In Space, No-One Can Here You Scream PEW! PEW!

It's been a while since I paid a trip to my FLGS, mostly because times are hard in
the UK and, gaming (well professionally produced board and card games) has and have become a luxury that can't always be easily justified.

Sometimes though you have to treat yourself, and buying new doesn't have to cost you the earth. There are plenty of great games out there that are inexpensive and, nothing I bought yesterday set me back more than £20. Which when you consider the overall cost of gaming in general is more than reasonable.

The first two items that I picked up were the Rebel vs Imperium and The Brink of War expansions for Race For The Galaxy. Whilst it may seem a little lavish to fork out close to £40 on expansions (for which I could have bought a whole new game), I have been playing a lot of Race For The Galaxy solitaire of late, and getting a lot of enjoyment from doing so. The expansions also bring a lot of new bells and whistles to the party (not to mention close to doubling the number of cards in-play), so if I had to make the choice again; the expansions or a new game; I don't think my decision would be any different...

This isn't to say that I didn't buy a new game however, as sitting in the corner of an alcove on a low-shelf a little box caught my eye. Mag Blast.

Without a doubt, the thing that drew me in was the Kovalic art and, upon seeing the price-tag, I was sold. Even if the game was a bust, less than £20 for a game where every card is a full-color Kavolic piece of art is still a win in my book. I think it must be a Munchkin thing. :0).

As it turned out though, the game was actually great and in the few games that we have played so far, we have had a hell of a lot of fun. I'll review the game in more detail in a coming post but suffice to say I think it's well worth owning and if you ever happen to see a copy in a FLGS of your very own, it's well worth checking out.

Going Solo #0: Munchkin

It's not often that I start a new feature with entry zero (in fact this is a first in our short but eventful history) but, upon surmising to myself what I wanted to achieve with "Going Solo", I realised that I already effectively had an entry for it.

Whilst the ultimate goal of this feature is to create solitaire versions of games, that compare closely to the original in both play-style and mechanics (not just another game that uses the same components but has nothing more to do with the original than that), the solitaire Munchkin variant that I created wasn't half bad.

It was pretty basic and in hindsight a little clunky, but it worked. Either way, I dare say that I will revisit it in time with fresh eyes and new ideas as I am quite the Munchkin fan. For now though, I say let sleeping dogs lie.

Alchemy's Wokbench #8: Kill The Monsters. Steal The Treasure. Stab Yourself In The Back?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am working on a way of playing the Munchkin card game solo.

This is largely because I am a HUGE fan of the product line (with a sizable collection to boot), but there just isn't the player base where I live, and I have to get my Munchkin kick somehow. Normally this would mean Munchkin Quest, which is a great game, but what about those times when you want to kick in a door, kill a monster, and steal his loot at 3am in the morning or, on a rainy day or, as is most common with our gaming group, when everyone else is on a different shift pattern to you?

It makes getting a game in nigh on impossible but there must be some kind of solution. Right?

Well, I am a firm believer that nearly ANY game can be played solo. You just need to take a good long look at it and then get creative! Munchkin was no exception. I also believe that when creating a solo play version of a game, it should mirror the original in its theme and goals, else what you are actually doing is creating a new game, using the same components.

The first thing I needed to do was concisely breakdown the goal of Munchkin, which I would describe as "Reach level X before your opponent(s) do". So by nature it's a race game essentially, which makes it amazingly simple to convert. It also makes it incredibly easy to tweak once converted to either increase or, decrease the difficulty. Awesome!

So without further ado, I present:

Munchkin: solo

Compatable with all major Munchkin releases.

 Components: Nothing beyond the norm. The solo version of Munchkin has been designed so that you won't need to raid your gaming shelf BUT, it does run on the assumption that you are playing Epic Munchkin (because what true Munchkin wouldn't want to play to level 20!?), so if you are using standard level counters, you may want to retire them in favor of a couple of D20's.

Set-Up: Before dealing yourself your starting hand, deal out six piles of ten Room cards in front of you, and directly below each of these piles, deal a pile of ten Treasure cards (for a grand total of 60 Room cards and 60 Treasure cards across 12 piles).

Flip the top card of every Room pile so that it is visible and, now deal out your starting hand.

Play: Munchkin is played normally with the following exceptions:

• When you would "Kick Open A Door" you instead choose to encounter the top card visible on any of the Room piles.

• If you do not encounter a Monster you may "Look For Trouble" as normal or, "Loot The Room". If you do so, the face-up cards on the top each pile are considered face-down for the purposes of looting the room (and for all other reasons during the game, they're flexible like that).

• If you are forced into "Charity", you simply discard the cards regardless of whom is actually the lowest level player.

• After the "Charity" phase, your opponent automatically gains a level and, your next turn begins straight away.

• Curses that would cause your opponent to lose a level still do so and may be played at any time but, curses that have any other effect other than reducing your opponents level, such as "Lose One Small Item", instead prevent your opponent from automatically leveling up at the end of your turn.

• For the purposes of all cards, you are considered to be alone and unable to ask for help.

Winning: The player wins if they reach level X before their opponent but, as with standard Munchkin, the last level can only be gained by slaying a monster.

DMotivational #46: Kill The Monsters, Steal The Treasure, Stab Your Buddy

Plunder For The Cave #3: Even More From My Friendly Local Gaming Store

On top of my recent thrift store purchases, I have also added a couple of items to my gaming collection courtesy of my friendly local gaming store. Not the huge haul that I picked up last time, but still a couple of solid gold additions.

The first new item is Munchkin: Apocalypse, which I didn't even know existed until I spied it in the new arrivals area in-store, which was a real surprise given that I had been surfing the Munchkin website only two days previous and I saw no sign of it. Although I picked it up without hesitation (and indeed the small pack of bonus cards that have been released for it with, quote-unquote "Radioactive Dice"), I am not entirely convinced by my purchase.

Whilst I like the concept of the release, upon flicking through the cards, I am not entirely convinced that Steve Jackson Games have done it true justice. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad, and the addition of the "Seven Seals" special rule is a nice touch. I just would have liked to have seen greater variety in the beasties and disasters. I mean, how many different ways can you think of (both natural and otherwise) of the world ending?

Flaming Meteor, The Black Hole Machine, Mega Tsunami, Volcanic Eruptions, Kaiju on the Rampage, Solar Flare, Viral Warfare, Rise of the Machines, Nuclear War, Alien Invasion, Another Ice-Age, Zombies... It's a long list. A long list that isn't particularly well represented. Still, being a Munchkin game, there will without a doubt be expansions, so there is still time for all of this to come into play I guess.

My other purchase was a copy of Castle Panic, which has recently come back into production after what seems like an age of unavailability. I have been seeking a copy of this for a while and have on a couple of occasions been met with the frustration of the expansion being available in-store, but with no chance of being able to order in a copy of the base game. So suffice to say that when I saw this in the new arrivals area, I snapped it up in an instance that The Flash would have missed if he had blinked.

Whilst I am yet to have a read through of the rules, I am already loving this game. The die-cut pieces come pre-punched, and according to what I have flicked through in the rules, the game can be played solo, co-operative or, competitively. That's a sizable achievement for such a small box! I can see this game getting a LOT of table time in the years to come.

Calm Before The Storm

Image Property Of Monster-madness.com

There's no two ways about it. Blogging wise, the past couple of months have been pretty slow ones.

By and large this is down to real life commitments, but I am hoping that I can start to turn that around. Fast. In the next 72 hours in fact! The thing is that, just because I haven't been able to update here as often as I would have liked, the ideas have still been coming thick and fast. REALLY fast.

I now have a new abstract game on the workbench, along with an independent survival-horror roleplaying game, heavily spurred on by the sterling work that Jerry Teleha has been doing with Stay Alive! On top of that there have been the usual gaming musings, a solo conversion for the Munchkin card game that I think's pretty dapper, my old solo rules for ZOMBIES!!! that I have re-discovered in a pile of print-outs, new plunder for the cave, new thrift store finds. There is a LOT to blog about, and I finally have the time to sit down and do it all justice. :0).

So sit back and relax, there's a storm coming. ;0)

Alchemy Bytes #27: Bringing Munchkin To The Tabletop

Well after getting pretty much hooked on Tabletop from the word go, I decided to skip ahead a few episodes to Munckin.. Which in itself is kind of a Munchkinny (being a real word) thing to do.

Having seen the interaction over a game of Small World, a relatively friendly game, I knew that the banter over such a cut-throat game like Munchkin was going to turn Tabletop all the way up to 11, and verge on the brutal. Brutal in a good way though. That is the nature of the game after all.

Kill the monsters, steal the treasure, stab your buddy!