MBT from 2-15-8

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

O:8S 3.2 Well, it's 3 weeks into the project, and I am not exactly taking giant strides towards my goal of playing my way through my game collection. So far, the grand total stands at a whopping 3: Obscurity, Mindtrap, and Taboo. A rather pleasant Sunday gathering with Donna and Tom lets me put a check in the 'played' column for those particular games. I must say that Taboo may be the only card based game of it's type that has such a long shelf life. With games like Trivial Pursuit, it seems like the whole game just gets stale and uninteresting after a while. I always end up playing TP with a group where one person knows all the answers, and another person doesn' t know any of the answers, which doesn't make for a real good time. I have yet to have such an experience with Taboo. Aside from a few dated references, it always end up being a good time, no matter who's playing. I must've played my way through that box of cards 2 or 3 times over the years, but it's still a riot. Taboo rates pretty high on my list of 'must have' games. Unfortunately, on this particular evening, the menfolk suffered narrow loss to the ladies. From the beginning, it was pretty obvious that we wern't going to be the winners, but the final score was closer than I had thought it was going to be. Long story short, as a good mixed group game, you can't go wrong playing Taboo. My only gripe would be the rather casual scoring method used by most groups, but as long as you have fun, I guess it doesn't really matter. Mindtrap, though interesting, reminded me a lot of the 5 minute mysteries I used to read all the time when I was in grade school. It also reminded me of the little problems you might be given during a team building exercise. Might have been the mix of people on this particular evening, but this one didn't really engage the group. In fact, one of my team members decided that it was a good opportunity to take a brief nap. Maybe this one would be better used as a puzzle-a-day calendar, or extra credit brainteasers, but it just didn't make a hit with our group. If you see a copy at a garage sale, by all means, pick it up, and give your brain a workout. Obscurity proved to be the hit of the evening (Thanks again and good going, Nik!!). Somewhat like Boggle on steroids, but without the annoying clatter, this word search type game proved very playable. Some minor confusion regarding scoring rules aside, game mechanics were easy to understand. This is another game like Scattergories, whre you have a period of near silent thinking time punctuated by a conversational scoring period. WARNING: this is not a good game for groups where a member is not a good speller, or reader, for that matter.Just like Scrablbe, Boggle, or Upwords, lack of spelling skills show up rather quickly in the scores. There was one such person in our group on Sunday. I also discovered that although the name of the game is Obscurity, the way the game defines an obscure word is based more on what words are not easily seen on the various letter grids, as opposed to a 14th century Finnish word for pickle. The game cards and scoring pegs store insdie the board itself, which is a nice hard plastic with a sliding lid. It's a nice change from seein gall those crushed and caved in cardboard boxes on the game shelf. It is also a nice size, being about 8 inches square and a couple of inches high. If it sounds interesting to you, you may have to look a little to find this one, but it is a real gem of a game. QUICK NOTES: *Only 290 days till Halloween, people! Plans are already in the works for this year's gathering, so be ready! The exact date hasn't been set yet, but I will be working hard to make it bigger and better that last year's event. And, to Miss Diagnosed, please feel free to grace us with your presence yet once again. *A sample of the sounds of my everyday life, thanks to Cro-mag: clink clink rattle clank clatter Damn it clink clink rustle clatter clink clank plink tink rattle Damn Damn Damn tink tink tink tink rattle clatter tink tink clank tink tink tink rattle clank tink tink tink Fuck it, I wonder if Mythbusters is on.... *What event at the rodeo did vicky like best? The calf roping!! (it's a leg joke, get it? Take another painkiller, and it's more funny....) *Insulating an attic: a suck suck sucky job. *Best thing to come out of the holiday season: The story of the Christmas mouse, and the bells of St. Crappus.