Dominion Fever

Ahh, gentle readers.  You will have noticed a pattern in my behavior over the years.  That pattern is this: I will find a game, I will like it, something will allow me to spend more than a passing few moments on it, and I will be hooked.

It's happened with video games (like the Link/Zelda games,) with board games (Ticket to Ride, anyone?) with computer games (Get behind me, Civilization!) and of course with card games (Magic, I have strayed from you for too long!)

Well, over the recent past, the game which is consuming me is Dominion.

I wrote about this game once before, so please go read that entry if you want to get a feel for the game.

The point of this post is to lay a third thing down as a distraction from writing blogs.  Dominion has become a once-a-week (or more) game I play over the lunch hour with two of the Dudes.  It has become a game I invite the Dudes over to play, just because I am itching for another game.  And, oh my oh my, it's a game which is now available to play on-line!  For absolutely no money at all, you can play the base set of cards with your friends, or you can choose a solo game which allows you to play against one, two or three AI bots.

Like the computer version of the "Ticket to Ride" game before it, having access to an on-line version of Dominion has been wonderful, and awful.  I can play a game in 5-10 minutes.  And I do.  Over and over.  While I cannot write a blog while watching The West Wing or Battlestar Galactica, I most certainly can play a few seconds of Dominion while the action on the TV show switches from one scene to another.

So far, I have refused to pay money for any of the add-on sets on-line.  I'm holding off because I really don't want to spoil the anticipation I feel when I consider how much fun it will be to play the game IRL (In Real Life) with the Dudes.  I have already experienced a lessening of a desire to play "Ticket to Ride: Europe" IRL, now that I have (over-)played the computer version.  I do not want that to happen to Dominion.

So, folks, chalk this up as the third thing which helped me go silent for a while here.  What a fun game!

OK.  That's four blog posts written now.  I think I owe myself another episode of The West Wing.  Or two.  And some Dominion.