I didn't see much of the kids this week due to work committments each night, so I was eager to sit down and spend some quality time tonight.  We decided to play a game and I suggested something we hadn't yet tried as a family - Robo Rally.  I purchased this game used from KC and first played it at Sun River earlier this year.

I'm a big fan of programming games - probably has something to do with my software development background.  Simultaneous planning adds an interesting amount of chaos and randomness as well, which keeps things exciting.  The game was easy to explain and other than one bit of rules confusion (do you refresh your entire hand each turn, or keep leftover cards?  Turns out you refresh...), we got underway quickly.

Everything was fine and dandy at the start of our Robo Rally game!

I could tell from the start that this would be a great experience for the family.  The unpredictability of opponents' moves, the complexity of plotting, and learning the workings of the various board elements kept everyone guessing.

Julie and Jacob picked up the programming quickly, making a few small orientation mistakes early on but then adapting to plot things out more carefully in their minds.  Matthew, on the other hand, couldn't quite grasp the notion of turning and orientation.  He was always thinking in terms of absolute position, i.e., if the programming card says “Turn Right” then his robot will be turned to the right side of the board.  Needless to say, this caused a great deal of confusion for him and led to a quick demise (three consecutive kills of his robot by running off the board).  Tears ensued and we had some serious child gamer meltdown on our hands.  He did cheer up quickly, but I don't think this is a great game for him yet.  It will be a great way for him to learn programming though, or vice versa.  Perhaps if I spend some time teaching him Logo, he'd be more prepared for this game.

I was able to pull out a victory at the end while Julie and Jacob powered down to clear out their wounds (and, in the case of Julie, 3 locked registers!).  We played the intro scenario with two boards and two goals.

Come on over and join me in a game of Wallenstein.  The name of the game is Wildcard, password is “cubswin”.

Not only was this the opening weekend for the NFL (my Colts and Cowboys appear to be off to a stellar start.  At least the Seahawks won...), but Jacob and Matthew also began their football and soccer seasons.  Jacob continued his lifetime unbeaten football streak with a dominating win over Gladstone, while Matthew had a fun jamboree-style soccer game and had a pretty good showing.

Jacob once again is playing center on the first team.  Here he is working on snap practice before the game.  Jacob had his best game ever defensively, including a running-back sack about 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

Matthew having some fun kicking around before his game.

On Monday, Jacob and I ventured across town (about as far across town as you can imagine) to KC and Rita's home in Gresham.  KC, Rita, and I are planning a playtest day in November to further develop some of his game designs.  While we drilled down into the details, Jacob joined their kids for some HeroScape.

We combined our two sets, and the kids went crazy with their own design and scenario.  Half the fun with this game is the setup and playing with the minis.

Jacob designed an overhang ambush.  I wish I had focused on the guy inside to give a clearer view.

Jenna and her army.

Just in case you forgot how to fit your minis back into the plastic, here's your guide.

Taj Mahal has been on my must play list for quite some time based on reputation.  I knew next to nothing about the game, but found it easy to learn and very enjoyable to play.  I like it when I can think of a rational plan and execute against it, feeling at least a bit in control of my destiny.  Taj Mahal certainly offers that and more.  I managed to win, but I think they everyone was being kind.

Yesterday was the first day of school for Jacob (4th grade) and Matthew (2nd grade).  Jacob was a bit stressed for most of the weekend, and Matthew in typical second-born nature queried the night before “I wonder if I'll remember when I wake up in the morning that it's the first day of school?”  They both have great teachers and we're looking forward to more success inside and outside the classroom this school year.

We managed to spend Fri-Sun this weekend at Salishan.  We mixed in a bit of housework with some fun - best of all, Jan and David (Julie's mom and step-dad) were there to share some quality time with us.

I did some running and swimming Saturday morning, then took care of the boys while Jan, David, and Julie attended the annual Salishan leaseholder meeting.  The boys and I played a quick game of St. Petersburg, with Jacob giving a much better show this time around.  He's starting to get the sense of transition from cash flow to VP generation.  I think this is a great game to teach kids about cashflow (probably much better than Cashflow for Kids) and the time value of money.  I won the game easily, but I've also played quite a few training games on my PC.  After the game, we spent about 90 minutes practicing golf over at the Salishan course.  Golf isn't cheap there, so we reserve that as a luxury but they have a decent practice facility.  We spent about 30 minutes hitting balls and about an hour working on chipping by playing some games.  If you are spending time with a child teaching golf, I have a recommendation: focus on the short game! I guess the same applies for the adults as well...

I wanted to check out the outlet stores in Lincoln City for some clothes for the boys and, of course, see what's on hand at the KB Toy Outlet game section.  We scored a number of copies of the Mission Command series, which were buy 1 / second half price.  This worked out to about $11 for the entire series of three games.  Not bad, so I picked up 14 individual games for friends and family.

I'll talk about the rest of the weekend with photos below.

While Jacob, Matthew, and Jan explored the beach, David and I cracked open Mission Command Sea.  David grew up on some of the Avalon Hill classics, so was comfortable with the basic elements of a light wargame like this.  This was a close battle and ultimately came down to some unlikely dice rolls on his part; I think he played the better game.

Jan, Jacob, and Matthew took a nice hike south our access point, and managed to drag a good sized log back to our campfire spot.

Jan and David enjoying our campfire and a great meal on the beach.

I rarely get a chance to post photos of Julie and me, so here we are!

The sunset was dramatic Saturday evening.  At one point, the sun was shining through an eye-shaped slit in the clouds, which looked frighteningly like the Eye of Sauron.

On Sunday morning, we did some cleanup and housework and discussed plans for the next 2 months (flooring, furniture, etc.).  Jan and David left around noon, and Julie wanted to do some cleanup and prep work for next weekend's floor work, so I took the boys again. 

Matthew sporting his new sweatshirt from, you guessed it, the Old Navy outlet store.

The boys tried out the Mission Command Sea game in the morning and were quite impressed - this game is right up their alley.

In the afternoon, we gave the Mission Command Air game a try.  I thought this would be a rehash of the sea game, but the two are quite different.  This is a card driven game where you try to maneuver your airplane behind and in firing position to eliminate your enemies.  The planes wrap around the board, turning this into an somewhat abstract positional game.  There's a strong element of hand management as well.  The game is good, but not great - the endgame was a bit tedious, as it can be very difficult to get a firing solution and if both players are out of missiles it can drag on.

Got my latest issue of Counter magazine last week, and there was a nice article by Derek Carver about a trick taking card game he designed.  What made the article interesting was the narrative about how the game has evolved (primarily due to publisher guidance and pressure).  The game started as FÜNF, then became Chinkway (a play on the Italian Cinque), and now is published by daVinci as Farfalia.  The rules look very interesting and should be worth a play - you can find the rules for the 5-player-only game Chinkway at Pagat.

Thanks to Aaron Haag and his post over at BGG, I've just learned that there's a PC version of St. Petersburg available for download.  If you are an English speaker, be sure to download the English resource file and save it to the top level install directory for the application (not the Hilfe subdirectory).

Jacob and I went over to Ken & Brandon's house this weekend to try out a two-board game of Memoir '44 Overlord.  Days of Wonder was kind enough to give me another copy of the game for my work at GenCon, and I gave this to the Rudes knowing how much they've enjoyed the game (and likely will enjoy it in the future).

Overlord is a style of play whereby one player on each team plays the role of commander-in-chief, governing the distribution of command cards to one or more field generals who are responsible for certain sections of the board.  Ideally this version is played with 3 or 4 players on a side to allow for separate individual control of the left, center, and right sections.  We decided to wing it a bit with 2 vs. 2, with decent results.

Ken setting up the Omaha Beach - Overlord scenario.

There is only one officially published overlord scenario - Omaha Beach - so that's what we played.  Setup takes a while, around 15 minutes, but cleanup is even longer considering the co-mingling of the parts.

Final setup before starting the Omaha beach scenario.

We adopted the overlord rules a bit for 2-player.  We had one player take the role of commander-in-chief, deciding how to dole out the command cards.  Jacob and Brandon wanted to team up, so in the first game they played the allies invading, while Ken and I played the Germans defending.  Jacob and I were the respective commanders-in-chief.  Brandon was in charge of the right flank and half of the center, Ken in charge of the left flank and half of the center (i.e., Ken and Brandon were facing off).

Each team starts with 8 command cards, and with certain restrictions up to three can be played in a given turn.  The CIC decides what card(s) to give to his field general, and that field general is required to take what he is given.  We were a bit lenient with Brandon and Jacob and allowed them to discuss cards, strategy, etc.  Ken and I assumed there was very little direct conversation so our communication was mostly in the form of card distribution.  This is a fairly tactical, reactive game in most cases so there isn't much room for discussion of grand strategy.

One flaw we believe there is in the overlord rules is the ability to use Recon command cards as if they were barrages.  In both of our games (we played then switched sides), recon/barrage was used over 5 times to eliminate the allied armor and weakened infantry units.

Jacob and Brandon celebrate their axis victory in game 2, winning 8-1.

In both games, the axis player was able to successfully defend Normandy.  The first game, where Ken and I played the axis, was very close, ending in an 8-5 score.  We were ahead 7-2 for a while, but the allies came storming back and made it a close game.  The second game wasn't even close, partly due to poor die rolls and partly due to the use of recon/barrage by the axis on the first 5 turns of the game.

In future games we'll likely take out that rule, or only allow it to be used once in the game.

Overall this was very satisfying - we completed 2 games and managed to complete setup and takedown in about 3 hours.  I think the overlord scenarios will play best with at least 3v3, with the CIC playing the center section.

I'm starting to think that anyone who wants a gmail account has one by now, but just in case, I have 6 invites available.  Leave a comment here if you'd like one.