Growing My Own Gamers #6

Sunday, I had an unexpected opportunity to test out a couple games. My husband and his friends were watching a pay-per-view sporting event. M and one of the wives were willing guinea pigs, so we tried out two more games from Invisible City. Once again I chose games that used bits I had on hand rather than printing out a custom board.

M and I started with a round of Ziggurat. This is a domino building game for two or four players. You start by taking turns building a four-by-four foundation square. Each player gets one point for every domino half that touches a matching domino half. Once the foundation is finished, you continuing adding dominoes and earning points based on the matches you make multiplied by the level you are building on. It was fun, but it dragged on a bit too long with a double-12 set of dominoes for only two players. I would recommend using a double-9 set for two players.

After Ziggurat, we played two rounds of Dungeon. This game uses standard playing cards -- one deck for two players and two decks for three or four players. Each player has a joker in front of her that represents a dungeon. To get out of the dungeon, you have to build a passage starting with a 10 and going down to 2. You can only play one card per turn, either to lengthen your passage or to collapse someone else's by playing a creature card (J, Q, K) on them. The jack and queen also have additional powers that let you dig through the discard pile or pick a card from an opponent's hand.

Dungeon was OK with two players, but better with three (we played both ways). I imagine it would be even more fun with four. My guest and I were both curious to see how ABM would like the game, but we couldn't tear him away from the TV. She has played with us several times in the past, so she knows how impatient he is. She thinks he will hate Dungeon because there are too many rules. I think he might like it because of the "take that" aspect. However, even if he does like it I know he won't be able to resist tweaking the rules a bit.

I'm trying not to let the summer slip away without playing more games with the kids, but I am always so tired when I get home from work. Still, I am going to make more of an effort. The next game on my list is Towers of Wyoming, another game from Invisible City. All of the IC games have rather spartan entries on BoardGameGeek. I want to post comments on as many of them as possible because I've had good luck with them so far.