Game Night Write Up

Last night was game night and we had some new faces! I can't remember everybody's names (I'm bad with names) but give me a week or two and I'll get them down. My two oldest sons Kray and Jason came with me. We showed up a little late (around 6:30 or so) but we were able to jump right into something so all's good! Oren, Christopher, Mike K., Jose, and Wade were getting ready to play Oren's new copy of Descent: Journeys in the Dark. This is a HUGE game by Fantasy Flight. The box is roughly 24" x 12" x 5" and it weighs nearly 11 pounds! It's packed with awesome figures, dice, markers, modular board pieces, and who knows what else. It's also a pretty long game. It took them about two or three hours to finish. Oren, who was running the dungeon, won the game. Kray, Jason, Birch and I opened a new game: Techno Witches. That has to be one of the dumbest names for a game I've ever heard but the game is actually quite fun! Each player has a witch figure on a souped up broom and a spell book. Spell books are really half-circle cardboard cutouts with spaces around them that look kind of like docking bays. Circular obstacles and way points are arranged on the table. Placed to the side is a pile of cardboard curve templates. On your turn you either select one of the curves and add it to your spell book, or fly using all the curves that you've already added to your spell book. Flying involves laying all of the curves end to end and moving your broom the indicated distance. It's kind of similar to the movement in Wings of War if you're familiar with that. Anyway, it was very novel and quite fun. There's actually a surprising amount of strategy involved since you can deliberately get in other people's way and prevent them from successfully moving. While we were doing that, our newcomers, along with Tejas and Mike M. played a game of Traumfabrik. This is a great auction game by Knizia with a Hollywood theme. It's supposed to be getting an English version this coming year. I can't wait. Tejas, Kray, Mike M. and I played Ark again. I still like it. It doesn't hurt that I won. But for me, the game of the evening has to be Polarity. Birch and I played it for the first time last night. This is an older game (1986 I believe) but it's been out of print for some time. It's a two player abstract strategy game where players take turns playing pieces on a round canvas playing mat. The catch is that the pieces are actually magnets and you need to place each piece so that they are leaning against another piece's magnetic field. If you accidentally disturb any of the pieces that are already on the playing field then you lose points to your opponent. It's very clever, very elegant and very unique. I've never played anything quite like it. We liked it so much that we immediately played again, this time as a four-player team game with Mike K. and Mike M.