OK, I failed to make a post for today. Usually I make one the night before…but I didn’t yesterday due to not feeling well. Today, a game that Zach and I ordered came–Arkham Horror. It’s a game based on the works of HP Lovecraft, made by the same people who made the Call of Cthulhu games. It’s cooperative, meaning that it’s Players vs. Game. All of the players are trying to keep one of the Ancient Ones (being whatever ancient being you choose at the beginning) from awakening. And if that being awakens, you have to defeat it. Oh, and good luck. I just tried to kill Yig…and got toasted.
This game is pretty much enormous. This is what it looked like before we were even done setting it up. We’re going to have to find a much larger surface to play on like, say…a floor. (Yeah, too bad we don’t have any of those just lying around. Oh, wait….)
Before we started playing, Zach and I both read the rulebook. Well…sort of. He downloaded a PDF and read it before coming home. I got through nine of the twenty-four pages and then got distracted by a video game. I’ve never been much for reading rulebooks….my mom always was, but usually I’d start before she was finished. I’m a “learn as I do” kind of person. If I can’t put what you’re saying into context, you may as well be talking to a wall. Which is why I don’t read rulebooks until I’m actually playing the game.
These were the characters we picked. I really enjoyed playing Carolyn and I think I did a fairly good job with her. Because of the characters we picked, our homes were on the other side of town (mine was Arkham Asylum). Zach, on the other hand, got “Lost in Time and Space” once, went insane, lost consciousness, and then died. Zach didn’t do so well. I did get lucky, though. It seemed like the cards were kind of in my favor. Most of the times he got screwed over were because of the cards he drew. I did die when Yig awakened…but part of that was due to us not understanding the rules of the battle (I should have had more hits than I got, apparently).
This is what I wanted to use as the Monster Cup, which is the cup that holds all of the monster cards. It wasn’t big enough to hold all of them, though. However, after playing the game, I wouldn’t use a cup at all. I’d use a bowl. We kept drawing the same monsters over and over again because we’d draw a card that would send the monsters on the board back to the cup…and then when we had to draw monsters to put on the board, naturally the ones that were sent to the cup were on top. So I think I’ll use a bowl next time. That way, we can stir it and mix up the monsters a little. But isn’t the mummy cup adorable? I love his little eyes.
Overall, this was a really great game. We’re going to play it a couple more times and make sure we understand the rules more before we introduce it to more people. But we had a lot of fun…once we got past the stage where we had our noses buried in the rulebook. We didn’t have too many problems understanding this, but we’ve both played Dungeons and Dragons a few times (we’re huge geeks–deal with it). Since this game is fairly similar in certain areas, I think it really helped our understanding of it.
And, yes, I will have a normal post for you tomorrow.