Games

I just got home at around 10 pm and realized that this is perhaps the earliest I've been home in a long while, excluding Wednesdays when I don't see Deanna. Usually I leave there at 10 or later (depending on how badly I rationalizing staying another 5 or 10 minutes) and then get home and finish some of the wind-down time that I spend online each day. I do it then because I usually skip some or all of it to get to Deanna's before it gets to late as she is waiting on me so we can eat. So on the average night I get home at 10:30ish and am ready for bed a little after 11, except for the nights when I call home, when I end up going to bed later at 11:30. Getting up around 5 am most mornings makes it difficult at times, so while I would not voluntarily trade my longer evenings for some shorter ones and more sleep, my fatigued body is thanking me anyways.

Two nights ago I stayed up late at Tom Vasel's house to watch him and Sam Healey record the latest episode of The Dicetower, a podcast on board games and other related topics. I will be coming on the show this summer, so I wanted to see them do one recording to see what it is like and be mentally prepared for what the process is like before I actually sit down and do one. It was very entertaining, and I actually discovered that I enjoyed the show much more in person despite its increased length-- since they were recording, it was longer as I was there during any breaks or editing needing to be done. I was also very happy when Sam sat down with a pad of paper and told me all the games listed were games he is getting rid of. I bought one of the games from the section he was selling and picked out several of the games he was giving away for free, and the next night I was delighted to see one of his kids walk in our gaming area holding a big stack of games for me. Upwords was perhaps the only conventional game I got, though the Lord of the Rings edition of Risk is still a version of a conventional game. The other games were what I like to call unconventional-- meaning they aren't your average Parker Brothers game, but rather they bring gaming to a different level. It is kind of like comparing your average 50's science fiction TV show with one of the many shows to come in all the decades since... the modern "unconventional" board games are a completely different breed and are often a much higher quality, both in game play and in components.

So now my game collection has grown like a pack of tribbles over the past few months, and in the next couple of weeks will be growing even more as a large order of small to mid-sized games will be arriving in the mail. I plan on buying a few more games as well before I come home, though I may have them just shipped straight home instead of to here because most of them won't be played until I get home anyways.

Some of the games that I have played that I recommend for someone that has never played "non-conventional" games are:

• Ticket to Ride (with or without the 1910 expansion)
• Settlers of Catan
• Carcassonne (several variations of this... all but the Carcassonne: New World)
• Dominion
• Colosseum
• Mystery of the Abbey (similar to Clue)
• Memoir '44

All of those are fairly simple, though if you play with a gamer it might help. They are all also great family games. Right now I have Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, and Castle Carcassone, but I plan on buying most of the rest in the not-t00-distant future.