Games I Love: Get Bit!

In Get Bit! You play a robot (or in the newer version, a pirate) swimming for your life to escape a robot (or pirate) munching shark. To do this you have to bluff or luck your way into playing different and higher value cards than your opponents.  It's a relatively simple game, but that's part of the appeal in my mind.

Get Bit! is quick to pick up and play because the rules are intuitive for the most part.  Play a higher card?  You're farther from the shark.  Closest to the shark?  You get bitten.  Get bitten?  Lose a limb.  Lose all your limbs?  Sink to the bottom of the ocean and lose the game.  The only potentially confusing rule is what to do when two players play the same card.  Those players don't move positions except to be next to one another.  That means that players should hope to avoid matching the cards of other players, because a match at the wrong time could be potentially disastrous.

While there's not so many cards that card-counting is impossible, but there's still a degree of bluffing involved.  Similarly, there's a degree of strategy in deciding if you should allow yourself to get bitten.  While it's theoretically possible to survive a game without getting bitten, it's unlikely and grows ever more unlikely the more players are involved in the game.  Generally it seems better strategy to choose carefully when you take your bites so that you can play your cards at the most opportune moments.

It's notable that a pseudo prequel to Get Bit! called Walk the Plank! which is just about to finish a Kickstarter campaign (26 hours as this is being written). While the rules are different and neither needs the other to be played, it's pretty cool that Walk the Plank! and Get Bit! can link together.

Games I Love: Agricola

When I think of Agricola the thing that immediately comes to mind is the phrase "farming is hard!" It's a common refrain from my gaming group when we play, but it hasn't stopped us from trying to master the art of boardgame farming.

In Agricola players take on the role of farmers in the middle ages, attempting to plant their fields, raise their livestock, feed their families, upgrade their homes, and become successful by taking on any number of occupations. Sound like a lot? It is. Which is why "farming is hard." And the more players added to the game, the harder it gets as people vie for the same resources and upgrades.

That might make Agricola sound unfun, but it's really a huge part of what makes it excellent. The game is deep. So deep, in fact, that in the two years we've been playing it, no one member of my gaming group has ever seen all the occupations or improvements which are dealt out to each player at the start of the game. This means there's almost always something new to look at and half the way to succeed at Agricola is to get a little lucky and find a good way to make your various occupations and improvements synergise so that you're reaping huge benefits.

The game itself is good looking and the wood tokens, whether they're the old versions (circles and blocks) or the new (person or animal shaped), feel right to the spirit of the game.  Similarly, the boards and cards are beautiful but simple, fitting in well with the time period of the game.  There's no dice rolling in Agricola, making the game far more about timing and playing the odds and against the other players than about round to round luck.  Agricola is definitely an excellently made game and I think it should be a welcome addition to any gaming table.