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Shadows Over Camelot

I wasn't planning on gaming in Norwalk on Friday night, but traffic was so horrific that I ended up hitting the Norwalk exit at like 6:30ish, and so I decided to stop in and just game rather than sit in traffic. There were a large number of people there, and while some were just hanging out, others were involved in a game of Tsuro. I walked in barefooted and bearing no games, but there was a large array set out. Amongst them was Shadows Over Camelot, a cooperative game I'd heard good things about. It was supposed to be like rummy, but was a board game with miniatures.

Ricardo was the only one who'd played the game before (once) and that was a while back. He remembered some parts about it, but I had the rule book and so I just started reading the setup instructions. The board is very well produced (it reminds me of Battlelore), and includes a number of secondary boards as well.

The object of the game is to fill up the round table with white swords, and to have a majority of swords at the end of the game. Each player (from 3–7 players – we had 7) is given a character sheet, which provides a turn summary and the special ability of the character. He's also given a loyalty card. All but one of the cards say “LOYAL”, and one says “TRAITOR”.

The game revolves around cooperatively completing quests. Each turn, a player does a “darkness” event, like drawing a card from the black deck (used as opposition forces in quests), or placing a siege engine outside of Camelot. He also takes a “Heroic Action”, like moving to a new quest or taking an action at his current quest. You have a hand of cards, and taking an action at a quest essentially means playing a card on the quest board for the side of Camelot. Where you go and what you do depends on the cards in your hand, the state of the presence of the forces of darkness on the boards, and where the other players are.

The game was a little slow at first, as we were all trying to wrap our heads around just what needed to be done (with no-one to give us the synopsis I just gave you or to answer any questions!), but by the end of the first round we had it together for the most part. It took longer than I expected, though I think the game was near the end when I left. It was like 9pm, and I had to lead a group of hikers far north of me the next morning (which is why I was going to bail on games that night in the first place, as I usually stay and play until 11pm or so!).

Armageddon Empires

I awoke early on Saturday (at like 4:30), and proceeded to head downstairs to my computer. Michael Barnes had written an article on a game called Argageddon Empires which piqued my interest. So I got the demo and gave it a whirl.

It was a little hard to understand how to play the game. It was devoid of any tutorial material, but an alt-tab to the website gave me the information I needed.

In the game, you start with a hand of cards that you can play, and resource generation based on your controlled positions on the map. You can establish armies, play cards to put in the armies, and move them around with action points that you bid for each turn. Moving a large army will take more action points than a small one, and recruiting a powerful card takes more than a card that's less powerful. You also have heroes, which will give the army they lead special abilities, or have special abilities themselves (like demolitions, or being able to research stuff).

As you move your armies on the board, you'll come across resources, which you can place harvesting facilities on. You might also come upon caches of resources hidden in the desert, or camps of people who will offer to aid you for a cost (in resources). There are also neutral groups of enemies as well, like zombies or packs of wolves. And the enemy.

Your job, of course, is to eliminate the opposition. The end-game condition I've seen is when your opponent destroys your main base, or when you destroy his.

There are some pretty cool units in the game. Zombies add attack dice based on the number of zombies present. There are cards you can use while they're still in your hand, bomber/strafers that attack stacks on the board for a cost in resources, to soften them up (like those zombies).

The user interface could use some improvement. I actually ran across a crash bug and sent a partially useful screenshot and description (I forgot about the autosave), as well as some more suggestions. This game would benefit from multiplayer, especially since you have a fixed action point cost (if you win the action point toss, you get 12, if you lose you get 6). It's not like HOMM3 where the turns might take FOREVER (I played the heck out of that game).

Before I knew it, it was 7:30am. I had to be way up north by 9, so I showered and dressed and got out the door.

People's State Forest

After getting lost and being a little late, I did indeed make it to People's State Forest to lead the Meetup. Kevin, the group owner and organizer of this particular event, had contacted me earlier in the week. His travel plans had changed, and he needed someone to take the reins and thought of me. He suggested Janice to take the rear-guard.

Actually getting the group on the trail proved to be a problem. This is a remote location for many of us, and the directions were less than perfect. Plus, some people get lost easily. One girl had given me a call to let me know she was up here and having trouble finding us. Unfortunately, I kept on losing signal and the sound clarity was very poor. I had a hard time communicating, and eventually we just had to leave. Before we got very far, however, I got another call and they said they were there, and I was like “okay, we'll wait for you here, it's just across the street and up the trail”. They didn't show up after a while, and so I figured they'd taken the wrong trail (there was another leading in a different direction that didn't cross the road). So I made the tough call and off we went.

Fortunately, while we were resting they came upon us! So now we had our full compliment. I felt a little awkward, because I did, after all, totally ditch them . . . twice. But I apologized and they seemed understanding. What else can you do though? Make your whole party wait indefinitely? As it stood, about 3/4 of the way in 3 of our party members had to take the “short way home” (an access road) due to time constraints.

The day was warm and muggy, but under the canopy it wasn't so bad. It's unfortunate though, as the view from the vistas was kind of hazy. There's a lot of cool shrub/trees on the trail, and some AWESOME rocks just before the first vista that bear more exploring. I'd like to take some time in the future and just play around in there, maybe with some climbing shoes. I think it was granite (though I have a hard time telling).

A lot of the rocks on the trail were covered in moss. There was plenty of quartz around as well – veins and smoothed rocks on the ground, usually about a hand's width poking out from the earth.

The majority of the trail was forest walk. Some of it was really nice, and it was actually quite varied. You had a bunch of cool, smallish trees/shrubs. I thought of how difficult it would be to walk through that area without a trail. It was like brambles, without the thorns. There were a lot of butterflies out. I saw a couple of frogs. Near the end there was a cool rope set up near a bridge over a stream.

Everyone kept up pretty well, though on the downhill parts we did string out a bit. Conversation around me ranged from Hennessy Hammocks to Google Sky, and include some discussion of cross country skiing and snowshoeing. I enjoyed my time on this mountain, though it is quite a trek up there!

Tooling around

The rest of the weekend I just tooled around. Read some Gardens of the Moon and listened to The Hallowed Hunt. Ate pita chips with roasted red pepper hummus and spinach dip.

I installed some games on my computer. BF1942 and BF2 made it back on (Audrial has spoken about wanting to play some BF1942 with me). I downloaded “Magic: The Gathering” (I used to have it back when it came out and can remember enjoying playing), and “Dungeon Keeper”, a game I've never played but was interested in and has a good rating on The Underdogs. I couldn't get DK working though (not that I tried all that hard . . . yet). I'll likely reinstall Guild Wars, Company of Heroes, America's Army, HOMM3, Civ4, ToME, and try and get Planescape: Torment working (no luck last time I tried). I've also got the demo for Bioshock to try.

To really play BF1942, I'll need to get my joystick working again (and possibly a new mouse…). I logged on and played some Guadalcanal (and ripped it a bit), but I couldn't get into a plane and that limited me. At first my distance shots with the Chi-ha were off, but I soon got back into the groove. I also had a hard time targeting dudes at a distance with my engineer rifle. And I blew myself up TWICE! taking out tanks with mines. I failed to properly estimate the time an opponent took to reach the southern flag (which I had thoughtfully mined, preparing for a tank to ascend) – he was already in the bunker when I set it off. I still ended up taking him out though.

I played some MTG (once I got it working).

Aside from that, I napped both days in the afternoon.