Satyrday

[jazzfish]

More on Strain 121: "Not only did Strain 121 survive such autoclaving, its population doubled in 24 hours at such heat and pressure." [from uilos]

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Satyrday we got up, drove out to Winchester and picked up the truck, came back, and went over to Jake Davenport's day of games, and much fun was had. Played a large number of games, hung out with very cool people. Games included:

• Sheep Carcassonne (I forget its real name). Interesting, but ultimately only okay.
  
• Jake's Pirate Game, whose name escapes me. It's a much better game than it was when I first played it a couple years ago, but it still doesn't really grab me. I think I just don't like games where the point is to profit directly at the expense of another player. Not just all players-- it involves targeting a specific player.This is part of why I don't play Dip so much these days (well, plus the twelve-hour playtime).
  
• Scarab Lords, Reiner Knizia's attempt at a CCG-type game. Interesting mechanic, but the two decks seem to be way unbalanced.
  
• Why Did the Chicken, Kory Heath's party game. A cross between Apples to Apples and Balderdash with some Nanofic thrown in for good measure. Highly amusing.
  
• High Rise, Kory's abstract strategy game. Reminds me of Quandary. I'm really looking forward to seeing this one published.
  
• Kingdoms, a cool tile-laying game.
  
• Paradigm, a sort of Zendo-like Kory game of colored tiles and pattern-finding. Very cool, although the setup is kind of a pain (you have to get a non-player to make a pattern for you).
  
• And of course Werewolf. Three games of. The first two were kind of normal, but the third...

I turned over my card for the third Werewolf game, and it said "Seer." I thought, "Okay, it's been awhile, I can do Seer." Wunderland starts Werewolf with no kill and no Seer vision, so the first day is kind of weird. The people next to me are a very tired (or tired-acting) Emily, and Liam. Time passes on the first day, and Jake gets everyone ready to lynch Liam, who in desperation shouts "I'm the seer!" I blink. How odd. No lynching the first day-- not enough support for Kory, Jake's other target. That night I check Kory, who turns out to be innocent.

Morning rolls around, and Liam (surprise, surprise) has lived. This weirds out the entire village, who firmly believe that the wolves should have mauled him. He tells them that he's looked at Kory during the night and Kory is innocent. So the village declares Kory and Liam to be officially Above Suspicion and starts looking for someone else to kill. As the day goes on I get really weirded out by the whole thing (I was way too tired to be playing this odd a game) and consider telling Liam I'm the seer-- it's not like he can maul me without dying the next day! Finally a villager gets lynched (damn) and I get mauled that night (double damn), resulting in the Death of Liam the next morning in record time.

The other werewolf went on to win, alas, after which the three of us went home and crashed.