Memory

Do you get it? I played Memory for Guy Fawkes Day? As in, remember, remember, the fifth of November. Well, I think I'm clever.

I don't have any decks specifically made for playing Memory, so I used a full 52-card deck. That, um... took a while.

Blackjack

I didn't realize how many little extra rules there were to Blackjack!

If you aren't familiar, the basic rule is that you want to get as close to 21 without going over, and you're playing against the house, who has the same goal.

So the hand closest to the camera is mine, and the other one is the house (Birk) with one card flipped over, because the idea is that I have to bet that I have a better hand than the house. I can hit and take another card if I think I won't go over 21, or I can stay and keep what I have. Once I'm done, the house does the same thing, but it has to follow simple rules: reveal the hidden card, hit if it's 16 or lower, stay if it's 17 or higher. If we tie, I would keep my bet. (I didn't actually bet anything because there wasn't much of a point.

But there are little extras, like getting five cards without going over 21, or how i could split the above hand into two and hit them separately.

I can't remember, but I think I won more than I lost.

Go Fish

I know I had, at some point in my childhood, a deck of cards specifically made for playing Go Fish. I think each suit had a different color so it was easier to see when you had all four?

Anyway, if you aren't familiar with Go Fish, this is how it works: Each player gets 5 cards. You ask the other player(s) if they have any of a certain card. (You must have at least one of that card in your hand.) If they have that card, they have to give you one. If they don't, they tell you to "go fish" and you draw a card from the pile (called the "ocean" or the "pool"). Then it's their turn, and so on. The goal is to get all four of any given card, then you lay them face-up (this pile of four like cards is called a "book," which doesn't at all fit the theme of fishing) and work on getting the rest of your cards. Ultimately, you want to get rid of all your cards and have the most "books."

Birk won, but just barely.

Also, I learned that there's a hashtag for #cardsinbed on Instagram.

Exploding Kittens NSFW

If you read The Oatmeal's webcomic, you're probably already familiar with the game Exploding Kittens. We have the NSFW version (I've never played the non-NSFW version, so I don't know how different it is). We also have the Imploding Kittens expansion, but I removed all those cards and we played the original version. (We'll play Imploding Kittens another time as a different day's game.)

And of course Gimli got in on the action because, well, kittens.

I won, and I think it was the first time some strategy actually came into play. Most of the time, this game - as a two-player game, anyway - boils down to who drew the Defuse cards first and held onto them. But I hoarded things like Nopes and Favors and managed to steal Birk's last couple of Defuses, and he wound up with the Exploding Kitten.

Eco Fluxx

We have several of the Fluxx games: Star Fluxx (sci-fi themed), Monty Python, and Eco Fluxx, which is this one. It is definitely the... least entertaining of them. It's not meant to be funny or anything... it's just a bunch of nature-themed stuff.

The rules of Fluxx are simple: Start with four cards, then draw a card and play a card. But some of the cards you play will be New Rule cards, which might mean that now you draw or play a different number of cards, or there's a limit on how many cards you can have in your hand or how many Keepers you can have in front of you. Some Keepers have rules; most don't. Goals tell you how to win the game: for example, if there's a Goal on the table that says you need the Leaves and Seeds Keepers to win, whoever has those two Keepers in front of them wins, unless the Goal gets changed to something else before they have those Keepers in front of them. Creepers must be played immediately and usually mean a certain person can't win, or that nobody can win (unless there's a Goal in play that specifies that you can ONLY win with that Creeper). It sounds complicated, but it's really not.

Anyway, Birk was finally home from an away rotation, so I got to play a two-player game! And I chose... this one.

Klondike Solitaire, Draw 3 (Microsoft Solitaire Collection)

Ahh, the original (at least as far as Windows is concerned... I admittedly don't know the history of solitaire card games). And the last game in the Microsoft Solitaire Collection!

I played it in Draw 3 mode... I haven't yet decided if I'll go back and play Draw 1 as a different mode, or the version where you don't get to click through the draw pile once you hit the end. I feel like it makes it a fairly different game, so it should count. But we'll see.

One thing that makes me really happy is that they don't dictate which Ace goes in which slot. It sounds dumb, but I've always (since I was a little kid) put them in the same order, and when I find versions that predetermine where they go, I hate it, because it's never in the "right" order to me. For anyone who's curious, it's - from left to right - Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, and Clubs.

Another thing that's pretty cool and a great time (and patience) saver: the "solve" button. It appears up there next to the draw pile once you've (a) drawn all the cards from the draw pile, AND (b) uncovered every card from below. So instead of having to drag every single card up to the top when you know you've won, you can just click the solve button and be done. It's nice.

Tri-Peaks Solitaire (Microsoft Solitaire Collection)

I was in the mood for some kind of game where I could shoot things, or for torturing some Sims, but alas, I've got a theme going this week and by golly I'm going to stick to it. So here's Tri-Peaks Solitaire.

Yup, my first "repeat," since I did this game in "analog" already (using a real deck of cards). Refer to the rules... it's legit.

Only one type of Solitaire left in the Microsoft Solitaire Collection! This weekend I can switch to something different.

Spider Solitaire (Microsoft Solitaire Collection)

Yup, I'm just gonna do them all this week. (And don't worry, this one is a still shot, not a video. It's not broken.)

I really like Spider Solitaire, as long as I'm playing with two suits. One is usually too easy, and four is usually too hard, so I like the middle ground of two suits.

I learned yet another thing about Microsoft Solitaire Collection tonight, and this one REALLY pisses me off: it requires internet. WHY? I learned this because it was struggling with the connection when I first loaded it. This, in my mind, defeats the purpose of Solitaire. Like, you're playing alone... why do you NEED internet? Connect later for high scores or whatever the hell.

Another thing Microsoft Solitaire Collection does that I actually LIKE is that you can choose random or guaranteed solvable, and if you choose solvable, you can choose a difficulty level. I think I only like it because "hard" is easy for me, and that makes me feel good about myself.

Pyramid Solitaire (Microsoft Solitaire Collection)

To continue this week's emerging theme, I played another selection from the Microsoft Solitaire Collection: Pyramid Solitaire. I used to play this a lot too. It can be pretty mind-numbing, which can be nice.

If you aren't familiar, you pair up cards that equal 13 in face value, and they disappear. So Kings don't need to be paired up, Queens pair with Aces, Jacks with 2s, 10s with 3s, etc. Suits are irrelevant.

I used to play a version, I don't know where from, where you could pair a card with a card underneath it in the pyramid as long as it was exposed on one side. So for example, in the video above, once that 4 in the middle of the bottom row is removed, I'd be able to pair the 2 to the right of it and the J half-exposed by the 4. But you can't do that in this version.

I also learned something that didn't come up last night playing Freecell... Microsoft Solitaire Collection has ads. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But it's annoying. They're unskippable, and they aren't blocked by Ublock or Ghostery or anything, because it's not in the browser; it's its own app.

Freecell (Microsoft Solitaire Collection)

I love Freecell. I used to play for ages. I used to keep track of the numbers of the games that I had won so I wouldn't play duplicates (which is pretty statistically unlikely anyway). I used the keyboard shortcut where you could select and move columns using the numpad instead of clicking (and it was much faster).

Well, that numpad shortcut is gone as far as I can tell, and that's extremely frustrating to me.

The win animation varies randomly, too. In the video above, they turn into fireworks. The first time I won, they turned into butterflies. Another time, they did the nostalgic jumping and bouncing thing. But none of the animations go until the end... it cuts itself off to offer you another round.

So, it has its problems, but it's still Freecell. And I'm still really good at it, which makes me feel good.

Tri-Peaks Solitaire

I love this game! I used to play it for hours on the computer in the early '00s. Today, I played it with a real-life deck of cards.

This was my first round, which I lost. But I played again, planning to play until I (a) won or (b) had to leave for dinner. And I won the second round. What luck!

CounterSpell (card) (playtest)

I can't say much about CounterSpell because I'm a playtester, so (1) I'm not supposed to say much about it, and (2) it isn't really a finished game yet. I expect to receive a full copy of the game before this year of games is over, so if I do, I plan to use it for another day, since it will - likely - be a different game once they've made changes to it.

So this is all I'm going to show: the score. Heather and I played my first two-player test game before bar trivia, so big thank you to Heather!