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.

Cosmere: The Game location samples, Plus: White Sand vol. 1

Last week you got to see a sample of some of the cards that are used for my game Cosmere, based off of the works of Brandon Sanderson.  If you missed that, check out the post here: Cosmere Game.

This week, I am showing you some of the location cards used in said game.  Once again, the artwork is taken from off the internet, and I don't have any legal ownership of it, I merely use it to give me a feel for how the final product of the game will work.

First off: Arelon Palace, from Elantris.  If you have a person here and are losing at the location, it gives you a nice bonus of one extra card at the start of each of your turns.

The Court of the Gods, from Warbreaker.  This is the place where all of the Returned live, who are treated as Gods by their people. As such, at this location no one can be harmed or damaged.

Also from Warbreaker is the D'Denir garden, filled with hundreds of statues.  It rewards the players based off of how many people they had on it when it scores, allowing them to draw cards as soon as it does so. 

The City of Elantris from the novel Elantris.  During the course of the novel, Elantris is cursed and a nightmare slum for its neither-living-nor-dead occupants. Thus, I made it so that you lost something every time you put a card onto this location. Elantris is also the highest scoring location in the game, which kind of makes up for that.

Fadrex City is a city that contains one of the Lord Ruler's supply caches.  When this location scores, all of the equipment, instead of going to the discard to be lost, is instead put on top of your deck to be reused on a near future turn.

Kharbaranth, from the Stormlight Archive, houses an incredible library full of awesome knowledge. Thus, when you have a person on this location, you can access that knowledge, and look at the top 2 cards of the Time deck.

Kredik Shaw, home of the Lord Ruler, who has ruled for a thousand years.  In this location, only the most powerful may go: those of rank 3 or higher.

The Purselike is a great place for chill people to hang out and live.  Invite your chill friends: every time you put a person here of rank 1 or 2, you can place another.

So there you have it: 8 of the 16 locations for the game.  When I get around to it I'll put numbers on the three shards in the upper-left corners telling the players how many shards they get from winning at that location.

Meanwhile: Guess what book I checked out from the Provo public library today?

White Sand! (Volume 1)  For a preview of some more of the pages, go here: White Sand.