Print n Play board games

 On wednesday, a group of GAD students including me met up in the library to play some print and play games. I played 3, including the one I found and printed.

1. They Who Were 8
A pretty simple card strategy game, played in two teams of two with each played having 2 god cards and two action cards at the beginning of each turn. Each turn you use 1 action card and when everyone has gone, you pass your remaining card to your left.

In overall complexity, it turned out to be pretty simple and easy to learn. I found it pretty fun, but the game can feel a little repetitive after awhile due to there only being 10 total action cards, 8 of which are in play at all times. 1 thing that while playing that we figure would be a slight improvement would to be more types of action cards, perhaps that allow use on yourself (a mechanic that is not allowed, although use of actions on your partner is allowed.) Also more god cards to change up play to play action.

2. Zombie in my Pocket

This game appeared that it would be rather complicated and fun, due to the action cards and need to build a board out of tiles. After about 10 minutes of play, it became apparent that this wasn't entirely true. The game has a pretty small time limit and is incredibly easy to lose. You at most get about 3 total turns before you automatically lose, and individual turns tend to take about 3 minutes by themselves. Most action cards have 3+ zombies on them and your base attack is only 1, and base health is 6. This means that you will either have to continuous run away and make almost no progress (what I ended up having to do) or die. The way to win the game is essnetially blind luck becasue the only way is to get the grave yard tile AFTER having gotten the totem room. The game was not very fun and was very repetitive and in order to extend the game long enough to not feel like a bad game of solitare, we extended it about 3 turns. 

3. Cards against Humanity

I joked that I should print out CAH because technically it is a pritn and play because it is open source and one of my favourite card games. When I saw it was indeed on the boardgamegeek site, I realised this was an actual possibility. The mechanics are very simple, involving having a subject card that you must answer with a funny object or action card. There is a judge who chooses the winner of each round. The game is very offensive and easy to learn as well as just fun. It plays like an adult version of Apples to Apples. I think due to the simple nature of the game, it excels past some other games we played because it had replay value and replayablity. The fairness of each round is decided by the judge, who changes each round, so it has appeal and the possibility of winning, where other games lacked the ability to win due to how random they are.