Munchkin

We went to game night last night. Somewhat reluctantly, on my part, as I've gotten rather tired of dominoes. I haven't even managed to go to game night all that often recently, but dominoes have lost their luster. But the kids and I went, taking Blokus in the hopes that we could convince someone to play that with us. No takers at first, but M and I decided to play a 2 person game, with each of us playing 2 colors.

In the midst of the first game, E (college age) and his dad arrived, and agreed to take over our extra hands. They were rather enchanted with the game and quite good at it. E plays much more defensively than any of us have tended to. After playing another game, where E and I managed to tie, with only one 4-square piece left each, I inquired about the game they had brought.

They showed us Munchkin. At first M wasn't interested in playing - he would rather read his book. I persisted and said he needed to come try it. It looked like it might be interesting in the way that various games we have from Uncle D are. Well, it is. It's somewhat like a card game version of D&D. But without any arcane knowledge needed. It was really fun. And funny - many of the cards are puns, like the Maul Rat, or wordplays ( Buckler of Swashing on Cotion of Ponfusion). Then there are other monsters with strange powers - like the lawyer (won't attack thieves - professional courtesy). The deck we were playing with was the original Munchkin plus expansion pack 3 (clerical errors). M and A (who had ditched his dominoes game to come watch us) were thoroughly entranced by the game - and started insisting that we MUST get it.

So, this afternoon found us at Borders purchasing the original game. They are hoping for expansion packs to follow. After that, they felt a need to visit Baskin-R*obbins to redeem their Christmas gift certificates. Today was even warm enough to feel like eating ice cream.

Then, once back home, we HAD to play Munchkin. It moved along a bit slower at first, compared to last night - partly because we weren't quite as sure of the rules and partly that our deck wasn't well shuffled (and maybe that we didn't have extra cards from an expansion pack, who knows?). As we got to the final rounds, that part takes a long time, as everyone gangs up on the person who is about to win. We each had about 3 turns of "I could win this time", but were successfully prevented - until finally I prevailed. A bit on an anti-climax as I had 2 great cards to help me be sure to win - and I ended up defeating a level one monster, with my level 18 warrior. Piece of cake (or as the card might say, peace of cake).