CUSFS games
Mar. 19th, 2007 04:20 pmFriday night was CUSFS games evening. This was almost entirely new CUSFS, but full and fun.
Poohsoc people came too (hi!) stressing the forming giant geek collective :)
There was zendo, which was pleasant. Rules were guessed which were simple and elegant, and had pretty koans. I'm trying to articulate the sort of rule I want to make, but can't manage better than "one that makes everyone laugh when they work it out"...
There was a game I can't remember the name of. Have a grid of indented hexagons with lots of balls resting on, and take it in turns to drop a ball on other balls. The aim is place all your balls: balls which end up on hexagons of the same colour are deleted.
Any game that uses real physics is really fun. You could do something similar with dice somehow or other. But watching a ball skitter chaotically (literally) from hexagon to hexagon once they're jarred loose is really cool. You have an intuitive understanding of how the rules work, despite not having seen the game before, because much of them rely on your already-understood notions of dynamics.
And there was a massive 15-player game of roborally. The quote sums it up, "For the first two and a half hours, it was pretty fun." I'm glad I did it, though probably it's something to be done only once, as it is insane.
Variants making robots race past each other are 100% more fun. Demolition derby may be over the top, but configurations designed to produce interactions are good. Watching six robots skitter back and forth on a conveyor-belt as half tried to move one way and half the other was worth the price of admission. A long solitary dash to the last checkpoint was not very fun.
I did eventually win though, though Ed was close behind at the end as I stalled for about four turns due to having three damage and no good cards. In your face, people good at roboralley! :)
The most satisfying moment was breaking from back end of the pack with two judiciously-timed-dealt move-three cards to dash across the maelstrom board, and due to a robotic arm tag the checkpoint on the conveyor past as everyone ahead fought to disembark. Followed about two turns of me scooting round the conveyor to the next checkpoint while everyone argued about who was in the lead, until I made a break onto the next board and everyone languishing in a big pileup said "Wait, did you touch the checkpoint already? Maybe I'm not in the lead after all" :)
Then I came home and got six hours of sleep.
Poohsoc people came too (hi!) stressing the forming giant geek collective :)
There was zendo, which was pleasant. Rules were guessed which were simple and elegant, and had pretty koans. I'm trying to articulate the sort of rule I want to make, but can't manage better than "one that makes everyone laugh when they work it out"...
There was a game I can't remember the name of. Have a grid of indented hexagons with lots of balls resting on, and take it in turns to drop a ball on other balls. The aim is place all your balls: balls which end up on hexagons of the same colour are deleted.
Any game that uses real physics is really fun. You could do something similar with dice somehow or other. But watching a ball skitter chaotically (literally) from hexagon to hexagon once they're jarred loose is really cool. You have an intuitive understanding of how the rules work, despite not having seen the game before, because much of them rely on your already-understood notions of dynamics.
And there was a massive 15-player game of roborally. The quote sums it up, "For the first two and a half hours, it was pretty fun." I'm glad I did it, though probably it's something to be done only once, as it is insane.
Variants making robots race past each other are 100% more fun. Demolition derby may be over the top, but configurations designed to produce interactions are good. Watching six robots skitter back and forth on a conveyor-belt as half tried to move one way and half the other was worth the price of admission. A long solitary dash to the last checkpoint was not very fun.
I did eventually win though, though Ed was close behind at the end as I stalled for about four turns due to having three damage and no good cards. In your face, people good at roboralley! :)
The most satisfying moment was breaking from back end of the pack with two judiciously-timed-dealt move-three cards to dash across the maelstrom board, and due to a robotic arm tag the checkpoint on the conveyor past as everyone ahead fought to disembark. Followed about two turns of me scooting round the conveyor to the next checkpoint while everyone argued about who was in the lead, until I made a break onto the next board and everyone languishing in a big pileup said "Wait, did you touch the checkpoint already? Maybe I'm not in the lead after all" :)
Then I came home and got six hours of sleep.