It was early last week that a group of gamers from Northern Ireland by the power of the inter-web made me aware of a gaming experience called Artemis. Artemis was the virgin goddess of the hunt and the moon and there’s a fair chance that the people who will get the most out of this game are themselves virgins (or possibly affected by the moon). Event though it doesn’t say it this IS the bridge from Star trek.
You and a team of other players via laptops, smartphones and tablets and a wireless network get to team up and take the roles of Engineer, Navigator, Communications, Weapons, Science of even cooler Captain of a Starship.
It’s clever, very clever. One PC or device becomes the server and shows an external view of your ship. The other players with their laptops/tablets can then jump on and become the various work stations for the afore mentioned roles. Off you go on a variety of missions and work together to complete them or I dare say even more interestingly off you go with a larger number of players on DIFFERENT ships and take each other on Wrath of Khan style.
You can probably sense my excitement here, this is Sci-Fi nirvana and yes I did want to be the captain.
To be honest it was a pretty rushed affair having only heard of the game but all was looking good. One of the guys even brought a rather nice mini projector and had the main view screen up on the wall. Unfortunately due to different versions being released (at the moment) on ipads and PCs we couldn’t link them all together so we fell back to playing a less ambitious game with just iPads.
Yes, it’s great fun. If you’re short a few players you can swap between posts on the one PC. For such a new game it’s very nicely polished and the experience is very good. Even though we were like a bunch of cadets on a school tour we did manage to nuke and destroy an enemy ship whilst calling the odds to each other from our various stations. this is DEFINITELY one we’re going to revisit when they get the versions in order
After that is was back to earth for more simple fare.
Race for the galaxy was played while we few startreked across the universe. I can’t comment on it I’ve only played it once and that was a long time back and I didn’t get it.
Next up was an old classic Scotland Yard
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/438/scotland-yard
Most people have played scrabble, monopoly, game of life etc. Scotland Yards is one step up from these and a nice gateway game. I’d never played it before and I did like it, but then again this type of hunter/hunted game appeals to me.
Scotland yard < Letters from Whitechapel < Fury of Dracula
The above three are similar but increase in complexity as you go right. I’ve mentioned whitechapel and Dracula before, both excellent game. Scotland yard is a similar but a little bit simpler and certainly less bloody and more family friendly than the other two.
One person plays the bad guy who’s sneaking around the city, the other play police men trying to hunt him down by deduction, luck and guile. It’s a nice little game, very straightforward it is definitely fun to play. Our first game we caught the bad guy about half way through the game
the second (some way say third) I was the bad guy ….. and they never caught me. Buwahaha hahaha. That said I’ve played a lot of Dracula and Whitechapel so I was prepared. I would definitely play again. It’s faster than other too and it hits the spot. If a criticism could be levelled it’s that all three games are really two player games just with a group playing the good guys. That’s fine too. I’m just saying
Also played that night were Ribbit (you B******DS) and Love letter. Ribbit is killing me, I can’t get the hang of it and it’s a childs game for 5-105 year olds…. just goes to show
More next Thur
Huzzah!
Vic
Victor Gannon Games 
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