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Cory and I are on our way to Lisa’s house, where we will be spending the night before heading out to the Oregon coast. It will be awesome to see her and Libby!
Tonight, I am looking forward to seeing a good friend and being able to hang out with her. She lured use to stay with the promise of grilled steaks and halibut. Bribery always works with us. Just kidding!
(I am realizing how rusty I am on writting an entertaining blog entry. A prime example of why I “need” an iPhone.)
Cory is looking forward to purchasing a unicycle from Serious Juggling. Travis bought one back in May. The guys had fun riding it when everyone camping in June.
“We are champions of the world…”
This moment brought to you by Queen. You just have to stop and sing-a-long.
(It was on the radio.)
The following is an exerpt from the great American novel that I have spent countless hours working on. (Cory demands a byline on this great masterpiece. He may or may not have filled in the nouns, verbs, and adjectives.)
“Huh?” said the dude looking puzzled as the diminutive, flaxen haired female hurtled exploring questions at him. As he realized the ginormousness of her question. He paused thoughtfully before answering, “People are people. So why should it be. You and I should get along so awfully.” He then went on to explain the rational for this obsequious statement. “You see, when a pygmy neutral beats his olive colored drum, the primal forces of Estonia come together and shake hands with the diplomatic forces of the neutral planet.”
“Ah. Thanks for explaining the turgid political climate of the country of Trinidad and Tobago,” said the blonde. Both passengers in the rickshaw, sat back and stared quizzically over the head of Brock Lesnar who pulled their rickshaw into the dark night.
So, what do people think? Will I be able to get a book deal? Be honest!
Okay, so I was bored during the drive down to Portland and made up my own Mad Libs. Just as we got done with it and were laughing at our own cleverness, we ended up at Lisa’s. (Man, being a smart ass does make the time fly.)
Have a good night y’all!
We spent our fourth of July out in Seabeck with Cory’s Mom Debbie, her husband Neil, and his friend Rob.
The day was spent sleeping in, making waffles, and playing games. I was able to work on the sweater that has been giving me a headache when I think about putting it together.
Debbie spent some quality time reading to her new kitten Sunny. She is getting her ready for LOL cat training.
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!
Almost every list of gateway games includes Settlers, Ticket, and Carcassonne. I’m a bit tired of reviewing Eurogames, so for my last installment of gateway games I give you…
Zombies!
I’m sure many of the gamers out there that see this will think, “What?!? That’s not a gateway game!” However, I beg to differ. Zombies! is a great Ameritrash gateway game. And let’s see how it meets the criteria.
- Simple: Check. Shoot zombies and/or escape.
- Fun: Check. Everyone seems to enjoy it when they play.
- Non-threatening: Check. Yes, check. People are familiar with zombies, what you do with zombies (hint: it involves shotguns or chainsaws), and most zombie movie clichés. In fact, there’s a large segment of the population that seems to have an unhealthy obsession with zombies.
RIP. He's dancing with zombie angels now.
Outside of the random criteria that I made up, it’s gone over well with everyone we’ve played it with or lent it to, including: a therapist friend, a French immigrant, a buddy of mine from college, a 50 year old divorcée friend of Hydee’s and her 24 year old Korean exchange student boarder, two hipster type people I lent it to at work, and my mom. That’s a pretty wide spectrum sample if I do say so myself.
Zombies! starts with everyone on one tile in the town square. You start with three bullet tokens and three heart tokens.
First turn
Second turn
On their turn, each person draws a tile and places it on their turn (personally, I’m a fan of tile games since it means you get variations in the board). Depending on the tile placed, you may put zombies, bullets, or hearts in the various buildings.
The person then draws a card, rolls to move, and moves their avatar that amount of spaces. If that person encounters a zombie, they fight by rolling a die. Four or better means a win, but if you roll lower, you still have options. Each bullet token you spend adds one to the die and each heart token allows a reroll. Cards can be played to help you or hinder opponents as well, though you can only play one card per round. If you kill a zombie, you add it to your collection. If you run out of heart tokens, you die and reanimate in the town square (minus half your zombies). At the end of the turn, you roll a die and move that many zombies one space.
Late in the game
The winner is either a) the first one to kill 20 zombies or b) the first one to make it to the helipad when that tile is drawn.
Good luck dude!
The upside is that it’s simple and fun. There are, unfortunately, a lot of downsides. Movement variation is wide (someone rolling ones feels cheated when someone else is rolling sixes) and when the helipad is drawn, you sometimes feel it’s impossible to get there. The cards can be very vindictive and some people can feel frustrated by them. The game can drag on a bit as well, which is against the fast and fun mechanic that works well for it.
However, there are some good house rule variants out there. The ones I plan on trying are that movement equals health +2, the helipad is placed by the person with the most zombie kills, and possibly that death means you turn into a super zombie.
So what are mine and Hydee’s feelings on it? (out of a possible 5 brains)
Cory: 
Hydee:
