________  ________  ________
   2019-05-28                                   /        \/        \/    /   \
                                               /       __/         /_       _/
   I  love board games and  card games and I  /        _/         /         /
have a humble collection of  them squirreled  \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
away  in a  closet, but I rarely play  them.    /        \/        \/    /   \
Partly because  I just have trouble  finding   /        _/         /_       _/
the time  but mostly because I have  trouble  /-        /        _/         /
finding players.  For  a little while we did  \________/\________/\___/____/
have regular games  at a friend's  house but
even that was only  a small group and  once  he moved down  to  Tasmania  that
stopped.

   That  has  kinda  worked  in my favor  though, since it means  I sought out
mostly two player or solo games and found  a  few that  ended up being my  all
time favorites.

   I'm a fan of quick, punchy games and I'm a fan of heavy themes, here's what
I would consider my top three right now:

   1. Cypher (AEG)

         I  love this  game  to  death, it's so  good. Only 19 cards, games
      lasting  only ten to fifteen  minutes or  so, cyberpunk  themed. It's
      uper portable  and easy to learn, everyone I've played  it with  has
      loved it, though  the theme has put  one or two people off trying it.
      It's the one game I always travel with "just in case".

         The goal of the game is to have the most valuable characters, from
      wealthy and influential to street-level hustle, under your control at
      the end  of the game and the  game can end as  quickly as the  second
      round. It's got a sly  strategic element to it  that I just  love and
      the way the cards are always  being moved around means you need to be
      able to think on your feet. Your winning strategy can fall apart in a
      single turn. Though  it  doesn't scale down to two players that  well
      it's  still playable. With  four players  though, there's  really not
      anything else I'd rather play.

   2. Space Hulk: Death Angel (Fantasy Flight Games)

         This one  is  a very, very  close  second and my absolute favorite
      solo game. It's criminally out of print  but if you can find  a  copy
      grab it. It's a  card-based  abstraction  of the  Warhammer 40K Space
      Hulk game and though the mission can vary from game to game, the bulk
      of the game is your squad blasting your way through hordes of xenos.

         Game play is fairly easy to learn and it's one of those games that
      can be difficult but that feels fun to lose. Shit can get out of hand
      very  quickly. This one plays solo  with  the  exact same  rules as a
      multi-player game  which I  really appreciate.  I play this one a lot
      almost  as  meditation,  setting up  the  column and  the  stacks  of
      monsters, just zoning out and being in it.

         Though way bulkier than something like Cypher it's still  a fairly
      small, compact game.  It was taken off shelves because Fantasy Flight
      lost the 40K license but to my knowledge they still own the game so I
      have my fingers crossed for a re-skinned release in the future.

         A fun gopher factoid; one of the  very first files I put in gopher
      space, long before FAX SEX and baud.baby was an ASCII version of some
      Death  Angel house rules around  locations in  the game,  opening  up
      additional scenarios. At the time  I was  mostly using my Eee PC  and
      throwing that file on gopher was  the quickest way for me to pull  it
      up from the terminal. You can still find it in files/.

   3. Hive (Gen42)

         This one's a new to me and maybe making this  list because of hype
      but I'm really digging this game, it's simple and the game pieces are
      really a pleasure to use. It's a  simple strategy game where the idea
      is to capture your opponent's queen bee while protecting yours, using
      a  squad of critters that each  move  in  different  ways. It's often
      described as chess-like which I  can understand  but is far  lighter.
      Also, like chess there's  no solo play on this one, it's strictly two
      players.

         This  one is also  really small and travels well, there's a pocket
      edition which is the  one I got but even the full size version  seems
      like it wouldn't take up that much space.

   Runner-up: Lazer Ryderz (Greater Than Games)

         I'd  say  this  is a  pretty close four  so I've  included it as a
      runner-up. It's still  kinda compact  when you compare it  to big box
      games but it doesn't travel anywhere near as well as the other three,
      likewise this one  needs a  bit of space  to  play. Lazer Ryders is a
      racing game kind of similar to the light cycles in TRON but your goal
      is  to capture prisms to win the  game without  crashing into anyone.
      It's fast paced,  fun and wrapped in a retro Saturday morning cartoon
      theme. No solo play on  this one, though the  random element of prism
      placement  and  spinning  out  makes it  kinda  fun  to  play against
      yourself.

   And with  my current  top three out  there, I know there's  some other avid
board  and card game players in the phlogosphere so lay it on me fam, what are
some of your favorites? Do you know any punchy little games I might enjoy?



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