Card+and+Board+Games

Mike Faust's research for Cards and Board Games.

I started trying to play random games online through google searches, but this wasn't very effective. I eventually joined pogo.com, a site devoted to online gaming. Some games offered are multiplayer, such as euchre, hearts and battleship. Others were completely individual such as puzzles. Some individual games were played against other players. For example, when I played Yahtzee, you would play your own game, but as soon as a player completed their scorecard, the game would end for every other player in that room. Scores were then compared and whoever had the most points was awarded tokens, which could be used to build and dress your avatar. Since I was/am new, my avatar is still very generic. I tried playing some hearts, and was somewhat confused, as noted by the chat log. Beyond these initial comments, a good conversation started up, which I found to be quite rare in the world of pogo.com. a fight eventually started between magplyt and the other players, mostly because magplyt was being very aggressive in his comments and overall ruining the experience. however, rUT290 and I teamed up against him and he eventually left with a trail of cursing. once he was replaced, the conversations became much friendlier and it actually reminded me of playing hearts with my friends in person. I tried playing sudoku later on, wondering how it could be a multiplayer game. it was an interesting variation, giving the numbers to you in blocks. the only multiplayer part of the game however was the in-game chat, which was always ignored since each player had something different and was in no way connected. Battleship however was much more involving, and took an intersting spin on the original game, which sped the game up a significant amount, and also added more depth to the game. other than the 'power-ups', the game played exactly like the board game. I attempted a few times to try and get a conversation going between me and the other players, but always ended very awkwardly. I thought Yahtzee would end up much like sudoku,where you played alone but still had an in-game chat. It turned out to be a single player game, but you played in groups, and once someone got to the point where they couldnt fill in a section on their sheet, the game was over for everyone in the group, and whoever had the highest score at that point won, and recieved tokens. Tokens on pogo.com were awarded after every game, and the amount varied depending on many factors, such as if you won, if so, by how much, did you do anything special, like get a yahtzee, and so on. they were spent buying clothes and other such things for your avatar or profile to show off how good you were. Since i was/am new, I don't have very many tokens. I havent even thought about buying anything either way.