![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Games This Week
Oct. 21st, 2005 11:53 pmPlayed a plethora of games over the Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
Palazzo got its first play (for me), thanks to Dave G. having it around at EndGame. I've been wanting to try it for a while, and I was very pleased. It's a clever & interesting combination of resource management in auction that reminds me most strongly of Ra, though it doesn't have quite as much scoring depth. In my lastest Gone Gaming column I talked somewhat ironically of planning to buy Palazzo before this summer's other gamer's Knizia game, Tower of Babel, with the implication being that I was going to do that even though ToB was a better game. Now, I'm not as sure. I'd need a number of more plays of both games to truly make that assessment. (Though I'm confident that Palazzo wins on the game-play-depth-to-box-depth ratio.)
And I really need to start an eBay auction of some old RPG books or Magic cards so that I can have money for this and a few other summer games that I haven't been able to afford. I've been meaning to do that since before GenCon.
Hansa got a play this week too, mainly because of Tom Vasel's recent unethusiastic review. Sure enough, I still think it's a very cool game. I tried to play differently this time, getting more trading posts out early rather than solely doing point conversions, and it really seemed to work. But still, I lost by one point. Dammit.
Last game of the EndGame night was Tutankhamen. As with every single game I've ever played the final player had a kingmaker decision. He couldn't win, but depending on which space he decided to move to a couple of different players could win. It'll now go back into the closet for another three months while I forgot about its serious kingmaking issues, then it'll go back into a game bag some EndGame night because it's small, it's Knizia, and it's clever.
Which brings us to Thursday, and two review games that I'll be writing more fully on for next Wednesday.
Barbarossa is now out in a new edition from Mayfair. It's a very nice production, especially given the $20 price point, and it's a very fun party/clay-modeling game, a genre I don't usually enjoy. Taking off the pressure by encouraging you to make less representational models makes all the difference in the fun-factor.
Last up was Bone Wars, a card game which we had to play twice. It's a very American game that's unfortuantely a bit schizophrenic. It has great theming, and very appropriate art and layout, but the elements of the cards that you have to match up are terribly hard to use. It's got some neat gameplay, with more strategic elements than you see in a lot of American games, but it's also got some core flaws with scoring, with player order, and with card draws. With a more experienced company this would have been a top-rate American game, but from a newcomer it has enough mistakes to make the game a bit hard to play, but it still shows off the potential for the company.
Palazzo got its first play (for me), thanks to Dave G. having it around at EndGame. I've been wanting to try it for a while, and I was very pleased. It's a clever & interesting combination of resource management in auction that reminds me most strongly of Ra, though it doesn't have quite as much scoring depth. In my lastest Gone Gaming column I talked somewhat ironically of planning to buy Palazzo before this summer's other gamer's Knizia game, Tower of Babel, with the implication being that I was going to do that even though ToB was a better game. Now, I'm not as sure. I'd need a number of more plays of both games to truly make that assessment. (Though I'm confident that Palazzo wins on the game-play-depth-to-box-depth ratio.)
And I really need to start an eBay auction of some old RPG books or Magic cards so that I can have money for this and a few other summer games that I haven't been able to afford. I've been meaning to do that since before GenCon.
Hansa got a play this week too, mainly because of Tom Vasel's recent unethusiastic review. Sure enough, I still think it's a very cool game. I tried to play differently this time, getting more trading posts out early rather than solely doing point conversions, and it really seemed to work. But still, I lost by one point. Dammit.
Last game of the EndGame night was Tutankhamen. As with every single game I've ever played the final player had a kingmaker decision. He couldn't win, but depending on which space he decided to move to a couple of different players could win. It'll now go back into the closet for another three months while I forgot about its serious kingmaking issues, then it'll go back into a game bag some EndGame night because it's small, it's Knizia, and it's clever.
Which brings us to Thursday, and two review games that I'll be writing more fully on for next Wednesday.
Barbarossa is now out in a new edition from Mayfair. It's a very nice production, especially given the $20 price point, and it's a very fun party/clay-modeling game, a genre I don't usually enjoy. Taking off the pressure by encouraging you to make less representational models makes all the difference in the fun-factor.
Last up was Bone Wars, a card game which we had to play twice. It's a very American game that's unfortuantely a bit schizophrenic. It has great theming, and very appropriate art and layout, but the elements of the cards that you have to match up are terribly hard to use. It's got some neat gameplay, with more strategic elements than you see in a lot of American games, but it's also got some core flaws with scoring, with player order, and with card draws. With a more experienced company this would have been a top-rate American game, but from a newcomer it has enough mistakes to make the game a bit hard to play, but it still shows off the potential for the company.