“Eye of the Needle”

There are some games that don’t give you the option to make good/bad decisions because they’re so tight that the only way of playing them is to reduce damage from the beginning until the end. Maybe that’s the worst thing about a game. You don’t play the game, the game plays you. Age of Steam is exactly the opposite and vice versa. It plays you until you’re able to realize that it’s time for you to play. Complicated? Well, so is the game.

“Working Girl”

Lot’s of people thinks about Age of Steam as a job. You have to wake up early in the morning, take a fast breakfast, getting all that traffic from home until the office and then, when you finally think you’re going to be rewarded for the time you’ve worked, the salary is so ridiculous that you decide to start building rails and issuing shares and all those things you do at work. By the time you got home, a new railroad is made and a new expense is coming.

I agree that Age of Steam is about having a job. At the start of the game you already know that expenses are coming at the end of the turn. The game makes you reconsider if you really want to play it. It keeps asking you over and over: “do you really want to play me?” And by then you have already, at least, four hundred reasons to give up. But then you think: “I can beat this guy! Can’t I?” This doubt, this uncertainty is what makes you win Age of Steam - let me rephrase it. It doesn’t make you win Age of Steam because this is one of those games that can’t be beaten. The game wins every time because it simply defeats you morally. When we have that doubt, we are showing the requested respect that allows victory. And a victory, by itself, is when the game let’s you achieve your own actions, your own responsibilities.

By the time we’re getting into the middle of the game, putting Age of Steam a bit apart and trying to compete with the other players is when the immense and intense responsibility that we’ve learnt in the previous turns has to show up. By that time we have to think: “Ok Mr Age of Steam. I’ve managed to come into this phase; do you allow me to continue and try to win this other guys playing with me? And then the game tells you: “I will if they will”.

“The Big Chill”

Responsibility is something that prevails when Age of Steam is at the table. I’ve never seen anybody winning the respect of Age of Steam getting defeated. No. If you accomplish to survive the job, meaning if you’re not eliminated from the game, the game deserves you. You’ve already won it. And then you could try to win the others. If you do, that’s ok. If you don’t that’s also ok. Why? Because, by this time, the game respects you. You’ve survived it. You’ve been played and played the most difficult game I know. Is this a good thing? Well, I must say that I don’t always like to work when playing but I often like to play when at work. You just have to choose. Wait. You don’t even have to choose. You could do both and that’s the beauty of it.

“The Left Hand of God”

“Links”. Love the word. It means left in German and connections in English. Well this has everything to do with Age of Steam: Making connections to build railroads. Improve you Engine Track to be able to make more links (cross more cities). The next player is always at your left except in this game! Well I guess left has nothing to do with Age of Steam but, either way, linking players to your left (and also to your right) is engaging enough to understand that Age of Steam plays with connections between players. I mean, the ownership of the lines are individual but the connections between them, the auction that provides the non-clockwise system that ruins the L-word (left) and the amazing interaction, makes this game one of the most incredible games I’ve ever played/worked on. Pay attention to this one if you didn’t already. I don’t know any game so difficult and so “putted together” like this one. Everything makes sense and it has the hand of God all over it.


I would like to finish this review with a sentence about Age of Steam's author, Mr Martin Wallace:

"Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not."
George Bernard Shaw



Note: I apologize for the poor English, mistakes and grammatical errors but this is not my first language. Try to ignore them, please.

Paulo Soledade

http://spielportugal.blogspot.com/