Friday, September 30, 2005

September 3, 2005

Greetings! I hope everyone had a good weekend. I had a great weekend, especially Saturday, a day which involved spending time with friends, running through a darkened maze blazing away at enemy stormtroopers, and lots of game-playing. Thanks to everyone who came. It was a very fun day. I have attached several pictures for your enjoyment.

The group met at Shadowland around 10:00AM. Attending were Bob, Carol, Rachel and Ben Jones, Glenn and Laura Bramer, Scott and Liz Percival, their nephew, Paul and his friend, Henry, Kimberly Stern, Eric Haas, Dave, Andrew and Corwin Fair, Stephanie, Alex and Rachel Ruvinsky, and Dan and Zachary Korn. We quickly divided into teams and started the first game.

The teams were:

  • Blue - Corwin Fair, Laura Bramer, Rachel Jones, Bob Jones, Liz Percival, Scott Percival, Rachel Ruvinsky, Glenn Bramer, Stephanie Ruvinsky, and Alex Ruvinsky.
  • Red - Ben Jones, Carol Jones, Kimberly Stern, Dave Fair, Andrew Fair, Zachary Korn, Dan Korn, Eric Haas, Paul and Henry.

Luckily, there were no walk-ins so we had the arena to ourselves for both our games. There were some intial technical glitches which were quickly resolved and we proceeded to running around blasting each other. Dave Fair had hurt his leg earlier in the week and so was reluctant to play. He decided to go for it and his “stand in one place and not move” strategy proved bizarrely workable. At the end of the game, Dave had scored the most points followed by Rachel Jones and me. The final score was Blue Team 20,463, Red Team 20,089. Amazingly close. After we emerged from the arena, everyone was talking loudly and happily about the game so it was easy to see that everyone enjoyed it.

Since the two teams seem so well matched, we kept them for the second game. There was a bit less running around in this game as many members of both teams set up positions and engaged in a fierce firefight. Alas, the addition of the rapid fire option elevated scores considerably and produced a much greater disparity of scores. The Red Team decimated the Blue Team by a score of 44,601 to 31,381. Coming out of the arena, Dave and I agreed that I had the upper hand of him this time. To our great surprise, not only had I not bested Dave, he shot me 89 times!

Dave was again the leader followed by Dan Korn and Andrew Fair. We suspect a computer glitch for Dave the Cripple’s continued domination. :-)

After Shadowland, most of us went to Cici’s Pizza for lunch. We then proceeded to the Jones’ house for gaming. We were eventually joined there by Rachel Silber and Bill Ruvinsky. We had sandwiches for dinner and some stayed to game until around 3:30AM. The tote is below (winner listed in bold), followed by Eric’s notes.

Thank again to everyone who attended. I believe we’ll make Shadowland a quarterly event (or as often as people would like to do it). Looking forward to next time.

Bob

Tote Board
  • Parking Lot Prototype Dave 46, Carol 46, Dan K 44, Eric 42, Glenn 39, Bob 32
    • Bob: This is my prototype, version 2. I tightened it up from its first version. This playtest gave me a bunch of good ideas for further improvements. Thanks for playing!
  • Goa Dave 56, Dan K 45, Eric 32, Stephanie R 27
  • Pirate’s Cove Bill 36, Carol 33, Andrew 31, Kimberly 30
  • Australia Bob 109 (won on tiebreaker), Scott 109, Rachel S 103, Noreen 75
  • Einfach Genial Bob, Scott, Noreen, Rachel S
  • Guillotine Dan K 30, Kimberly 28, Carol 25
  • Power Grid Scott 15, Dave 14, Bob 13, Eric 12
    • Bob: This was a great game of Power Grid. It was close until the end when Scott surpassed us in power generation and we couldn’t catch up. Well played
  • Blokus Kimberly 20, Dan K -7, Carol -13
  • Shadows over Camelot Carol, Dave, Bob, Kimberly, Eric, Scott
    • Bob: Also a tremendously fun game. Good was on the ropes when the Traitor, Scott, made a disastrous mistake and accused Kimberly. This actually revealed Scott as the Traitor and assured victory to the forces of light. Had Scott not misunderstood the results of a false accusation, he would have been the sole victor.
  • Vino Kimberly 22, Carol 21, Bob 20, Dave 19, Eric 18