ChrisTalbot.com

Over the weekend, I had the chance to try out a couple of games I hadn't played before. On Friday night, Dave M. finally busted out Amazonas, which turned out to be a rather pleasant and light strategy board game. It's fairly light on direct conflict, but with some more experience playing it, I'm pretty sure intuitive players could boost the screw factor.

While not a game I'd want to play all that often, Amazonas fits well into a beer-and-pretzels type of game night.

Even more of a beer-and-pretzels game (with an emphasis on the beer -- or your alcohol of choice) is 1000 Blank White Cards. I've been dying to give this a try for the past couple of weeks, and five of us played it on Saturday night. Of the five, only Jacquie didn't like the game. Of course, she was also the only one who wasn't drinking, so maybe that has something to do with it.

Rich, Christine, Logan and I got into the spirit (and spirits) of the game. Sadly, I think I was the least creative card creator, but each of us got a few zingers in there. I don't even remember who had the most points at the end. I just remember it wasn't me. After the game was over, we went through a quick "thumbs-up/thumbs-down" exercise to decide which cards would be kept as seeds for the next game, and we ended up with quite a pile of keepers.

I think 1KBWC, as it seems to be affectionately known as, is one of those games that will only get pulled out once a month (or even less frequently). I couldn't even imagine playing it with a bunch of serious people or teetotalers, though. In fact, I don't think Jacquie is ever going to play it again. She kept trying to prematurely end the game through "game end" type of cards (which we kept vetoing), so it was clear she wasn't having a good time.

Still, I'm looking forward to breaking out 1KBWC again in September.