Dabong Review

I put the batteries into our brand new automatic card shuffler and loaded up the copy of Dabong we won at C2E2 and prepared to go to town. Right off the bat Sarah noticed the one year time limit per turn rule fell in love.

The rules are funny and whimsical, and you probably know them all already. Basic game play consists of playing cards that match the color or suit of the previous card. There are draw 2's, reverses and skips, you can play straights and flushes, you can even shoot the moon. There is a caveat or two as to how these special hands can be played but they all make sense. The rules are basically descriptions of special hands you can play broken down by how unorthodox they might seem. We had little problem with incorporating the entire rule set right off the bat however.

Dabong plays easy and still retains a bit of strategy. The hands one can play feel like special attacks and are very satisfying. The rules avoid the discouraging "draw cards until you can play one" rule, which feels weird but welcome.

I don't think this could be a regular 2 player game for us. The hands go by way too fast and there really isn't an attempt to play different strategies. Also I can't get over the fact that while Dabong borrows rules from so many other games it can't be used to play those other games like a deck of cards can. I do like it much better than card games though. I see this best played in a setting with three of more people who just finished a grueling game like Runescape and just want to have a little fun before going home.

The automatic card shuffler is cheap, loud, and the quality of the shuffle is dubious. However seeing as Sarah can't shuffle worth a damn it's a welcome addition to the table.

To purchase Dabong contact John at Astute Games.

Together at the C2E2

Our first trip of the year down Chicago's Lakefront path was pleasantly cool and relatively uncrowded. We were headed to another first for the both of us, our first convention. We'd talked about going to other conventions, but we had been hesitant to take that step. After all we are both still coming to terms with our geeky nature and didn't know if we were ready to be stereotyped at con-goers.

We had to park our bikes a good 15 minutes away from the Con because even though the bike path leads directly to the McCormick place, there is no easy way to reach the main convention hall. We are used to such things. So we braved the cavernous depths of the "Lakeside Hall" until we ran into Captain America, Ramona Flowers, and some Anime guy. Here we go folks.

Sarah was wearing her X-force print comic book dress with a blue shawl and matching Converse. We must have been stopped twenty times by admirers, and everywhere we went we overheard people commenting "that dress is awesome."  Next time we'll be bringing more cards and fliers.

We walked out of a screening of Evangelion 2.2. I'd never seen the original but this was so silly I actually face-palmed.

We received some free comics from Archaia, Mouse Guard being my faviorite. The artwork is so damn cute that it almost eclipses the fact that these poor mice have a daunting task ahead of them. Watching the team up against a snapping turtle moved me more that any overdone adventurers vs dragons scene could.

Dabong! Is a fun easy to learn card game that I would actually like to play again some time. It borrows liberally from almost every other card game out there but it all fits together well and there is a subtle strategy that comes from there being so many parallel rules in play at once. 

Someday all the furniture in our house will be from Geek Chic. I love the fact that the game tables allow you to cover up games in progress so curious cats don't eat your mini's.

Sarah really enjoyed Lady Mechanika. I got issue one signed, and then went and bought issue 0 mostly because I liked the art so much.

Then there was Quidditch. The International Quidditch Association really recreates this fantasy sport in all it's confusing pointless glory. We almost took a dodgeball in the face and I swear to god someone is going to lose an eye. I do admit it's a lot of fun.