Author: MrTimewalk

Gamer, Programmer, All around Bad Guy

Night of the Wolf

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One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a game which on the surface shouldn’t work. If you’ve played Werewolf (possibly at Knavecon) you’ll know it’s played out over a dozen, sometimes more days and nights. This is played out over One night (the clue was in the name). That said its a Long night with a hell of a lot happening.

There’s a free app available to run the game. Get the free app. Don’t bother trying to GM it yourself, the app is very slick and looks after everything for you.

Once you’ve played the base game you’ll probably look at it and wonder how much you can flog the game for. Don’t. School boy error. This is not your basic werewolf where everyone is Joey tight lips about their role. Everyone is vocal about whom they claim to be and its here that the game really shines.

A couple of the roles involve swapping hidden roles with others and the skill is in concocting a convincing story based on the possible roles that may have been mixed in

“I was a werewolf but my role was swapped by the trouble maker so your better off hanging HER! /points ”

The app is clever. It gives a five minute count down to the vote.  After a few games you’ll be using all that time to cover your furry tracks or get everyone onboard to hang your suspect.

Hang a wolf and the villagers win. Fail to hang a wolf and the wolves win.

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What makes for an interesting game is you’re never sure which roles are in play just the possible ones so concocting a good cover story is essential

Just like Spyfall you really want to play again straight away after the last game. We found we had to call a halt to our filler game or it would have raged all night. The extra roles add a lot to this game and given enough plays I could see myself stretching out to acquiring the expansion but there’s a lot of play in the base game

One thing that will strike you about this game when you use the app is the amount of time you spend with your eyes closed. It’s like the end of a yoga class. You’ll awake refreshed, energized and ready to devour villagers

Huzzah!

Vic

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So What makes Knavecon Special ? #3

Diplomacy

Ok I’m cheating because we’ve never really done it before, BUT, since discovering the really natty projector at Knavekids my immediate second thought for it’s use was DIPLOMACY!  I reckon this could go down as something Knavecon will be remembered for

Diplomacy is a game you need to play at least once in your life, then play it again.  Everyone remembers their first time playing it.  Some hold grudges about something that may have happened some years ago, possibly near Japan, it doesn’t matter.  What matters is you really need to play this game and you’re going to get a chance to play it at Knavecon…  I’ll teach you the rules (I DO know the rules), I’ll GM the game.  I’ll look after you and whether you’ve played it or not… you’ll leave a different person.  See you then

Huzzah!

Vic

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A Study in Genius

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When gandalf said the words “I have no memory of this” he may well have been referring to the rules for a game he’s not played in over a year

Thus we found ourselves stirring the cold treacle of rules for a Study in Emerald. One I’ve spoke about before. After the requisite amount of “oh yeahs” and “I remember now’s” we were underway and I found myself playing a good and not yet insane loyalist (all hail the overlords) hoping to snatch victory from the rebel scum.

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In the game we played (four players), it become clear mid game that two others in the group were also loyalists leaving a solitary restorationist to fend for themselves and here’s where I realised just one of the reasons this game is so damn good. It’s not enough for your team to win, you really want to be the one in the lead. It’s also not going to be a win if any of your team come last (the team of the lowest scoring player is removed from the game at final scoring, no ifs buts or ah come ons). So the game becomes a case of helping your allies but not helping them Too much. I love this mechanic. It’s to the forefront in A Distant Plain and Fire in the Lake. It’s there too if you look really hard in Castle Panic. If you play with the right group (evil) it becomes a fantastic tension ratchet, more so when players threaten to take out the whole team rather than let someone else win. Couple this with the possibility of jumping teams if the right permanent effect comes up (it had) we had one hell of a game.

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I’ve played a study in emerald a dozen times now. I was lucky enough to snatch a copy of it on release, it’s never been the same game twice. There are several different mechanics working at once in this game and unlike say Warrior knights or Android all of them are integral and none of them feel bolted on.

When this game comes back for re-release in the next few months I’m going to be eyeing it up closely. A combination of Martin Wallace and Neil Gaimen has made someone sublime and one of my favorite games to date. I’m going to be running games of this at Knavecon IV and I urge you to give it a go. It’s unique, it’s fresh and it’s never the same game twice. More of this sort of thing

Huzzah!

Vic

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Act Natural

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A buddy of mine* told me about Spyfall. It sounded right up my street A traitor, filler, party game.

Ok it’s not Really a traitor game as such but it’s not far off. Each player gets handed a card from thirty possible stacks all carefully laid out so one player is always the spy.

Each mini stack corresponds to a particular Location. It might be a Starship. A Beach. A School. A Hotel and so on. Additionally each card gives a role so if the randomly selected stack was a pirate ship the roles might be captain, first mate, gunner and of course the spy…

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Now here’s the rub. No one knows what the other person’s role is and the spy knows bugger all. The hapless spy doesn’t know the location that’s been picked so they’re up against it from the off.

A round shakes out like this. One random first player picks another player and asks them an insightful question to try and figure out if they’re the spy  or a loyal comrade. They need to ask a question in such a way as to figure out if their target knows the location or if they’re clueless.  All the player have cards in front of them with a full list of all the locations so if they don’t make it obvious they might figure it out.

Here’s an example

Player 1 : (Not a spy, Location : The Artic) : “SOoooo…. Are you going to shave the beard off or leave it?”

Player 2 : (Spy, Thinking it might be a pirate ship they’re on) :  “Well I’m going to leave until this adventure is over….”

The asked player now gets to ask a question.

Player 2 : (Spy) “So…. what the hell did we drink last night?”

and so on.  At any stage a player can go.  HE/SHE’s  the spy! and a unanimous vote sees everyone reveal their cards. Get it right the players get a point each get it wrong the spy scores four.  The same can happen where the spy says,  I’m the spy and I KNOW WHERE WE ARE!  If they get it right they score points otherwise everyone else does

The game resets and a new location is picked and it happens again. For several round.

It’s actually quite good.  Not what I thought it would be.  It’s very hard to be a spy especially in a small group and I reckon you need a minimum of six to make this work but it’s so quick and so repayable you want to go again and again

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We played a dozen games last night and we had to stop ourselves playing and go home (well not me I was home).

Like a lot of games I love, it’s just so simple.  Truth be told it’s so simple I dispensed with the cards and wrote a quick application to do the role picking which just goes to show how lazy we are.

This will be front and centre at the next Knavecon and I highly recommend you try it out

Huzzah!

Vic

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Spy v Spy

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Ever watch a football final where it comes down to Penalties? It’s not so much about the ones that go in, it’s about the ones that are missed. I felt the same about Codenames which I got to see  played out a number of times at KnaveKids last weekend with a variety of players.  Missing a clue was fatal.

The games is a pretty straight forward party game with a nice theme. It was played at the con with a variety of younger and older gamers so it got a really good workout.

The game is played out on a randomly selected grid of 5×5 cards with single words on each. The Teams each elect one of their own as a spy master and they both stand at the opposite ends of the table and view a randomly picked card showing which words on the grid relate to the Blue Team and which related to the Red Team.

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The first player to start has to get their team to reveal 9, the second 8.

The spymaster looks at the grid and calls out a word that related to one or more of the words on the cards they want their team to pick. So for example they might say “Transport” and hope their team are clever enough to pick “Car” and “Road” on the grid.

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The spymasters can only use one word clues and use none of the words on the grid. If the team of guessers picks one of the agents correctly they get another go or can pass and it hops back and forth like so until the requisite amount are uncovered or the assasin is uncovered which ends the round early.

it’s simple fun, there’s a large variety of double sided cards so you’re unlikely to play the same list twice. I liked it. It was quick and simple and perfect for the age group at the convention.

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If you’re looking for a simple team game that anyone can play with a nice theme, you won’t go far wrong with this

Huzzah!

as we Spymasters often say

Vic

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Higher! no Lower!

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Do you remember doing coding in school? Maybe you remember doing a search where you halved a value each time until you got to the number you wanted, a simple index if you will. You don’t oh? ok. Well you learnt something new. This game is like that

Agent Hunter is a cheap and cheerful two player game. Each player has a set of ten cards numbered 0-9 in blue or red each with some nice cartoon artwork of raging agents, doing all agent stuff, like wearing a vest and blazing away with machine guns. As agents do.

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Each player at the start puts three cards of their choice face down (called safe houses) and then take it in turns to try and guess which agents are face down on the opponents side. They do this by revealing a card from their hand and pointing at one safe house and asking if it’s a match. If it is the inquiring player takes the enemy card (after a suitable expletive) and places yours on top of it on your side of the board and scoring a point at the end.

If it’s not the inquired of player (like a bad Bruce Forsyth impression) says the agent at home is either higher or lower. Thus it continues until one side loses all three agents.

To make it a little bit more complex if the other side is getting close e.g. it’s lower than 1 the defender can stick down a decoy token (of which they have five) and swap out agents in the safe house.  These tokens are worth points at the end.

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So it’s a guessing game, a push your luck game and a deception game. it’s quick and portable and you’ll be bored with it after a dozen or so games, however you may return to it after a break as it’s quick and portable.

I picked Agent Hunter up at Brocon for the princely sum of €6 from Black Kat games. I’ve played enough games of it now to bring the cost of each game to below 60c so not bad value.

There are plenty of two player card games out there. This isn’t bad, it’s certainly worth the cost. If you were a real miser you could do it with ordinary cards but that’s none of my business

Nice 2 player, quick and cheap

Huzzah!

Vic

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