Summer job, parties, Hero with A Thousand Faces

I got a Summer job working at Provo Parks and Recreation again, just like I did last year. I'm even under the same guys. This last Tuesday was my first day of work, and so far we've dug up some old roots from some cut down trees, fixed sprinkler systems, planted five new trees where the old ones used to stand (my favorite project thus far), pulled some weeds, trimmed some bushes near a jogging path, and unclogged a path near a river whose pump had gone out, flooding the walkway under the bridge up with about two feet of water. That was fun too, actually, we got to get this massive pump and siphon everything out back into the river, then scrape up the muck, then siphon some more, then actually got access to the malfunctioning pump, all while getting splashed occasionally by nasty stale water.

A few weeks ago (which I was going to post about but haven't posted in a while, sorry) was my wife's side of the family's family reunion. It took place up in Idaho, about a three hour drive. We got there around midnight because we left late because we were packing, and set up our awesome tent in the dark. The next day we had breakfast with everyone and I handed out name tags for people to fill out, and there were games for the kiddos. I was one of the stopwatch people for an obstacle course race that Heather participated in with her team and around six other teams. Her team didn't come in first, mainly because of this ridiculous station where you had to stand a few feet from a watermelon half and chuck CDs at it and you had to get them to stick. Super hard.

I played games with some of the cousin guys. We played two games that Heather got me for Father's Day. She got me Cover your A$$ets as well as Splendor. Cover your A$$ets is a really great party game, and was introduced to us by Ryan when he visited us with his girlfriend. Splendor though is now one of my all time favorite games. Heather and I alone have played so much Splendor these last few weeks due to the fact that it is simple, super quick to set up, and engaging and fun. I'll be bringing both games to the family reunion in August. So we played a lot of those during the reunion.

Three days before the Fourth of July was the Stadium of Fire. Heather and I have never been together, and I have never been. Heather's only gone once when she was working as security (they hire a whole bunch of students every year to do that). I didn't know any of the singers and only one song because it was all country and I'm not a big fan of country music, but what made up for the price of the ticket was we got to see Brian Reagan live! He did some jokes I knew and some I had never heard before, and some about talking jokes with fireworks exploding overhead that he made up on the spot. "I didn't expect to be doing jokes in between firework noises. Timing is hard enough in comedy; trying to do the set up, then hear a blast, and then hit a punch line. Was not expecting that. 'Why did the chicken cross the road? Pow! Pow! Pow! Ka-pow! Pow! To get--Pow! Pow! Pow! Ka-pow! Pow!--to the other side.' That's what I'm dealing with up here."

The fourth of July happened one week before I started work. Heather and I went to the parade and then went to the colonial fair to see a little musical they we putting on about how people throughout history protected liberties and freedom. It talked about not only our country of the United States of America, but also people like Joan of Arc. After the play we went home and napped and then we went to the fair they always have down town in Provo. Every year around the fourth of July they set up a few blocks on Center Street to set up booths and food vendors and there's even a little carnival that's set up, although we never go on the carnival rides because we're not sure we trust the safety of how well they're set up. We got a few things there and headed home to sleep. The day after the fourth (or before, or on it, I can't remember) we went to see hot air balloons go up, and it was so cool! We also went to the downtown place again, and went to the colonial fair.

Parade float

The musical

Gail Halvorsen, better known as the candy bomber, was a the play
the same time we were, so we snagged a picture of him to prove it.

A Thousand Faces: About a year and a half ago my brother Eric sent me this email:

"So in my dream I'm looking at the MTG card Manalith, like a monolith of mana, right, only I misread the card as "Monomyth." And I'm like, monomyth, what kind of card would that be? Is basically how this started out.

So I've got an idea for, probably a deckbuilder?, where cards represent individual characters or settings or whatever, and you arrange them as part of the Hero's Journey, and you get points for having sets, cards in a row and plots that make sense, and maybe for completeness?

It's not my only idea or even my favorite, but it's still an intriguing possibility, and wanted to know what you could make of it?"

I had an idea and then starting working on it, then dropped it, then starting working on it, then dropped it since then and now. I've recently picked it back up again and am getting pretty far into it; it's not quite what Eric envisioned (he had envisioned what I consider to be Elysium, so congrats Eric! Your game is already out there!) but my game is part Elysium, part 7 Wonders, part my own thing. I'm still tweaking it and trying to make it work the best that it can. If all goes according to my plan, this game should also be ready to bring to the reunion in August. fyi the Title "A Thousand Faces" comes from the title of Joseph Campbell's book "Hero with a Thousand Faces," which is where the Hero's Journey and Monomyth comes from.

And some pictures of Henry just because he's cute:

And tomorrow will mark one year since my first blog post! It's been a good year!

Games I plan on playing over Christmas break

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.

Games night with a visit from my brothers!

This weekend my brothers Eric and Ryan came to visit my family here in Provo!  And what else would we do except play games of course!  The plan was for them to arrive Friday afternoon, but that ride never got back to them, so they were stuck with a ride that came in on Saturday instead: at 2:30 in the afternoon.  In Draper.  Heather and I went to pick them up from the Loveland Aquarium, and went back to our place.

The first game we played was Interstellar Pig, which I neglected to get pictures of.  Heather almost won, she had the Piggy until one of the last turns of the game, and then Eric stole it from her and ran away from everyone until time ran out.  Ryan, meanwhile, died on Earth. Sad day.

We played a game of Elysium next.  We started with just the beginner's suggested set: Zeus, Poseidon, Hephaestus, Hades, and Athena. I ended up winning.

Saturday night playing Elysium. Eric is reading White Sand between turns.

After that, we played a game of Istanbul, and then another game of Elysium, with different god cards.  Heather won both.  That last game ended up taking us way past midnight, but everyone had a good time.  Too bad we had 8 am church.

The next day after church we played a quick game of Temple Escape.  This is one of the games that my Game Design class did last Winterim, which ended up being one of the three best, so we sent in the files to a print and play website to get the pieces professionally made.  Check them out at printplaygames.com. The tiles and pieces are totally legit.

Not sure what Ryan is doing with his face.

The whole crew!

After playing Temple Escape, which Ryan won, we played another game of Istanbul with a different board layout.

Notice how the game is on the other side of the table from Henry?

Ryan's face is like: Whhaaa--!? 

Then there was only a half hour before my brothers had to go, so we played a quick game of Blokus. When Eric and Ryan took off, I gave them Elysium and Istanbul to borrow, so that they could take them down to Fallon so that they could play at Thanksgiving.  So if you're in Fallon for Thanksgiving, be sure to give them both a try; they're both super awesome games.  Istanbul won the German Game of the Year award, and Elysium was nominated but didn't quite win.

I totally won this game, fyi.

It's too bad their visit was so short, but we had a blast.

P.S. We also discussed how to play Seafall without bingeing it, and we decided that we should play over Christmas break, one game a day.  I wasn't sure if one game a day was bingeing it too much, but Eric said that the number of other games we would be playing would dilute it, so that that was fine.  We might have to play two games a day for a couple of days just to be sure that we finish it during the vacation.  I also hope to play Elysium, Istanbul, Castles of Burgundy, Five Tribes with expansion, Ashes, 7 Wonders: Duel, Terra Mystica, and a ton of other games as well.

Interstellar Pig and Chaosmos

Interstellar Pig is a book by William Sleator. In the book, the main character Barney goes on vacation to a beach house, where his new neighbors befriend him and, throughout the course of the novel, play many games with him of the board game Interstellar Pig. A game inventor as I am, I had to create it in real life to play.  And so I did.

In the game, everyone is trying to get the Piggy card in their hand by the time the game ends. If they have the Piggy card, they win. The board consists of different planets, and planets can have different atmospheres, gravity, light, and temperature. Everyone gets a hand of cards, which could include weapons, thermal suits, light sources, breathing apparatuses, and so forth. And one card out there is the Piggy.  When you land on a planet, you can look at the cards there and even exchange some of them for the cards in your hand.  You take turns moving around, and you can combat other players to get their cards, all trying to find the Piggy.  If you have the Piggy, you can either keep it in your hand, or hide it on a planet and hope that no one lands there and takes it, in the hopes that you can get there later to get it back.

There are the equipment cards as mentioned before, but there are also event cards which trigger if you roll a certain side on the star die, and character cards. At the start of the game you choose a character you want to be, and that determines your IRSC (your IQ) as well as what atmosphere you breathe and what temperatures you can stand.

It was fun, and my brother Ryan is super excited to come visit so that he can play it again.  Because of this, I decided to look at it again and maybe tweak some things.  So I looked up Interstellar Pig again on Wikipedia, and saw near the bottom this: "A board game released in 2015, chaosmos, seems to have the same premise as the game from the novel."

What the wha?  I wa planning on maybe sending in this game to publishers.  But now it looks like there's a game that has already been published that IS Interstellar Pig?  So I looked it up on Board Game Geek.  The game, Chaosmos, is rated fairly high.  But check out the description of the game from the website:

The universe is about to collapse, and your final hope lies in an ancient mysterious artifact, the Ovoid. Whoever controls this "cosmic egg" can shape the birthing of the next universe according to their own agenda. Players are secret agents from a handful of surviving worlds, zipping from planet to planet in special “amnion suits” that allow for interstellar travel, space combat and planetary landings.

Each planet has its own envelope of cards. When you arrive on a planet, you decide which cards you want to take and which to leave behind. Knowledge is the most powerful resource in the game, and being able to predict the cards your opponents possess at any given time is a powerful advantage as you build up a handful of weapons, tactical gear, vaults and traps, as well as cards that counter your opponents' cards. The best players will keep their hand fluid, constantly changing tactics while they search from world to world for the Ovoid or find a safe place to stash it.

Balance your hand of cards, spend your turn actions wisely, and cleverly use your special alien powers to stay one step ahead of your opponents. When the Chaos Clock reaches zero, only the player who possesses the Ovoid will become master of the new universe.

Sound familiar?  If you scroll down on that page, there's even this: "Chaosmos is unofficially, but faithfully, based on a fictional board game described in William Sleator's novel Interstellar Pig."

So... Somebody beat me to it.  Somebody had the idea, implemented it, and got it published.  What does this mean for me?  It means: a) I want to play Interstellar Pig right now.  b) I also want to try out Chaosmos. c) I need to get on the stick when it comes to getting my game ideas out there.  I have a lot of good ideas, but I need to get them play tested and sent out to publishers.

Now, is that the only reason I make games?  No.  Why do I make games?  Because I can't help it. I can't stop myself. I love it. It's my passion, my greatest hobby.  Even if I never sell a single game, I'll still make them, and play them.  There's an inherent joy to it.  But on the side, yeah, of course it would be good to get some of them published.

In a few weeks when Heather and I have a free weekend and when Eric and Ryan come down to play, my version of the Interstellar Pig game will be one of the ones we'll play (as well as Elysium and Istanbul, which neither of them have played yet).  I am also hoping to play the latest version of Cosmere, which is a card game I created based off of Brandon Sanderson's epic fictional universe, which he calls the Cosmere.  Look forward to it.

Next week: I talk about my game Cosmere, and give a bit of back story and details about it.  Plus, some files for the latest prototype cards. For now, here's a video of Tom Vasel of The Dice Tower doing a review on Chaosmos: