Bunker Project Log

In a typical fit of diva-esque luxurizing, Mrs. G refused to play anything unless I made it possible for her to do so without getting her ass off the couch.

I don’t know if it is slavish devotion, or just pure will to play, but I managed a solution which involved moving my matching couch (don’t ask… these couches were her idea) opposite hers, and then clever placement of a card table. In the end, it worked just fine. (Except for the stresses of playing a board game from a supine position, since I am 6ft+. She, being about three apples high, had nary a problemo.)

We started with Pandemic, and cured three diseases before being munched alive by the black cubes of Karachi. I was ready for another go. She was stressed out, so I went to the couples stash, and found Carcassonne: The Castle.

This is one of the more highly regarded couples games on the geek, and in my never-ending quest to consume the universe, I bought.

First off, I love Carcassonne. It was the first board game I bought for my collection, and started the whole obsession rolling. (In actuality, it was a present for Mrs. G, and I keep the receipt around to remind myself of how simple purchases can really enhance screw up ruin affect your life.)

This game, however, is not Carcassone. Or at least, you better not play it like Carcassone, or you will be boned, as I was.

I’ll start with the scoring track. Unlike Carcassonne, this is actually the boundary of the play area. No more wandering around willy nilly.

(That’s cardboard shavings, not a dandruff explosion, for those of you wondering.)

Another interesting feature are the special tiles placed face down around the scoring track. If you happen to land on one of these spaces, you are awarded the tile. There are several different varieties, granting special scoring options. Some of these are used during the game, but most used at the ending scoring session.

Placing tiles is also a little weird. You are given a lot of latitude, and the only real rules are that:

1) you must place a tile next to an existing tile, or project from a wall start area, like you can see at spaces 74 and 75 in the picture above.

2) roads must connect to other roads, or may be terminated into castle walls.

Placing meeples is similar to the original, except, there is a new kind of structure, the house (shown with the red roofs) and the farmers have become merchants.

The biggest difference is… there is no scoring for incomplete stuff!

I always thought it was a little weird in Carc, that there is almost no penalty for incomplete structures, other than your follower is locked up until the end of game. Not so with Castle. Here you are double-boned. No returned meeple, and you get jack at the end.

In the pic below, I have a massive kickass castle that would have netted me at least 30 points, but I could never get that final piece in. Same goes for my wicked road with lots of point-enhancing wells.?

In the end, Mrs’ G’s cheap four point moves (like the one-point castles in the original) ended up winning the game for her. She scored a massive 116 points! (That’s a complete go around the track.)

My serpentine ginormous half-ass castles, houses, and roads got me a whopping 35 points. I was pwn3d.

Of course, Carcassonne: The Castle has rocketed up to the top of Mrs. G’s favorites list.

I’ve been on the lookout for 2-player games to play with Mrs. G. The problem is, I’ve been really obsessed with theme lately, and she just wants simple rules. Luckily, Mr. Jack has both, with lots of decisions to boot.

In a nutshell, Mr. Jack is played by two players, one trying to catch Mr. Jack, the other trying to get Mr. Jack out of the city.

There are eight characters on the board, one of whom is Mr. Jack in disguise.

Only the player helping Mr. Jack knows who Mr. Jack really is. In this game, Mr. Jack is Dr. Watson.

Mr. Jack, hidden!

The game is played over the course of eight turns, denoted by the turn counter on the right side of the board.

On each odd-numbered turn, the eight character cards are shuffled.

Then the first four character cards are revealed

The inspector chooses one character to move first. Then Mr. Jack plays the next two. Finally, the Inspector moves the fourth and final character.

On the even numbered turns, the remaining four cards are revealed. In this turn, Mr. Jack chooses first, followed by two for the Inspector, and the final for Mr. Jack.

At the end of each turn, the player helping Mr. Jack must reveal whether Mr. Jack is seen or unseen. By flipping the Mr. Jack card to the appropriate side.

Seen

Unseen

Characters that are within one hex of a light, or any other character are seen, everyone else is unseen.

In this turn, Mr. Jack was unseen, which means that any character in the light is exonerated, and are flipped over to their white side.

Each character has special abilities, each one powerful enough to foil virtually any plan you can think up.?

John Smith can turn swap a single lamp at the beginning or end of his movement. This could make a whole slew of characters seen or unseen in a single stroke.

Jeremy Bert, the reporter, can move the manhole covers, opening or blocking a quick exit.

The manhole cover, not actually covering a manhole.

The detective moves the police blockades. There are four exits on the map, and two blockades.

From my limited plays, the broad strategy is for the inspector to keep everyone in the center of the board, away from the exits, but split between seen and unseen. Mr. Jack wants to spread everyone out to the periphery (and thus, the exits) whilst keeping everyone in the same state of seen or unseen.

I have only played four times, and botched the rules the middle two. The fourth I played after explaining the rules very well, and it was tough. (This might have something to do with the kibitzing amongst the three people I was actually playing against.) I won the game, but only when the kibitzers walked away. 🙂

Mrs. G creamed me though. (Even after her brilliant opening move of placing everyone in the light, hee hee.)

Okay, I’ve got 21 minutes to post this before Mrs. G catches on and puts me to work…. so if it’s sloppy, tough.

Anyway, Mrs. G and I took Lost Cities for a spin. This is one of the most often recommended couples games on the Geek. I was also recommended this by a Bunker attendee who shall be known as “THE”.

The idea behind the game is that you are sponsoring expeditions. These are represented by color-coded cards numbered 2 – 10, as well as 3 “investment” cards for each suit. The cards themselves show a progression of the expedition to the goal. The 2 card shows the beginning of the trail, and the 10 shows the final achievement.

Each player starts with 8 cards, and then takes one of two actions, either laying down a card on an expedition (in ascending order), or discarding a card. Once the action is complete, you draw a single card from the deck.

Here I have played my cards in three expeditions.

The game ends the second the last card is taken from the draw pile.

The complicated part of the game is the scoring. You tally up each expedition, and subtract 20 from the total. The 20 represents the costs to mount an expedition. From there, you multiply the result by one plus the number of investment cards played at the start of the expedition. If the expedition was negative, then the multiplier is applied to the negative number. Ouch!

Here’s how you would score the pic above:

Red Expedition: 34 – 20 = 14
Green Expedition: (21 – 20) * (1 + 1 investment card) = 2
Blue Expedition: (34 – 20) * (1 + 1 investment card) = 28
Total: 44 Points

Here is a more disastrous example:

Green Expedition: (27 – 20) * (1 + 1 investment card) = 14
White Expedition: (19 – 20) * (1 + 3 investment cards) = -4
Blue Expedition: (16 – 20) * (1 + 1 investment card) = -8
Yellow Expedition: (16 – 20) * (1 + 1 investment card) = -8
Total: -6 Points

The game is fast, and often it is hard to keep track of who went last, and whether or not it is your turn… or maybe it is that way because Mrs. G is a spazz.

Because of this, I suspect we will play it again. Yet another great filler between epic 2-player Twilight Imperium plays. Boo-yah!

(And I went 10 minutes over.)