GAYLAXICON 2011 GAMING

Our gaming room will be available most of the weekend. Thanks to our generous game loaners, we will have a wide variety of board, card and electronic games for you to enjoy. Please keep the games in the game room and return all the pieces back to their box when finished. We list certain games on the schedule as we will be focusing on the game at that time with a sign-up sheet so you can play against other people who enjoy that game. If you aren't a board/card game enthusiast, come by and let us try to change your mind. Electronic gaming platforms: Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3.

Guillotine
The French Revolution is famous in part for the use of the guillotine to put nobles to death, and this is the macabre subject of this light card game. As executioners pandering to the masses, the players are trying to behead the least popular nobles. Each day the nobles are lined up and players take turns killing the ones at the front of the line until all the nobles are gone. However, players are given cards which will manipulate the line order right before 'harvesting,' which is what makes the game interesting. After three days worth of chopping, the highest total carries the day.

Dominion
You are a monarch, like your parents before you, a ruler of a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens. Unlike your parents, however, you have hopes and dreams! You want a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. You want a Dominion. In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds, and feodums. All are small bits of land, controlled by petty lords and verging on anarchy. You will bring civilization to these people, uniting them under your banner.

But wait! It must be something in the air; several other monarchs have had the exact same idea. You must race to get as much of the unclaimed land as possible, fending them off along the way. To do this you will hire minions, construct buildings, spruce up your castle, and fill the coffers of your treasury. Your parents wouldn’t be proud, but your grandparents, would be delighted.

Drakkon
The old dragon Drakon has captured a brave band of adventurers who have sneaked into her lair to steal her gold. But rather than eat them immediately, Drakon has decided to make it a game: Greed shall set one of the adventurers free. She sends the frightened adventurers into her magical, mad vaulted chambers, and the first one to collect ten gold from Drakon’s maze gets to go free. The rest get to be lunch. Each turn, players must choose one of two options: (1) place a tile from their hand onto the board, expanding the dungeon; or (2) move their Hero to an adjacent tile. Many of the dungeon tiles have an icon that allows players entering that space to take a special action (for example, taking a piece of gold from the dragon's hoard, stealing gold from another player, or destroying a tile that is already in play).

Carcassonne
A clever tile-laying game. The southern French city of Carcassonne is famous for its unique Roman and Medieval fortifications. The players develop the area around Carcassonne and deploy their followers on the roads, in the cities, in the cloisters, and in the fields. The skill of the players to develop the area will determine who is victorious.

Acquire
This Sid Sackson classic has taken many different forms over the years depending on the publisher. Each player strategically invests in businesses, trying to retain a majority of stock. As the businesses grow with tile placements, they also start merging, giving the majority stockholders of the acquired business sizable bonuses, which can then be used to reinvest into other chains. All of the investors in the acquired company can then cash in their stocks for current value or trade them 2-for-1 for shares of the newer, larger business. The game is a race to acquire the greatest wealth.

Dick-tionary
It's a twist on Pictionary, but with adult terms. Do you know what that word means?

Time's Up
Time's Up! is a party game for teams of two or more players (best with teams of two). The same set of famous names is used for each of three rounds. In each round, one member of a team tries to get his teammates to guess as many names as possible in 30 seconds. In round 1, almost any kind of clue is allowed. In round 2 no more than one word can be used in each clue (but unlimited sounds and gestures are permitted). In round 3, no words are allowed at all. Time's Up! is based on the public domain game known as Celebrities.

Card Gaming
During this time slot, we will focus on Magic: the Gathering and Vs. card games. Please feel free to bring a deck or try one of the supplied decks and duel.

Elixir
Players collect ingredients cards in order to cast spells, and the first player to get rid of all of their spells wins the game. So far so good. The bad news is, the cards require between 1 and 4 ingredients. Spells requiring 3 or 4 ingredients might actually help you win the game. Spells requiring 1 or 2 ingredients cause another player to perform a forfeit, e.g proposing to another player.

Settlers of Catan
In Settlers of Catan, players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players collect these resources to build up their civilizations to get to 10 victory points and win the game. Multi-award-winning and one of the most popular games in recent history due to its amazing ability to appeal to non-gamers and gamers alike.

Scrabble
In this classic word game, players use their seven drawn letter-tiles to form words on the gameboard. Each word laid out earns points based on the commonality of the letters used, with certain board spaces giving bonuses. But
a word can only be played if it uses at least one already-played tile or adds to an already-played word. This leads to slightly tactical play, as potential words are rejected because they would give an opponent too much access to the better bonus spaces.

Fluxx
A card game where the cards themselves determine the current rules of the game. By playing cards, you change numerous aspects of the game: how to draw cards, how to play cards, and even how to win. There are many editions, themed siblings, and promo cards available

Race for the Galaxy
In Race for the Galaxy, players build galactic civilizations by game cards that represent worlds or technical and social developments. Each round consists of one or more of five possible phases. In each round, each player secretly and simultaneously chooses one of seven different action cards and then reveals it. Only the selected phases occur. For these phases, every player performs the phase’s action, while the selecting player(s) also get a bonus for that phase. For example, if at least one player chooses the Develop action, then the Develop phase will occur; otherwise it is skipped. In it, each player may simultaneously select a development from his hand of cards to build. After revealing the cards, each player adds his development to his tableau of cards on the table and then discards cards from his hand equal to its cost. Each player who chose Develop discards one card fewer as his bonus. Explore allows a player to draw cards and select which of them to add to his hand. Settle allows a player to place a world in his tableau. Some worlds produce goods, represented by face down cards, when Produce is selected. These goods can be discarded for victory points or sold to add cards to the player’s hand by selecting Consume. With cards, players can settle new worlds and build more developments, gaining both victory points and card powers that provide advantages in certain phases. The player who best manages his cards, phase and bonus selections, and card powers to build the greatest space empire, wins. The winner is the player with the most victory points.

Pandemic
You are specialists at the CDC/Atlanta where you watch several virulent diseases break out simultaneously all over the world. The team mission is to prevent a worldwide pandemic outbreak, treating hot spots while researching cures for each of the four plagues before they get out of hand. Players must plan their strategy to mesh their specialists' strengths before the diseases overwhelm the world. For example, the Operations Expert can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases. The Scientist needs only 4 cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal 5. But the diseases are breaking out fast and time is running out: the team must try to stem the tide of infection in diseased areas while developing cures. If disease spreads uncontrolled, the players all lose. If they can cure all four diseases, they win. The board shows earth with some big population centres. On each turn a player can use four actions to travel, cure, discover and build. Cards are used for this but the deck also contains Epidemics...

Are You a Werewolf?
Werewolf takes place in a small village which is hunted by werewolves. Each player is secretly assigned a role - Werewolf, Villager, or Seer (a special Villager). There is also a Moderator player who controls the flow of the game. The game alternates between night and day phases. At night, the Werewolves secretly choose a Villager to kill. Also, the Seer (if still alive) asks whether another player is a Werewolf or not. During the day, the Villager who was killed is revealed and is out of the game. The remaining Villagers then vote on the player they suspect is a Werewolf. That player reveals his/her role and is out of the game. Werewolves win when there are an equal number of Villagers and Werewolves. Villagers win when they have killed all Werewolves. Werewolf is a social game that requires no equipment to play, and can accommodate almost any large group of players.

Ticket to Ride
With elegantly simple gameplay, Ticket to Ride can be learned in 3 minutes, while providing players with intense strategic and tactical decisions every turn. Players collect cards of various types of train cars they then use to claim railway routes in North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who fulfill Destination Tickets – goal cards that connect distant cities; and to the player who builds the longest continuous route. "The rules are simple enough to write on a train ticket – each turn you either draw more cards, claim a route, or get additional Destination Tickets," says Ticket to Ride author, Alan R. Moon. "The tension comes from being forced to balance greed – adding more cards to your hand, and fear – losing a critical route to a competitor."

Princess Uno
The classic card game of trying to get rid of your hand of cards, but with a Gaylactic twist. Come ready to use your and your opponents princess names or face drawing more cards.

Charades
A traditional parlor game for large or small groups, charades was once so popular as an after-dinner activity that it was known simply as "The Game." Its recorded history dates back to 16th century France, and the name has become a catchphrase for many different pantomime games. Many boxed versions with suggestions and timers are available, and several TV shows have been made using the basic idea of the game. In most versions, one player silently acts out a title (book, movie, show, etc.), phrase or person and their team must guess it. The words can be from a commercially made list or just creatively made up by the players. Many signals and conventions have become traditional (see link below). The experience is usually humorous, whether you are strenuously flapping away like a buzzard - alternating with pretending to push a buzzer and lying dead on the floor - for several minutes while your team guesses everything but buzzard ("bird!" "scavenger!" "bird of prey!!" "raptor?") or frantically struggling to think up clever clues. Many of the clues use the "sounds like" hint - pretending to sew for the word "so," for example. The excitement and frustration of piecing together the clues and guessing is also a great part of the fun, of course, and the relief is immense for both the actor and the guessing team when the guess is finally (or miraculously suddenly) correct. The game usually produces much laughter in the group playing it - solving the riddles is only part of the experience.

LIVE EVENTS:

Red Dragon Inn
In Red Dragon Inn, you and your friends are a party of heroic, fantasy adventurers. You've raided the dungeon, killed the monsters, and taken their treasure. Now you're back, and what better way to celebrate your most recent victory than to spend an evening at the Red Dragon Inn. You and your adventuring companions will spend the night drinking, gambling, and roughhousing. The last person who is both sober enough to remain conscious and shrewd enough to hold onto his Gold Coins wins the game.

Pandemic
See above for the board game description. But this time, we have a large map spread out and you get to take on your role and travel around the globe combating diseases before they outbreak.