I'm Back.... Mostly

I'll save you all the long story.  The short of things is this.  Health problems stink.  Sitting in doctor offices stinks.  Not having answers is trying, deeply trying.

But never fear.  I am getting better, somewhat.  Enough that I can play games, and write about them.  So here's what I've been doing lately.

I've been playing a lot of two player games. Yep, that's right, I have a girlfriend who loves games almost as much as I do.  So, lots of Lost Cities, Dominion, Ticket to Ride, Star Trek Attack Wing, Love Letter, and even some Skip-Bo.

So I'm going to do a splattering of gaming impressions over the last several months.

Marvel Dice Masters - I managed to get some stuff before it disappeared between print runs.  I like the game, dislike the collectable nature.  I think it offers a lot of choices in team building and game play.  Lots of luck, but also good skill.  I'm not going to get into the tournament scene, but I do enjoy the game.

California - Older game that my gf bought.  Interesting puzzle type game with some worthwhile choices.  Not an amazing game, but one I enjoy from time to time.

Rise of Augustus - Essentially gamer Bingo, but still a fun game.  Not much in the way of choices, but it's a good filler game, and one you don't have to think too hard about.  It does reward wise use of what's called, so you can't completely shut down.  I like it, don't love it.

Dust - Older FFG game.  Interesting mechanics, interesting game, not meant for 3 players.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf - Fun party game.  Doesn't replace Resistance/Avalon for me, but acts as a shorter counterpart.

Bang! The Dice Game - Much better than Bang the card game.  Plays faster, still fun to watch after you've been eliminated.  Doesn't drag on forever since not much alters range.

Qwixx - Amazingly fun dice game.  Absolute keeper for simplicity and choices you have to make during the game.

Coin Age - Only played once, not overly thrilled with it.  Not a bad game for 5 minutes, but also not the most intuitive thing.  Scoring is a little convoluted for such a short game.

Splendor - Awesome game.  It clicks with my brain in terms of building up to get bigger and better cards.  Very simple turns, but a lot of planning to make everything work together.

Coup - Interesting bluffing game.  The jury is still out on this one.  I got a couple of rules wrong, which means I need to play it again, but I like the core of the game.  It's going to take several plays to really be comfortable with the full bluffing that exists.

And that's the new stuff I've been playing lately.  I'm still playing Star Trek Attack Wing (STAW) a bunch. I'm even co-hosting a video podcast about the game called State of the Federation.  More info at this Youtube link.  I make my debut in episode 008.

So, going forward things are going to be a bit different.  I'm still going to put my thoughts about games out there, but I doubt I'll be doing any formal reviews.  Also not going to do much in the way of monthly recaps or stuff like that.  I do want to put up a few STAW articles, so look for those soon.

To anyone still out there, thanks for coming back and staying around during my absence.  Hopefully I won't be gone that long again.