Day Four

Power Grid

Today I taught Power Grid to a group of five others (and could have played the six player game, but it worked much better just facilitate instead). I was happy to see that the group was picking up the game rather quickly. They were just starting to get into the swing of things (having played two complete rounds) when we were give a 10-15 minute warning. They managed to play another two rounds before we had to call it a game and switch groups around. They all said they wished they could have finished and wanted to be able to play a whole game again, so I plan on bringing the game to Game Night on Thursday for anyone who wants to join in for a complete game. I did get some more suggestions on how to teach the game more effectively from them, but overall I felt like my practice teaching on Sunday was useful, so I am glad I did it.

Betrayal at House on the Hill

The next session of games I had played most of the ones that were being taught in that session. Thankfully (unthankfully?) there was plenty of room at House on the Hill. I should have taken that as an "Omen"... This game begins cooperatively, until certain conditions are met, at which time, one player becomes the Betrayer who attempts to stop the rest of the group from completing their task. The players explore a house one room at a time, using characters with different Mental (Sanity and Knowledge) and Physical (Speed and Might) stats, and as the tiles in the house are turned over, Event, Item, and Omen cards are revealed and affect the players. There are a huge number of scenarios and the setup of the house is always different. The scenario is selected based on the Omen that triggers the betrayal and where it was collected, making it very difficult to get the same scenario twice in a row (or maybe ever!) This game we decided was finished at the point we stopped at because the Betrayer was being beaten up by multiple other players and those players were about to win anyway. It was a very interesting game and I am glad there was space for me to join it. By the last few turns we had gathered a crowd of others who had already finished their own games, partially because the game looked interesting and partially because we were getting very loud at points.

Today was a pretty fun day full of games. I would have played another, but I picked one that needed more people than I could convince to play, so I will have to play it some other time.