Sunday, October 19, 2008

Board Game Party in October 2008

I went to a board game party held by the same group last month.

Keltis: I played this game last month. Last time I kind of figured out how many points I can gain in the game. This time I only advanced three pawns out of five to avoid the negatives. I won the game this time, but I could have done better….I want to play this game again.

French skills: I listened to what the instructor said. I think I could understand more than last time.

Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde avec La Compagnie de Marlin
/Shadows over the Camelot with Marlin’s Company

This is a game about the King Author and the Knights of the Round Table. Each player plays as one of the Knights of the Round Table, helps each other and fights against the game itself. We won a couple of the Quest, but eventually we lost the game as we all lost the Life Points (Points de Brevoure). After the game, we discussed about the game and found that we did a lot of mistakes during the game. I should also mention this… Marlin is supposed to help us but this time he didn’t work so well.

French skills: It is quite difficult to understand the rules in French at the beginning of a game. But since 8 people played the game this time, I understood what to do by watching the others play. There is a character’s reference sheet in French explaining what to do in each turn. This also helped me a lot. One thing that is still hard to do is to read the card drawn from the pile when I play my turn. All cards are written in French, so it took me long to understand what it says. But the other players helped me. This is the first time that I played this game, but I had a fun time with it. The more I play the game, the more I enjoy it, I think.


Sushizock im Gockelwok: It looks similar to "Pickomino". Actually, the same person designed them. There are 2 kinds of number tiles, sushi in blue and bone in red. There are 5 dice with sushi in blue, bone in red, chopsticks in blue and red. Plays can take a tile from the center of the table depending on how many dice with fish or bone he rolled. . A player can also steal a tile from another player if he rolls 3 or more chopsticks. Collecting a fish tile gives you from 1 to 6 points and bone tiles gives you from -1 to -4 points. Collecting only fish tiles sounds better, but because if the number of the fish tiles are more than bone ones, the excess fish tiles are nullified. So it is better that the numbers of 2 kinds of tiles are the same. This rule is amazing. Because no one wants to take a tile worth negative points, but to win a game a player needs to take some bone tiles, otherwise he gets no point. So sometimes you need to steal a bone tile from other players.
I think there are more things we need to think than Pickomino. It takes only 15 min or so.

French skills: It is easy to grasp the rules. Chopsticks in French is des baguettes. A fishbone in French is une arĂȘte while an animal bone in French is un os.


Les Dragons du Mekong/Dragon Delta:The player who reaches the other side of the board at first wins. Players choose the actions by using the cards on their hand which allow; to place 1 or 2 stone on the delta, place 1 or 2 plank(s) between 2 stones, to take away the placed stone or plank, to move his pawn, or to cancel another player’s action, etc. It is notable that the pawn of any other player can go on a plank you placed. The game ended in 15 min. The player in front of me won the game. I think I helped him too much by placing my planks on the delta without thinking. Next time, I should place them more carefully not to help other players so much.

French skills: It is not so difficult to grasp the rules. I learned that a plank in French is "une planche".

Risk Express: Roll dice and conquer the world like Risk. Compared to Risk, it doesn’t take so long. There are 7 dice. Each dice are with 6 kinds of symbols, General, Cavalry, Cannon, 1, 2 or 3 Infantries. There are 14 round disks showing some countries, some symbols and the number of victory points. At the beginning of your turn, roll all 7 dice, and then decide which disk you attack. You need to fill the line shown on the disk you attack. When you can fill the line, place the dice on the line on the desk. To get one disk, you need to roll at least two or three times. If you can’t fill the line, you give up one die for the next roll. If you can’t fill the line any more, your turn is over. Next player chooses either to attack the disk the previous player attacked by rolling the rest of the dice or to start over by rolling 7 dice. A player who gains the most victory points wins when the last unconquered disk is taken to any player.
We played the game twice. I won the first game and lost the second one. It took only 15 min for each game.

French skills: There are not so many rules in this game. So it is easy to grasp it in French.

Summary: Now they notice that I don’t speak French well. Some people spoke to me in English at lunch. I am glad that I found some people speak English. But I keep studying French. They didn’t tell me, but I am sure they prefer me to speak French.