the_wanlorn | Gaming Weekend

Oh WPI. I hated you and your stupid classes and your being on a hill and your C term and all that. And yet, for some reason, I am drawn back twice a year. Because Gaming Weekend is just that much fun.

So, every year, it gets to be the week before and I start thinking about trains and sleeping arrangements and giving away dues to the SFS there. Being me, I decide that it's all too much effort and I never really have fun anyway and I shouldn't go this year.

Then Thursday comes along and I think to myself "Well... I'll just bring a book and some knitting and a couple small things to entertain myself with, because it'll be nice to see Mikey and Alex and Tom's friends again, so I might as well go." So I pack up a small bag of stuff, tell Tom when to pick me up from the train station, and off I go.

And, invariably, I have metric fucktons of fun.

First off, they moved it from the basement of one of the dorms to the top floor of the Campus Center. I suppose that there's more room, but it just plain feels wrong. It's like GW is an actual school-sanctioned event (which it is, regardless of how it feels), as opposed to before, when it felt like a bunch of geeks getting together for a rip-roaring good time.

Plus, people tended to section off and it felt a lot more empty, because there was that much more room. There weren't as many people dropping into games as usual, and I don't think Apples to Apples was played for more than half an hour. Plus, it was a lot harder to get people together to play a game. I spent more time chilling and playing Set by myself or my gameboy than possibly the past three times I've gone combined. And that is just not on. I hope that it's back in the basement in the spring.

But, even with all that, I had tons and tons of fun. There was, of course, the usual bunch of games that I play alone when there's no one looking to play a multi-player game. Set and Fluxx are the best for this, as both are semi-mindless and don't take up much room.

And then, there was the usual group games that I tend to play, Betrayal at House on the Hill and Shadows Over Camelot. I love those two games more than I should. It's unfortunate that there's nothing like Gaming Fridays at Northeastern, because I would definitely buy both of those. And make people play them. With knives, if I had to. Every week.

Perhaps it's a good thing NEU isn't all about the geeks.

Shadows Over Camelot took the longest time to play because we were overthinking everything. I mean, strategy discussions went on for ages and ages and ages. At least one person got bored and left, I think it might've been two. I enjoyed it, though, because I suck at strategy for the most part, and listening to others discuss it helps me learn. Plus, it was mainly new players.

Overthinking + New Players = Super Long Game

But! Most spectacularly, there were new games.

First off was Burn in Hell, an insanely complicated card game. Or, well, the basic rules aren't complicated at all, and were very easy to pick up on. But there were zillions of options, and none of us had played before, so it was kind of confusing. I think that, after a couple of games of it to get the handle on everything, it would be a super-fun game. Especially with experienced players. As a n00b, it was still fun, but I knew that I was missing out on a lot by not keeping track of all the rules and options.

And then! Claydonia! Oh man Claydonia was SO MUCH FUN. I can't even begin to describe how much I loved it!

Basically, you get a tub of Play-Doh and make a monster with it. Your monster gets assigned a seemingly-arbitrary number of HP, movement, and other stuff. Then you move around the table and fight with the other monsters, by way of rolling dice. Again, SO MUCH FUN. First, I made Snakes on a Plane (aka George). And then I made Doc Oc. And I was the LAST MONSTER STANDING AND IT WAS FUN.

I really want to get a group of people together and play again. I think that the gang from 211 would enjoy it.

Did I mention you get to play with Play-Doh? BECAUSE YOU DO.

Anyway, that was my weekend. I had tons of fun, and can't wait for the spring event.

PLAY-DOH