The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 21: Attack on Titan: The Last Stand (2017)

TMI - Usually as I get ready for bed, I have my television on. On Adult Swim there have Anime on Saturday nights and I fell into watching Attack on Titan. It is so revolting, yet it drew me in. Bottom line, I'm kind of a fan. When I saw they turned it into a tabletop game, I was really interested. When I learned Attack on Titan: The Last Stand was made by Antoine Bauza and Ludovic Maublanc it became a must-add to my collection. Finally it happened and I've become a fan.

Loved the mechanics. Loved the asymmetrical quality. It reminded me of a more involved version of Jurassic Park: DANGER! With the one player playing the dinosaurs/titans and the other players playing the characters and using their designated skills. Attack on Titan, though, felt more involved and requires more strategy. I really am excited to break it out again. Our game went quickly but it was our first time.

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 20: Elder Sign (2011)

Elder Sign is a lighter companion piece to Fantasy Flight’s other Cthulu games Eldritch Horror and Arkham Horror.

Elder Sign is a cooperative game that inspires terror at midnight! Elder Sign plays 1-8 players, but is best played with 4, if you want to defeat the evil that is unleashed. You encounter spooky locations within a 1926 museum and through the use of dice and special cards try to earn elder signs to aide in battle against the big bad Ancient One, once it is awoken.  You will lose members along the way, but never fear, others will emerge to help the team be victorious against what lurks just past midnight.

I've heard debate over which game is the better Cthulu: Elder Sign, Eldritch Horror, or Arkham Horror. I think Elder Sign is significantly faster and less of an absurd table hog than Arkham Horror. I would argue that Arkham Horror is overly bloated with mechanics that back in 2005 may have seemed cool, because it added to the them, but 14 years later just seem annoying. For that, Elder Sign stands the test of time and the growth of the game industry.

Also, with the outstanding Gates of Arkham expansion, Elder Sign takes you out of the museum and becomes just as thematically city-sprawling as Arkham Horror without adding too much bloat. It is just so much more accessible, especially when introducing people to the genre of games and it is a plus to play with most of my kids. This is an absolutely fantastic game.

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 19: Betrayal at House on the Hill (2004)

You and your fellow players go through the doors of this foul mansion to unearth its mysteries. Move room to room looking for clues, finding means to protect you from the horrors that lurk around every corner. Not only is your life in danger, but your very sanity teeters on the brink. In the end, one of your compatriots turns out to be a traitor and each game of Betrayal at House on the Hill leads you down a very different story path depending on a number of circumstances. Is someone bringing for demons from another dimension? Is their a vampire amongst you? Is one of you a lunatic housing a gang of murderous escaped inmates? Has someone bowed down before alien eye-creature overlords? One never knows what sinister happenings you will discover at the House on the Hill.

This game is so awesome! We brought it to the lock-in and the kids thought it was great! The best part was the twist at the end. Whoever gets the book as the betrayer goes off and hides and reads their part. Everyone else at the table wonders what is going to happen and tensions start to run high! These are the kinds of games that my middle school kids get a kick out of. For instance, Dead of Winter also has a potential betrayer and so the kids are always trying to figure the person out. Sadly, it gets so distracting sometimes, because you have the kid who is always saying that they're the betrayer or "maybe it's me?" and all of that sort of thing. It's that unknown factor that just drives them crazy, because we all know kids think they know everything and always want to feel smarter than everyone around them.

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 17: Ghost Stories (2008)

A co-operative game from designer Antoine Bauza (he also gave us the previously reviewed Hanabi and so many other great games). A game for 1-4 players, Ghost Stories is about 4 noble and mystical Taoist priests protecting a village from an onslaught of ghosts, demons, vampires, and everything else that goes bump in the night. Players perform exorcisms, take special actions by enlisting the help of certain villagers, and work together to prevent any of the priests from becoming overrun and any of the village locations from becoming haunted. This all culminates in the priests doing battle with the incarnation of Wu-Feng, Lord of the Nine Hells. This is an incredibly difficult game the requires precise teamwork and strategy, but its elegant design and simple mechanics make for tremendous fun.

I laugh when my husband gets it out. He still considers it an incredibly strategic game and he'll have little play sessions alone at night playing it. It is so adorable. We've even played it with our daughter and it's been interesting. Our middle school kids, though, had the most fun, whether we bring it for lock-ins or our game unit... it's a challenging yet rewarding game.

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 12: Zombicide (2012)

Zombicide is a Kickstarter phenomena that has spawned several sequels and all sorts of mini-characters that are inspired by pop-culture. You could say, at this point, it is completely out of control and you could dedicate a whole room to your house for all the Zombicide you might own! At least you can play this cooperatively or there are individual glory quests, so with all the stuff there will never be a dull moment. The game books have the campaigns you can follow in them, explaining end-goals and missions. The problem, as with most zombie games, is being overrun with zombies! And in Zombicide you face the Abomination which can only be defeated with a special concoction. In other expansions and games, there are other challenges, additions, monsters, and goodness knows what else. It is a whole world of possibilities!

Zombicide is the most epic epic games and can actually take up an entire weekend of gaming. My favorite characters are El Cholo (AKA Machete) and Dave (AKA Sheldon). There are so many character options, depending on the editions and character expansions, you can have endless geek fun representing all sorts of cult classics. I've played this with my game club kids and it has been a hoot. Practically an RPG without being an RPG and the kids really get into the action. Cooperative play at the middle school age is really great!

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 11: Zombie Fluxx (2007)

My daughter has never played Fluxx before. She knows I absolutely adore zombies, so she took the time to play this with me. The basics of Fluxx is that you start out by drawing a card and playing a card and the rest of the time you just follow the rules on the cards. This was both frustrating and exciting for her. I, though, enjoyed it. The zombie variant offers several new twists and changes (such as groaning like a zombie when you get a zombie creeper and the Ungoal that causes everyone to lose).

A great quick game for the spooky season.

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 8: Letters from Whitechapel (2011)

I am an absolute adoring fan of Letters from Whitechapel, Whitehall, and Scotland Yard.

Letters from Whitechapel puts you in the position of one of the most notorious killers in history or the cops who sought to find justice. Players are either Jack the Ripper or the police officers. Each turn, Jack the Ripper secretly moves around the board and the cops need to use their knowledge and powers of deduction to try to catch The Ripper before the final night of making it back to his hideout. Full of fun and strategy and great for a group of people. You can even roleplay the characters if you’re so inclined.

Also, if you’ve played Nuns on the Run, this is a similar gameplay style and Nuns on the Run is an additional fun game that you can dress up for (trust me, I’ve done it), but isn’t a murderer thing!

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 6: The Walking Dead: The Board Game (2011)

Of all The Walking Dead games, I have a soft spot for this one. I love the original artwork. It's dice rolling, set collecting, and variable player powers. Those are some of my favorite things combined with my favorite theme. It has a unique area control aspect with zombie attacks.

I really recommend it, especially since I've enjoyed it more than the other games. The one based on the TV isn't as cool. So if you're going all in on a game, I can't recommend this enough!

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 5: Jurassic Park: Danger! (2018)

Our daughter came out of the womb a Jurassic Park fan. Okay, well... that might be a bit of hyperbole for you. I can remember the exact moment she became enamored with it. AMC was constantly showing Jurassic Park. Oh my goodness it was driving me nuts. My daughter was already into dinosaurs, but when she came downstairs, I pointed out to her how cool the triceratops was in the scene where Dr. Sattler and Dr. Grant and fawning over the Trice on the ground. She practically tried to climb in the TV and the rest... is history. 

This game was an absolutely must-have for her and, of course, it found its way into our collection. While the game plays up to 5 players, I have preferred the 2-player gameplay. Tonight we played it as a family. Sadly... my daughter's dinosaurs beat our poor set of Nedry, Dr. Sattler, Dr. Grant, and Dr. Malcolm. We each had one player die and then... well... Dr. Sattler left Dr. Grant all alone on the island. I'm sure he survived. Remember the retconned Jurassic Park 3? 

So you're probably wondering why in the world I would include this in the spooky games list. Well... when I was a kid and Jurassic Park first game out, I was scared to death. The scene where the T-Rex breaks out and then eats the blood-sucking lawyer? Yep... still can't stomach watching it. I left the theater EVERY TIME that scene started to play and I still, all these years later, avoid it. Not long ago I actually attempted to watch it, but I still cannot. Too many creepy moments. 

The basement at my childhood home also had a furnace or something that would snap in the basement. It was a finished basement, so there was a pull out bed and I was staying down there while my bedroom was painted. I heard that clicking all the time and it always made me think of the raptors clicking their massive claw. I can't tell you how many times I looked towards the hallway towards the sound, expecting the see a head peaking around the corner. 

Those traumas are why I couldn't resist putting this on my spooky list. Love, love, love the idea of it being scary. I still get anxious when the T-Rex starts to target me. Get me out of there are all costs!!!

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 4: Unspeakable Words (2007)

Unspeakable Words is my absolute favorite word game EVER! I can't explain why, except that the rolling the dice mechanic to see if your sanity is affected really interests me. It's not like Scrabble where you try to get the better of other people with really weird words. It's more about making the words, tallying the score and then descending into madness!

The little tiny Cthulu are also absolutely adorable. The Deluxe Edition has new little Cthulus with different colors and a glow-in-the-dark D20.

I've played the game quite a bit with my students, who it always seems to be a miss, because they don't like word games. Even if it's only 3-letters or more, they don't seem to want to make words. I think in their mind, they HAVE to score high level words, when just nickle-and-dime your way to a win is still totally alright. I want to argue that some of it might be vocabulary or insecurity about spelling, but too often I see them just want to call a mulligan, because they can't make a word. Deep down I also wonder if it just accesses the kind of mental faculties that they don't associate with games.

Either way. I enjoy it, but even my daughter can't seem to get into it.

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 3: Campy Creatures (2017)

I loved playing Campy Creatures right after The Demise of Dr. Frankenstein, because it's another mad scientist game. Here you get to revisit your favorite campy Silver Age horror movies. You're a mad scientist who needs humans (mortals) to complete your experiments, so you send out your army of creatures to retrieve what you require. The game uses hand management and set collection to achieve your goals and save the day. Will you collect enough humans? Or will your experiments fail?

The artwork will make you think of the heyday of horror and might even inspire in you and your friends your own campfire stories. Make sure you don't fall into the pit-traps of getting stuck with the fickle engineer, the vengeful hunter, or even the deep sea diver and his unpleasant harpoon gun. Campy Creatures is good for a laugh and lots of fun!

A great addition for any scary game selection. It's a quick play and there's an expansion. I haven't picked it up yet, but I love Campy Creatures enough to go off and get it.

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 2: The Demise of Dr. Frankenstein (2010)

As a student of Romantic Literature (which includes the subgenre of Gothic), I absolutely fell in love with the story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. Truthfully, it dates back to some of the oldest storytelling related to reanimation and the dangers of Science from a horror perspective (also known as zombies). So when I was thinking of games that would be great to play in October, The Demise of Dr. Frankenstein was an absolute must.

My husband and I first encountered this game back when we first started attending GenCon. We met Mark Hanny who was hosting several of the games he had made. We weren't aware at the time that we had signed up for so many of his games, but we had a ball getting to know him and learning about his wonderful creations. The Demise of Dr. Frankenstein was one of those games and we love to promote his work when we can.

The game itself is a worker placement game and engine-building game. You're trying to construct your monster and gain points through various other actions before the angry mob comes to get you! Certain actions make the town angry, which causes them to come for you. Players have control over the length of each round as they can avoid making the town angry or even intentionally outrage the citizens when they think they're in an advantageous position. There's even one placement spot that lets you reduce or increase the town anger outright. How the game plays also is influenced by the amount of players.

Demise is a great spooky worker placement game and while it can be tricky to track down, I personally think it's worth looking into.

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019 - Day 1:The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow (2001)

The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow (2001) is my go-to game for my classroom. Every year we learn about party games and my students just end up falling in love with Werewolves. For many of my students, it reminds them of Mafia.

So in October, I run Werewolf Wednesday in my room at recess. I have students sign-up and every Wednesday in October I host The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow. I have to take out a few specialty cards, because my students have a tendency to abuse them or not be honest about them, but we always have a great time.  I have a reference sheet that describes the ways the cards work and what they look like so that students don't ask about what their card does. That gives away who has what card.

I also wear my "I'm not the werewolf" shirt. It's a big hit and we have so much fun.

So why not start out the month with a bang!

The Joy of Gaming: October Challenge 2019

What in the world is wrong with me? Another game-a-day challenge? And why in the world am I doing it during the busiest time of the Fall? I mean... school just started and I'm doing this?

Yes. Yes I am. If I don't have a little something for me in my life, then I'm just a slave to The Man. Plus N.E.W. Game is this month AND our first Tabletop Club Lock-In is this month.

So let's get down to business! I picked spooky games. Well... spooky themed games. I'd say scary, but honestly they're not scary. We've got everything from werewolves, the zombies, to vampires, and even ghosts. I also included a game that was created from a movie that just absolutely traumatized me as a kid. I figured it'd be a bit fun.

There's no rhyme or reason to gameplay, other than trying to make the games work with my schedule, so let's get to the Joy of Gaming - Spooky Style!

Orlando or Bust: Day 1 & 2 - The Road and The Walking Dead

My mum is always wanting to go on family trips to Florida. In the previous years we've been to Sea World and Universal, but this year she was determined to finally take my daughter to Disney. Now, I'm being honest, my anxiety hits 11 at the thought of Disney World, especially in June, but I wanted my mom to have this YOLO moment with my daughter, who is 6yo.

Racing to leave right after school lets out is something I wish on no one. I had to have my classroom ready to close, all grades in, and check out in the office before I left. Then I had to get home and finish packing up the car. We left for Milwaukee at around 6PM.

Our first stop from Oshkosh to Orlando was Milwaukee. We stopped at my mum's house to pick up her bag (she was flying) and grab a few winks before we headed out for real. Then we were off through Illinois and down, down, down.

When we drive down to Florida, I usually make a point of doing some location spotting south of Atlanta. The other bonus is that a certain AMC show is occasionally shooting when we drive through. Now, I should probably point out that my husband doesn't get into this kind of thing. It's a meh activity and he gives in to my nerdy, fangirl whims. What shocked me was that on this trip he was excited to location sight-see for The Walking Dead.

Using this map (organized by season, too) over the course of 24 hours, here are the locations we visited. All of them were legal, except maybe one, but it's sketchy at best as to whether it was or not. I should note here that I had already visited The CDC (not CDC), Terminus, and Woodbury on a previous road trip, but I'll post them below, too.

Terminus Tracks

The hospital entrance where Beth is brought out by Daryl.

The daycare where Maggie and Daryl pick up supplies for Baby Judith.

The graveyard Daryl and Beth walk through after The Prison.

Title Credits!

Where Morgan was holed up.

Used for a few scenes.

Beyond is the factory where Andrea hides from The Governor.

The house where Daryl and Beth hide after The Prison.

The restaurant where Carl finds the pic of his mom and Michonne takes a cat.

Maggie left a message for Glenn along the tracks.

More Terminus tracks.

Hershel returns to drinking. Found by Rick and Glenn.

Hershel returns to drinking. Found by Rick and Glenn.

Where Maggie first propositions Glenn, while Glenn looks for a pregnancy test.

Burned down Moonshine house. Permission to look.

After the farms goes. Ricktatorship scene.

After the farms goes. Ricktatorship scene.

After the farms goes. Ricktatorship scene.

After the farms goes. Ricktatorship scene.

Merle's last stand!

Merle's last stand!

Meeting with the Governor (across from Merle's last stand).

18 miles out intersection.

Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria

Rick and Carl take shelter after The Prison.

Rick and Carl take shelter after The Prison.

Carl's pudding house!

Merle cranks up the radio and lures walkers.

The side road used for like EVERYTHING!

The studio lot.

Sorgum barn!

The barn with names and messages on it that the Governor passes.

Supposedly where Daryl is ambushed and Denise is shot.

The gas station where Daryl and Rick meet Jesus.

The CDC (not CDC) in Atlanta.

The site of Terminus.

Woodbury