Chez Geek

Before I begin, I have a confession--I was Mystery Columnist W. The entire POV was going to be a "Guess Who?" contest that fell through. Oh well, eh? I'm back, people!

Today's review deals with a neat card game from Steve Jackson Games entitled Chez Geek--a game where the object is to be the first to reach your personal Slack Goal, so let's see just how it's done.

There are two types of cards: Job and Life. There are 9 purple Job cards, and they have three numbers and a special perk or disadvantage.

Income is how much you can spend on buying things or for activities. You have to spend your Income each turn--no hoarding income in this game! Some incomes are variable, and you'll need to roll a 6 sided die to see how much Income you'll have for that turn.

Free Time is how many actions you can take during your Action Phase

The Slack Goal is the number of Slack Points you need to win the game.

The perk or disadvantage is something special that either your job lets you do or prevents you from doing.

How to Slack, Chez Geek Style

Each player (up to five people) gets a Job card, then the dealer deals out five Life cards face down to each player. Congrats, all you players are now roommates in an apartment!

Each player's turn has five phases: Draw (draw cards from the Life deck until you have six cards in your hand--but if you're the Corporate Drone, you can have seven), Roll (some cards make you roll a die--you'll do that on this phase, comprende?) Call People (what's life without friends? During this phase, you try and bring as many People cards as you want to as long as you have them in your hand. However, some of these people are considered Uninvited Guests, and you'll want to place them in your roommate's room. Watch out, though, because you could find these Guests visiting you!), Actions (you can do two things during this phase--buy things like food, drinks, etc, or do Activities like Concerts, summer movies, or the fun pastime of sleeping. It's important to note that you can buy as many things as you want and it only counts as one action), and finally Discard (you can only have five cards, but you can discard all the way down to one)

Things, Activities, and some People cards give you a certain amount of Slack Points. When you reach your Slack Goal, you win! Easy, right?

Good answer, because it's never that easy. You also have special cards known as Whenever cards, which can be played at any time, and TV cards can always be used to cancel someone else's actions (sure, they'll get that slack, but it's better for you if they only get a measly 1 Slack than the whopping 4 Slack, right?).

But Is It Fun?

You bet it's fun--the art is by popular comic artist John Kovalic of Dork Tower fame, and the gameplay captures the fun and slacking nature of us Geeks. From such fun activities of "Gaming Nookie" and "Dumpster Diving" to buying stuff such as "Action Figures" and "Canned Spaghetti", Chez Geek is worth the $19.95 retail price, as it will keep you coming back for more. One can hope that SJG will continue to support this game with fun variations on their website, and maybe some new expansions--hey, it happened with their Illuminati card game and Knightmare Chess, so it could work for this game.

MCW Sez

Some pointers for you beginning slackers...ignore or use them at your peril!

Save the expensive cards for later in the game, so your roomies won't try and screw you over with fun cards like "Hungry Girl" (which makes you discard one food card as long as she's in your room), and "Sucks To Be You!" (which makes you discard a card you already have in play). Remember, if you met your Slack Goal during any turn, you win--end of story.

Don't be afraid to use those TV cards on your roomies if they're near their Slack Goal, an start bringing out the big Slack Point monster cards. You don't mind letting them have a chance to watch the latest episode of the Warrior Princess, now do ya?

Finally, remember this--You can't throw them out...THEY LIVE HERE!

Words to live by, my fellow Geeks.