The Tao of Gaming

The good news is I recognized a merrimac coup. The bad news is I recognized it too late. It could have been straight out of a textbook, too. Damn.

No, not the TV show...

A local plucked Jericho off the discount table and we gave it a go this week. I think it's a pretty reasonable game, although the world isn't in desperate need of another filler little card game. That being said, Jericho contains several clever ideas.

On your turn you play a card. The walls are the five suits (each suit having cards valued 1,3,4,5 or 7). There are also 2s, which are wild. You can either:

1. Play a card onto a wall
2. Play a trumpet (possibly onto a wall)
3. Play a card into the supply Playing a card onto a wall simply adds it to the value. When each of the three scoring cards shows up, all the cards in the supply are flipped up and sorted by color. Whoever has the highest total value in each wall gets all matching cards in the supply (at one point per).

   The trick is trumpets. When you play a trumpet you name a color, and the highest single value of that color falls down. (If multiple values tie, they all fall down, although we think that each player can only lose a single card). If you happen to have a wall of that color, you can add the trumpet to it. However, trumpets can't stand by themselves (and are never affected by trumpets), so if your only wall card gets knocked over, the 2s fall away. Any card knocked over goes into the supply and increases the value for the scoring.

   Walls fall often in Jericho.

   Jericho seems deep, for a 15 minute game. You often don't want to play a big card out, since it can shield the next highest cards from trumpets, but sometimes you do it anyway. A long running battle in one color makes the winner score well, so sometimes you just pluck down a huge card and pray that the scoring will show up. After each scoring card all players toss one card to reseed the supply, so your hand size dwindles slowly.

   Overall, a reasonable filler.

Since I've got nothing to say regarding new games ...

Redbelt -- A good flick, and one of David Mamet's more uplifting pieces (most characters have their lives trashed). I mean, you have a guy who makes selling timeshares into an interesting play/movie, and now he's writing about hollywood, honor and MMA? [The DVD's extras include a Q&A with Mamet].

Dollhouse -- "Fox shifted to soft-core pornography so gradually, I barely noticed!" I'll stick out the season, because I'm not terribly bright, and I want to see what happens once Joss pens an episode. (If he actually shifts to a "boom-chicka-wa" bass line as his episode's soundtrack, that's good enough for me).

Battlestar Galactica -- Watching this parallels living it: a joyless journey led by those making it up as they go along in the hopes that the rest of the survivors don't notice. I apologize to everyone I introduced this to ...

Saturn's Children -- I like Stross, but I flung aside Halting State with great force. This seems like a romp so far (granted, just started).