Because July 17 was declared a Philippine holiday, I got to spend most of the day with my friends at Ludo Boardgame Bar and Cafe. My friend Jeoff seems to be a bit addicted to Resistance LOL and boardgame hangouts are starting to become more popular in Manila so we agreed to spend the holiday playing games at Ludo.
It actually started out with a lot of waiting. We were only waitlisted as we didn't have a reservation so when we got there in the late afternoon, we were still 6th on the list. We figured it would take some time to get a table so we decided to head over to Snack Shack along V Luna extension to have some burgers (actually, only my friends had food there since I was still pretty full from my late lunch). We got back to Ludo at around 6:30pm and we were still supposed to be 4th in line. However, a table became open a few minutes after we returned and the people ahead of us on the list were not there so we finally managed to get seated. Cool!
To get a table at Ludo, each person in your party needs to order at least one item - either food or a drink. This wasn't a problem for us as it was close to dinner time so everyone ended up ordering at least one thing (in fact, over the course of our stay there, I ordered a milkshake, spare ribs, iced tea, coffee, and brownie a la mode and I also shared in an okonimiyaki LOL). Other than ordering food or dinks, there is no other requirement (i.e. you don't need to pay an hourly to stay or to use the boardgames there). We ended up playing a few games: Ticket to Ride (once), Tsuro of the Seas (once), 7 Wonders (once), Resistance (three times), and Pandemic (three times). I have come to realize I'm not a fan of Resistance mainly because I feel it's pretty one-sided, heavily favoring the red spies over the blue resistance. True enough, the spies won all three rounds that we played.
Probably the highlight of the evening was Pandemic, which none of us had played before. As such, we struggled to figure out how to play it and we actually didn't play it correctly at all LOL. Unlike most other games, this one requires all players to work together to win. The first round was a major mess given that we missed following the instructions so many times and we ended up losing when we ran out of cards. We were stunned in the second round when we got hit by multiple epidemic cards almost in a row and we eventually lost when we reached the maximum number of outbreaks. (We later learned that we should be playing with only four epidemic cards that should actually be distributed throughout the deck in a manner that prevents them all from coming up early and in a row; it seems what we did was the "heroic" version which is definitely not what beginners should be attempting.) In our last game, we finally found all cures and won. However, we realized after playing that even then, we still missed following some rules LOL. After that third game, I was thinking that I didn't really like Pandemic but as we discovered what instructions we didn't follow correctly during our post-game review, I realized that this could actually be a fun game when played properly. I think I want to give it another shot next time.
It was around 1 AM when we called it quits. At that point, we had been playing boardgames for more than 6 hours. Cool! Despite being tired, everyone started thinking of when we should play again. I'm definitely looking forward to that.
photo from Ludo facebook page
It actually started out with a lot of waiting. We were only waitlisted as we didn't have a reservation so when we got there in the late afternoon, we were still 6th on the list. We figured it would take some time to get a table so we decided to head over to Snack Shack along V Luna extension to have some burgers (actually, only my friends had food there since I was still pretty full from my late lunch). We got back to Ludo at around 6:30pm and we were still supposed to be 4th in line. However, a table became open a few minutes after we returned and the people ahead of us on the list were not there so we finally managed to get seated. Cool!
To get a table at Ludo, each person in your party needs to order at least one item - either food or a drink. This wasn't a problem for us as it was close to dinner time so everyone ended up ordering at least one thing (in fact, over the course of our stay there, I ordered a milkshake, spare ribs, iced tea, coffee, and brownie a la mode and I also shared in an okonimiyaki LOL). Other than ordering food or dinks, there is no other requirement (i.e. you don't need to pay an hourly to stay or to use the boardgames there). We ended up playing a few games: Ticket to Ride (once), Tsuro of the Seas (once), 7 Wonders (once), Resistance (three times), and Pandemic (three times). I have come to realize I'm not a fan of Resistance mainly because I feel it's pretty one-sided, heavily favoring the red spies over the blue resistance. True enough, the spies won all three rounds that we played.
photo from Ludo facebook page
Probably the highlight of the evening was Pandemic, which none of us had played before. As such, we struggled to figure out how to play it and we actually didn't play it correctly at all LOL. Unlike most other games, this one requires all players to work together to win. The first round was a major mess given that we missed following the instructions so many times and we ended up losing when we ran out of cards. We were stunned in the second round when we got hit by multiple epidemic cards almost in a row and we eventually lost when we reached the maximum number of outbreaks. (We later learned that we should be playing with only four epidemic cards that should actually be distributed throughout the deck in a manner that prevents them all from coming up early and in a row; it seems what we did was the "heroic" version which is definitely not what beginners should be attempting.) In our last game, we finally found all cures and won. However, we realized after playing that even then, we still missed following some rules LOL. After that third game, I was thinking that I didn't really like Pandemic but as we discovered what instructions we didn't follow correctly during our post-game review, I realized that this could actually be a fun game when played properly. I think I want to give it another shot next time.
photo from https://boardgamegeek.com
It was around 1 AM when we called it quits. At that point, we had been playing boardgames for more than 6 hours. Cool! Despite being tired, everyone started thinking of when we should play again. I'm definitely looking forward to that.
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