There was a time in my life when hanging out was synonymous with games. Video games, let alone personal computers were still in their infancy at the time and we had all grown up role-playing, so tabletop games were a natural extension of that interest. It didn’t matter where we ended up hanging out, there was usually some kind of game involved, though the games with all the little chits and cards were only busted out when we weren’t role-playing. There were lots of different classes of games, but a favorite was that of the “beer and pretzel” variety - games that evoked the spirit of role-playing in some way with none of the messy thinking. Games like Wiz-war, Space Hulk, and Talisman were turn-based games were you rolled the die, moved your piece (which was usually a painted model of some kind since you had a ton of them anyway), and worked out your encounters so the next guy could go. Then you were free to grab another beer or go and twiddle with the stereo for a few minutes. Though I can’t say that Talisman ever was a personal favorite, it was good to haul it out of the closet again to recapture that spirit.
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My plant closes down for the holidays every year, and although there are many more productive things I might be doing during my time off, I usually end up spending much of the time hunched over my laptop either working on my websites or figuring out how to get obscure games running on the various flavors of operating systems I use. I’ve managed to squeeze a goodly amount of both pastimes in over this year’s break. I’ll let the site updates speak for themselves (check ‘em out!) and spend more time talking about the games I played.

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It’s been a bunch of years since I’ve played Wiz War, but I plan to give it a go again tommorow if possible. In anticipation, I pulled down my old 5th edition (1991 reissue with expansions) and poked through some of the cards. This game was Hilarious! WizWar has enough of the elements of role-playing games that die-hard gamers can’t help but have some fun, even though it’s really a fast-paced board game with no real role-playing element. There’s dice, cards, figures (if you want), lots of little chits, hit points, dungeon sections that go together to build the ‘board’, spells, and comedy (the cards can be pretty funny). How can you go wrong with this game?! Man, we had so many good times playing this game. I decided to go online and see where the game is today…

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