes each. My first block is my psychology and science class, and so I got to see a few of the people who would be there. I don't have a second block (I'll have lunch duty) so I spent that time cleaning my classroom and getting everything ready.
My third block is Game Design! I had previously made up worksheets for the class members to fill out to give me an idea of how familiar they are with games. Basically it was a long list of games asking them if they've played it or at least heard of it before. Then I explained what the rough schedule would be like for the three weeks of Winterim: first week we'll be playing games to learn their mechanics, including Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Sushi Go!, Scotland Yard, Blockus, and so forth. We'd also be doing little experiments where they'd have to make their own game under certain restrictions (it has to be an abstract cooperative game, for instance). The second and third weeks would be getting into their final group and working on making an original game, and the best three games from the eight groups would get theirs printed off all professional like, from printplaygames.com.
Right now I'm on the bus home from work. Heather and I will be leaving to go to Fallon early Thursday morning! I can't wait! I actually had a dream two nights ago that I was already there, but I thought it was too good to be true so I asked Ryan if I was dreaming and he said, "Yeah, you are." Anyway, I should be grateful that I'll be able to get to Fallon so soon. One of the sisters I home teach said that her school went all the way through Thursday, so my school got out a whole two days earlier. Plus, in all reality if I had a non-teaching job there would be no such thing as Christmas break. I'd have to work those two weeks like normal, only getting Christmas and New Years off, and maybe their Eves as well. So I am very grateful that I have a job where Christmas break is built into it so that I actually can go home for a few weeks. It will end up being about a week and a half in the end.
I am going to put my board of my laptop to work and put words down on this blog for you to look at and know what is on my mind. This is what I am doing right now; I am thinking of things to say and I am typing a lot of thoughts in my mind onto my laptop. Ah, this is so hard. Okay, so I am not actually doing that; I am just trying to put out a paragraph that has no E's in it. Man, that was tough.
It's almost Christmas! To celebrate, I'll do what my mom did and post a few of my favorite Christmas songs onto my blog.
Breath of Heaven. I love this song. There are a few different covers out there, but here's one where it sounds good and the video's good.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Love this song. Love this version.
What child is This. Should that have a question mark after it? The name of the song doesn't.
Carol of the Bells. It is by far my favorite "secular" Christmas song.
Last week on Saturday we had a ward Christmas party! There was great food and we got to talk to friends and have a wonderful time. One of the things we did was the Primary and Nursery put on a little Christmas pageant for the ward. The Nursery got to be the main actors and the Primary got to play the farm animals that were in the stable. Hannah got Henry a little cow hat and so Henry was a cow for the pageant. I videoed it, and then put it on youtube. I've included it here for your enjoyment!
Last week I posted my list of games I am planning on playing at least once during Christmas break. My mom and cousin made a few more suggestions. They are as follows.
Liebrary: A fun (and funny) game where the players are read a book title and synopsis, and then have to make up what they think the first line of the book is. Meanwhile the player that read the card writes down the real first line of the book. Answers are collected, shuffled, and then read out loud, and players guess which one is the real first title. They move forward if they guess it correctly or if anyone guesses for their line. "Is this thing on? Is this thing on?"
Wits and Wagers: A trivia party game where you don't have to know the exact answer. All the answers are numbers, and once everyone guesses a number you arrange them from smallest to largest and guess which was was the closet to the right answer without going over.
Apples to Apples pictures: I looked this up online and I think its name is technically Big Picture Apples to Apples. Apples to Apples with pictures instead of words.
Oddly Obvious: A party game where the answers are written on the card; all you have to do is shout out the correct one before anyone else. Let's hope that I'm better at Alex than this.
Specter Ops: My cousin Ben made this suggestion. This was listed as one of the Dice Tower's top ten deduction games. It was also on their list of top ten games that stress them out due to the fact that all the players but one are tracking and hunting down that one player, and so playing as that one player is super intense, so I can't wait to try.
Well, that's it for now. Those were the suggestions I got from my family. But there are a few more....
For my Game Design Winterim class this year I've been getting stuff together. The first two to three class periods this year will be introducing the students to different game mechanics they might not have heard of before. Some have only ever played Monopoly. (If you just died inside reading that, I feel ya.) The following three games are games I ordered for the class that I might also bring down to Fallon to play this Christmas if there's interest.
Shakespeare: I picked this one because it has a worker placement mechanism, some blind bidding, variable turn order, and a little bit of card drafting. And it has to do with Shakespeare, which is awesome. This game actually arrived today! In Shakespeare you have six days to practice putting on a play, hiring actors, and getting set designers and costume makers to put on the best play possible. It has a very high rating and has received positive reviews.
Sushi Go!: This game is pure card drafting. Much like 7 Wonders, which I was considering for the class, but this one is much simpler and therefore I think better. You basically pass your hand around getting a new card every turn just like 7 Wonders and trying to complete sets of sushi. This game has also received very positive reviews.
Scotland Yard: This game won the Spiel de Jahres way way way back in the day in the year 1983. This is the game Mr. Baker recommended. It's asymmetrical, which is the main reason why we're picking it. For those on the detective side it's also cooperative, which is another reason why we picked it. I've never played it before (except for once on my mission where we just had the board and pieces but no rules so we made up the rules) but it looks fun. I've never player Specter Ops before either but just based off of what I know of these two games they seem pretty similar.
Okay, so Christmas is in a little less than three weeks. This Christmas Heather, Henry and I are headed down to Fallon to visit my parents this year. Eric, Ryan, and Hannah will also be there. With Alex too, of course, but he lives there so that's a given. My hope is that we'll end up playing a lot of games. Therefore, I have made up a list of games that I plan on playing this Christmas break. Note: In this list if I include a game, I assume all expansions as well, but I'm not going to list them because that would take too much time. So if I say "Dominion" just assume that it includes all of the expansions as well.
I have attached a video to each game from youtube. This video either explains that game, gives a brief overview, gives a run-through or part of a run-through, or reviews it. Or more than one of the above. If you notice a lot of videos come from The Dice Tower, and that's because I like their videos: in their videos they both give a brief overview of how to play and give a review in the same video. Also, I almost never listen to youtube videos on normal speed anymore. There's an option in the bottom right that allows you to adjust the speed, and I almost always watch videos at double speed, or a little less if I can't understand the speaking in them at double speed. Just a hint if you want to watch a video but don't have 15 minutes (or whatever the length is) to spare.
Okay, here we go:
7 Wonders: My second favorite game of all time, right after Dominion. I love this game because there's no downtime, and yet what your neighbors do still affects what you do.
7 Wonders Duel: I have not yet played this game, but I am looking forward to it. The two-player rules of the original 7 Wonders weren't that great, so this game will fill that gap.
Agricola: This was the #1 game on board game geek for a long time. A classic worker placement game that my cousins own. Caverna is even better, but I don't think anyone owns that in my family.
Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn: Alex's favorite game, and one which I look forward to playing for the first time on Christmas break. I'll probably start with a pre-set deck.
Avalon: The Resistance: When we first played this years ago, it was me telling everyone the rules, and we used normal playing cards as the cards. Last year my family got the actual game.
The Castles of Burgundy: Another game I have not yet played but am really looking forward to. It is currently #10 on boardgamegeek.com, and I can't wait to try it.
Christmas Present #1: Hey, That's my Fish!?: Okay, so I don't know if I'll get this for Christmas, but I mentioned to my wife in Toys R Us that I wanted it. Brandon has a copy we played, and while it might seem simple on the surface, you can also put some deep strategy into it if you wanted to.
Christmas Present #2: Mystic Vale?: Another game which I'm not sure I'll get but I asked Ryan for it for Christmas so there's a good probability that I'll be unwrapping it Christmas morning.
Christmas Presents other than those, as well as any other games I forgot to put on this list: Any other games we get for Christmas, or that the Jamiesons get for Christmas, or that I forgot to put on this list that I want to play. In other words, this is my misc. category.
Dead of Winter: A semi-cooperative game which I have never got around to playing yet, even though the option has been available to me. Hopefully knowing how to play from this video will help.
Dominion: My favorite game of all time. Plus, for Christmas I asked for some new cards, some of which not even Alex has played with. I hope he still knows where The Card is.
Eldritch Horror: Another game that has been available to play but I've never gotten around to it, but am planning on this trip. Assuming that my family hasn't finished all the modules for it yet.
Elysium: A great game I bought about six months ago. This game and Istanbul I let Eric and Ryan borrow so that they could play at Thanksgiving. If they're reading this: bring it for Christmas, too!
Five Tribes: I haven't yet played with the expansion "that introduces a sixth color of meeple and they're purple" so I'll definitely give that a go this Christmas season.
Istanbul: I really love this game. It's simple and quick and fun. My mom also really loves this game, so much so that I'm making a prediction right now that she'll get it for herself for Christmas.
King of Tokyo: Thus game is really fun. This is a lighter game, a good filler when your brain is tired from all the deep strategy games you've been playing all day. Plus, it's fun to beat up other monsters.
Kingsburg: A worker placement game using dice. I first played this years ago back in Campus Plaza at BYU. So when my family got it for Christmas a few years back I already knew how to play.
Love Letter: So much fun for having so few cards. And it is also very thematic. A quick little card game that is a nice little filler game to pass the time between larger games.
Magic: The Gathering: I haven't played this yet. This is the game that introduced (I think) manna as a resource, as well as tapping cards, which I need to be more familiar with as a game designer.
Monopoly (with Hannah): I have to play at least one game of Monopoly with Hannah this Christmas break. It doesn't even have to be regular Monopoly, it can be dad's Fallonopoly or something.
Oltre Mare: The more goods you can store the smaller your hand limit, but the larger your hand limit the less goods you can store. This is an awesome little mechanic that I quite enjoy.
Pandemic: The first major cooperative game. Pandemic went on to get a Legacy version, which is now #1 on board game geek, but which was already played by my family.
SeaFall: Speaking of Legacy games, I get to play this one! And I'll actually matter in the game; unlike Pandemic Legacy where people can come and go in between games in the campaign and it doesn't really matter, this one suggests having the same people play the same characters the whole time.
Small World: With all the factions, powers, and additional stuff you can add, you can never play the same game twice. But the base game itself is still really fun.
Somerset: I'll be bringing my game so that Alex can play it (he likes games where you collect resources) and so that we can playtest it a little bit as well. No video here, but here's a picture:
Steampunk Rally: I bought the print and play from Kickstarter for $5, then printed everything out and cut it all out and after a lot of time finally got the finished project ready to play.
Summoner Wars: Another one of Alex's favorites. Plus I think since the last time I've played he's gotten even more races/armies that he's told me about.
Terra Mystica: I've only gotten to play this a few times, and I am still majorly working on my strategy (in other words, I'm not very good). But this Christmas break will be a great time to improve.
Ticket to Ride: Any version of this, really. I even got Sarah an LDS version for her birthday a few years ago which they still have in their games closet. In my opinion Europe is better than the original.
Timeline: Another quick, fast game to play if your brain is worn out by heavy strategy games. Even if you remember the dates on the cards to give you edge in future games, you're still learning: win-win.
TZolk'in: The Mayan Calendar: This game is super deep and strategic. The expansion makes it even more fun. You can win in a variety of ways, even if you just go the Corn Strategy the entire time.
Village: A worker placement game where your workers can die. I've only played with the Inn expansion once but won with it, and haven't tried the Port expansion yet.
Zooloretto: A game my family got a little bit ago. I haven't played it yet. One time Hannah woke everybody up in the middle of the night to play it, and they did, so it must be a pretty good game.
Thanksgiving break is over. Well, it has been over for about a week now. But one more thing I am thankful for: driving home safely afterwards. In Mesa, we looked online and also heard that there was a severe weather warning in Utah. I remember driving to Fallon one year, I think it was for Thanksgiving, that the roads were just super terrible. I remember passing a piece of highway where three cars had skidded off onto the side of the road, and one point where there was just one lane which was slick. It was a nightmare. So learning about the severe weather literally gave me a panic attack and anxiety. We left on Sunday after sacrament. We were going to originally go straight up through the Kanab route but with the weather warning I wanted to be on interstates the entire time: none of this going on one-liner streets through the woods in the middle of nowhere at night. So we decided to take the route through Las Vegas.
We got on the road, and everything was going smoothly. There was this one point where it started pouring down rain like crazy and that was pretty frightening. Then there was this one point in the road which I missed last year: there's this turn I'm supposed to make off of the 40 to stay on the 95, and last trip I missed it and had to backtrack a bit to get back on the right trail. This time I knew that that might happen and so I was on the lookout. And I missed it again. I knew something was off when I passed the sign saying: "Welcome to California." Great. But by that time we were so far off that it was faster to just keep on that road and turn north later on. By the time we finally got to Vegas due to my mistake, it was already dark. But the Lord blessed us and we were able to be on our way. I was still anxious about the horrible snowy weather that was coming up. But in the end, the Lord blessed us yet again and the roads were nice and clear and there was inly one spot where it was really snowing, but we got through that super easily. When we reached Provo finally at around 12:30 a.m., it was softly letting down flakes of snow, but absolutely nothing like that trip to Fallon I was talking to you about. So we were definitely blessed.
Winterim
Winterim year: It looks like off the three blocks, I'll be teaching my Psychology and Science class during the first block, my Game Design class during the third block, and during the second block I'll be... doing lunch duty, I guess? There are four teachers who aren't teaching a class second block and are instead doing lunch duty. But it will a nice break.
Seafall
I've been looking up the game Seafall in preparation to play the campaign this Christmas break with Eric, Ryan, and Alex. It seems pretty interesting. I'm not sure what course to take: making exploring or plundering better, or upgrading my storage in my ship or making it sail farther. I'm leaning toward plundering and hold space right now, but I'll have to wait and find out what the rewards are for exploring, which you only access in the captain's book when you explore that region. Maybe the rewards will be super good and I'll think about needing more dice for that than for raiding, who knows?
However, and I must mention this, the reviews for Seafall are mixed at best. One of the problems, as pointed out by the Dice Tower here, is that the game had so much hype to it. Your expectations are shot so high by anticipation that when it finally comes around to play it, you might be disappointed. Also, as pointed out in this review here, while Risk Legacy and Pandemic Legacy had legacy elements put onto an already fun well established game, Seafall did not. So while the legacy aspects might seem exciting, the game itself by its own might not stand the test of time. I'm still excited and want to play, but I'm not sure how smart it would be to spread out all the games over the entire Winter break like we were planning on. Maybe playing 2 or even 3 games in one day might be better? Who knows. We'll find out during Christmas break. Which I'm totally excited for.
Bushes of Love
The other day I walked some students down to their classroom during lunch because they were just standing around the hallway. When I got them back to their class which was having lunch in there, they were watching one of the wriest you tube videos I've ever seen. And the thing is, I swear I've seen it before. If I were to guess I'd say that it was Danny that showed me way back in the day when they lived in the Stoehr's first house (as opposed to their second house where Heather had Thanksgiving with us a few years ago, and their third house which they have now), but that can't be right because the video's only 11 months old. I swear I remember being scared that a chicken-duck-woman-thing would attack me from the bushes though when I was younger... oh well. Here's the video:
Somerset
Without photoshop on my computer, it's hard to work on files for the rules for Somerset, but here's the cover page and the first page at least:
