December 22, 2010

Participants: Jon, Gili

Weird to only have one guest.

1955

Jon+, Gili

Gili requested this, since she only played half a game with Nadine last time. After an email or two with the designer I finally got the rules right: I had thought you could add multiple cards and also get the +1 bonus when playing in an area matching the card flags and also containing your spy. The correct rules - either a single bonus card OR a +1 - made blocking easier, and thus made the special abilities of the cards stronger. Gili likes the game.

After three games, I have yet to use most of the abilities, and some of them I find rather anemic. Scratch scratch. This may be a case of group-think. There's something flat about the game. It's nice and all, and it's quick and playable, but it doesn't seem to have a story arc. Maybe I just haven't hit it, yet.

Schotten Totten

Gili+, Jon+

I taught this to Gili. Again, after downloading files from BGG, I finally played this with the correct rules: we completely screwed up the special cards the first two times I played.

We started with no special cards. We exhausted the deck, and the score was 4 Gili to 3 me. Gili's final card play gave each of us a stone.

We played a second time using the special cards. Used correctly, they're not as unbalancing as I had feared.

Race For The Galaxy

Jon 61, Gili 29

I previously thought that this was a good game marred by the ability for one person to ram through the game end, depriving most strategies of viability and the game of much of its fun. I know other games that suffer from the same problem.

When that doesn't happen in this game, as it didn't in ours, the game is quite interesting. I've never been very good at it. Which makes my blowout victory here a surprise.

I started with a first round 6 point development, the one that gives a -2 discount for all other developments. Add to that some military strength and my game strategy was essentially locked in. The rest was just fishing for cards.

Gili played something more diverse, but never got enough shipping strength to force through to the game end that way.

December 15, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Nechama, Binyamin, Mace

This report is done without notes and a few days after the session, so it's pretty anemic in terms of facts. I sold off a number of games to Binyamin. Making room for a few games on the way.

1955

Nadine+, Jon

I was sent this game in prototype form (pretty well done for a prototype, actually) to review. The game is, as of this posting, on Kickstarter.

The theme is the Cold War of 1955. Two players use card-driven mechanics to achieve political influence in 6 countries. On your turn, you play two cards, refill your hand, and move your spy. You win if you gain control of your opponent's country or if you gain control of any three countries.

The game immediately stuck in my head as "1960-lite". Cards allow you to either add the influence to the location identified on the card (or your home country or the country in which your spy is) or let you take the special action, but not both.

I sent some comments to the publisher. When I get a response, I will post a review on Purple Pawn.

Nadine and I each secured our own countries and one other. We fought back and forth for the remaining countries, and Nadine took it in a surprise victory.

Nadine, Gili

They played, but I don't think they finished the game.

Navegador

Binyamin 110ish, Nechama 94, Jon 91

Binyamin brought his copy and taught us. It's a fantastic game by the creator of Antike, also with a rondel, but this time with no direct confrontation. You can only take items that others need before they get to them. It's a tight economic game, and if you don't have your engine going early, you're in trouble, like I was. I finished much higher than I anticipated, actually.

A must-buy for our group. I was planning on buying Shipyard, and now I think I need both.

Louis XIV

Mace, Nadine, Gili

I don't remember what happened, except that they all ended with the same number of completed missions.

Schotten Totten

Binyamin, Jon

Binyamin was going to buy this from me, but he didn't. I had never actually played, so he taught me. It's actually better than I expected, since Lost Cities is always held as a great two-player card game and I never liked it. This is better. Luck with the special cards plays too big a role, however. Either we didn't know what we were doing (we only had the German instructions and the symbols on the special cards are worthless, so that's possible) or we need to find a way to equalize the cards or just play without them.

Bridge

Jon, Mace, Binyamin, Nadine

I don't even remember who partnered with whom.

November 28, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, David, Yitzchak, Gili, Ben, Binyamin

First game night back in my house, and we got to start playing the new games I brought back from my trip. Binyamin only arrived later in the evening.

Nadine and I took out Mr. Jack, but didn't get a chance to play it.

Robo Rally

David+, Nadine, Ben, Yitzchak, Jon, Gili

I've been wanting to get this game for the group for ages, and now I have. It was just as fun for me as the first time I played it back in BGG.con 1. Back then, we played with six players, four boards with 4 goals. It was too long, and there was already a runaway winner 2/3 of the way through the game at 3 hours.

I thought that 3 goals on two boards would be good - not too few to make it easy, not too many to drag on. It was definitely better, but still a bit too long, however, part of that was simply because we were all learning the game, and I was relearning the game, so we spent a lot of time going over the too long rulebook and trying to get the rules right. Even so, a lot of turns had people complaining that they didn't realize how something worked. And we played without the options, too!

Next time, I think we play on one board with two goals and see how it goes. With options.

Gili became the most frustrated during the game, when Ben ended up pushing her into a pit twice in a row. She essentially gave up and went to play a two-player game with me instead.

I was also in a lot of difficulty and stayed in last place pretty much throughout the game, although it looked like I was doing well when I started. Meanwhile, Nadine also ended up getting killed twice, but in the end it helped her. She healed back up to 7 and re-entered the board with the right cards. Yizchak came in a comfortable middle.

David won, Nadine came in second, then Ben. Ben had been way ahead, competing with David to win, but didn't have good cards. Then he had even worse cards because he barely got any, due to damage points.

I think the game was a hit with David, and Ben, Nadine, and Yitzchak also liked it. I simply had to reassure them that it was a chaotic crazy game like Cosmic, where you take it as it comes, and not a strategy game like Power Grid.

Schotten Totten

Jon/Binyamin+, Gili

I took this out and discovered that it didn't have English rules. I quickly went to download some, but not wanting to keep Gili waiting, we played the game without any of the special cards. Binyamin came in the middle and I returned to Robo Rally while he took over.

He says that the game is dull without the special cards, but actually I though it was ok even without them. I'm looking forward to playing with them. In any case, the game is light-years better than dull old Lost Cities.

Bridge

Ben, Nadine, Yitzchak, Binyamin

I can't get them to stop playing this for the last hour of every evening.

Magic

Jon++, David+

We played with some of the new cards I just picked up. As we drafted, I tossed out duplicates to make sure we had lots of new cards to play with.

I ended up with a reasonably good White/Red deck with a splash of Green, while David had Green/Black. I only lost the second game because of mana screw. My cards had some synergy, and he had very little to stop my flying.