Gaming, Gaming, and More Gaming

Benjamin was pretty excited about his new Batman costume for Halloween--he's worn it everyday!

We had a pretty fabulous weekend this last week. Friday, we started out strong playing our newly acquired Sentinels of the Multiverse expansions with Brendan and Carmen. I think I can definitely say that the two new heroes added a lot of enjoyment to the game, and I look forward to playing and exploring the game even more.

Today we put our expansion to Suburbia to the test with Mark, Benjamin, and me playing. I think with this particular one I'll try a full fledged review of the game:

Overview
Suburbia is a tile laying game that excellently balances both theme and mechanisms. It supports up to four players with each person attempting to build the largest (specifically the largest population) borough. There are 5 rotating tiles available for each player with exactly one being purchased and replaced each turn, which puts a hard cap on the length of the game except for one twist. The "last round" tile's location is randomly somewhere in the last stack. So while everyone has a pretty good idea of about how the game is progressing time wise, there's still an element of chance to the whole thing for exactly when it will end.

Components
Each player has a starting board that can be placed in two different orientations depending on player preference as well as three meeple markers. One cylinder marks the income track, one rectangular prism marks the reputation track, and the final meeple marks the population in that player's borough. The first two tracks are on the players' starting boards while the final one is placed on a communal tracker.

There are also reversible and staged (i.e. A, B, C) building tiles that can be used as commercial, industrial, residential, civic, or lake tiles (the final one is one the reverse side). These tiles each have names and thematically appropriate instantaneous or ongoing effects on income, reputation, money, and/or population. These effects can be influenced by both what is just in your borough and the borough's of other people, which is where a lot of the player interaction and interest in what everyone else is building comes into the game.

Other components include goal tiles, money pips, and set up boards.

The expansion adds both some fun new building and goal tiles that go into the mix as well as an entirely new type of tile called "borders". Borders are fun because even though they act much like other tiles, the more directly impact the shape that your city can take and are always available unless they run out. More in line with the other tiles, there are also challenge and bonus tiles that everyone can see coming and plan for and that everyone can get.

While the backs of the expansion tiles are just barely off color, it doesn't really matter since you don't see everything that is coming all laid out but rather just one at a time. All of the components (new and old) have a very nice and solid quality to them with nice vibrant colors. And the artwork, while basic, feels highly appropriate rather than excessively stylized.

Gameplay
At the start of each turn, a new building tile is added to the line-up. Older building tiles become less expensive the longer they stay out. The person taking the turn buys exactly one tile and either adds it to their borough or reverses it to make a lake. Tiles can either be purchased from the line up or from the always (unless they run out) available border or basic tiles. After purchase, a tile is placed and then the player receives the immediate and any ongoing effects. A player may also choose to invest in a previously placed tile by paying the cost of the tile again and treating the tile as if there were two of them. If she did not purchase a tile from the line up, the player then trashes a tile from the line up and replaces it allowing the game to progress at a constant pace. Play proceeds until the "last round" tile appears at which point there is one more full round remaining in the game. At the conclusion of the game, everyone adds any additional points (population) from private and public goals achieved and the winner is declared base on the largest population.

Overall: 10/10 (because actually I can't think of anything wrong with this game)

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In addition to the two board games, we also had some great family time playing Mario Kart and Mario 3D World as a family of 3. Benjamin gets really into the games, which is pretty great. I love that he can actually play the games at all.  We even managed to get in our first game of War Machine. While it's true that the game is pretty complicated, it turns out that the rules are fairly intuitive. Mark won handily, and we both had a great time.

We had some pretty delicious meals this weekend as well. We moved our weekly grilled cheese from Sunday to Saturday and had chicken parmesan grilled cheese. As it turns out, one of the better sandwiches. Probably helped that we used pretzel buns. Sunday we had butternut squash macaroni and cheese. Amazing! Some of the better leftovers we've ever had (which I say the night after while writing this). And on another fun food note, I ate at a Waffle House for the first time on Saturday morning. Actually had a pretty great time and was impressed with the service, food, and atmosphere. Probably will not be my last time eating there.

And of course, it was General Conference weekend. I caught about half of the Saturday morning and all of the Sunday sessions. Even though I was really tired, I did cross-stitch the whole time to keep me awake. Benjamin's stocking may actually be stitched by Christmas this year!

I particularly enjoyed the talks in the Saturday morning sessions that I got to hear concerning real truth and gaining a testimony. I really look forward to studying them more thoroughly as they become available in the next few days. And here's two of my favorite memes from conference:

I really have felt the Spirit witness to me the truthfulness of the gospel, the divinity of Christ, and the authority of the leaders of the Church. And I need to remember and foster these memories and moments.