Sunday Samples

Alright so I’ve decided to try to dedicate myself to getting at least one Sunday report out a week.

With this in mind I’m going to say this now, sometimes, life happens.

Nevertheless I can find the time today and here I am, wanting to write about my gaming experiences this week which for the most part can be summed up with one word.

Takenoko.

I've been looking at reviews of it for awhile now, I saw it on the gencon videos and seriously who wouldn't be interested in a game that has a panda eating bamboo!?!?!? But no one here has it so we couldn't try it out, and I couldn't justify buying it based on 'it looks cool'. Tom Vasel [review] says good things about it, he's even got the super duper special GIANT edition of it which I’m utterly jealous of. And yet still it wasn't a particularly strong argument for purchasing a game blind (we've had a few failures). When Tabletop [episode] played it and my husband said that it looked cool, and a day later OzGamesShop.comemailed me with news of them restocking that very same game...the stars were aligned to my satisfaction (there was also a spectacularly bad day in there that required retail therapy to aid in the recovery from) and much to my bank accounts chagrin I bought us a copy.

Three days ago it arrived on our doorstep.

Since then we've played three games, one with just DH and myself, one with my parents, and one with some family friends.

What do we think if it?

We really enjoy it. It's light, although the theme is very clear for us. The Panda is cute! The non gamers we've played with picked it up quite well. The Panda is cute! Us as gamers really enjoyed the light strategy and mild chance that it provides. The Panda is Cute. And we're thinking miss 5 will be able to play it with little to no adaptation for her ability. AND THE PANDA IS CUTE!

The only criticism I've managed to come up with is that for a are that is based on colours as much as it is the panda and the bamboo there should be symbols for the colours also to cater for those who are colour blind.

DH's (Dukayn) spot!

He won't write (mind you I haven't asked him to yet so I don't really know) but he will talk to me about the games we play and this is what he said about Takenoko.

Quote: 'apart from that [his short list of cons] I love the game, it's really really cool.'

Pros:

Language independent

components are excellent

mechanics are solid

strategy is light but good.

Cons:

the dice, it's a natural wooden finish, and the pastel-ish colours they've used for it can be hard to read. If the colours for the symbols are desired then a darker dice (black) ought to be used. But the symbols do not need to be coloured, if they were all in black then the wooden finish dice would work just fine.

He also seriously dislikes the small cards

~~end spot~~

So all in all a positive review which I know is not what this blog is about but heck it's a gaming blog it's gunna happen.

I am hoping to within the next week have a go at the game with miss 5 and have something fro her to share on the game as well as how well it plays scaling it to her level.  We think we won't have to change much to be honest.

As for the rest of the week, last night we got HAMMERED by 'Pandemic'. OMG we've never lost like that before, it was brutal.  I believe we all got two turns and that was it, show over, the outbreaks were 3/4 of the way to wiping us out and we ran out of yellow virus cubes in the tray with such speed we didn't have time to really make a dent in the damage.  It was truly an impressive loss, made me think of a line from a P!nk song "Some times i wan to slap you in your whole face"  not just one cheek but both, at once.

 Forbidden Desert was in some ways meaner because it teased us, let us think we might succeed and then just as we were making the mad dash for the finish line we all died of thirst.

Plans for next week are to get another new game (it's in the post already) 'Duck Duck Go!', but we won't get to play that till after xmas day as it's a present for miss 4. I'm hoping it arrives in time, because the extra ducks I ordered for it have already arrived We're also getting two of the little 3 dice expansions for 'Rory's Story Cubes' as well for miss 5's stocking. Also I need to get into town and put 'Seasons' on layby in our local gaming shop, Area 52, they have it and it's expansion in for me, they are very very patient with me.

Mostly thus time of year is sooooo busy that it's hard to get much gaming done but now I have a goal, to have something to talk about on Sunday mornings.

I'll have other blogs coming up through the week, but if life swallows me whole in the meantime, I’ll see you next Sunday