ScottVee Gaming

On the game box I got recently, among the hundreds of old NES games, there were a few games that were so basic, I don't understand why they were released at all.  Let's start with Checkers.  You probably have a checkers set in your closet somewhere, so why would you spend money on a Nintendo cartridge for that? That being said, the game worked as expected and I was able to beat it on the first game.  I didn't see any options. Next up is Othello, which also might be in your closet.  It's also very common in game collections.  Again, the game worked as expected and I beat in on my first try. In both cases, the controls were a bit awkward.  To select the piece I want, I have to go left left left up up SELECT, then to move it: up right DROP.  And so on.  ON a real game board, you just pick things up and move them.  You know, like humans do. I am sure I programmed my own versions of these games as starter projects when I was learning code ages ago...

Anne is a big fan of sudoku puzzles.  She doesn't go through whole books of them like she did when we first met.  But we play a game once in a while.  I found this Sudoku Square game in Sedona, only to find out it really has nothing to do with sudoku at all, except for the name. Well, it looked like a cute puzzle anyway.  The idea is that each player gets a board and a set of pieces.  There are a bunch of dice with weird symbols.  Roll those dice and there's a setup phase that feels like Bingo: read off the letter and symbol on each die and put a stopper at that location. That's all the setup.  Now, just try to fit all those wooden pieces onto the board with the stoppers blocking those squares.  The rule book claims that there will ALWAYS be a solution, but I don't see how they guarantee that at all. Still, it took me about four minute to solve the first one, and Anne got hers, too.  For some reason, the second puzzle only took me about thirt...

On the way to work last thursday or friday, the guys on my usual morning radio show were talking about the winners of this year's Toy Hall of Fame.  It was their job to be entertaining and silly, and a bit outraged by each other's choices.  Here they are. https://rock1053.iheart.com/featured/follow-along-with-the-show/ They raised the same questions that always come up when so many activities have to be grouped together.  Do board games count as toys?  A "toy" should be something you (especially the younger version of you) can play with -- do whatever you want to do, make something up, entertain yourself.  We don't really play "with" a board game.  We just play the game.  But that means following rules and trying to reach win conditions.  It's a different feel altogether. The winners this year show how hard it is to classify our hugely creative range of activities.  Then were: Battleship (which started as a pencil and paper game), slime, and ...

We found this one at the State Park gift shop in Borrego Springs.  I did a quick read of the rules a few days back, and it seemed very simple. It was even more simple than that.  Players take turns flipping cards face-up onto a central pile.  If you see a dog and its matching owner come up back-to-back, slap (or "pound") the deck and take all the cards. Aside from the three special cards, that's all there is to it.  Those special cards are: - Dog Catcher = take the stack but leave the dog catcher as the start of the next stack - Dog Biscuit = first player to pound the deck takes it all - Fire Hydrant = add another card to the pile Last rule: if you pound the deck and the cards did NOT match, add an extra card to the pile.  Sometimes you get two of the same dog or owner and think it's a match.  Whoever ends up with all the cards is the winner. This would be fun for a while for some very young players.  There's nothing here to keep us entertained beyond ...

We have been playing some of those old Nonogram apps before bed lately.  Way more than we should, but I guess once you do ten levels, you might as well do 50 of them, right? Anyway, I like any kind of bonus levels that have a game within the game, and Nonogram.com currently has a "Rise & Dice" game in rotation which is essentially Snakes & Ladders.  You gain dice by playing the regular puzzles and have to get up to space 200 to win the mini-game challenge for the week.  It's a good little no-brainer.  Your overall progress against other players is shown in the tiny top bar, and you roll and go up ropes and fall down throuh portals.  There are tiny gift boxes on some spaces that give you 2-3 more dice.  When you win any daily or weekly challenge, the Nonogram.com app gives an attractive trophy for your shelf in the main game. We have each beaten it a few times.  It's kinda fun mumbling the die roll needed to avoid the traps and get to the next u...

On our Sedona trip, I hooked up that new retro game box and poked at it for about an hour.  Since we have been binge-watching the original Addams Family series, I showed Anne the crude old Fester's Quest game.  It starts with him chilling on a roof or patio somewhere, and a UFO lands and starts messing up the place.  Fun. After my last comment about how none of the creatures or details have any info or backstory, I found the original game manual on archive.org. Even then, the creatures are barely mentioned.  There are globules that sit there and skeeters who spin off mosquitos that bite you.  There is an inventory screen with more items than I was expecting, including light bulbs and a noose that will summon Lurch to wipe out all on-screen enemies. It's a shame that the main game play is so terribly slow, and the Continue option takes you back to the start.  You get to keep your items, but there is no way to run or sprint.  Just walk walk walk.  ...