September 05, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Yitzchak, Ben, Gili, David K, Dylan

Summer's about over and we're now back to a core group of people. A reminder: we all owe David money for dinner, as none of us had change.

Mississippi Queen

Yitzchak+, David K, Nadine, Jon, Gili

This game didn't look like much from the rules, and the "basic introductory game" looked like even less. We skipped straight to the full game. We started with three players and added others as they came in with suitable starting positions.

It turned out to be a neat and fun little planning game. I kept reading the rules and noticing things I got wrong. Since the game's rules are so simple, each little correction changed the tactics of the game for that particular turn. But the overall feel of the game itself didn't change.

There was thinking, not too much luck, yet it still moved quickly. By the end, most of us enjoyed it enough that we are willing to play again in the future. It's nice that the game can be shortened or lengthened by adjusting the number of tiles, and that handicaps are easily given.

Lost Valley

Dylan 20, Gili 9, Jon 8

This game continues to amuse me quite well, despite lots of squidgy rules issues, and despite heaps of luck that throw things around. Even with the luck, it's just fun to play. The game plays vastly different each time, and it's complicated. Again, thinking, without too much thinking.

I didn't fare well, as my fellow players turned out to be thieves. In once case, I built a mine and didn't manage to collect a single gold from it when the others swooped in and carted it off. We had a very short waterway as everyone headed away from the river. As a result, this was the first time that I bought a horse.

None of the forest tiles showed up until well after half the tiles were laid, which made collecting both food and wood at the same time relatively difficult. Dylan won having mined a mountain undisturbed relatively earl on.

Power Grid

David 15+, Ben 15-, Yitzchak 12, Nadine 9

They played on the East Coast, which should have made for a shorter game, but it wasn't. Phase three seemed to come early enough, however. Nadine hoarded all the coal and coal plants; nobody else was producing any, and she had three plants using 3 coals each.

As usual, they played with the critical variation of having the four upcoming power plants from the deck face up in a third row.

Bridge

David, Ben, Yitzchak, Nadine

They tried to play a hand of this while simultaneously playing Power Grid, which didn't work too well. However, they also played with passing three cards, ala Hearts, which they found amusing.

Jon/Nadine, Ben/Yitzchak

After Power Grid, we played 4 more hands.