Gaming Friday

[quarrel]

Game night was just me and Orbus, so we dipped into his pile of favorite two-player games.

First up was Hive. It’s an abstract, vaguely chess-like game. Both players have a variety of hexagonal pieces with distinct movement rules. The first player to surround the opposing leader piece wins. The entire match was a tense game of “Oh god, oh god, I can’t do exhaustive brute force lookahead in my head because I’m human but if I don’t I’ll lose!” Neither of us made any serious blunders that I can tell. I managed to press to an advantageous board position by the midgame, but due to inexperience on both our parts, finishing him off took a dozen more turns of flailing on both our parts.

It’s a tight, brain-bending game that benefits from full focus. It’s good for when you really want to concentrate. It doesn’t need a board either, and the travel version has pieces small enough to play on half a restaurant table.

Second was Lost Cities (the two-player card game, not the two-to-four-player board game it inspired). Two players alternately play numeric cards on five different board locations. You get points for every card you play, but you must play cards in ascending order, and once you commit to a site you need to accumulate a certain minimum there or you lose points. I lost the first game by, I think, about eight points, but squeaked by with a one point win in the second.

It’s simple game, quick to learn, and has ample room for bluffing and risk-taking. It strikes me as very well suited to families, as it’s about the same complexity and challenge level as rummy. Kids can play it, but it’s not a kids’ game.