Blight

Arkham Horror

Last night I went over to the Beav's den with Lobo, and he had us try out his new board game, Arkham Horror.

It seems really complicated at first, and in fact it is a little, but we got the hang of it pretty easily. Something that really impressed me was the fact that the game is cooperative. Usually board games pit player against player, or at least a team of players versus another team. Arkham Horror played more like a cooperative computer game in the sense that we played against the game itself.

It works like this: A team of investigators work to prevent an ancient evil from awakening in the town of Arkham while the town goes to hell in a handbasket. Every turn the clock to doomsday ticks one stroke closer to the end, a portal to an other worldly dimension opens, and monsters spew onto the town streets. The players have to defeat or elude the monsters while arming themselves with weapons, allies, spells and trinkets in order to ultimately close and permanently seal the portals. If they can seal enough portals in time, the ancient evil's return is defeated and you win, otherwise the evil awakes and the players lose.

The pieces and board are really well designed and look great. There are perhaps a few too many tokens but sometimes that's part of the fun I guess.

Board Game Geek has a great write-up on the new 2005 edition, and I would definitely recommend the game to others after my experience with it. I think the cooperative part makes it a lot of fun because players are encouraged to help each other, and less rules are "accidentally" kept secret by the game owner (I'm looking at you Beav!)

EDIT: I thought this game was pretty complicated, what with all the pieces, until I saw this photo. I can't really imagine any parents buying all of these pieces for their children. Must have been pretty cool to play with though. And what's with the metal headband on that kid in the middle?

Labels: board game

posted by Blight @ 8:24 PM 4 comments

The Prairies Beckon

It's coming, you know it is: time to spend time with family and friends, time to eat delicious food and stuff yourself with treats, time to exchange cards and gifts and thoughts and wishes.

Christmas.

And what would Christmas be without Ginger Bread Men? And Ginger Bread Angels, and Snow-People, and disembodied heads?


I look forward to seeing everyone in the prairies, umpteen feet of snow and all.

posted by Blight @ 3:33 AM 2 comments

Cleveland Take 2

I just got back from another week of business travel. Cleveland again, and I still didn't get a chance to see the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or anything other than the inside of two airports, one rental car, two hotels, one restaurant, and one office building.

Two hotels you ask, well I thought I would be coming back earlier and checked out of the first hotel before I realized that I would have to stick around for another night. The first hotel had pillows that were just too hard, and the second hotel had pillows that were too soft. I guess if I had ended up staying in a third hotel it would have been just right and Goldie Locks would have taken my bed!

Actually the business partners I was working with were pretty cool. Their office has this crazy coffee machine that takes drink packets and then instant-brews whichever drink you throw in it. They had hot chocolate, various coffees, lattes, and even Japanese macha. It definitely had a "dot-com" feel to it, what with the $1000 designer chairs and curved white-board walls.

Despite several wink-wink nod-nod attempts to recruit me I made it back to Canada with the same employer as I had when I left.

One odd thing, was the reaction of customs when I came back. "Two laptops? Why do you have two laptops? I don't even own one laptop." And then I was sent to the bad place where they inspect your stuff. I was let off once they realized that yes I had the laptops when I left the country in the first place, and the laptops were company property.

Labels: business trip, Cleveland, Ohio

posted by Blight @ 2:35 AM 9 comments