For those habitual readers of my blog who couldn’t make it to our regular game night last night due to the blizzard, you missed an ‘event’ – one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.  I’ve been chuckling about it all day!  But before I get to that, I will start at the beginning of the evening.

One of our guests showed up with a dog.  Not just any dog; our dog Beesly.  If you’ve read my blog post called Pet Roll Call, then you know that Beesly is an escape artist.  But imagine our friend’s surprise when he came across Beesly a few blocks away from our house as he was walking over for game night.  He was glad he remembered her name, and he brought her back to her grateful family who didn’t even realize she was missing.  Maybe we should have named her Houdini…

So then we played some games, including a new one a friend brought called Left, Right, Center.  I really liked it; especially because it was very simple and easy to learn.  And then we brought out Pit.  We don’t play Pit very often because it’s not really appreciated by some members of the game night crew.  It’s a very loud game that is played at a frenzied pace.  I really like to play it, but I don’t think I’ve ever won a hand of Pit.  My friend had the same issue, but last night while we were playing, she finally got a winning hand.  In Pit, when you have a winning hand, you are supposed to ring a little bell, much like a bell you’d ring for service at a front desk of a hotel or at a store.  My friend (who shall remain nameless; I don’t want to embarrass her, but I’ll give you a hint – her name rhymes with “feral”) was extremely excited to have a winning hand, but there was one problem – she couldn’t reach the bell from her seat.  So what does she do?  This sweet, very quiet, normally passive person lunges…  no wait, let’s be honest.  She dives across the table for the bell.  I mean, it was a feet-off-the-ground, laying-on-the-table, horizontal, head-first dive across our dining room table, and she landed on my arm in the process.  She was immediately embarrassed and apologized profusely, maybe because I was crying.  But mine were tears of laughter because her behavior was so shocking – my arm was fine.  I guess Pit is such a crazy game that it can bring out the insanity in anyone.  And by the way, she did win the round 🙂  So congrats, _____, on winning your first round of Pit.  Please forgive me for publishing this story on the internet, but I thank you for giving us such a fun memory.

I’m sorry it snowed, but I’m glad our absent friends stayed safe.  We missed you a lot, and we really hope to see you next time!

One thing I was excited about doing in my blog was writing board game reviews.  Since my husband and I have a game collecting hobby and thereby an extensive amassment of games, we can find a new game to play on any given night.  But the kids keep us really busy, and so I forgot all about reviewing board games on my blog, not to mention that it’s difficult for us to find the time to play them.  But last night amidst the chaos of our house, we found time to haul out a new game and learn it.  It was such a fun game that it inspired me to write a review – anyone heard of the game Number Quest (or sometimes known as Nubble) by DK Publishing Inc.?

The game board consists of a color-coded grid with numbers on it.  The game is simple to learn, yet complex to play.  Number Quest combines chance (dice), stratagy, and traditional board game elements such as paper money and tokens.  To begin, a player rolls 4 dice which each display the numbers 1-6.  The player then uses these numbers to create any whole number 1-100 with any combination of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.  The player then places their color chip on the corresponding number on the game board.  The color of the number’s space on the board determines how much money a player receives for creating that number.  There are also Nubble Bonuses and Double-Nubbles, but if you want to find out what those are you should play the game.  Even with the Nubbles (double-nubbles involve prime numbers – but don’t worry, you don’t have to know anything about prime numbers), it’s a very easy game to learn.  Also, you don’t have to be great at math since there are ‘cheat charts’ provided.

Number Quest is like a two-player strategy game combined with favorite elements of other types of board games, except the best thing is, you can have up to four players.

Here is a picture of the game board; evidently the game used to be called Nubble.

And another fun thing about Number Quest is how the game ends: it is over when there are tokens on numbers connecting the 1 and the 100 all the way across the board, and the player with the most money at that time wins.  Also, there are LOTS of variations to the game; there’s a kid-friendly version, you can try playing with a timer, or you can even try ending the game based upon a previously agreed upon time limit or money amount instead of when the tokens stretch across the board.  The game is educational for kids, and a great way for adults to exercise their brains, especially if you don’t use the cheat chart.  Upon first playing, I would give it a 9/10, but keep in mind that we didn’t even get in a full game due to time constraints.  But it seems like a really fun game and I’m looking forward to trying it with 4 players!

Since it’s something I had never before tried, I’ve been dabbling in role playing games for a few months.  We’ve met with a small group twice to play “Call of Cthulu”, and it was a fun experience.  Here is a link to my blog post about the game – it reads like a novel, but keep in mind that all the action took place during two afternoons.  You begin a game by deciding characteristics you will attribute to your character, and rolling the dice to determine others.  There was a host, and he guided us through the game; telling us when to roll what dice and what events were occurring as a result of our decisions.  We are going to meet another time this Saturday for another scenario in this same game – hopefully we’ll get to keep our same characters since I got a lot of lucky rolls – so my character had lots of strong areas.  Here is the post-game wrap-up for the two sessions we already played.  My character is named Grace O’Conner, and she is a zookeeper at The Franklin Park Zoo in Boston.  The year is 1925.

(Wrap up from the original Call of C’thulhu scenario “Haunter in the Hills.”)

Within days of returning to Boston, Jason Carthage and Grace O’Conner had contacted each other and Ms. Dorothy Morgan and borrowed the diary they’d found in the Adams place. Each of the two had read it and both later wished they hadn’t.

The very meticulous diary had very little written in it towards the beginning and the earliest dates were from 1910. Most were about mundane things such as Dr. Adams’ move to the home in the Vermont Mountains and dealing with the folk in the area, including Dr. Haylett. There were some entries about Dr. Adams’ research but little until 1919, when he noted that he had suddenly found more and more proof that there are things in the hills that simply SHOULD NOT BE.

He made some notes about the research he was doing, including mentioning a certain book in the Moretown Memorial Library called “Legends of New England” by Eli Davenport and noting “some of the answers are there.” The journal alleged that he kept the main bulk of his research elsewhere.

Entries continued to get more disturbing and weird until May of 1922 when they took a change for the macabre. Without going into detail, Adams noted that he purchased several large dogs and hastily had a kennel constructed for them. He wrote “The dogs seem to hate the things. I hope they can warn me of their approach. I fear that they will not be able to protect me.”

He wrote more and more that the “things” were watching all the time and he feared he may have unintentionally gotten their notice with his investigations. He noted that they could easily conquer the earth but had not tried so far because he felt they had not needed to. They didn’t want to bother and could get what they wanted without it.

He also wrote that the town of Moretown was within the things’ grip and noted that he learned that some of the people in the town, and even elsewhere in Washington County, worked with these things, these “fungi,” either willfully or against their will.

By June, he noted that the house was now constantly watched and the that things were growing more bold, though they seemed to prefer the darkest of nights: those that were overcast or without a large moon. By the end of that month, he wrote that he saw the things’ prints around the house nightly and that he must often replace the dogs that were killed fighting them.

In July, he wrote that an attempt to stop him on his way to Moretown almost worked. A sign on Moretown Mountain Road detoured him to a dead end and the barking of the large dogs he had with him alerted him to the presence of the things. He noted on the 10th of July that the dogs again alerted him to something near the road as he drove.

In August, others seemed to have joined the mix. Adams noted continually getting new dogs and wrote that on Aug. 3, a bullet crashed through a window of his house, narrowly missing him.

The following week, there were more shots outside of the house on darkened nights and he found several of the dogs dead the following morning. He noted that he found more of the claw prints in the road as well as the footprints of men. He wrote that the phone lines had been cut and were dead.

The following day, he reported going to Montpelier and purchasing several more large dogs and a large-caliber rifle as well as supplies.

The next several entries noted the numerous cloudy nights and the exchange of gunfire that happened nightly. He wrote that there were at least three men in the group against him along with the numerous claw prints. He feared that he was trapped in the house and wrote that he is loathe to leave his home to the things.

On Aug. 20, he noted that the things called to him the night before in horrible buzzing voices, telling him things he dared not put down and making promises he feared they would keep. He mentions that the things want to take him to Yuggoth and beyond, something he dreaded. He wrote that he recognized one of the men that who was with the things: Erik Bartlett was among them.

The entries continued with the horrors of the night, of buzzing noises that made him feel lethargic, and sparks of light that burst against the house when he looked out the windows and left blackened burned marks.

The last entry, dated Sept. 6, noted:

“I will try to leave this place tomorrow. With the full moon, perhaps I can get as far as Northfield or even Montpelier, where I might take a train east to Boston or even Dover though I wish to leave these haunted hills. I only hope they let me go. I will leave this journal hidden here in the event of my demise. I fear that if the fungi do not get me, their human servants will.

“The things’ lair must be on the west face of Chase Mountain. There is a large cave there, covered with a great boulder too heavy for anyone to move. However, erosion has left a place where a man might wiggle though. That must be where they are.”

Both of them remembered the Montpelier newspaper article from the next day. Dr. Adams had attacked a man in Montpelier but had been stopped by police and returned home.