Session - For Sale, Dungeon Petz, Grass & 7 Wonders

1st of May 2012 (Tuesday)

Game(s) Played:
For Sale


Dungeon Petz


Grass


7 Wonders



Session – For Sale

Player(s):
Da Panda
Divad
Hayen
Milo

There was some speculation at the table as to what we should play first and I pushed For Sale to be our first game to begin the afternoon with a light filler. Milo actually requested for this on facebook then retracted her request at the table over Da Panda and my protests, some people are just so fickle minded.

Anyhoo, this was my opportunity to give the original bidding rules a try. For those not in the know, For Sale's rules have undergone a revamp and now you basically have the original and the revised bidding rules. There's only one difference which is instead of each Player raising their bids higher than the previous Player, in the original rules, Players can opt to call (stay) and simply match the previous Player's bid. Now that I have tried the original rules, I can say that I prefer them. The rule doesn't add significantly to game time (maybe ten minutes tops) but adds a whole new layer of strategy in management of your starting coins where in the revised rules, most Players are likely to be bankrupt by the fourth round of bidding. Nevertheless, Divad & Milo both fell into the typical newbie trap of overbidding too early and were the first ones to run out of money.

Especially when they saw the space station

Da Panda on the other hand conspired to hide her coins from view (which I think is illegal by the way) which was crucial at the end since I thought she had bid all her money. I thought I had won but Da Panda revealed her coins with a flourish to win by a measly $4,000.

Time Taken: 20 minutes

Results Of Game
Winna – Da Panda ($79,000)
2nd – Hayen ($75,000)
3rd – Divad ($50,000)
Dead Last – Milo ($30,000)

Memorable In-Game Comments:
Da Panda
"I WON!! I WANT A PICTURE!!!"

"Accidentally" captured this as she was screaming the above caption.

Then with practiced ease I pretended I hadn't taken a picture and said "Say cheese!" for this one.

Rating: 7/10

Session – Dungeon Petz

Player(s):
Da Panda (Blue)
Divad (Red)
Hayen (Green)
Milo (Yellow)

Teaching Dungeon Petz is always a couple of mouthfuls and you're always bound to forget some obscure rule (seems to be a trademark of Vlaada Chvatil's games).

My first pet gave me a tonne of trouble, getting more & more diseased as I failed to fulfil my pet's needs & for the first time in all of our plays, I have the distinct owner of being known as the pet abuser when my pet decided enough is enough and ran off into the sunset before I could sell the bugger to the Dragon Lord. The cards simply did not fall for me as I continued to get low probability need cards. I also waited too long (right up to the end) to pull back my imps & as a result, kept losing out on the hire pet spaces to bigger imp parties. In the end, I only sold one pet throughout the entire game and had none in reserve whilst the others had at least two to three pets because they were too young to be sold.

Just after my Bubu ran away

The line of waiting customers at the market area

I think Divad called the Ghostie the Tissue Paper Monster... ...

Da Panda's favourite Penguin Knight and Baby Cthulu

And of course, Milo's Snakitty

Naturally, I lost although the unexpected winner was Milo, who was even hesitant to play Dungeon Petz in the first place.


Time Taken: 180 minutes

Results Of Game
Winna – Milo (54 Points)
2nd – Da Panda (47.5 Points)
3rd – Divad (42.5 Points)
Dead Last – Hayen (40 Points)

Hmm... This is the first time only one of us has made the 50 Point Lap

Memorable In-Game Comments:
Dungeon Petz is a game full of theme and so we had Players referring to their pets during the game:
Hayen
"No Bubu!!! Why are you running away???"

Rating: 8/10

Session – Grass

Player(s):
Da Panda
Divad
Hayen
Milo

I picked up Grass on one of my working trips to Singapore. On the surface it does not look like much and I was actually surprised that it is still in circulation these days. Grass was very honestly a sentimental purchase as it was ironically taught to me and my siblings by a cousin when we were really young children (way to go Dawn).

I forget how we used to play it when we were younger but I’m pretty sure we didn’t get it right since our math back then was probably not good enough to keep count of our "stash" over multiple rounds.

Thankfully, now that we can read and use our phones as calculators, we managed to get it right this time & our newly crowned drug lord, Divad, took an early lead right in the first round, getting $200,000 of the $250,000 needed to win.

Da Panda & I were flinging daggers with our eyeballs at Milo because she closed when we had a chance to build reserves whilst Divad was incapacitated, worse still she didn’t even have that much loot when she did close. Our suspicions of collusion between these two grow stronger by the week.

By the third game, Divad only needed $27,000 to take the ultimate title of "Drug Lord Fancypants". Needless to say the heat was on him right from the get go but it was too little too late to delay his inevitable win.

Time Taken: 30 minutes

Results Of Game
Winna – Divad ($253,000)
2nd – Milo ($155,000)
3rd – Hayen ($138,000)
Dead Last – Da Panda ($25,000) [Embarrassing]

Memorable In-Game Comments:
When discarding a money card:
Hayen
"What kind of drug dealer are you?"

Milo: "Its so weird to play a drug dealing game."
Hayen: "Isn’t it weirder how young we were when we learnt how to play it?"
Milo: "Yeah"

In the mind of Hayen:
"And we'll hide out in the private rooms
With the latest dictionary of today's who's who
They'll get you anything with that evil smile
Everybody's got a drug dealer on speed dial

Well, hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar"

Rating: 7/10

Session – 7 Wonders

Player(s):
Da Panda
Divad
Hayen
Milo

It was another round of weirdness in 7 Wonders. Milo – Divad – Da Panda – Me made the circle and Divad & I lost every single battle against the two sisters throughout the three ages. We both also didn’t have much brown resource cards which frustrated the sisters no end.

I decided to use yellow commerce cards to buy / get resources cheaply & focused on my technology cards, ending up with a solid 3x3 setup for a sweet 48 points.

I’m so proud, I’ve never pulled off a 3x3 setup before

How I didn’t manage to win this round confounds me but apparently with 100% wins from both sides plus a slew of civic cards was enough to give Milo the win in this game.

Time Taken: 30 minutes

Results Of Game
Winna – Milo (61 Points)
2nd – Hayen (51 Points)
3rd – Da Panda (46 Points)
Dead Last – Divad (36 Points)

This is your unexpected winner… again

Rating: 9/10