Fun little game! There's luck in the card draw, of course, but there are still some decisions to make. It's yet another fine little filler! I may look for it, of just use a Sticheln deck to play it!

--- Summary ---
The deck has some negative cards (-5, -10), and a lot of positive numbers (1-15). Players each get the same number of cards (varies with player number). Reveal n-1 cards. Players then each play a card. The player with the lowest sum of all cards they played so far adds the lowest value card to your score pile. Unless it's the last card -- in that case, the player with the HIGHEST sum wins the card. Shuffle all cards except those in score piles and repeat the above, playing twice through the deck. The player with the highest sum wins!

OK game. Fairly simple rules, aimed towards younger players, I think. I mostly don't like the artwork!

Finally learned to play this at GenCon '04. Fast, fun little game! I won the Qwitch tourney, got $20 certificate, and bought this with part of that !

The new stuff: train cards (several routes drawn on the board; can use a train card on any of them, to travel from any country on the route to another), and cruise ships (Pacific and Indian Oceans) which allow travel from coastal country to any other coastal country in the appropriate ocean. I unfortunately hadn't realized there were still planes in this game, and so didn't mention them. Both others assumed they could be used to travel ANYWHERE, so we played it out that way! Bob won pretty quickly while I was a good ways off.

This is a fun game, definitely a worthy continuation of the series and good if you want to play in Asia!

Another nice addition to the series.

I played Africa first. The cool difference: flying to/from Alaska and Hawaii. There are no states with 2 cards (I think), so Africa may be more user-friendly.

An interesting trick-taking game for 3. The bidding rules take a while to get comfortable with, but they work well.

1 play, 3-player. I've been wanting to learn the 18xx games for quite some time now. Mary seems to like them a great deal - we own 1856, 1870 and 1825 Unit 1 (but haven't played ANY of them!). Kevin had brought this, 18GL, 18MEX, 18this and 18that (but surprisingly not 18theotherthing). He taught us how to play.

It's a network-building, connection, stock investing game. You start out with a little cash which you use to start a company buy buying shares in it. When companies operate, they lay track and make abstracted deliveries - you just get a payoff based on the value of the cities you're connected to, assuming you have the appropriate number and type of trains to make deliveries. The payoff is split amongst all the shareholders (the company initially has most of them; as it becomes profitable, players will own more and more shares). As companies get bigger, player incomes are also improving and you can start or invest in other companies. You can also manipulate the stock value a bit, to try to devalue companies other players are invested in.

To me this seems like a predecessor of Age of Steam; and I mean that in a bad way: AoS seems to have streamlined some of the annoying things about this game - the constant math calculations about which routes to choose and how to split dividends amongst all the stockholders, having to exchange money EVERY TURN, sitting around waiting for your turn to come up again. 1846 just seemed ... tedious. Although that may be because I made poor decisions early on: it took us 5 hours. I had made some newbie errors and was pretty much dead in the water from very early on, so I didn't accomplish much worthwhile for a large part of the game.

A 7/10 for now; should prob be a 6, but I think I'm going to like it more now that I know the rules.

A kinder gentler introduction to 18xx: trains stay around longer, may only sell 1 share at a time. Our game (3 newbies) took 6.4 hours! It should, however, play a lot more quickly.

1960 is similar to Twilight Struggle, with some key differences. All cards have events. When an opponent plays your card for Campaign Points, the event only happens if you spend a momentum disk (obtained by leading in some key issues at the end of each round; and also from some cards). Any event that occurs sends that card out of the game. There's some randomness, with issues resolved by drawing cubes out of the bag. But you can affect that randomness by choosing to play cards for CP (which adds some cubes to the bag). You have to consider several areas on the board: regions, states, advertising, endorsements, issues. You have to prepare for a debate (choose which card to set aside each round) and finally for the elections. There are a lot of tough choices throughout; should play well once you actually know the rules!

After a couple of plays, I think I prefer Twilight Struggle. The constant back-and-forth scoring in TS adds a lot of tension to the game -- I miss that in 1960, where I feel like I'm just sort of floating along reacting to the other player, and then bam! the end is here and you see how you did. The bag works OK, but I like the Battle Bag in End of the Triumvirate better; somehow, the more limited use of the bag in EotT is easier to wrap my head around.

Nice, quick asymmetric 2-player game. The rules are pretty simple -- yay! It looks like you're just pushing cubes around, but it's much more interesting than King of Siam (where you really are just pushing cubes around!). Still, despite the historical context (mostly conveyed through the cards and board setting), it is pretty abstract. The simultaneous action selection helps maintain the tension throughout -- fun stuff!

Like Zatre but plays much faster because of the small board.

There are 40 tiles numbered 1-10 x 4; get a hand of 6. First player must play in 1 of the 9 central spaces. Thereafter, players alternate playing 1 tile at a time. Tile must touch a previously played tile (orthogonal or diagonal), and no line may sum to more than 24 (when 24-line created, mark illegal spaces with tokens). You score when you create a variety of combinations (runs of 3-6, sets of 3 or 4, sum of 24, sum of 7; bonus if you get 24 and 7 with one play. The game ends when no more plays are possible.

1 play with 4.

This is party Zendo. It took us way too long to go through the rules, since this is really a pretty simple game. Each player gets one turn as priestess: draw 2 action cards and 2 object cards; make 1 taboo, 2 good, and discard remaining. These (action vs. object) have different backs; place them in stands with marker card between good and bad -- so players know whether the bad (taboo) is an action or object card. Priestess then arranges wooden bits on board. Then other players play n rounds (varies with #players); in each round, a player moves one object from one location to another, optionally doing some action (make a noise, touch your nose, whatever). The priestess announces how many points they earned, if any, and indicates which card condition they fulfilled. The players are trying to guess the rules, to maximize the points they earn. At the end of the round, the priestess earns as many points as the player who earned the most.

Interesting idea, but it seemed there was very little time to try to deduce what the good and bad actions/object cards were ... it seemed totally random!

Probably better with more players.

A fast, light filler. Pretty chaotic as number of players goes up, but still fun. Especially nice playing on BSW where it automatically puts the cards in the right places. For a more strategic variant, play only with cards 1 - (10n+4) ('tactic' on BSW). For something a little different, either requiring more thought to predict or just making the game even more chaotic (and fun!), play to the left OR right of cards, whichever is closest ('profi' on BSW)!

--- Summary ---
Card are numbered 1-104. Deal 10 to each player, then 4 face up to the table. Players choose a card and reveal simultaneously, then play in ascending order. Must place their card to the right of the card they are closest but not UNDER. If it's the 6th card, they take the first 5; the 6th becomes the new start card for the row. If the played card is lower than the last card of each row, choose a row to take - the low card replaces that row. After 10 cards, tally points (# of cowheads shown on cards taken). Shuffle and repeat till someone gets 66+ pts: lowest pts wins!

6/10

Great bits! The game itself is a little random, but the bits are so cool that it's kind of fun! I do wish it were a bit faster, though.

Simple party game but it went on too long. Only tried it 2-player, though -- probably more fun in teams.

Each player has a 5x5 grid of letters. Roll 2d6: one shows time limit (15 or 30 seconds), the other shows which category. Start the timer. Player names as many things which fit the category as possible. Mark the grid based on the starting letter of each item - first player to cover all letters wins.

Simple rules with an egyptian theme, but it's really a pure abstract ... where's the fun in that? The cheap production doesn't call to me, either.

Fans of abstract games would probably like this more than I do.

Played face to face only a few times; a bunch of games on my Palm, though.

The game is OK, but it seems to depend a great deal on the luck of the draw, and your ability to remember everyone's stock holdings. I don't want to have to work that hard during a game, especially when I can't draw the tiles I need!

fast filler

Didn't seem very interesting. Lots of sexual innuendo, and when that happens the choice is pretty easy (at least with the group we had). When not, choice is usually still pretty easy - of course, they all picked wrong a few times! This is a guess what that guy is thinking game. Some amusing cards, but probably not much of a game here. Will likely try it again some day.

Like Liberté and Byzantium, players don't represent a particular faction/nation. Instead, like Vinci, the game covers a long period of history (~1500 years in this case) and players temporarily control empires as they rise; they score VP at the end of each turn (~150 years), when the empires fall. Players start with several resources and 2 workers in their available stock, and workers in the irrigation and weaving boxes.

See http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/340154 for initial impressions.

See BGG or my blogfor a full review.----------The Good:- cheap ($20-25)- fast: plays in about 45 minutes- well made: could have been a board, but the tiles work pretty well, are reasonably sturdy, and nice to look at- tough decisions: timing (how long to invest in contracts, when to buy ships, when to go on expeditions, when to anticipate/control the game end, when to use your single-use cards) is important, money management is toughThe Bad:- balance: It seems as if some Special Mission Cards are significantly harder to achieve than others, with the VP award not appropriately adjusted.- luck: setup (which ships and contracts come out, which dual color ship and contracts a player is dealt)Overall, a good game probably worth having although there may be some balance issues (fixable with variants?). A large part of it seems to be timing -- when to make money and when to start sending ships on expeditions. The Special Mission Cards, however, seem way too unbalanced - some conditions are MUCH easier to satisfy than others ... probably need to play with a variant where you get to PICK your own Special Mission (at the beginning? at the end? at first scoring?).

A fun game, but seems like a pretty typical euro in the line of Leonardo da Vinci and Caylus: allocate workers to different areas, then resolve the areas to get the appropriate benefits. This game, however, is much more interesting than either of those: there is more going on but it's not overly complicated and it plays relatively quickly (with 4). The randomness of the order capitol buildings show up is a potential problem -- turn order (which you can fiddle with but which only takes effect the NEXT turn) may not allow you to purchase a useful one. My biggest quibble, though, is the production: the box is ginormous, has a LOT of empty space, and is a nonstandard size that won't stack well with any of our other games! Also, some of the colonists (peons and merchants) are a little hard to distinguish from each other quickly, and they don't fit on the score track -- a FEW wooden cubes/discs would have been nice!

I give up! I read the rulebook, and also the living rules. The board looks great, and the rules almost make sense ... but it's just not worth the effort required to learn the game!

Maps by best # players:
2 - Scottish Quest, Austria, Moon
3 - Ireland (1), Italy (4), Switzerland, Bay Area, Japanese Task Force, Sun, London
4 - Base map, Germany (2), Scandinavia (3), Korea (3), France (4), Switzerland, Bay Area, South America, 1830's Pennsylvania, Northern California, Merseyside/Cheshire, Sun, London
5 - Base map, England (1), Netherlands, China, Riding Through England
6 - Netherlands
7 - Netherlands

A GREAT game - one of my favorites! Newbie games can be 4-5 hours, but much faster after some experience. Has much of the tension of 18xx games (from my one play of 1846) but more streamlined, less fiddly. You are constantly involved - in auctions, in looking to see if someone is going to steal the cube you MUST have. Lots to think about, plenty of tension ... and I have only tried one board of ONE expansion so far!

12/7/06: finally bumped it up to a 10! With so many different expansions, I doubt I'll get tired of this any time soon!

Ireland

Tough map, especially with 4, and with Deurbanization! I was still issuing stocks at the second- or third-to-last turn, to finance my bidding (keeping deurbanization away from the others) and building! In the early game, everyone else suffered income reduction a few times from inability to pay expenses!

England
It's pretty much just the basic game, except that London is the only red city. Lots of space, so probably good with 5 or 6.

PBW games only, e-boardgames.com. I like the changes in both maps!

Western US
- start with $20 cash (2 shares)
- towns start with a good (lost when urbanized)
- mountains $5
- must start on either coast and build contiguous track until first transcontinental connection is built: the owners split $4 income. Afterwards, may build with basic rules (anywhere).
- $1 bonus per good delivered from coast to coast
Some tough terrain to build through, but the extra cash from transcontinental deliveries really helps -- I like that little rule change!

Germany
- No incomplete track segments builds
- Berlin ALWAYS gets a cube
- Engineer only allows you to build one track tile at half cost.
- Foreign ports' colors assigned randomly at start.
Another good map. Not hugely different from the base game, but nice changes (esp Berlin!).

Errors with the Warfrog version of the Germany map:
- Berlin (colored brown in the Warfrog map) should be a Black city.
- Lyon, Paris, Antwerpen, Rotterdam, Kopenhagen and Warschau (brown in the Warfrog map) are Foreign Terminals and should all be green.
- A white circle (for placing a Track Ownership marker) joining the Essen/Dortmund hex with the Dusseldorf/Koln hex is missing.

Scandinavia was the first AoS expansion I ever played!

France: one play, PBW. This is the "easier" map? Not with 5 players, it isn't! You quickly run out of room to build, as well as cubes to deliver -- I'm not finding it particularly fun! Maybe this is better with 3 or 4?

Italy: one play, PBW (in progress). Interesting rule changes, although not sure about the black-cube business.

Northern CA key differences:
- there's a $10 bridge up north
- another ferry route is available for $6 once both towns are urbanized
- San Jose, in the SE, is a 3-hex red city. It resupplies on white 1-6! Non-red cubes can move freely between the 3 hexes. Red cubes can be delivered from one hex to another in the city. (Red New City is removed from game)
- The city in the SW starts with 2 cubes and doesn't refill. But there's a line of ships (cubes) offshore that act as though they're in the city; but they must be delivered in the order they appear (set up at start of game).
- To Sacramento hex (NE corner) color is determined by next cube in line (offshore) to city, above

1830s:
(note: Steam gray = Age of Steam black)
- Gray towns on left, white towns on right; cannot urbanize gray towns into gray cities
- Gray cubes (coal) start on all left towns/cities. When delivering them, may double either income or engine level!
- When urbanizing gray town, add extra gray cube to it (for first 4 urbanized in west)
- If urbanizing white town to gray city, may only build 1 track!
- Mountains are expensive to build through!

The coal rules are VERY important -- there is tremendous income potential there, so no player can afford to ignore them. Of course, they're in the west while the gray cities are only in the east; that means building through a lot of mountains! The sooner the better, but not too soon -- with the 2xlink rule, they are ripe for poaching. First Move becomes especially important, and you have to control the rate at which you get access to those cubes lest someone else steal them from you!

I've played just one game of this, with Base Steam rules, but I really enjoy it!

1 play, America: an interesting board with VERY tight access to cubes -- makes the Production action (the only way to get new cubes onto supply chart, which only starts with 1 cube/city) necessary. Also, with only 1 delivery per turn, money is tight. The loco action now allows you to make 2 deliveries -- VERY powerful, maybe too powerful? Other players CANNOT allow someone to do this repeatedly. Unfortunately, once someone gets ahead it seems like they can pretty much keep taking loco and add to their lead. In such a tight game making 2 deliveries instead of 1 is a very significant advantage, and given the structure of AoS bids (where even 2nd place pays full price) it may not make sense to fight that player too hard for the right to choose the loco action. Hopefully, it's less of a problem with experienced players.

--- India ---
Changes to Base Game:
Track Building (costs for simple track shown)
* Mountains: $6
* River or Desert: $3
* Marked hexes: price shown
Goods Growth
* Occurs whenever a NEW player connects to a city: take cube from top of Goods Display
* If a linked town is urbanized, place as many goods from Goods Display (max 2) as there are players connected to the town
Production Action
* Pick a city on the board, then draw 2 random cubes: place 1 in the chosen city
Monsoon
* Occurs BEFORE Income/Expenses
* Roll d6 to determine costs for everyone
o 1: $0
o 2-5: $1
o 6: $2
o If a player cannot pay, lose the difference in income

I like the changes in the production system. Some people really dislike the randomness of the usual production phase, and this is a nice way to completely eliminate that. The Production role weakens that choice, however. The Monsoon reintroduces a bit of randomness, but you know it (might) be coming so you can prepare for it -- not necessarily a big change, although nicely thematic and does tighten money a bit more. The city distribution, where like-colored cities are grouped together, is another twist that makes it more difficult to develop your income early on.
A decent upgrade; need to play it more but at least a 7/10 for now.

Rating based on St. Lucia, since I don't really enjoy solo gaming very much. But Barbados seems to be a pretty good solo map, anyways.

------------
BARBADOS (1 AoS, 2 Steam plays) - solo map
Only 4 actions available (Loco, Urb, Engin, Prod/Goods Growth): may choose each once, then unavailable until all 4 have been chosen. 10 turns in game. Map is a small island with all-yellow cities on the edges, interspersed with towns; hills in the middle. Final Score:
in Steam = VP + income
in AoS = Cash - $5/share.

Score will vary greatly depending on the cube draw since yellow cubes cannot easily be shipped for more than 2 or 3. Too many yellow cubes --> low score. The scoring rules strongly encourage you to ramp up loco as quickly as possible, to generate long deliveries early and accumulate cash (AoS) or VP (Steam). You also have to make somewhat long range plans about where to urbanize the colored cities, based on where those color cubes are present on the board and Goods Growth chart (AoS); Steam's goods growth system makes such planning easier, since you can place cubes exactly where you need them.

A good map, esp to help you practice some long-range planning. I'm just not a big fan of solo games.

ST. LUCIA (1 play) - 2er map
Some really interesting changes from the base game:
The map is an island with towns on the outer area, hills (and 1 town) in the center, and no cities!

STANDARD Steam, not for Basic Steam

Setup
- Place 1 cube on each plain green and each river hex.
- No cubes on the goods supply spaces.
- Random initial turn order.

Phase 1. Determine Order of Play
- Happens BEFORE buying capital (use money saved from previous turn).
- Bid order on the first turn is in turn order. Thereafter, whoever went
second on the previous turn bids first.
- The only legal bids are $0 and $5, and the first bidder may NOT pass.

Phase 2. Buy Capital

Phase 3. Select Action Tiles
- No City Growth action
- Turn Order Pass: changed to Bid First next turn.

Phase 4. Build Track
- If a cube is present on the hex, place it onto the just-built tile.
- If urbanizing, do not place any cubes onto the city.

Phase 5. Move Goods
- Incomplete links count as complete links for purposes of moving goods.
- That is, you need the appropriate loco level, and earn income, for the
delivery over the partial link.

Phase 6. Income & Expenses

Phase 7. Advance Turn Marker

Game End - Play 8 full turns.

Urbanization is vital, especially in the early game since you need to start building somewhere! You also need to make sure you have access to the colored New Cities, 'cause the cubes start to dry up later in the game. As more and more black cities are placed, those cubes become harder to deliver over long runs -- so plan accordingly!

The Turn Order auction rules seem interesting, but in my first play (with a relative newbie) it didn't come into play very much: we were always happy to go second (i.e., enough action choices, and low enough on cash, that turn order didn't seem to matter much). Probably more of an issue, though, with experienced players.

1 play, 4er, Disco Inferno.

Changes from basic game:
- Start with 2 shares and $15 cash!
- 4 cubes (dancers) per city (discotheque), 3 on each off-board New City; no cubes on Goods Display, no Goods Growth dice rolls
- Building on open terrain costs $3; towns usual cost; upgrading to complex coexisting or crossing cost $4 or $5 -- no other terrain on board.
- Move Goods: can now do a "Chain Reaction" - when a good is delivered to a city, can deliver a good from that city in a chain of deliveries up to a # of links equal to your link level.
- When a discotheque is emptied of dancers, it burns down! Place any tile over the city upside down (or flip the New City tile, if that was used). It still counts as a city/town, but no new goods may be placed there and it accepts no deliveries.
- Production: draw 2 cubes and place both an any city on the board.

It's an interesting map, with a few cities off in the corners with limited access. Towns and cities are to be found 3-4 hexes from each other, so you can start making money early. The chain reaction is especially useful in the early game, allowing you to make money more quickly. Even if you don't win the Loco action, for example, you can use your 1st goods move to go up to 2 links, then move 2 cubes between a pair of cities (Chain Reaction) on the very first turn. Of course, there's an interesting penalty -- moving more cubes (with less income per cube moved) empties the discotheques and burns them down, taking away future delivery targets from your rail network! On the other hand, it also removes a city so that you can move a good of that color through it, to another city further away!

The change to Goods Growth is also nice, especially for people who want to minimize randomness in the game: now, only the initial cube distribution and first turn turn order (and Production draws) are random. It should make planning your builds easier. It also adds another consideration when choosing which city to Urbanize with -- you have to look at which cubes are going to be coming out with it!Finally, Production is now actually useful! You get to put 2 cubes out onto the board immediately! Yes, it's a random draw, but you can almost always find somewhere in your network to place cubes that you can deliver. And not only is it a source of income, but it can also keep a key disco from being burned down!

Most of us achieved profitability somewhat early; I'd like to try it with more players -- MORE PAIN! It was a fun game with lots of new twists, definitely worth a try!

Puerto Rico (1-player) Map
1st game: Maestro level. I first shipped only red cubes to become profitable. Then worked on shipping black cubes while income reduction chipped away at my income (occasionally shipping a long red delivery). I managed to ship all the black cubes but was left with only 15 income. 23 track (15 income - 11 shares) x 3 = 35VP. A better strategy: ship black cubes sooner!

At only 30-45min/game, this is easy to play several times. After another 7 games, where my best score was 54, I decided to jump right on up to the Dios level -- oooohhh! With each black worth -30VP, you've GOT to ship black cubes! I managed to ship them all and ended with a final score of 28VP.

Age of Steam is a tremendous game, MUCH better when played with other people. But if you have to play solo, this is a nice little puzzle-game. I especially like that this is easy to scale to different difficulty levels. Still, I can't rate this any higher than a 7: I'm just not that into solo games (although I have played this map 9 times in 3 days!).

Mexico Changes:- Mexico City is the only blue city (blue New City out of game).- Lots of expensive builds in the south: mountains (cost only $3 here), and $6 plains around Mexico City.- No Engineer; instead, Nationalization = remove one link control marker (that player gets money from bank = cost of building simple track in that location; $2 for town tiles). Everyone can use the link and earn income from it, paying a $1 rental fee to the bank.- No more than 2 goods/city on Goods DisplayAfter one play, these seem like fairly minor changes. The Nationalization role takes VP away from a player, but it also gives them a bunch of cash (that they may or may not find useful). Its importance will likely change with the way tracks come out -- if there's a key corridor, it'll get nationalized. But there aren't necessarily any such corridors based on the geography. It's a destructive role selection (hurt the leader) but you could (early in the game) use it on yourself to quickly get some extra cash. Look forward to playing it again!

The upper limit for shares has been increased to 20, and the game is 9 rounds (vs. 10?). Build costs seem to be pretty high, so you have to keep taking shares longer than in the usual game. The requirement of maintaining a connected network (of all players' builds) also makes this a really hyper-competitive map! Government track also adds a nice twist -- mess with someone else's network and/or give yourself access to some cubes! Trains are not split-level, possibly having some links only usable over the government tracks (not sure how important this is, since the DGEL resets to 0 if you bump your regular engine level; so we didn't actually use it much). The biggest change, though, is probably the nice twist on auctions: if 2+ pass without bidding, those players don't get a special action at all!

Not the best map for a new player, but should be interesting for more experienced players.

The changes from the base game:
-geography, of course! Mountains separate all the red and purple cities in the west from the yellows and blues in the east.
-urbanization. No blue or yellow cities available
-no production; changed to Speculation - pick a color; all goods of that color shipped that turn pay the shipper 1 extra.
-altered goods production; the yellow/blue cities have only 2 goods on the goods display.

The map looks kind of tough. Speculation, however, allows you to ramp income up more quickly than usual. Played pretty well with 4; I'd like to try it with 5, too.

Have to try it some more, but I'm just not sure AoS is as good with only 2 players. The volcano added a little (tiny) something, although never actually destroyed anything. The board was big enough that we essentially split the island in two, with little interaction/competition between us. That may just have been our inexperience, though (1st full AoS game for M, 3rd for me).

London

1 play (VASSAL; published rules) but this is a _very_ cool map! The extra-expensive track building is compensated for by awarding more VP for track, but the early game is tough because of those extra costs! The map is also pretty big, but with cities clustered in the center so there ought to be some interesting tangles in track building happening here! Urbanization is weakened (can only urb a connected town). The instant production rules are pretty cool -- sort of half way between Age of Steam and Steam rules -- and allow for some longer range planning (that won't fall apart 'cause the dice won't roll your way!).

Probably one of my favorite expansion maps so far!

This is an interesting map. Changes: no Urbanization; Cattle cubes start in the plains; new actions either allow you to move cattle before delivering to a Cattle City (several on the edges of the map) - Cattle Drive, or place a previously delivered cattle cube back onto the board - Ranching.

Based on 1 play with the WRONG RULES, the map is OK with four. We played without any goods growth at all, instead of just skipping it for new cities! If we'd done it right, there would have been a downright GLUT of cubes on the board! I think this map would be great with new players (one of the design goals), but I'm not sure how it will be with experienced players. There is an abundance of cubes. With all those cubes out there, there's tough competition for the Locomotive action -- it's easy to create many short links and you want to maximize your profits -- and scores will likely be quite high at the end.

I'd like to try this with more players, where cattle is delivered faster, cubes run out, and there's more competition for the Cattle Drive and Ranching actions (the latter of which was never used in my first game).

A very interesting map! Despite the 2-tile/turn build limit, forcing builds to start from the center and having a relatively small map means that players are quickly in each other's faces! Also, the Low Gravity rule helps keep tracks nicely intertwined, with the possibility for stealing cubes away from each other. The wrap-around nature of the map is also a nice twist (and makes it easier to sneak into "another player's network"!) although I sort of wish the Moon were more spherical, rather than elliptical. And it really takes some effort to take the day/night stuff into account when planning!

Nice change of pace, tough map (1 play, 4er) as the cubes seemed to run out near the end.

--- Summary ---
Setup
• 1 cube/city (variant, esp 5-6er: 2/city)
• Landing Hex: 2 cubes/player
• Remove black New Cities from game
• Place 1 upside down track tile on the night/day zone

Track Building
• Town: $2 + $1/stub
• Crater: $3
• Mountain: $4
• 2 tiles/turn maximum
• May only build from central hex or from a city connected to the central hex.
• Map is spherical and wraps around as marked.

Engineer
• May build/upgrade 3 tiles.

Move Goods
• Central hex city has no color.
• On first turn, all cities on the left are black instead of their own color. The dark side changes left/right every turn.

Goods Growth
• Roll 2d6 per player.
• Only resupply day cities connected with a complete link.

Low Gravitation
• A new action.
• Allows you to use another player’s link this turn as if it was your own. May use it for both goods movement rounds.

2 plays, PA map.

A very interesting map! Zombies destroy cubes/cities, so you really have to keep an eye on those buggers! The lack of loco action (it's now a Military Caboose, which allows you to build/ship through zombie hexes without paying the $1/zombie fee) slows the income progression, and the (4-player) board is kind of expensive to build in. That, and the loss of cubes, makes it difficult to make the usual long end-game deliveries. The loco/caboose action is less important than in the usual game. Urb is still good, though -- it's like Steam in that cubes come with the city. But there's another twist in action/auction: you want to be first not only for action choice, but because you get to make some decisions about zombie movement.

All in all, there are a lot of interesting changes here. I wonder, though, if it would be better to have the zombies start out more evenly distributed on the board? Otherwise, that first auction seems to be overwhelmingly important (if you can manage to start well away from the zombie locations). Looking forward to trying the MI map!

New Hampshire: brutal mountains -- don't get stuck out there!

Vermont: PR-like sweetening of unchosen actions.

Central New England: need to try this still.

It's a cool game! You have to figure out how to make the cards you were dealt work for you. It's a bit like Caylus (assign workers to different jobs, develop an economy) but better: simpler development of worker buildings/actions but much more variety in modifiers via the hundreds of cards. The first game is tough, although not as bad as Antiquity.

BUT it's not as cool as all the hype! Good, not great.

1 play, long ago. I think it was a pretty fun economic/network-building/area control game. But Mary didn't like it much at all -- too wargamey -- so it sat on the shelf for years before finally being sold off.

Roll dice, trying to get a specific number using specific dice type, in order to get either a new power (a die of a different color; possibly some manipulation) or VP. Like To Court the King, it's probably better with 2 or 3 players. I prefer TCtK, especially when played with the (prototype) expansion characters.

A very cute game that would probably be great with kids.

It's a dexterity game where you are blowing (your) piece around the board trying to collect 5 items. There's skill, but also a lot of randomness: it's annoying when you take forever trying to roll doubles while your opponent rolls doubles on the first or second try! Still, the game is pretty interesting.

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The board has cutouts where you place either wooden wall sections, creating a bunch of 3-sided market stalls, or market goods, which are tiles that lie flush with the board (use the orange market goods; keep the purple ones to the side). Give everyone a stack of 5 demand tiles, which each show one of 5 types of market goods: put 2 face up, and the rest in a face down draw pile.

Each player's token is a guy on a flying carpet, which sits on a piece of foam. On your turn, you use a little bellows-thing to blow your token into a market. At the same time, another player is rolling 2 d6, trying to roll a matching pair of colors. The turn ends if they roll doubles, your token falls over or goes into the "fountain" (big hole in the center of the board), or if you get your token into a market. You're supposed to call "KOFF!" when any of this happens. If your token made it to a market (without falling over!), reveal a single goods token; if it's one that you need (demand tile), place it on your flying carpet and put a new token from supply (face down) back in the market. Then reveal the next demand tile in your stack. Play passes to the left. The first player to collect all 5 market items they need wins!

Blind bidding, but more fun than most games of that type. It's been a LONG time since we've played, though.

The board shows 10 cauldrons, each of which produce 2 different ingredients (cubes). Players have a random mix of 12 ingredients behind their shield. There's also a pool of 12 ingredients in a bag, and a bunch in supply. At start of game, get a random card showing one of the ingredients (different for each player; hidden). On your turn you either:
- take 1 cube from supply
- take 2 random cubes from the bag (till they're gone)
- create a new potion. When creating a new potion, you use one of the free cauldrons (if any): put your ingredients (no more than 2 of any color) in the spaces and choose one of the chits (1-10) to place on that cauldron. Mark that potion with one of your 5 markers. You get the 2 ingredients shown on the board and VP equal to the # on the chit you chose.
- copy an old potion. You may copy any potion on the board EXCEPT your own. You give one of the ingredients to the potion owner, and remove the rest from the game. You also get the ingredients that the potion makes, and the VP from the chit (1-10) shown on the board.

The game ends when 2 ingredients are used up from supply. Then everyone reveals their hidden ingredients: get 1 VP for every 2 cubes. Then return all these cubes to supply. The 2 (or 3?) rarest ingredients are worth VP to the players who have those cards (from the beginning of the game). Most VP wins.

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It's an interesting game mechanism, where you have to think about combinations of cubes to use to make potions to get new cubes so you can make new potions. However, a bad pull at the beginning can mess up your game (e.g., I drew more than half gray: most others didn't have gray so they didn't make potions that use gray while I had to; I got more and more gray the entire game!). Also, the end VP reward felt a bit random -- you have some control, but the VP reward seemed to be too high. I would try the game again, but only because it does play pretty quickly.

Yet another dice rolling game, this time with another level of complexity: roll combinations to collect VPs or sets of tokens worth VPs. Not bad, although I'd like to play it with the correct rules before passing final judgement!

It just didn't do anything for me. The theme is lacking, and it just wasn't very much fun. I'd probably try it again if someone else really wanted to play it, but I won't go looking for this game.

Rethemed as Big Bad Dog (BBD) - yes, it's a bit tasteless, but it makes more sense than Alexandros!
There's a big, mean, stupid junkyard dog running from landmark to landmark marking his territory (use yellow sticks instead of black). These landmarks should be things like fire hydrants, mailboxes, lamp posts, trees, etc. Each player represents a pack of 4 pathetic little street dogs. The little runts are too scared to mess with BBD's markings; they can, however, temporarily claim parts of his territory. The game ends when BBD can't pee anymore (starts peeing blood? runs out of juice?), and goes looking for either some little dogs to beat up more water to drink.

It's a tile-laying/auction game. Currency comes in 4 colors. 4 tiles are randomly put on market, 1 for each currency. The tiles come in a variety of colors, and represent various parts of the palace; some tiles have wall sections on the edge. Players are dealt a random mix of money worth at least 20 ducats, and 4 money cards are on display. 2 scoring cards are mixed into the deck (shuffled into the 2nd and 4th fifths of the money deck). On your turn you may buy a tile or take cash (1 card, or several cards summing to <= 5). If you buy a tile and pay exact change, you get to go again. The tiles you buy are added to your palace (following placement rules) or go to your reserve (you may use a later turn to place a tile from your reserve into your palace). At the end of your turn, any blank spots in the market are replenished (game ends if you cannot), as are spots in the money display (if deck runs out, shuffle the discards). When the 2 scoring cards come up, and again at the end of the game, you score based on #tiles of each color in each player's palace; each color is worth different points, and value increases each scoring round. In addition, each scoring you get 1 point per segment of your longest contiguous wall. High score wins.

Best with 2 or 3, I think. Gets too random with 5 or 6, since few/none of the tiles on display will still be there on your turn! O Zoo Le Mio is a much better tile-laying auction game. Palazzo has some similar features, but is also much better.

It's another in the string of yahtzee-like dice games, except that this is a lot closer to Yahtzee than to something actually fun. There is almost no dice manipulation at all, so you're just rolling a bunch of d6's hoping to roll well! The board game tie-in, however, is actually pretty well done: you do get the feel of competing with each other to take the lead in each of the 6 colors, and scoring happens 3 times and with similar point awards as the base game. But it's just so repetitive! In our one play (3er, all new) we decided to quit after 2nd (of 3) scoring and it was still 37min!

Just a little card game - nothing particularly memorable, although I don't think we actually finished our game so I need to try it again.

A nice, quick-playing network-building set-collection game. There are only 18 rounds in which to collect VP, and you don't score a large number of VP -- so every one counts. And money is TIGHT, so you need to be as efficient as possible (don't let one player grab all the cheap building sites!). I wonder if it would better to have a little more granularity? Our first play (3er) had us separated by just 1VP each -- was it better play, or simply luck?

--- Summary ---
Players start the game with 2 gold tokens, and a random (secret) goal card showing 4 villages (get -3VP at end of game for each of these without one of your tokens).

Shuffle the 18 event cards; reveal one at the start of each round. 5 provide bonus income to players, 4 may bring a Native token into play, 2 prevents travel by sea and 2 by land, 3 reduces income by half, and 2 rob you of coins. After revealing one, players simultaneously choose one of their unused income cards (1-6, each with the picture of a resource or native, or the 0) and reveal simultaneously. Their income will be the sum of the number on the card and the number of tiles matching the picture on the card (for the 0 card, use the type of tile which you have collected the most).

Players take turns in descending order of income (ties broken by uniquely numbered income cards):
1. collect income, in _silver_ coins (3 silver = 1 gold), resolving event card as appropriate. If event was Native, may skip income step to take a native marker: immediately place it with a previously collected tile (may not move later in game).
2. optionally, place 1+ markers on open building sites connected by forest/sea path to one of your markers (first build may be anywhere); max 1 marker/village/player; collect a tile of the type pictured on the village. Costs 2/3/4 _gold_ (pictured on board). The first time you assemble a set of tiles (1 each type), take the next available Bonus VP chip (5-4-3-2 in 4er game; 4-3-2 in 3er game).

The game ends afte 18 rounds. Score VP:
- 3VP per goal village without your village
+ VP for bonus chip, if any
+ 1VP per tile of a type, _if_ you have 3+ tiles of that type (counting Natives grouped with it earlier)

Most VP wins!

Another flicking game. I played this a bunch as a kid, but none really since then. Unlike Crokinole, you use a striker to hit the targets. The rules are also slightly more complicated than Crokinole, although it's still fairly straightforward.

We may end up getting this, although it's another big game that'll be hard to store and rarely come out to be played!

1 play, 2er.

Interesting game, although need to try it with more than just 2. It seems like the game would end too quickly with more players, though.

--- Summary ---
Cards have a picture of a boat, 1-3 captain's wheels, and 1 of 5 goods types (in differing rarities in the deck). Start with a hand of ... 4? On your turn, either sail (start a voyage if you're not on one, or continue the current voyage) or market (if you're not on a voyage).

To sail further, play a card with the ship moving to the right -- #wheels adds to distance of voyage. May play out of your hand, or from your score pile (play face down; counts as 3 wheels). OR, explore: rotate last card clockwise, draw cards from deck (2 x distance sailed, hand limit 12). After exploring, must sail home; cards played count 2xwheels -- home when you've played at least the distance of the voyage. Upon arriving home, draw bonus cards (hand limit still applies):
- if voyage was longest distance of all current voyages, 1 card.
- if voyage was 7 wheels, 1 card; 8 wheels, 2; 9+ wheels, 3.

If Marketing, add cards from hand to display; max 12 cards on display. Sort by type of goods. OR, sell cards already on display: sell all possible. Rarest good (looking at all markets on table) worth 1 coin per card. Most popular worth 1 coin/2 cards. All others are common, and worth 1 coin/3 cards. If tied for rarest/popular, goods become common. Sold goods are flipped over to represent coins (added to your score pile) or discarded.

Game ends immediately if, after the first time through the draw deck, all players are at home at the same time; or the 2nd time through the draw deck. Make final sales, with all cards left in hand and on display worth 1 coin/4 cards.

Most money wins.

I played this a lot as a kid. In fact, for a (long) while I think it was the only boardgame my friends and I played! A dice fest, of course, but fun. I ended up buying a copy eventually, but I may have only played it once! Nostalgia value probably bumps the rating higher than otherwise.

An interesting bidding game. You have 2 currencies, one of which (stones) you use to bid on and power your spells, and the other (metals) you use to bid on gems from the board. The first to collect 7 different gems, or any 8 gems, wins the game. Early mistakes, however, can make the rest of the game painful/boring! Everyone also needs to play close attention to the spells in order to prevent someone from getting too powerful a combination.

3 rounds then score; then repeat. Each round, auction (using an innovative method of predefined bid increments; if you're overbid you must bid on something ELSE -- similar to Vegas Showdown) for a province. Each province has different characteristics (# farmers allowed, earnings modifiers, # power card purchases allowed, bonuses awarded to auction winner). After the auction, players take turns buying stuff -- again with escalating costs (first is 1, second is 2, ...): power cards, then farmers, then building stones (for pyramids). The round ends with everyone making a blind sacrifice (or stealing 3 gold); non-stealers get a reward(s). Finally, scoring: get points for pyramids, sets of pyramids, most pyramids on one (or both) sides of the Nile, control of 3 particular provinces (VP payoff related to total sacrifice amount), and various power card bonuses. (Power cards also modify play throughout the game). After the first scoring, the process is repeated using the SAME provinces that came up previously (but with farmers removed; only pyramids and building stones stay from early kingdom (1st phase) to late kingdom. Most points at end wins!

This is a fun game; auctions can be tough, and the sacrifice for Ra is fun - especially since the rewards themselves can change scoring. The auction mechanism works well, too. We don't get this on the table much, but I've played a bunch on spielbyweb now - excellent implementation!

1 play, 3er.

The board is made of tiles arranged semi-randomly (pattern set by player number; 4 target tiles in specific locations). Tiles are a gridwork of letters, with some spaces filled with hedges and others edged with them (impassable unless you use your single-use gardener card). Several blue squares get a random letter tile placed at the beginning -- after these are picked up (by moving over them), those are also impassable.

Player tokens start on the start tile. On your turn, you move either just one space (adjacent), or several spaces by spelling a word (Boggle style): collect any letter tiles you move over (unless you played them this turn). If you make a 5+ letter word, or use the difficult letters (J, K, V, X, Qu, Z), you may go again -- max 3 sequential moves, only once for each bonus type. The goal is to reach 3 of the 4 targets, then make it down to the bottom edge of the play area; the first player to do so wins the game.

It sounded interesting, but the game just dragged on too long. Since you can move in any of 8 directions (except where you've already been), and you can use your saved letter tiles, there are a huge number of permutations to think about. And if you're near other players then the board can change a great deal by the time it's your turn again, so you can't do a lot of planning. Plus, the board layout is pretty big -- it'll just take a long time to finish.

Other problems: the rules are a bit unclear on some points; the target tiles are always the same -- would be better if the targets were overlays that you could place onto any tile; why not make the tiles double-sided?

I'd consider playing again, but probably with a smaller play area.

Another good game from Ystari! A mostly tactical resource managament, VP-engine building game.

After initial play: interesting mix of several mechanisms to earn VP, that all connect with each other. There seem to be multiple paths to victory that are well balanced: VP from irrigating, from upgrading income or your palace, from investing in the temples, and from caravaning. The action selection action is kind of like Caylus but backwards: instead of paying more to choose an action (place workers) after people pass, those who pass now earn money from the bank as long as you continue taking actions yourself. It works very well! The temple mechanism, which keeps cubes moving at the end of every turn, also works quite well; it forces you to pay attention to all areas of the board.

1 play - demo at Origins '05. Neat idea, not much fun to play. Didn't like all the dice rolling for combat.

Simple game of set collection and area majority, but with a somewhat significant random element. Would like to try it again, but the first play seemed too luck-dependent. Of course, it took about 2 hours -- might be OK if the game actually plays in 1 hour!

--- Summary ---
Setup: 9 cards/player. Place 1 cube per planet per player, plus additional cube per planet matching cards dealt out; remaining cubes on earth. Each gets 2 special action cards.

Each round: First, players may play a single special action card, in order. Then, Trade Step. Finally, Action Step.

Trade Step: Start player first plays cards (2-3) to offer, one at a time; other players simultaneously show cards to trade, different than offered. Start player must trade; recipient either accepts cards into hand, or leaves out. Clockwise from Start Player, next player with cards still in front of them either makes a trade or takes their cards back. Continue till 0-1 people left with cards in front; they take them back to hand.

Action Step: Start player takes 3 actions, then others take 2 each. Actions can be:
- discard 2 cards, then draw 2
- turn in set of 3-7 cards to send half (rounding down) as many cubes from earth to a planet
- turn in set of 3-7 cards to advance Ship Level, Tech Level, or to make attempt to establish colony on a planet matching cards played: place cubes on that planet into the cosmic ashtray, randomize, then reveal up to as many cubes as attempts made. If reveal your cube, place it on a station; turn over. If other player's cube, send it back to earth.
- Sets: if no wilds ("pure"), take appropriate bonus wild card matching the size of the set (if available); wilds can be used later as parts of sets

Then rotate starting player to the left. Game ends when all stations on 3 planets have been taken. Score VP shown on board (for Tech level, stations occupied, and cubes on earth). Most VP wins.

The deck of cards has VERY cute illustrations of a variety of animals on one of 5 colored backgrounds. On your turn, you draw a card then decide to keep it (add to your collection; 5 card max) or send it around. Other players may keep, or pass. If it makes it back to you, you draw again and repeat the process. Only caveat: if you don't have enough room in your display to accept the card(s) if everyone passed, you must add to your display: for example, if you have 3 cards in your display, you couldn't draw a 3rd card and send a set of 3 around -- would have to accept the 2 cards you draw first. There are 3 special cards that you may activate if you have a pair (in any color) in your display: thief (steal 1 card from another player's display), prankster (donate 1 of your cards to another player whose display is not full), and spy (look at top 5 cards and replace in any order). When everyone has their 5 cards, there's a beauty contest: whoever has the greatest beauty (sum of stars on cards less 'ugly' marks on cards) gets to draw 2 extra cards; 2nd place draws 1. These players may replace cards in their display with these cards, or hold them for future rounds. Then reward VP tokens: get 1 chit of the animal color for each animal in a pair, trip, quad, of quint. Also, if you have 5 diff animals, get 1 chit of each color. Play 3 rounds. For final scoring, get bonus 5VP chit for every set of 5 like-colored tokens. Most VP wins.

After first hearing the rules the game didn't sound all that great. But it turned out to be kind of fun. The cards are, of course, very well done; the scoring chips, too. The special powers are not overpowered and end up being fun to use. The beauty contest is cute, too. The game played in about 15 minutes, I think: a cute filler.

One of the better non-Catan Settlers-type games. Trading would be nice, but being able to buy and sell commodities may make it unnecessary. Nice bit of exploration in the game. Seems like this will have some replayability.

This adds another board to explore, and an additional player board. Player boards have a track where you can buy cannons, a track to build your mansion, and 3 spaces for additional buildings. The new set of new tiles: luxury commodities (3 types, placed around the edge of your island like previously; the commodities are used on the new player boards) and pirate strongholds (may fight/win 2 of them; they give discounts to purchase luxury goods). Also, new boats now start at the harbor, which is near one end of the original board (close to the center of the new play area). Finally, new victory conditions: need 1 from the base game (3 trade expansions, 4 basic buildings, or 3 promoted to 4s) and 2 from the new game -- so you MUST buy boats and explore the new area.The harbor is very nice -- starting boats on the far end was always a bit annoying. New victory conditions are also good: it's an exploration game and now you've got to explore. The pirates are fun, too, if somewhat random (dice-based combat): something more to spend your money on (cannons, maybe bribes) and a way to get some good stuff if you're lucky. As you build up your mansion you get action cards -- these are generally very good, too, but again more randomness. There is more interaction in the game now, due to some of the action cards. Unfortunately, it's the annoying kind -- you get to take stuff from a target player. Also, the new additions make the game slower: our first 4-player game took 3 hours!! I think I'd like this more if only it played more quickly. Will need to try it again as a 2er or 3er with people who know how to play it.

This is NOT a civilization game so much as an empire-building game with some civ-like themes.

The 2-sided map allows you to play in 2 different settings. Each side shows a number of land and sea regions. All land regions have a city site of 1 of 3 types: if you build a city there, you will be able to generate that resource (marble, iron, or gold). Players start in defined areas, depending on the # playing, controlling 3 cities (1 of each type). The board also shows a Rondel - the defining feature of the game (below).

At the start of each round, everyone gets a coin (which can be used as any of the other 3 resources). Then, on your turn, you choose your action from the Rondel. This is a circle divided into 8 wedges, 1 for each of the types of action. You may move your token clockwise only; up to 3 spaces for free, then each additional space costs a resource. Actions include:
- 3 production actions (iron, gold, or marble): every city you built of the appropriate type produces 1 of that resource (subject to modifications; temples and some knowledge advances improve production)
- 3 resource-using actions (arming, uses 1 iron/token produced; know-how, uses gold to discover 1 of 8 areas of knowledge; temple building, uses 5 marble/temple)
- 2 maneuver actions (allows ship/legion movement and combat). Every unit has 1 movement point initially; knowledge advances will increase this. Combat only occurs if either player decides not to coexist peacefully, and is very simple -- 1:1 removal of units till only 1 side is left. Conquering a city requires 1 move point.
After action is taken, you may spend 1 of each resource per city you'd like to build (1 per empty city site).

The game ends when a defined VP total is reached (varies with #players). VP are earned by:
- building cities (every 5th --> 1VP)
- building temples (every 3rd --> 1VP)
- building a navy (1VP / 7 sea areas containing your ships)
- know-how (if you're the first to discover 1 of the 8 areas --> 1VP)
- destroying temples (1VP/temple)
There is a limited # of VP available in each of these areas.

The Rondel is very nice - with only 1 thing to do on your turn, things should move quickly. Should - our first game with 6newbies took for EVER! But I need to play some more - not sure how fun this really is -- a 7 may be a bit generous.

BITS! Lots and lots of BITS!

A game of micromanaging cities, where you have to deal with a bazillion chits to track goods and resources as they are acquired and used. Our first game was 4 newbies, and only one of us really was even close to understanding how it works - the rest, I think, would have all pretty much died.

Definitely need to play this again!

It's a good party game, but you really have to play to the judge. I'm not so good at that . You have to know the judge and get in their heads, which I often don't do well. When I'm forced to play, I do end up having fun, so I'm bumping my rating up to 6. One thing everyone should know: at the end of the game, look at the apples you've collected. All those words describe YOU!

Multiple game rules included.

From the same company as Bananagrams and Pairs in Pears, but these games have more of a Scrabble feel to them.

--- Summary ---
- Tiles: 110, with a Scrabble-like distribution (is it the same?). Mix all face down. Players each take x tiles (20 in 2er); reveal initial tiles -> earliest in alphabet plays first.
- Game ends when player uses their last tile.


Both games
- First player draws a tile and plays it to the table; then create a word using that tile
- On later turns, add a word to the table, or "Pick and Pass" = draw 3 tiles. Instead, once/game, may discard a tile and draw a replacement.

Apple Turnover
- Later turns, players may only add to first or last letter of a previous word; new word must start or end with that letter (so you create a continuous snake of words).
- Or, may replace opponent's just-played word with a longer word (the letters go back to opponent)
- Player going out first wins.

Apple Score
- Later turns, words may be played like Scrabble (regular crossword style)
- Score VP after each play: 1/letter + 5 if >8 letters + 5 if palindrome or near-palindrome (= 2 different, real words spelled backwards and forwards e.g. DOG/GOD)
- If you successfully play a word, draw another tile.
- Game ends when you use all your letters; player with most VP wins.

Similar to Zooloretto, but with enough changes to make it a different game (although you can also play this as an expansion to Zooloretto, where you're basically playing both games simultaneously):
- instead of pre-defined pens, you have an open space in which you create pools by playing animal tiles of a specific type, grouped together (orthogonally adjacent, cannot be adjacent to different species)
- instead of open barnyard to house extra animals, you have a depot where they are stacked; only the top tile is available for manipulation (sell to other players, discard from game, move to your pool)
- no more species-swapping allowed
- additional way to get money: the 3rd, 6th and 9th of a species played to a pool gives you 1 money
- additional scoring (replacing stalls): the 5th (and 10th?) of a species gives you a meeple, which you may place either on the board (trainer, scores 1VP per adjacent trainable animal) or on some bonus locations (bonus 1VP/gold, or 1VP/fish icon on tiles).

While the basic mechanism remains the same, all these changes take a further step away from Coloretto, making this game a bit more challenging. After just one play, however, I think Zooloretto may be my preference: not as simple (and boring) as Coloretto, but not quite as difficult as Aquaretto. Not to say that this game is particularly difficult ... just more difficult than I'd prefer to play often. On the other hand, if I played any of these games repeatedly, I could see my preferences moving towards Aquaretto.

Simple little game, if a bit random. Fast, though.

A nice little filler, although after 1 play it seems to have a bit too much randomness (and ability to benefit from turn order and a luck starting deal). Still, it's quick and easy; definitely worth another play or two.

--- Summary ---
Create a random market of cards, and piles of cards near the pyramid (3 different numbers; available for purchase later by turning in 1, 2, or 3 maps). On your turn, draw a card from the deck; if it's one of the shuffled events, players will have to discard half their cards. Then, buy/sell into the market. May play cards to your display area, in sets of like types (bigger sets are worth more VP); once a set is played, you cannot add to it. The game ends after the last event card (or the end of the deck?). The player with the greatest value of sets played wins.

Racing game that seems to take a bit too long. OK as a 2er, but more fun with more. Haven't tried the magic version, although it seems unlikely to be useful - chronic card shortage. Also, I don't think all chariots were created equal. Need to play this one quickly, otherwise it's boring waiting for everyone to figure out what they're going to do.

Very well-themed. Takes one play to wrap your head around the details of what the rules are for legal play, but it all makes sense. May go up to an 8 ... maybe.

The theme does nothing for me personally, but it was very well done. The crappy little ark could use some improvement, but the game play is quite good. This is probably my favorite of the Carcassone variants - nice mix of the better elements from the other versions. The variant cloister scoring is an especially nice themed rule change.

It's an area influence tile laying game. There's a deck of cards showing each of the building tiles in the game, with a colored seal. On your turn, you either play workers (start with 3 in stock, hidden) or play a card (4 in hand; draw replacement). When you play a card, you place the corresponding building on the board, with a seal of the color shown. (If you cover certain spots on the board, you get neutral colored workers.) In either case, if you completely surround a building (= occupy all orthogonally adjacent spaces), you take the seal on it; all workers in orthogonally adjacent spaces also give their owner a seal of that color. In addition, you get to play Torres-style blocks, with colored seals on the top, into the castle structure in the middle of the board (must complete level 1, then level 2). Then, at the end of your turn, you may turn in a scoring banner (you have 4): this allows you to gain 2 more workers, and also exchange as many seals as you like for gold (VP) = #seals x value of seals. Seals are valued by the number of seals visible in the castle when looking from above. The last round is triggered when someone finishes the 2nd level: everyone, including that player, gets one final turn. Then, a final scoring occurs.

The game was fun, but it's not something I'd necessarily have to purchase. The endgame seemed to come very suddenly, with none of us really prepared (all had 1 unused banner). There also seemed to be a waiting game going on, with everyone trying to avoid setting up the next player(s) for a big scoring opportunity. It was a good game, but I found some of the others to be more interesting.

Too long, with too little interaction. I'm not a fan of Lovecraft either, so there's little here to keep me coming back. Shadows Over Camelot is MUCH better.

Too long, too much direct conflict, too many dice rolls.

Why can't I win this game!?!

After a long hiatus, I played it again -- liked it better than I remember!

It's an interesting race game where you'd like to finish quickest, but it's more important to finish efficiently. Seems nicely balanced.

This is a tough blind-bidding set collection game. I don't normally like blind bidding, but it works here: you have enough knowledge about what people want to have some basis for your bids. The things I don't like about it: length (a bit too long for me), and the Mystery cards add more chaos than I'd like. Played once with 4 -- 5 would be absolutely brutal!

General idea: players are alchemists collecting materials to make stuff. You acquire materials using bid cards played face down at 5 locations, each providing a different material (with a clever tie-breaking system, and decreasing material handed out based on rank of bids). Locations also have recipes (at most 2 on display at a time) for the stuff, which you can claim by turning in the required materials. Bid cards are also used to bid for turn order. The stuff you build comes in 5 different types (and also 3 groups -- imagine a 3x5 grid; each stuff fits in one box of this grid). You get VP for having multiples of the same thing, sets in the same group (row and/or column of the grid), and for initially making the stuff. Mystery cards through a wrench into all of this, as does the limited supply of material -- not everyone will get what they want/need!

1 play, Essen '05. Kids game. Kind of fun, but I wish I could remember the rules! We bought a copy for niece Megan, but haven't given it to her yet 'cause no rules ... she'll probably outgrow it before we get one!

An interesting game, but after 2 plays I think I still don't really get it. At least, I don't get how to do well at it! There are some really interesting mechanisms here: simultaneous turns (4 players), and the card exchange (pretty brilliant, really!). But there seems to be somewhat significant randomness and chaos here, too, mostly due to the way the cards come out (your own fields, but mostly from the deck of cards): access to extra fields, getting the "right" customers, luck of the two-pack draw, and the occasional player interaction where one person has a helper who can steal your market stall or customer or helper! The game is almost multiplayer solitaire -- which would be fine since I generally enjoy building an efficient engine, except for those semi-random (screw-your-partner) cards!
And as others have noted, the game seems to go on a bit too long.

I'll stick with Le Havre as my favorite so far!

--- Summary ---
Players each have a deck of fields (2 of each card, each shuffled into top/bottom half) and a starting field, with 3-9 spaces on them. They also have a personal market from which to buy/sell veggies; start the game by buying and planting one veggie -- when you plant, fill the other spaces of the field with the same veggie (from Supply). In future turns, you'll harvest 1 veggie/field (empty field is discarded). After harvesting, deal out 4 cards/player. In turn, players either discard a card into the face up pool, or play ONE card from their hand and ONE from the pool (then discard the rest into the pool). The last player to play cards picks the 1st or 2nd player to play as their partner (4er game). Then, the 3rd and 4th players simultaneously take their turns, but any interaction cards may only be played on their "partner". After that, the other 2 players play.

On their turns, players will be buying/selling veggies to the market or customers (cards), planting veggies into fields, etc. The variability here comes from the combination of cards you've managed to acquire: regular customers demand the same veggies x 4 turns (steady income) but cost you money if you fail to deliver, and they have lower payoffs than casual customers (who become available randomly from the deck of cards). At the end of each player's turn, they may buy 1 VP for $1, and additional VP for the cost shown on the next space of the VP track (1->20).

The game ends after 9 rounds; the player with the most VP wins (tiebreaker = cash)!

An abstract game for 2; a bit too dry for me, but it's pretty well done!

Online (BSW) play only.

Sort of like Cartagena -- have a path along which you need to move your tokens from finish, using cards (colors instead of symbols) -- but possibly with more randomness (not just the cards, but also the tile setup). On the other hand, it seems like there ought to be some strategy here since you have so many options for card play each turn? Needs more play.

--- Summary ---
Create a line of tiles, stacked 1 or 2 high. Each player has 3 pawns at the start. Deal 4 cards/player. On your turn, pick one of your pawns to move forward, and play the required cards (each card moves you forward to the next unoccupied tile of that color). If you move over water, must pay tiles (value 1-7?)/cards (value 1 each) for each gap crossed; cost = lower numbered tile of the tiles on either side of the gap. Players also each have 1 bridge/game, which may be placed to bridge over water (any length; bridge expands to keep tiles connected). After pawn moved, take the unoccupied tile closest to and behind that pawn. Finally, draw cards (1 + 1/pawn at end of path).

Game ends when any player gets all 3 pawns to end. Then, other players immediately move remaining pawns to end (1 move/pawn), paying all required penalties. Player with most VP (sum of tile values + 1/card?) wins game.

An interesting area-control game for two. The only randomness occurs in the order the cards come up. Over the course of the game, though, you'll go through your entire deck (and then some) so you should both see roughly the same cards ... eventually. But each hand is interesting as you try to figure out what your opponent will do, and where you should play your cards. Lots of tension but the game plays quite quickly -- looking forward to more games!

The board shows 4 temples (1, 2, 3, 4) each with 12 spaces in various colors (yellow, green, black, 1 blue each, some uncolored with +1 or +2). Each player has an identical deck of cards (9 sets of 1, 2, 3, 4) which are shuffled separately. Players draw a hand of 4 cards and simultaneously play them face-down to 4 spaces (1, 2, 3, 4), then reveal all cards. Resolve them in order:
1. Higher card scores VP = 2 x (difference in card values)
2a. Lower card resolves 2-4 first; if tied, lower #1 card; if that's tied, flip cards from deck till break tie.
2b. Remove (Card - 2) of opponent's tokens from temples numbered < Card played in 3 spot. If you played a 1 (1-2 = -1), remove one of your own. All removed tokens go to Kingdom of the Dead track (space for 8 tokens).
3. Determines which temples are legal plays for steps 2 and 4; temples numbered the same as or less than the card you play here are legal.
4. Place Card Value tokens in legal temples (determined by card in 3 spot).

If Kingdom of Dead full, score:
- each temple scores differently, with player with more tokens there earning VP
- player with more black squares occupied gets 8 VP
- all players score for bonus squares (+1 and +2)

You win if you occupy all 12 spots in any temple, all yellow spots, all green spots, or if someone gets past 40 VP (most VP wins).

Really good game! Clearly an abstract, with a pasted-on theme. But there's enough luck in it so it's not completely dry, but not too much - luck of the draw (tiles or resources) is largely manageable, and the better player will generally win. Also, a relatively fast game that moves at a nice pace. Best played either 2er or with all experienced players if playing with more (so everyone knows when to block someone else).

A party game. One deck has cards with a word on each: deal 4/player. The other has red or green sheep: each round, deal 1/player (all face down). Players take turns picking a word or phrase (eg edible underwear). Everyone picks one of their cards that matches (if they got a green sheep - eg chocolate) or doesn't match (red sheep - eg GWBush): these are revealed simultaneously. Then everyone races to grab a card (but not their own) that matches, although you may choose not to grab anything ... it's very much like Apples to Apples except that you have to / get to come up with your own catagories. Points are awarded based on what you grabbed and the card you played: you earn 1pt if you had a red sheep and no one took your card, and/or you grabbed a card that someone with a green sheep played. You lose a pt (negative pts possible) if you had a green sheep but no one took your card, and/or if you grabbed a red-sheep card. Play a certain number of rounds.

This is much better on BSW, where there's some anonymity and the topics are a lot more interesting (ie risque). It would also be better with people you know well and are comfortable with. With a bunch of new people, it was not as good - it feels like more work creating phrases. It was esp bad for us since no one knew the rules really well!

6/10 but higher if you like Apples to Apples and play with a group of friends.

An old timey pick up and deliver game with trucks in Germany! Several contracts, specifying pickup/delivery locations and load size, are on display. Players also start with some in their hand. Trucks start with a capacity to hold 6 goods (generic bits), but players may buy trailers at any time to increase capacity. On your turn, you roll a d6 and move the exact number, unless you are making a pickup or delivery in which case you may stop sooner. To pickup, just add the # goods to your truck (must have capacity). To deliver, return cubes to supply and take the cash payoff. If you roll the exact amount to move to a city (and do so), or if you roll a 6, you may put a single contract up for auction (open style) AND you only have to match a bid to win the contract. A won contract is immediately replaced from the draw pile. If you roll a 1, you may move the obstacle to any non-city position on the board (except one in far north). If you land on an event space, draw an event card and do what it says (some good, some bad). The game ends when all contracts have been auctioned off and a player completes their last contract. Most cash wins!

-----
This is a decent game, especially for one that came out in 1987! The dice may smile on some more than others, but generally the randomness of the rolls evens out over the course of the game -- it's more an issue of maximizing your efficiency, to pick up and deliver goods to fulfill as many contracts (as much $) as quickly as possible, without significant changes in your truck route. Of course, you also have to bid wisely for the contracts (and be sure to complete them before the game ends!)! However, the events are much more random and could significantly affect the outcome. Still, it played pretty quickly (with 3).

A good racing game with no luck unless you're paying with the dummy cars (fewer than 6 players). Mary didn't like it much at all ... not sure if it will ever actually make it to the table again!

Interesting area-influence game but doubt it'll climb above a 7.

New rule tweek = dry rivers/lakes, that become wet (normal) with an event card. Also, Darwin (a medium city) can be used to start building track.

1 play - got spanked, as usual!

The production quality is not so good, but the game play is interesting (but it's no Age of Steam!). The board shows part of SE Australia, with several cities connected by defined routes. Each city (except junction cities) produces some color(s) of goods, and demands some color(s). These connections are auctioned off in semi-random order: random, except you discard routes that don't start at Melbourne or Sydney or that don't connect to previously built routes ... so the network gradually builds over the course of the game. The game ends when all routes are built. Money management is similar to AoS -- you take out loans, pay interest -- but money isn't nearly as tight and you DO eventually pay the loans off completely. Productions is different, too: in turn, each player draws a colored chit and places it in any city that is able to produce that good. Goods delivery is slightly different: you deliver 1 good if you built a track, or 2 goods if you didn't. Also, there's a bit of randomness in building: must roll 2d6 to see if your track is available for use right away, or if you must wait till next turn (you can spend cash to make it available immediately). Income reduction is also random: divide your income by (2d6 1) -- reduce income by the remainder. Victory conditions are also different: it's cash on hand track value - outstanding debt.

If you liked Tinner's Trail but thought it was too light, this might be for you: it feels a bit like TT but with added depth/complexity. It's a good economics game ... I just wish I could figure it out!

Compared to TT (similarities):
- 4 Turns, multiple steps each turn.
- VERY true to the theme: you face decisions about how many/what type of cars to make, when to make them, how to sell them better and beat the competition, how much effort (actions) to spend on research, how to minimize losses (from inefficient factories and dealerships/distributors), etc.
- you have some turn order manipulation going on: turn order changes, based on when you pass the previous turn
- you produce stuff. In Automobile it's cars vs. copper/tin, of course, but you also have more options (type of car, specific factory does matter).
- sell stuff. But not all that you produce -- only what is determined by the demand tiles. And you may not get to sell everything -- you _are_ competing with other players directly here. Also, demand is somewhat random (although you do have limited partial knowledge) so you need to take steps to ensure you can sell what you produce.
- all of the above is modified by which Character/Role/special action (TT) you choose, which are also true to theme.

Others have compared it to Lokomotive Werks, which I've only played once:
- cars vs. trains
- similar overall premise/theme: build factories of varying technology levels, produce stuff, sell based on (randomly determined) demand. In Loko, though, the demand is known at the beginning of the turn. In Auto, you have to deal with more uncertainty -- and there are several ways to do so (build higher-tech factories, control number of cars you produce, establish a distributor network, choose Howard, take multiple executive actions).
- Whereas Loko seems very bare bones, almost as dry as a complete abstract, Automobile seems to be a much fuller, complete experience. There is a LOT more going on in Automobile (roles, extra actions, etc.), in a very well-integrated and thematic way.
- Loko, in my one play, also seemed extremely brutal -- and in an almost random/unpredictable way (although I suspect that's just because of lack of experience with the game?). Still, I think I need to go back and try Loko again just to get a better feel for it.

Abstract similar to DVONN but simpler.

One player is light, the other dark. The board is filled with alternating dark and light tokens (empty spot in the center). Take turns moving any stack of tokens to 1 adjacent (orthogonal or diagonal) space - place stack on top of stack there, max size = 5 tokens. Game ends when no more moves possible. Each player gets 1 VP per stack with their token on top; high score wins.

I think I like this better than DVONN, because you don't have to deal with either setting up (not random; and you don't have to plan it yourself) or the queen piece -- less to think about, which is good for my simple mind. The strategy seems obvious: stack opponent's pieces together while spreading your own apart. Also, once a group is relatively safe (set up so you can respond to opponent's moves there) concentrate on forcing the opponent to combine their scoring stacks as much as possible.

But after our first game (which I won ) the wife didn't like it enough to keep!

I played this years ago with a friend, and it was kind of fun. Enough that I actually bought a copy. When I tried it again ... bleh! Too random. May be a fun "experience", but not much of a game in my book!

Played a turn at some convention or other, at the WotC booth. Had a lot of fun - cool bits, relatively simple rules. So I got a copy (for free ). But then I tried playing with some friends: way too slow, and too many plastic chits on the board! Reminded me of my middle-school days playing Squad Leader and stuff ... yuch! Also, I didn't like all that dice rolling for combat. If you have to roll, rolling high should be GOOD! But way too much die-rolling here. Finally, I'm not really into the WWII theme - there are lots of other games I'd rather play.

I actually own a nice set ... I think my father bought it at a garage sale or something. Play a bit on my Palm, too. OK, but not really interesting - I like more theme

Yuch! Need to play with funny people, maybe?

Published rules seem pretty pointless (being able to play on either side) -- comes down to luck of the draw, and decision about which of the 4 tiles to play on. Playing with the designer's rules (cannot play to opponent's side till your side is full) seems better. Still, there doesn't seem to be much to the game; some decisions, a lot of luck.

1 play, 4er.

Wow, this was really good! It's like an 18xx game, but with some of the annoying 18xx-ities, such as having to pick very specific tracks, having to decide specific non-overlapping routes for each train, having trains rust out, being taken out of the game! However, we played with Kevin's very handy computer helper program running -- it tracked each player's connections and generated every possible combination of deliveries instantly. Despite that, our 4er game took just over 5 hours (of course, one of the 4 was the infamous Brian -- he probably adds 1+ hours to the game!)! If we didn't have that program, I imagine we would be looking at a 6+ hour game. Hopefully that will come down significantly; it's the reason I rate this just an 8.

I REALLY want to try this again, but need to write an Excel sheet or wait for that program to become available. C'mon, Kevin! Get to work!!

--- Summary ---
- Stock Round. 6 companies (diff starting locations and # cubes available) available at start; 4 more become available when tech level 3 reached. Start companies, buy/sell shares. Continue till all players pass. Player turn order is from least to most cash.
- 2 Operating rounds. Companies go in share value order. Each company may build track (place cube in hex), buy train(s) (which advances you through increasing Tech levels; each tech level changes limits on number of allowable cubes/hex, tracks built/turn, train maintenance costs, etc.). Deliveries are simple -- each train can visit x cities; decide which cities in your network you're servicing and add up their values, then subtract train maintenance fees = income; split amongst all shares). Company share value increases only if you earn more than previous income, so you often make suboptimal deliveries to ensure you can grow share value over the rest of the game.

A fun, fast crossword-style word game. But don't play it with someone with much better skill level ... it's not nearly as much fun!

All the letter tiles are mixed up face down. Then each player takes a number (e.g., 15 with 6 players). Simultaneously flip them face up, then work to put all the letters together crossword style. When you're done, yell "PEEL" and everyone takes a new tile. If you're stuck, yell "CHANGE" or something like that, put one letter back and draw 3 more to replace. Keep playing till someone yells PEEL but not everyone can draw a tile; if the PEEL player's words make sense, they win!

Fun game, but it hardly ever comes to the table: a bit too long, though. Also, as in other riddle games, you need people to not screw up their answers!

We own the Mayfair and the Rio Grande versions.

Compact, quick, dexterity (stacking) game. Randomly arrange bears in a circle. On your turn, roll the die and stack that color bear onto the next bear (stack) in line. If you roll a joker, pick a color. If your color is buried, you get to pass! If the bear stack tumbles, you take one of them then reset and start anew. If you take 2 bears, you're out -- last player standing wins.

Not bad, actually, although those bears are HARD to stack!

1 play 2004. OK game; need to try again.

Interesting game: set collection, pirates (arrr!), traumfabrik-type auctions, etc. From reading the rules I was expecting this to be more fun -- need to try it again (we did get some rules wrong).

The board is a chain of tiles with one company per tile, as well as one of 8(?) goods. Each round, auction off a set of cards (roll die to set number): pay everyone else as evenly as possible. Then on your turn either draw 2 ship cards, or play ships to your display (but only if you have or can the majority in 1+ company). If playing ships, advance meeple to next tile matching any company you control and take that tile; place a marker in the market for that type of good. Also, you may trade in a set of tiles, but only if the type you just collected was one you didn't have before -- get more VP for turning in a larger set (of different-type tiles). Pirates attack when sum of all ships >= 24 (or less with fewer players): attacks biggest shipping company (all ship cards discarded). The game ends when any meeple gets to the end of the chain of tiles. Final scoring: majority presence in each goods market earns VP (different for each good), companies controlled, cash, ending the game bonus.

- After my initial plays, I didn't see what all the fuss was about - seemed decent but that's all (6/10).
- With more plays, though, I have really started to appreciate this game: simple rules, plays (relatively) quickly, but with lots of angst deciding which card to play, and where. Although the components are uglier, this is a MUCH better GAME than Lost Cities: more options, less luck, more to think about, more fun! -> 8/10
- Well, it seems I always want to play this so it's up to a 9/10 now!

A random, chaotic, take-that game that takes too long for me. Not my kind of game at ALL!

It's Memoir '44 CC:A magic and then some. Haven't tried the more advanced scenarios yet ... am expecting it to be at least as good as CC:A.

1 play with 6 people, everyone but me new to BattleLore. Square layout. It wasn't as much fun as the M44 Overlord - not sure if that's because of the layout, or because it was only 6 vs. 8, or because there was too much STUFF to teach for a first-time game (thankfully I decided to NOT use lore!). On the other hand, I think this would be great as a 2-player version -- the shared cards worked very well!

Yet another cooperative game, with a really cool theme. For me, though, (first) game play doesn't hold up -- too long, and too many times where you have nothing useful to do. After one play, I prefer Shadows Over Camelot. However, I suspect this is better with more players (except for game length).

Update: after the second play, it was still just OK -- sold off!

There are some really cool mechanisms here:
- 2 loyalty card distributions. Thematically this is very cool. In actual play, though, it didn't add much to the game: it was obvious which player was the cylon.
- several actions available to the revealed traitor
- interesting skill checks (with cards from players and destiny deck). Sounds great, but didn't seem to add much to our game.

On the other hand:
- too long
- several times players were wandering around the ship with few/no useful actions
- too long
- KNOWING there are cylons is less interesting than suspecting. You usually will know the exact number, too (unless one player is dealt more than one cylon card, of course).

The rules aren't particularly complicated: random tile setup (face down). Each player starts with a horde of 6. Enter the city by taking a wall, gate, or tower. Then move one space at a time attacking the tile (flip it up; resolve any event that might happen; fight against its defense) until the game ends (if everyone else is eliminated, or 3 key locations are captured). Fights are simple: roll a d6 and add #in your horde (tiles have intrinsic defense instead). Losing = lose 1 token; then, retreat or keep attacking. Winning gives you VP (place flag on the tile) and loot (cards which can be played for various effects or VP). When the game ends, whoever has the most VP (captured tiles and VP cards) wins!

This game SUCKS EGGS! It was kind of fun, but it's feels almost totally random -- lots of dice rolling, random events, random loot/VP! It's not likely I'll play this one more than once more....

It's a stacking game. There are pieces of various irregular shapes and sizes. There are several rulesets included. One version is this: everyone gets 10? beans. On your turn, you pick a piece to auction off: either to take (high bidder pays and gets it) or to avoid (pay to pass; sort of like High Society's bad-card auctions). If you get the piece you must add it to the structure you've already built (1st piece taken will form the foundation; later pieces added on top of that). If your structure falls, you're knocked out. Last player still in wins!

It's a pretty fun dexterity game. The bidding/auctioning adds a strategic element to the game, but it also makes the game take a little long for me -- I think I prefer Tier auf Tier!

A fun little dexterity game -- more fun than it should be, really! Light, but with a bit of strategy (but more skill than strategy).

--- Summary ---
Each player has a set of coasters with 1, 2, or 4 pretzels on them (worth $1-4 each), a beer (x2 multiplier), and a napkin. Play n rounds with n players, so each is starting player once. On your turn, toss any coaster into the area created by a string (in later rounds, previous start player sets the shape). The napkin is tossed last. Then, each player scores points (money) = sum of all completely uncovered pretzels within the border, or touching the border (either directly or via a chain of touching coasters). The player with the most money at the end wins!

Normally, I wouldn't rate a game (or expansion) without first playing it. In this case, however, I have to make an exception because it is obvious, even without playing it, that this is the only way one should try to play Beer & Pretzels with 6 players. Now that I've seen the purple coaster expansion, I can't even imagine a better expansion for the base game that would allow 6 players. This seems like one of those expansions where you think "this makes the 6-player game so much better ... why wasn't it included in the base game?" The quality of the components matches the original game, and the rules are crystal clear (although I suggest you read the back page first to get a better understanding of how to play this game).

Light fun. Like most Cheapass games, though, we didn't end up playing it very much.

1 play, 3er game. Probably better with 4? There are some interesting decisions here: which action cards to flip? how much to offer? Whether to accept money of pay it to keep your cards? when to play the special actions? how to time it so YOU are the one to get past the VP goal to end the game. Each turn moves along fairly quickly, but the game lasted too long -- 75 min. And with just 3 players, there didn't seem to be many choices during the trade actions phase (similar to 3er Oasis).

The idea: obtain goods (from bank to your hand), place goods from hand to warehouse, and ship from warehouse to ships waiting in harbor. All driven by action cards, which are acquired in a sort-of auction. Ships accept particular combinations of goods and are worth 2-20 VP. Game ends when any player gets to 50VP (60 in 2er game) -- player with most VP wins.

Going through the rules, this seemed like it was going to be really boring. Surprisingly, it was actually kind of fun! The theme felt very pasted-on but it was still a nice game of card/hand management. We didn't play with the advanced rules, which will probably make the game better.

Similar to LOTR in the types and uses of cards, but not cooperative so your particular hand actually matters, and you can see what your needs will be well in advance so you can do a bit of planning.

A 6-7 after one play, but I don't feel the need to own this one.

Boring game where you spend a lot of time waiting for your turn to come around, then you move and roll a bunch of dice. Better after the haunt is on, but still wouldn't play this game again.

Like Balderdash but in addition to word definitions you can also do initials, dates, people and movie plots. It's an OK game, but there are a LOT better party games out there! It drags on too long and I don't like having to just make up random crap.

1 play. Needed a little more tweaking of some kind.

It's an exploration, area-control game: the board is built of hexes arranged in a pattern according to the #players, with all tiles face-down except each player's starting area. Each tile is an atoll consisting of 3 islands with various configurations of tobacco plants (source of money), settlement areas (where you breed to bring new pieces into play), harbors (the type of which affects your ability to explore), and goods (3 types). Control of these islands is determined by where you place your tokens. On your turn, you can move tokens around, explore, try to take control over various areas, etc. You get victory points based on goods you have, certain positions are worth more VP, etc. We played with the card expansion, which adds another type of action available to players.

It's a nice game, but I don't see what all the fuss was about (and that's not just because my wife won!)? I guess it is a good, fast exploration game; although really it seemed to end too abruptly (by having explored all tiles), just when things were just getting interesting.

A simple, streamlined version of Tutenkhamen. It plays very quickly (at least, it should!) but still has some interesting decisions throughout. A nice filler.

You randomly arrange the colored discs (5 colors, plus black and white). Place all pawns near the start area. On your turn, move any pawn forward to the next available disc matching its color; then take the first available disc in front of or behind the pawn. If you'd previously collected a black disc, may discard it to move your pawn backwards _instead_ of forwards. The game ends when all pawns have made it to the end of the track (ranked 1st - 5th). Each disc is worth VP = (5 - rank). The white discs are each worth 1VP / color you've collected. The player with the most VP wins.

This is an oldie, a fun abstract racing game where you have to set up checkers-like jumps to efficiently move your 'roos around the track. You jump over a single 'roo, as far on the other side as you started on this side (can't leave the board or jump into/over water). The first player to get all their 'roos around the track wins.

1 play. Area control game. Seemed very limited with the basic rules and 4 players - couldn't do much with your actions. Also, turn order seemed to be overly important. Would like to try it with the variant rules, although I'm not sure we'll be able to get it back to the table with our group.

Based on 1 play, 6 players. Fortunately, we were warned about the consequences of people answering incorrectly - we avoided that problem.
A good deduction game without any of the glamour of, for example, Mystery of the Abbey. Definitely worth playing again.

Haven't learned to count cards, so the game isn't much fun for me.

Own FRED's version, "Blazing Aces: A Fistful of Family Card Games", with 15 card games.

a good speed game, easy to teach, fun to play; i only wish you could play with more than 3 (prob could by mixing sets)

Sort of Blokus (shape of pieces) crossed with Through the Desert/Go (surround areas). Good game but likely best with 2 unless everyone is of similar skill.

--- Summary ---
Each player has the same set of Blokus-like pieces. The board scales in size for 2-4 players. You set it up with shapes in specific locations. First piece may be played anywhere. Then, must play orthogonally adjacent to your previously played piece(s), or take penalty chip(s) to play elsewhere (further away = more penalty). Play till all players pass, or till someone wins immediately by control (gain control by occupying more spaces adjacent to shape than any other player) all 3 blocks of any single shape during game. If no immediate win, score VP for control of shapes. For each shape, 3 VP for 1, 7 VP for 2. Lose VP for penalty chips and for any unplayed pieces (-1VP/square). Most VP wins!

Played twice today (4er). Fast and fun. I usually don't care for abstracts, but this one plays very quickly. I do wish the board was better made (more sturdy), but we'll likely pick this one up soon.

A good 3-D abstract game: Tetris + Pueblo. Should be played QUICKLY! Nice components, although the box is unusual (not in a good way).

The game is just like it's relatives: players have identically shaped pieces of various sizes, each composed of a number of triangles. The hexagonal board is divided into small triangular spaces. You use a subset of the board with fewer than 4 players. Several spaces are marked: your first play must cover one of these spaces. When you play a piece, it may only touch your other pieces at the corners -- i.e., no sides should ever touch each other, and a corner cannot be placed next to a flat side but only next to another corner [this is a variant of the basic rules]. Take turns playing until no one can play any more pieces. The player who played the most pieces on the board wins. Ties are broken by comparing the size of pieces left - smaller pieces unplayed (fewer triangles) = winner. There's also a bonus for playing the 1-triangle piece last.

Good version of the game, although it takes some getting used to. But we already have GemBlo ... don't need another variant.

A really nice little game!

There are random stacks of blocks on the board. Players have 4 pieces which they can introduce/move around the board. Movement is based on cards matching the colors of the squares on the board. You can destroy a stack or create a stack or remove an opponent's pawn using the right combination of cards and board position. Each of these things gives you victory points in varying amounts -- the trick is to best position yourself for multiple opportunities, and manage your hand of cards most efficiently.

It was deeper than I was expecting for a Spiel des Jahres nominee ... definitely worth playing!

Only played the basic game, once or twice. Didn't seem like much fun - traded away. I guess we didn't really give it a fair shot (didn't play with full ruleset, just the basics), but since I haven't been able to convince my wife to play it since... gone!

And now it's back -- everyone loves it, so maybe it's worth another try?

The board consists of a central tile square surrounded by tiles that are placed in a particular configuration (square with projections on each side) but with each tile randomly chosen. Tokens start in the middle. The object is to build 4 stones of the Obelisk ... the first 4 built each cost 7 crystals, then costs escalate all the way up to 12. The first player to build all 4 wins. You get crystals by moving around the board and interacting with the tiles. The tiles each require various combinations of cards (you draw 2+n each turn, where n is a number of cards you discard from your hand, from 0-2) played as sets, to complete 1-3 goals. When all goals on a tile are completed, everyone who contributed gets a reward. In addition, the person completing the majority of goals gets a bonus. The rewards are generally crystals, but can also include additional cards and dragon scales. Cards can be used towards these goals, but also for their special powers (different for each of the 5 races/colors). For example, you can discard cards to call the 3 dragons into play or move them onto your tile. If you complete a goal, each dragon present on your tile rewards you with a dragon scale. When all the dragon scales have been awarded, players earn crystals depending on how many scales they have (most are then returned to stock). The interesting thing about the board is that after all goals of a tile are complete, it is turned upside down. From then on, it adds a bonus reward to all adjacent tiles.

The game was just OK. You move around, gather resources, get to the central tile and try to buy the 4 spots as cheaply as possibly. You have to be efficient, and it's interesting how completing 1 tile's goals might set up the other players who are working on adjacent tiles. I like the tile-flipping mechanism where 1 tile adds to the rewards of several others, but there just didn't seem to be very much game or fun here!

Own 4 copies! Like Loopin' Louie, but it seems harder to target anyone other than the next (clockwise) player. Guess I need more practice!

A fun speed word-finding game. I didn't play this growing up, and really only discovered it ~2004. Actually, that was Big Boggle, which is better, I think (more dice, longer words possible/required)

A great light-weight trading game. Hard for people to learn at first -- rearranging cards in your hand has become second nature for most of us -- but it's generally fun for everyone. As long as you can get past the odd theming!

Own the original edition, and also the Fan Edition.

Adds some more bean types so you can play with more players; still works well!

It's a car racing game. The major innovation is the use of vectors. A pawn in front of your car represents velocity: the further it is, the faster you are going IN THAT DIRECTION. So it's going to harder to take turns when you're going fast. But you don't need to understand vectors to start playing: the mechanism is simple - move your car to any vertex within 2 vertices from the pawn, then duplicate the cars movement with the pawn (starting at the CAR). In addition you can try to boost your engine (and risk taking damage --> decreased performance) and also ram cars (possible damage). A full game is a 2 lap race.

I love the use of the pawn to show your momentum - very nice. But the RACE game took 160 min! Sure, 5 of us were new, but we only played 1 lap! Maybe the track is too long (apparently it always takes hours for the game). I'm also concerned about the near total lack of randomness: it seems like it would get predictable after everyone knew the courses, with pole position winning most of the time. Would try it again, but not with 6!

A speed pattern-recognition game. Several (5?) dice have pictures of animals on them (gnu, rhino and bongo). Also roll 2 yellow dice with pictures representing 1, 2, or 3. If the yellow dice match, look for the symbol that occurs that many times. If not, look for the symbol that occurs the OTHER number of times. If nothing satisfies these conditions, call "none". If the first player is correct, they get a chip of that type (for "none" calls, take one of your choice). If incorrect, give another player one of that animal's chip (or if "none" was mistake, give ALL your chips to other players). The first to collect 2 of each animal, or 6 of one animal, wins the game!The advanced game adds 2 red dice and 1 green. The 2 red are hunters: if they're the same, they eliminate a matching animal from the white dice; if they're different, they eliminate one of the OTHER animals (I think). The green die saves one of those animals from the hunter. Then, evaluate the yellow dice as normal.This is a fun little game, although even the basic game is tough; I think the full game would be VERY tough for most people! Probably not much fun if someone isn't quick with their visual pattern recognition.

It's not a bad version of the Mystery Rummy games, but I still prefer Jack the Ripper. This is a simpler game. Game play, including moving the car around looking for Bonnie and Clyde, works well although the artwork makes it a bit difficult to read the cards. It's basically Rummy, but with Bonnie and Clyde cards hidden in 2 of 8 locations (other cards placed in other 6 areas randomly): when you meld or lay off, you can move the car and look/take the card at one of these locations. Bonnie and Clyde are worth 10VP each, but you can only claim them if you meld or lay off at the car's current location.

Played it with four -- I'd guess it's better with 3 (or 2?), where you would have a bit more control over the car. Need to play again, but not necessarily a buy for me.

A simple dexterity game based on Bocce, with parts suitable for indoor play (the reason Mary bought our copy!).

Here, you throw a 12-sided foam target ~12ft away. Then players take turns throwing their ball and ring, trying to get as close as possible to the target. The player with the closest object scores 2 VP (a wrist-worn score keeper is included in the game); 2nd closes gets 1 VP. You score bonus VP for ringing the target. Finally, the upper face of the target will have additional bonus scoring. The first player/team to 11 wins.

It's a cute game, but it's ruined by the silly challenges based on your score (the score keeper also tells you how you have to throw -- e.g., with one elbow on the ground, or after spinning around, or using your knee, etc.) and by the total randomness of the target bonus. These bonuses can be for the person furthest away, or closest ... you can even win the game instantly! Of course, you can't read what the bonus will be until you're done tossing (nobody will want to walk up to the ball to read the bonus, then walk back to toss!).

I think we'll just play without the random bonus points, and maybe without the throwing challenges either. The game (in some form) has been around for thousands of years without that crap anyway!

A nice mix of Settlers (d6 production rolls) and auction games. Very nice, interesting auction mechanism, although I wonder if a once-around version would be better. Plays quickly, too. The special cards can be pretty powerful, but the auction mechanism should help balance that. One caveat - I think you need to play with people who all know the game; one (or a few) under/over-bidders may mess things up for the people on either side of them.

Good game, similar in many ways to Goldbrau but more interesting (theme and game play). May need some tweaking to decrease the randomness of the d6 dice rolls, though.

I don't really enjoy chess, but this is a lighter variant that plays pretty well. Of course, it's still a chess game, and we don't ever play it; so off to the trade pile!

Each player has a home goal in the middle of one of the 6 sides of the hexagonal board. The board is divided into triangles that form lanes. To setup, you just place 3 pieces (obstacles) randomly. In turn order, you get to move your robot (starts in your own goal) using 6 movement points. Movement is tricky: it's like Ricochet Robot, except that when you hit an object (wall, robot, ball) you may bounce off in any direction -- the triangular grid takes some getting used to! The object is to hit balls (placed in center of board at first, then placed in random locations adjacent to the obstacles) into a goal: 1VP bonus for getting into your own goal. The initial balls are worth 1VP, but later ones are worth 2, then 3VP. There is also a cooperative element: if you see a solution for someone else on their turn, and they accept your suggestion (and it works!), you get 1VP, too! The first player to 16VP wins!

The pieces all looked great -- it must take hours to make this game! Game play is difficult to get into at first, because most people just aren't used to bouncing off things at these angles, and also because a real ball wouldn't bounce this way (without putting a spin on it, anyway). But it starts to get easier with time. Don't play it with the spatially challenged (or the AP prone), however, unless you're willing to sit there staring at the board for a while! Good for folks who like Ricochet Robot but aren't fast enough to be competitive.

A very cool economic building game. The first game is definitely a learning game.

More forgiving than Age of Steam, but still very fun and wonderfully thematic. The randomness of the cards keeps it from being perfectly calculable, which is good! It speeds up play, and keeps the game more interesting (I'd like some hand management, please!). There are several well-balanced ways to earn VP (which represent future potential for the company; to me, VP represents the sale value of the company at the end of the game: $10/VP).

While I prefer Age of Steam and Struggle of Empires, this should be easier to get to the table.

Not quite a 10 for me, but pretty close!

1 play, with a little girl who taught the game. There were some significant rules errors, though! We broke the safe easily, in about 12 minutes or so!

A somewhat chaotic game of blind bidding and set-collection. After becoming familiar with the hazards, the game should move along pretty quickly. I don't generally like blind bidding, but it works reasonably well here. I also like the Money-style redistribution of auction bids each turn. I suspect, though, that it will end up being too chaotic for me (since I can't predict who's going to bid or drop out, so it'll be almost completely random as to who gets the hazard cards!).

--- Summary ---
Players start with 6 cubes (boulders) in their color. Each round, Start Player rolls a weather d6 and flip appropriate number (look on chart for number of players in game) of travelers (one face down, the rest face up). Players then blind bid using boulders of a single color. If bid 0, they're out this round. Others get priority cards in order of their bid. In order, they choose traveler cards until all have been chosen. Travelers are usually good (worth some amount of money and/or food), but there are also hazards as well (e.g., discard your most valuable card, spend a combination of boulders to earn VP, etc.). When taking a card, place them in either your food or money pile (sides of your bridge card).

Then, Klunker or Money style, in reverse priority order, you may take any player's boulders bid. Players who passed this round get 1 cube/boulder from supply per player who did bid.

Finally, players may turn in food/money cards (with matching sums of values) and convert to VP chits (the lower of the sums). They can also convert VP chits into VP cards, which are safe from hazards and worth a bonus VP per card.

The game ends after going through the deck of traveler cards. The player with the most VPs wins.

Good game, but clearly an abstract with nice bits and a nice board. I'm not a huge fan of abstracts, so I don't rate this higher. Also somewhat prone to analaysis paralysis, which can be annoying 'cause you're just sitting there waiting for your turn.

Played, or attempted to play, YEARS ago. Just went back to try to read the rules and learn it again ... and it just doesn't seem worth the effort! Hopefully can convince the wife to trade/sell/give it away!

This is just another map - not even a minor rule change to differentiate it from the other crayon rail games!

A light game. Much better with the variant play rule, although still just OK.

The board is a grid 11 rows x 7 columns, with the 2 end rows separated by rivers. One player controls the Buffalo (11; 1 in each space on one side), the other the Indian Chief (center square in front of opposite river) and 4 dogs (2 to either side of Chief). Buffalo can only move 1 space forward. Indian Chief moves like a King, and can capture. Dogs move like queens but cannot capture, only block movement. Neither Chief nor Dogs may cross the rivers. Buffalo plays first. Take turns moving 1 piece at a time until someone wins.

Handicapping: If Buffalo is winning too much, take Buffalo(s) away. If Chief wins too much, let Buffalo move >1 buffalo on the first turn.

It's a quick little abstract game, like simplified Chess (end-game Chess). I don't like Chess, but this is fast enough that I don't mind it. The simple handicapping system should make repeated play possible. But since the wife doesn't care for it, it's off to the trade pile....

An OK CCG; at least the cards are relatively cheap!

Surprisingly fun game. A lot of luck in the dice rolling, of course. But seems to capture the theme well, and doesn't last too long. I have only played it a few times. I wouldn't buy it, but wouldn't mind playing it again.

1 play, partial game. We quit because it just seemed too random - you have some control in the game, but really not very much. You have to decide which of your 4 scoring types to score each time, but I'm not sure if you have a good basis for the decision? Would like to play a full game of this some time, although probably will have to wait till another con to play someone else's copy!

1 play, 2006. Neat idea, but just didn't enjoy it very much; prefer racing to bumping, and orienting the cards always seemed to take a while.

Has a Hansa feel although the mechanisms and theme are different enough to warrant having both. Here, the tokens are in a pile, with 5 random ones available for purchase on your turn. You play one tile per turn to the board, now trying go match both color and symbol to score more VP. But each play potentially helps other players score even more, until a scoring area is completely closed out.

Plays quickly; good light-medium game!

Based on 1 play only. This seems to be typical for SJG - funny cards, OK game that took WAY too long to play. Too much to read on the cards. I think this might be better after you're familiar with the game system and cards, but it just went on so long I have no burning (heh) desire to try this again any time soon.

Another early purchase that we haven't played in years. An interesting little game where you create a fishing platform by balancing long rectangular tiles using rocks as counterweights. It's been so long, though, that I don't remember any more details.

Easier to play online (spielbyweb.com): less fiddly, more time to figure out the possibilities.

The game is actually pretty straightforward, although it may not seem like it at first glance.
It's an old worker placement/action-selection/network-building/pick-up-and-deliver game with some interesting twists. You generally want to take only the 2 required actions each round, but sometimes you'll do better to take extra ones -- when is it worth it? Should you push the game to and end, or try to hold back taking your actions till later (when you have more buses and can score more VP)? Dealing with the uncertainty of the clock is fun, too -- is it worth the -1VP hit to stop time? If someone else chose that action, what type of building should I place or build towards? Where should I extend my network?

Just a few things I don't like...
- the almost-scripted first few turns where the starting player chooses the Bus action, and the 2nd player chooses Start Player so they can do the same next round. With limited actions you'd like to move the most people with each action, hence must have buses. So this would seem to be a standard move. However, maybe one can do well without following this lockstep pattern at the beginning?
- the fiddliness of moving the passengers on and off the building tiles every round. People with shaky hands should let someone else do it!
- the artwork is kinda busy!

Nevertheless, either played online or possibly played face-to-face at a reasonable pace, this is an interesting and early take on the worker-placement/action-selection idea, definitely worth trying.

--- Summary ---
The preliminary setup: the board shows a network of roads and intersections, with spaces labeled A-D (1 or 2 at an intersection) scattered about. 4 passengers start on the board, at the 4 central intersections. Each player will place 2 buildings (house, office, and/or pub) in any 'A' locations. Then, switchback style, they place 2 of their roads contiguously on the board.

Each player starts with 21 action cubes. Each round, you must use at least 2. Rounds first have an action selection phase, which continues till all players pass. Actions are selected by placing one of your cubes onto the appropriate space on the Action Track. For each action, there may be one or more available spots -- some are filled in right to left, others left-to-right. In the next phase of the round, the actions on the Track are executed by players from left to right.

The actions are:
- Extend roads. The first player to place their cube in auction here plays last, but extends their network (from either/both ends -- if form a loop, use a cube to mark the head of the road) the most -- as many roads as the maximum # of buses any single player has (all start with 1). Each other player will play 1 fewer road, in the order that they chose the action. (5er game: everyone places 1 extra _road_)
- Get new bus. 1 player only.
- Build new buildings. Like roads action.
- Bring new passengers. Like roads action, but in placement order.
- Clock, with 5 stones set up at start. 1 player may select. When resolving, that player may choose to stop time = skip to next step, below. If they do, they take one of the 5 stones (-1 VP each at the end of the game); if the 5th stone is taken, game ends immediately. If they do not, advance the clock to the next position (starts at 'home', goes next to 'office' then 'pub' then back to 'home'). This indicates the type of building passengers want to go to this turn.
- Vrooom! The only way to score + VP. First, passengers will walk from intersection to the goal building if it is at the same intersection. Then, this is executed like roads, but in the order players chose the action (instead of backwards). Then the player vrooming moves 1 passenger per bus they have along their own roads to the desired location, scoring 1 VP each (show on score track).
- Start player. The player choosing this will start next round. If no one chooses, Start rotates to left.

The game ends at the end of the round if only 1 player has action cubes left, or at the Clock step if the 5th stone is taken. Most VP wins, with ties going to the player who got that score first (scoring marker on bottom of stack in the score track).

A medium-weight game with a nice, simple economic engine. I think - it's been a while since our game!

A fun word game - the scoring mechanism (squaring the cost of words bought/sold) is interesting. You should be able to play the game with LetterHead pieces, but it's always nice to have tiles! Also, the box is amazingly sturdy!

Rating is tentative -- not really sure about this game. Unfortunately, it's been difficult getting this to the table to explore it more deeply. Still, does not appear to be nearly as good as Age of Steam and Struggle of Empires.

It's an interesting auction, set-collection game ... sort of an amped up For Sale: use cards to bid for other cards which are worth points. Here, though, the VP gain happens throughout and requires you convert your ability to bid into VP. It plays pretty quickly (~25min) ... nice filler!

--- Summary ---
A deck of Item Cards (0-4 in several colors) is shuffled: players start with a hand of cards, and the rest are in a draw pile (a few are removed randomly if playing with fewer players). There's also a deck of Market Cards numbered 1-n, arranged face up with n on top. Each turn, reveal as many Item Cards as the top Market Card. Players use their cards in hand to bid for this lot of cards: to bid, place 1+ cards from your hand down face up in front of you. Go round and round, raising the bid (play more cards in front of your) or passing, until someone wins. The auction losers retain their cards. The winner places their bid cards, as well as one card from the auctioned lot, into the Market (sorted by type/color); the other won cards are added to their hand. The winner also takes the Market card. There is one exception: if everyone passes without bidding, the first person to pass wins the lot and keeps ALL cards in the lot (i.e., none sent to Market). This auction winner, with a Market Card in front of them, may not participate in the rest of the round. Repeat this process until all the Market Cards have been taken; the first still-active player to the left of the previous auction winner makes the first bid. The final Market Card is the 1: there is no auction; the revealed card is immediately added to the Market and the last remaining player takes the 1.

The round ends with players, in Market Card order, choosing one set of like-colored cards from the Market. At any time in the game players may, or if a player ever has >7 cards in hand then that player must, turn in a set of 3 cards of the same color (0s are wild); the lowest 2 are removed from the game and the 3rd is added to your score pile (0s in score pile are worth 5VP; others are worth face value).

The game ends when the Item deck is exhausted (finish the round). Players turn in their final sets-of-three, then sum the VP in their score piles. The player with the most VP wins!

Basic Game: You add 5 money tiles to the pool, then everyone loads their gun (cards: 2 Bang!s, 1 Bang Bang Bang! which shoots first, and 5 blanks; played face down). Then, count 1, 2, 3: everyone points their gun at a target. Count 1, 2, 3: people can drop their gun and run away (they take a coward token, worth -$5000 at the end, but no one shoots them). Bang Bang Bang cards resolve, giving a wound to the target and knocking them out of the round. Then Bangs resolve, doing the same thing. It takes 3 wounds to kill someone and knock them out of the rest of the game. Everyone left standing splits the money in the pool, but only if it's possible to split evenly (tiles are in denominations of $5K, $10K, and $20K).

Option1: Secret Powers.
You are randomly dealt another card that gives you another ability. For example, you may get the shotgun (can target 2 people, although you may miss), or you may have dragon hide (takes 4 wounds to kill you), etc.

Option 2: Undercover Agent.
Rles you are dealt at the beginning. There is one policeman undercover, who can only win by calling the police 3 times (in the first 6 rounds) AND surviving till the end (and you can only run on 1 of the last 2 rounds).

This is a silly game, but it's fun and relatively fast. They did a great job with the foam guns! I like the secret powers, and even the secret roles although it seems difficult for the cop. I doubt I'd buy the game, but I might trade something little for it (it's going to be released in the US with orange foam guns) and I would play it again.

Interesting new dynamics: team play (2 types of gangsters vs. yakuzas), shuriken (not quite as fast as Bang!Bang!Bang! but faster than Bang! Also, they are actually thrown!), katana (only aim at adjacent players; if they duck, sword keeps swinging), and more cool objects/powers.

So, can you dodge when someone throws their shuriken?

An abstract game that plays pretty quickly.

Carcassonne-like tile-laying with a more complicated area-control mechanic.

Have only played on BSW. After playing a few games, there's not much more to think about - decisions are pretty straightforward, and it comes down to the luck of the draw. Still, I might play it from time to time for pretty mindless fun.

Played the variant suggested here, with 6 tables out vs. 5 and no duplicate tables allowed (dups put at bottom of deck). It should be easy to play this as the board game, except for the missing 4 jokers. On the other hand, it's a nice compact card game and there's not a whole lot of strategy to the boardgame anyway. Not sure if I prefer the board or the card game....

Completely abstract with a thinly pasted on theme: players have inherited a mansion that they are trying to renovate. Boards represent 16 spaces. The central area shows 2 stores with 4 randomly chosen tiles each, and a bank with four 5-gold tokens. On your turn, you can take 1 gold token, or buy 1 item from a store (price = # of tokens on bank). The round ends when any store, or the bank, are depleted. You play 11 rounds, then use the discards to draw 8 random tiles for the final 12th round.

The mechanisms are nice, but I just don't care that much about carpeting the mansion and then covering it with random similar-colored stuff. Why am I keeping a motorcycle in the house, anyway?

1 play only - didn't find it interesting enough to play again. Was kind of annoying having to constantly read all the cards on the table.

Prototype play at Origins.

A really fun 2-player game of deck-building, but without all that crazy shuffling!

Each player first customized their deck of cards, coming down to a _very_ low number. Then you play those cards trying to gain majorities in various states (the order of which is determined by the players) to earn the electoral votes to win the election.

After you're familiar with the cards, the game should move along very quickly. I suspect I'll enjoy this more than Dominion (base game, at least) because the deck-building happens all at once, and more quickly, here; there's not a lot of shuffling!; and the theme and game play fit together better.

Looking forward to getting the final version!

This is a classic! I do OK, but sometimes I just can't stop rolling!

--- Summary ---
A simple game of push-your-luck: roll 4 dice, arrange into 2 pairs, and move those 2 mountain climbers up using temporary markers. You get to move 3 climbers each turn; once the 3 are chosen, must move at least one of them with each roll, or your turn is over and none of them advance. If you choose to stop before you fail to advance, you lock in the climbers' current positions. If you get to the top of the mountain on any path (and lock in), that line number is killed -- other climbers are knocked off, and no one may climb that line the rest of the game. The first player to lock in 3 climbers at the top wins the game!


On BSW, the dice are color coded (blue/white). If you're only using 1 pair, it's the blue pair. One minor quibble: it would be nice if the columns were numbered. However, the active dice pair is pictured at the top of each column, so it shouldn't be too confusing!

1 partial play -- we abandoned it! Actually, it was just kind of boring; I'd much rather play San Marco! I suppose I should try it again, though....

Similar to Age of Steam (pick-up-deliver, route building) but with more randomness: you can only build connections where you have contracts (which come up in random order, except for first 5); you need cards to build, which are randomly revealed (as in Ticket to Ride); goods enter the board when certain marked build cards are taken, where you have limited ability to predict where goods will go (unless you take the card, then you can choose, within rule limits, where to put the goods).
Good game: definitely better than Railroad Tycoon, although not as good as Age of Steam for me. Still, worth owning the second edition, which fixed some end-game issues (no bonus for #contracts) and better thematic sense (must take shortest route if multiple routes possible).

1 partial play (just 1 hand, 3 newbies).

A nice rummy variant: partnership (sit across from partner), 1 meld area/team, play with 2 normal decks and 4 jokers shuffled together, may only meld sets (not runs), random bonus 100VP if you're dealt the right card (silly random rule like the flowers in Mhing), wild cards worth 20 or 50VP (wilds may be used as part of meld but in initial meld the majority must be non-wild), need at least one canasta (meld of 6 or 7 cards) to go out, cards are worth 5 / 10 / 20 VP, first meld must be worth at least a specific VP (higher requirements as your score gets higher -- catch up mechanism), can pick up the entire discard pile if you can use the top card immediately in a new meld, get negative VP for cards left in hand if someone goes out, special STOP cards prevent next player from taking discard pile (discarded wilds also act as stop cards, as well as "freeze" the discard pile: to take the pile, you must make a wild-free meld with the top card). Play to 5000 VP.

Hard to evaluate after just one hand, but it seems like this could be a lot of fun! As a learner, I'd much rather play with this deck vs. regular cards (so I don't have to remember 2s are little wilds [20VP], jokers are big wilds [50VP], 3s are ... stops?, etc.). However, the game's been around so long that I'm sure people who've been playing it a while will prefer the more basic cards.

You can also play with an extra rule, but we didn't play it and I don't remember what it is!

1 play, 4er (3 newbies). Horrible! Took a long time, with a lot of sitting around waiting for my turn to come again. To be fair, I made some bad choices (ignored the upgrades of the person to my right) and some bad rolls. But I never seemed to be able to get the movement cards I wanted, either! Anyway, I'd like to try it one more time, playing faster.

An interesting tile-laying set-collection pick-up-and-deliver (sort of) game where you are laying tiles creating a geography, and building links (some public, some personal) between them allowing you to collect the resources you need in order to make movies (e.g., actors, scripts, special effects, etc.) -- and release them when there is the biggest audience (there's a bit of supply-and-demand economics here, too). Surprisingly, the theme really works!

A card game with a spatial component - hence the board. A race down a river, where you use card play to determine movement. # cards in hand changes from hand to hand.

1 play. A decent racing game, although it seems a bit light on the interaction. Still, I like the use of the wind tiles.

Area-control with rank-based scoring based on total building height - similar to Mexica but different enough to be a fun game. Good dual use of cards (take actions, or bid for items), not enough time/resources to do what you want. Some memory element, but no one I play with can remember enough for it to matter. The theme sort of makes sense ... if the Romans built their buildings outside the city, then hauled them in? Have to think about how to make that them fit better!

A simple roll and move game, with just one decision: whether or not to use your turbo!

Arrange the sticks into a 10 (or 11?) space race course. On your turn, roll the die: if you roll the gas tank, take a turbo token if available (2 in game?). If you roll a number (1-3), move as many spaces as shown; may choose to turn in a turbo token to double your movement. First player to finish 3 laps wins.

This is another compact kids game, easy to carry around and quick to play. But I'm not a kid, hence the rating.

We have Carabande (x2 !), not PitchCar.

Good game ... need more practice. However, I prefer Crokinole - a better, more fun flicking game.

The Carabande expansion, not PitchCar.

The jump is always fun. The chicanes are kind of tricky, too.

Fun tile-laying game. But it's been around a while, and rating has fallen slightly - prefer the variants to the original, now. Definitely need to play where everyone draws their next tile in advance; otherwise, the game is way too slow. Need to play with people who understand "stealing" cities is part of the game (and who don't do it better than I do!).

- Abbeys: everyone starts with a special cloister that they may place instead of their normal turn, but only in a spot orthogonally adjacent to 4 other tiles. What's special? It completes _everything_ (roads, cities, etc).
Also, extra super-meeples:
- Mayor: value = 1/pennant in city
- Wagon: when scored, it may move to any unscored object to which it is connected.
- Barn: placed on corner of 4 green areas. All farmers in that farm score immediately (3VP/city), and no other farmer/barn may be played to that farm. If a farmer is later connected to it, farmer scores immediately but only 1VP/city. At end of game, scores 4VP/city connected to barn-farm. If using pig, score 1VP extra/city.

Not sure that the abbey does much for you, but the other meeples are a simple enough addition. There are also some funky new tiles which work well.

A decent little expansion.

Adds not-so-much dexterity as RANDOMNESS to the game. As far as I'm concerned, this has no place in a game like Carcassonne.

I would only every play it if we were playing the game as a filler: basic game, no expansions, take out a bunch of tiles to shorten the game, then let the oddly-illustrated chits fly where they may.

This does not fit with the basic game!

A nice, simple little expansion.

Cult: cool idea, although not sure how often it'll come into play (especially if these few tiles are mixed in with a bunch of other expansions).

Siege: nice way to handicap those huge cities.

Creativity: I'm not creative; likely never use these!

Just a few game additions:
- Super-meeple: better for trying to poach things
- Inns: roads worth a decent point value!
- Cathedrals: 3-pt cities (IF you finish them)!

Many consider this a necessary expansion to the base game; I haven't played it enough to comment.

Nice expansion that gives you the ability to kill other players' tokens, and also retrieve your own if you happen to run out of them or find a better place for them.

Don't like the huge farm it creates.

Not sure that it adds a lot to the game, although the fork is nice in that you create a good-sized starting area. But because the start and end tiles have farmland on 3 sides, it seems to create one large farm -- hard to get into after the first player plays a farmer there?

Need to try it with the other expansions.

Maybe the best expansion yet?! The towers add a whole 'nother tactical element to the game. You now have to consider where to play your tiles relative to tower positions, and whether to spend your turn placing one of you few remaining tower floors instead of placing a meeple.

One unfortunate side-effect is that you can knock another meeple out of an almost-completed city, then be lucky enough to draw the tile that finishes that city ... a huge swing in points. Isn't there a variant rule that disallows that?

I like the basic game, the the builder helps speed things up a bit by getting more tiles into play. The trade goods are also a nice way to encourage city completion.

Prefer this to vanilla Carcassone. The hunter scoring is much easier to deal with than the convoluted farmer scoring methods. The bonus tiles are nice, too.

Very well done 2-er version. I like the addition of the little extra scoring chits on the scoring track. Of course, I've only played this once or twice, so will have to see if this rating holds up to repeated play.

It uses Carc pieces, but it's really pretty much a whole new game. Unlike the minor tweaks with the other expansions (Hunters, Ark) there are so many new rules here that it plays differently. More complicated, which I'm pretty sure I don't like.

This version forces you to either play a meeple or score. OK, I guess - just didn't do a lot for me.

Pretty good game, but it just doesn't hit the table very much. Hard for me to wrap my head around this one; well, to do it well, anyway. A little too abstract for my tastes.

A simple race game. Have only played the basic rules, not the variant with open cards (which would add way too much analysis paralysis to the game!).

1 play. Not bad, but not good enough - we're finally getting more selective!

A worker placement game, sort of. Simultaneous action selection. Collect resources, build castle parts worth VP and deploy workers to VP-earning locations. Feels a bit like Pillars with some extra options and faster play. Maybe too fast ... it doesn't seem like you have enough time to rev the ol' engine!

Definitely want to try this again, although I'm not sure I need to have it.

1 play, Essen '05. Not much fun.

A miniature lesson in probability. Roll a d6 = number of cat faces you want this turn. Then, grab as many cat bits as you want (one side with a face, the other blank) and toss them: if you match the number exactly, keep a cat. The first player with 3 cats wins.

Unless you have a magical way to toss cats, you'll always toss twice the number you rolled. So not much to learn here. Still, it's kinda fun -- and probably more so for young kids just learning about odds.

Rating: I just tossed a bunch of cats and this is what I got.

Settlers, especially the Cities and Knights version, is a good game - the rating is specifically for the production. While the pieces are pretty, actually playing on this version is more difficult: it's hard to see the numbers, fiddly working with the knights/pennants, and difficult to quickly figure out what all the hexes are supposed to be. The cities look to similar to the settlements for me. I'd prefer not to play on this board.

This is all based on 1 play - familiarity from repeated play may alleviate some of these problems.

This is Yahtzee in Settlers form. Each player has a map of a small island, with roads, settlements, and cities shown. Roads are always worth 1 VP but others increase in value. You roll d6 (5 resources & gold) as in Yahtzee. Then, mark what you build on your sheet, scoring those VP. Must build things in the order shown. Knights allow you to convert any dice to a specific resource; can be used once per game. Each game is 15 rounds. Whoever has most points at end wins.

Like Yahtzee, it's essentially solitaire play -- your only interaction is cheering/booing others' dice rolls. It's an OK diversion, I suppose, but I much prefer the other variants: To Court the King, Pickomino.

It's like the basic game crossed with the dice game: a race to 10 VP but you build in the same locations as the basic game, and roll dice for your resources. But you can now build settlements/cities anywhere you're connected, and you get bonuses for longest road and largest army. I think I like this marginally better than the original dice game, but I'd rather play To Court the King.

A nice addition to the basic game. New buildings, knights, cool progress cards etc. complicate the game, but provide a nice variety of options most turns. It makes the game somewhat longer, which is not good. However, I think with repeated play this would be a bit less of an issue. I just wish I could get some repeated play! Good mix of luck and strategy/tactics. Would almost rate this higher, except the play time keeps this away from the table.

Unlike the basic game, C&K may slow down a bit too much with too many players.

I really like the base game and Cities and Knights. This one just hasn't seemed to add much to the game but time - time to find and set up a scenario. It does add exploration, but that makes it way too random.

I think this actually works pretty well -- the extra build turns help keep the game from bogging down.

Played the Traders and Barbarians variant:
- no desert; 2 other tiles removed
- 3 new tiles that are placed in corners of the island. They each make 2 goods (tiles, shuffled face down) and demand 1 or 2 other goods.
- no robber; instead, 3 barbarians are placed on 3 intersections
- on a 7, move a barbarian to another road (site); if on a player road, take a random resource from them
- no 2 or 12 (no numbers on the 3 new tiles); if rolled, roll again
- start with settlement/road then city/road, with wagon (new piece) in city
- start with $5 (can buy 2 goods each turn, $2 each)
- At the end of your turn, may move your wagon over intersections using movement points: basic 2, +2 if barbarian is there, -1 if road is there. If you use someone else's road, pay them $1 per segment.
- wagons pick up and deliver the goods; delivered goods = 1 VP each. Also get $2-5, depending on level of wagon (can be upgraded x 4
- wagon upgrades also give you a chance to chase off a barbarian in your way (roll d6). The final upgrade also gives you 1VP.
- new development cards
- no longest road bonus
- play to 13 VP

Craig and I concentrated on building a road network (although he was ahead of me in turn order and one step ahead, cutting me off before I could do the same to him!). Meanwhile, Sarah quickly upgraded her wagon to the final level and was zipping around the board making deliveries ... she didn't build a single thing on the road for most of the game! My game stalled early on: it felt as if my numbers never came up! I got hit by the barbarian repeatedly early on (that eventually stopped when it became clear I was not going to win!). My goods were also never what I wanted -- I couldn't use the network I had built up (such as it was) because I kept needing to go to the other 2 corner locations!

Overall, a nice change of pace although I think I still prefer Cities and Knights (except that it takes so long!). Looking forward to trying the other variants!

I do wish the insert actually allowed you to put all the assorted tiles and bits away, however!

A fun little game of hot potato crossed with Password: 2 teams (equal # players) sit in a circle alternating team members. The machine, while counting down on a timer, gives you a word/phrase; you give clues trying to get your teammates to guess it. If successful before the timer goes off, pass the machine to the left; they get a new word (same timer continues). When timer ends, team not holding it gets 1 VP. Also, the other team may make one guess: if correct, score bonus 1 VP. First team to 7 VP wins.

The basic (electronic) version of the game is pretty fun. The musical version, however (with names of songs), was really pretty bad -- I have almost NO knowledge of song at all!

There's no luck beyond the initial building selection. The idea is that players are builders helping to build the king's castle (3 parts: dungeon, keep, and towers or something like that). You use initial buildings (place your workers, in turn) to generate resources, which you use to build better buildings (which generate more/better resources or help in other ways) and to build parts of the castle. Scoring happens when each of 3 stages of the castle are done, or when the game timer marches forward to specific intervals (player actions can affect this speed). In addition to producing resources, buildings/workers can change turn order, reduce the cost of placing other workers, and earn king's favors. You also earn favors each turn by contributing the most to the castle that turn. What are favors? Well, little freebies - ways to get extra resources, or build buildings more easily, or extra cash, or extra VPs. When the game ends (castle complete, or game timer moves to end), most VP wins (unused resources and cash are also worth some VP).

Sure, this is a good game, but is it THAT good? I don't think so. I think I'd prefer a bit more randomness in the game - more than just the initial shuffle of the pink buildings. The game is good, but I have more fun with other games.

It's much lighter and preserves many of the mechanisms and ideas of the original game. It does leave out some things, of course: no favors, limited supply of buildings from which to choose, fewer resource types, fewer buildings.

I remember REALLY liking this game when I first played it -- it retained the feel of the original but played much more quickly. But every play after that has left me thinking that I may want to go back to the boardgame, after all! Or, maybe just abandon the game altogether? The game plays OK, but for worker/action selection stuff I'd much rather play Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery or Agricola. For a card game, I GREATLY prefer Race for the Galaxy. It's a little disappointing!

A simple game, another official version of an old parlor game. Here, a list of cards with starting phrases/words is included. Everyone gets a specific number of plastic chain links. The judge reads it, then players in clockwise order each have 5 seconds to say a 1- or 2-word phrase using at least one part of the previous word/phrase (cannot use people's names). If someone runs out of time without a legal answer or repeats a previous answer, the judge honks a horn (!) and they lose a link. The game ends when any player loses their last link -- winner is the player with the most links left.

Surprisingly fun, although it went on a bit too long. We also ended up getting into the same sequence of phrases several times -- entertaining at first, but then ... not so much! And when the chains got long, it was difficult to remember if a phrase had been said already (on that go-around). Maybe if we'd started with fewer links it would be better?

An OK dexterity game -- stack chairs until they fall -- but maybe needs a better set of rules? One version (divide chairs; take turns; if chairs fall, take them all and start again; play till someone out of chairs) took way too long -- stupid curved chairs make a bad base! The other (add a chair until they fall = loser) was too short (maybe we're not skilled enough?). There are better games like this.

1 play: kind of boring, though thankfully it plays very quickly. Would like to play it again, maybe with the included variant (diplomacy tiles, I think?). An area-influence game with a twist, but seems a bit too light for my tastes.

1 play, game 2: Boneyard (2004). OK, typical Cheapass.

Fantastic production! Love the cute little mice and the way the board is put together -- use the box as castle walls, formed plastic insert becomes the dungeon, with layers of boards to create floors and roofs ... pretty cool!

Game play is straightforward. You get 4 action points each turn. All actions (bring new mouse to the castle, move 1 orthogonal space, remove adjacent roof, slide a tile) cost 1 AP each. SLIDE A TILE: the floor is made of a grid of square tiles, with 3 that have a hole in the center. This is covered by all the roofs. There's 1 tile left after setup, which you can use to slide into the castle from positions on the walls (marked) - this will pop another piece out from the other side, and can be done to slide a piece of cheese under your mouse or to slide a trap under someone else's mouse, dropping it into the dungeon. At the end of your turn, replace any roof pieces you can (i.e., no mouse occupies those spaces). If at ANY TIME 2 of your mice cover the same type of cheese, you take the matching token from supply (unless you already have that type). The first person to collect 4 cheese tokens wins.

So, there is a simple action-point system and some memory elements. It works pretty well, but there is a somewhat big luck component and the memory part doesn't seem very challenging. This would probably be great with kids, but I'm not likely to play it much otherwise.

Like Colossal Arena, but with some actual fun! Plays pretty quickly, too.

--- Summary ---
A random set of monsters (differing base strengths 1-10 and payoffs if win round) fight in the arena. Each round, a random judge is chosen. Each judge varies in the amount of magic they allow to be played, and may have other restrictions as well. Players (wizards) first "place bets" on which monster(s) they think will win the round: betting on 1 creature pays double base value; 2 --> pay base value; 3 --> pay half. On your turn, play a card (some are played face up, some face down) on a creature or pass; round ends when all pass. Then reveal all cards, apply judges rules, and see who won. After 3 rounds, the player with the most money wins the game!

This is part of my chess/checkers traveller's miniature set. Fun as a kid, but not so much any more. The only time I'd play it would be against a kid, if they really wanted to play this.

This game feels VERY similar to Circus Flohcati. There are 8 species of animals (on poker chips) which occur 3-10 times. These are mixed in the bag. On your turn, you draw chips 1 at a time until either you decide to stop (add the chips in any order to your stack of chips) or bust (get a duplicate animal). If you bust, the chips go back in the bag and the next player takes their turn. The twists vs. Circus Flohcati:
- if you draw an animal that matches the one on top of any player's stack, you get to take all those matching chips
- the Cheeky Monkey (#10) is special: it can either play as above (take matching monkeys) or be "cheeky" - trade with the top chip of any other player's stack.
- if your entire collection of chips is 1 species (e.g., drew a monkey and took all matching monkeys) you can bury it at the bottom of your stack.
- "busts" are not discarded, but returned to the bag.
- at end of game (run out of chips in bag), players get 1 VP per chip, plus a bonus for whoever controls the majority of each animal (VP = total # of that animal in the game, i.e., 3-10).

I think Circus is a decent game, but it's not one I'd like to play all the time. It is, however, a good filler. After one play I may like this more, except that I'd like it to end faster: it seemed a bit long since there is no discard pile. But the artwork (final version is here) looks great, the chips feel good, and if you're a fan of Circus you should definitely check this out.

Decent area control game. With 6 people, though, it dragged on too long and there was too much chaos -- the board changed drastically by the time you had an opportunity to do anything again. I'd guess this would be better with 3 or 4.

There are 3 boards with 6 areas each, with paths of multicolored steps running around/between them. Players each start with 3 randomly colored path stones, and 5 groups (1 per player) are on display (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 stones); the rest are in the bag. Three markers are placed on their starting spaces, one per board. Randomly place 2 VP chits (1VP - 6VP) per area (color coded to the 3 boards). Players get 3 bidding tiles of different numbers (sum to 24), like in Ra.

Players simultaneously select a tile and reveal. Take turns from highest to lowest tile. On your turn either play path stones to move one of the markers (in order of stones on board), take one of the groups on display (maximum 6 stones/player), or exchange: draw as many stones as you have now, then return that many to the bag. Each stone played allows you to place a cube in an adjacent space, or advance it one space if you already have a cube there. Advance the path marker to the last stone played. If you dead end, may continue moving from any space on the loop. After all players' turns, remove all unchosen groups of stones and replenish the 5 groups according to tiles each player played. Repeat, then players pass the 2 played tiles to the left. Last round triggered when not enough stones in bag to replenish display.

Scoring: in each area, player whose cube has been advanced furthest (tie-breaker: first player to reach that level) takes the higher-VP chit; second-place gets the other chit. Also get 2VP per cube on boards. Most VPs wins!

I actually have a traveller's edition - has it every been played? I played a bit as a kid, but never really enjoyed it. I can see that it's a deep game ... it's just not for me; hence the relatively low rating, since I'll likely never play this again.

The game plays very quickly but with lots of decisions - which action to choose, which rail line to expand, how much to spend on auctions. Despite John Bohrer's statement that this is NOT an 18xx game, it feels kind of like one to me (having only played an 18xx game once): trains, companies, shares, your money vs. company money. There is, however, no moving of goods. Also, game play is very streamlined: the game plays quickly.

Good game! It depends heavily on correctly valuing the shares in the auctions, I think -- I wonder if it will hold up to repeated play (as people in a group come to some sort of consensus as to the value of the different companies)?

--- Summary ---
There are 5 companies, plus Wabash Cannonball. Each has a starting value shown on the board. One share of each company is auctioned off, then the game begins. In all auctions, the minimum bid equals the dividend value if dividends were to be issued after the share up for bid were sold, which is (company value) / (total outstanding shares), rounded up to the next integer.

On your turn, you select and resolve an action. There are 3 types, which may be chosen x, y and z times per round (marker on board records choices as they are taken); the round ends when any 2 of these action types have been chosen the maximum number of times. The actions are:
- capitalize (put a share up for auction, if one is available; $ comes from your personal money)
- build track (all start on east coast in start cities; pay applicable terrain cost; limits on # companies with track in certain hexes; $ comes from company money; as you build into cities and other hexes, company income improves -- move marker immediately)
- develop (put development marker on some hexes [e.g., build mines, develop one of the 3 industrial cities, etc.]; increases value of hex to companies with track there -- their income marker moves immediately). When a company connects to Chicago, dividends are paid immediately; also, Wabash Cannonball becomes available.

When the round ends, all companies pay dividends. Reset action markers. Detroit's value increases by 1. The game ends if Detroit is at value 8, 3 companies have built all their track, 3 companies have sold all shares, or if all cash in game is used (I think). If not ended, repeat above.

A memory game with cute illustrations. Match pictures to move your chicken forward; try to steal other player's feathers by jumping past them (I think).

Simple, fun game. I prefer it over Web of Power - I like having more cards face-up to choose from, which feels like you have a lot more control, and I don't really miss the interim scoring or the funky non-adjacent adjacencies of the original map.

--- Summary ---
The map shows several colored regions (2/color, except 1 larger region with its own color). The deck of cards matching the colors; 4 face up, and a face down draw deck. Players get 3 cards each. On their turn, may play into a single region by either playing matching color, or any pair of like-colored cards. Each such play allows placement of a house in designated locations, or (possibly) an advisor in the center of the region. The total number of advisors in a region may not esceed the number of houses in the region belonging to the color with the most houses. Max 2 plays into a region, but only 1 if you're placing the first house there. At the end of your hand, replenish up to 3 cards in hand, drawing any of the face up cards or the draw deck; do not replenish the face up cards only after you've refilled your hand. Play twice through the deck (equal number of turns, I think).

At the end of the game, players score VP for the number of houses: the player(s) with the most houses score as many points as the total number of houses. Each rank below scores as many VP as the number of houses in the next higher rank. Also, each chain of 4+ houses of a color scores 1VP/house in that chain. Finally, score the advisors: in adjacent regions, any color with the majority (or tied for majority) of advisors in both regions scores as many VP as there are advisors in both regions.

1 play, 3er, public locking and fast-game variants ($60, 12/2 trains to start)

Another nice version of the crayon-rail system. Obviously, it's a different setting. Other key changes:
- Taiwan connection required; done by connecting to one of several ports
- must connect to all 4 mainland cities, all of which are on the eastern side
- many very high-value ($50+) deliveries possible, but you have to go to the wasteland out west (no major cities at all)

We typically take the events out, so can't comment on those.

Pure negotiation game -- good, but I prefer Traders of Genoa.

A simple solo game, basically: roll 5d6, make 2 pairs and set aside the other (keep a tally for each summed pair and set-aside number). May only set aside 3 numbers. The game ends if you've set any number aside 10 times. If you start a sum but roll it

Too random, but at least it's not Fluxx!

It's just a quick little push-your-luck set-collection game. Cards are numbered 0-7 in 10 colors, with a few extra special cards thrown in. Shuffle and make a draw pile. On your turn, flip cards until you decide to stop (add one of the face up cards to your hand) or you draw a card whose color matches another face up -- in that case, discard that card and end your turn. On your turn you may also play a set of 3 cards (same #, different colors) down in front of you -- worth 10 VP and end of game. The special cards allow you to either draw randomly from a player's hand, ask for a color and direction (clockwise or counterclockwise) - first player who has a card of that color gives it to you, or keep flipping cards until you decide to take one or you flip a color match - but your turn doesn't end, you still get to choose a face up card. The game ends at the end of the turn when someone draws the last card from the draw pile, OR when someone plays a full set of cards (all 10 colors) on their turn. At the end of the game, cards in hand are worth face value, but only 1 card per color. Most points wins!

Partial play. Seems like it would be fun, but probably last too long. I think I'd prefer the simplicity of Arena Maximus!

A fun game of multiple auctions conducted in sequence each round using your limited set of bid cards trying to get matching sets of tickets and customers, and special power cards, to earn VP each round. Relatively simple rules and fun game play with some nice tension as you decide whether to bid or not, how to allocate your bids, and when to use the special powers!

--- Summary ---
Players each have the same set of cards (1-8), each with a different numbers of coins. Each round, there are 4 steps:
1. bid on special power cards, and the right to be starting player.
2. bid on tickets, each with various numbers of coins.
3. bid on one (or more) of 3 venues, each with various numbers of coins.
You're using your 8 cards on all these bids; once played, you don't get them back into your hand till the end of the round! When placing your card to bid, place it in numerical order (descending) amongst previously placed cards. If matching number already present, play yours AFTER the earlier card. After all players pass, they choose one of the cards up for auction in descending order of bid cards until either all cards have been taken or all bid cards have won one card.

After all auctions complete, players match tickets with customers, earning VP for all coins in these matched pairs. In addition, earn VP for coins on cards still in hand.

(Special power cards may be used in various phases to modify usual rules.)

Subsequent rounds are the same (all cards are shuffled and used again), except bonus(es) are added in rounds 2 and 3.

Most VP wins.

Players select roles and take turns in order building buildings of various types, some of which modify basic game play. Game ends in round when anyone builds 8th building. Get points for variety of colors, being first to build 8, etc. Most points wins. The key feature is the role selection where players take turns choosing a role, and everyone has imperfect knowledge about which roles were available for everyone to choose from (earlier in turn order know more, and have more choices). Roles do various things, like steal from another character, get a bonus income from specific building types, become starting player, etc.

The game takes ENTIRELY too long with more than 4 or so players. Also, it really stinks when you keep getting hit by the Assassin, and just sit there for much of the game!

Carcassonne meets Take It Easy. Not bad, but not great either. Of course, I'm not a huge fan of Take It Easy.

--- Summary ---
Each player has an identical set of 24 numbered tiles. All but 1, who I'll call "the Caller", organize them in order. The Caller draws 3 randomly. Everyone places those 3 into an imaginary 4x4 grid, touching each other by corners only. Then the Caller draws and plays a tile one-by-one, with other players using their matching-numbered tile, until the 4x4 grid is completely filled in. On each play, you can place a meeple onto part of the tile (they may show some combination of city, cafe, park, and water). After all meeples have been placed, you may move a previously placed one by either picking it up and moving it to the just-played tile, or walking it to an adjacent area of the tiles.

At the end, score VP for meeples (only 1/region scores) in yellow attractions (= # of quarter-tiles + #adjacent terraces), brown terraces (= # visible blue water spaces, with LOS extending in 4 directions until blocked by non-water space), and green parks (= # quarter-tiles in region). Most VP wins; tiebreaker = most valuable single tourist.

It's kind of a neat idea, but it's another of those games where you have to get in your opponents' heads; guess what they're building, bluff a little ... I usually don't have much fun with those types of games.

Civilization-building, trading game. Not good with 2 or 3, but a lot of fun with 7! I'd love to play this more, although that's difficult because of the game length.

It's Can't Stop! on steroids!

Instead of trying to claim 3 numbers 2-12, you're trying to claim the biggest contiguous clump of spaces in a 6x6 grid. Each turn, instead of advancing 3 climbers, you're placing 6 (numbered) squatters. Instead of reaching the top of the # to lock it in, you simply roll it a second time to place a claim token there (assuming you don't bust, of course). Instead of using 4d6 to come up with 2 numbers, you use 3d6 to come up with a space on the grid and a specific squatter.

After 1 play (2er): it was surprisingly fun! But it was a lot harder figuring out the probabilities of what rolls would be safe, so the decision of whether to keep rolling or stop was made more by-the-seat-of-my-pants. And I didn't make good ones! The game also seemed to go on too long -- after I fell behind and Mary had locked many spaces, it would have taken a miracle (which I almost got!) to end it. And I fell behind well before the end. Maybe end the game according to the table, but using the n+1 target?

2nd play, 4er: very quick, with few busts -- we were very conservative? More fun than the last time!

It's fun, but I wonder if I'd like it more if I could make my decisions based on a little more information.

We hardly ever play it, but it's a pretty good abstract game. Nice wooden huts! Not sure if the rating will stay at a 7 - needs more play.

An old clay-sculpting game; not much to recommend it over newer games. One try was enough -- I don't remember the details, but we won't be playing this again!

The new game from Days of Wonder is just a beautiful thing! You use the box bottom to represent the palace, and play tiles on top (the garden). There are a bunch of plastic pieces (sphinxes, obelisks, columns, a throne) that look good, too. Game play is pretty easy: on your turn, you either go to the market (3 stacks of cards) and take a stack (then add to all 3 stacks from the draw pile), or go to the quarry to build piece(s). Building earns you gold, with bonuses from building 2 or 3 structures at once (most gold wins). The cards are mostly building materials, as well as special cards that allow additional actions. The different pieces require different combinations of material (cards) to build. Many cards are marked with an alligator - using those earns you corruption points (kept hidden in a paper pyramid like in Tutenkamen). Whoever has the most corruption at the end cannot win. There's a nice mechanism with the draw stack: half the cards are face up before shuffling, so you have some knowledge about what's in the market, but not complete knowledge ... important because corruption cards in hand at games' end (when all pieces of 5 out of 6 types of pieces have been built) DO add to your corruption total.

It's a pretty good game and I had fun playing it, but it seemed like there was a lot of luck related to the card drawing. An OK game for a gamer family, but not one I'd likely play very much ... go with Shadows Over Camelot!

Initial rating after 1 partial game. I expect it'll go up, but need to actually play a full game, I think!

Fun game with a lot of interesting mechanisms, many of which seem to have been taken from other good games:
- auction mechanism, #rounds in game, special action (aka designer special power): Age of Steam
- special power also dictates turn order: Canal Mania
- card drafting: lots of games!
- area influence
- goods delivery
- earn VP --> other players (may) get cash
- earn cash --> other players (may) get VP

Very cool ... I want a copy!

1 play only. An OK game. Very fast, fortunately. Nothing exciting, though.

Not very exciting. Need to try it with more players, though.

1 play (demo) at Origins '05. A collectible dexterity game that wasn't very much fun. Doubt I'll invest much/any practice time in it, so doubtful it will get more fun for me.

Wow, a fun mass market game!

It's Clue, but even better: there's time pressure now, because at some point the killer will begin killing off players! In fact, it's possible that no one wins if everyone gets killed!

--- Summary ---
I haven't played the base game since I was a kid, so can't compare the differences in detail. So to just summarize this game: players start in specified locations. Three clue cards (1 each weapons, locations, people) are set aside in envelope; the goal is to deduce which cards have been hidden. The rest of these cards are shuffled together and distributed amongst players (any remaining are placed face down in the poolroom).

On your turn, roll 2d6 and spend points to move around board. One of the d6 has a ? symbol: if rolled, or if you stop on a ? on the board, draw from the Intrigue deck (there are 8 timer cards shuffled in; whoever draws the last one is killed, then that card is shuffled back in!). If you're killed, reveal the 3 cards you were dealt initially.

If you end in a room, may start a rumor: name a person, place, and weapon. In clockwise order, players must either show you one of those cards from their hand (if they have any) or pass. Exception = poolroom: here, you may look at the face down cards (if any), or make your official guess. If you guess correctly, you win the game! Otherwise, you may no longer win (but you still continue playing, as you may need to answer questions).

A geekbay purchase for GG shipping. Not as much fun as Barbarossa, although it is (fortunately) faster!

Better with 4 than with 2. Subject to luck of the draw - sometimes a tile can reveal a lot of information. Not a bad filler, but not so great either.

There are numbered tiles (1 1, 2 2s, ... 7 7s). The numbers are also colored 1 of 7 colors. Each player has 3 tiles in a rack in front of them, facing away so any player can see all 3 other racks. The rest of the tiles form a draw stack. There are 22 set questions, in a stack of cards. On your turn, you read and answer a question based on the 3 tiles you see -- you are helping everyone else. On others' turns, you get some information and try to deduce what your 3 tiles are. When you guess, you get 1 pt if correct. Right or wrong, your tiles are discarded and you get 3 new ones. Once there are 7 tiles left in the draw pile, all tiles are shuffled together.

This is an interesting game, but we had problems with our note taking. It's especially difficult after the discards are shuffled into the draw stack because if another black 3 shows up (for example), you don't know if it's the one you'd already crossed off your suspects. We ended the game prematurely because a few slip-ups gave the answers away. I would surely have lost, though, because of 2 incorrect guesses I'd made earlier.

Would try it again, but it's not as straightforward and quick as Black Vienna.

Secret Santa present -- thanks, "wintertime"!

As others have already noted, this is sort of "Black Jack: the Gathering." You have the numbers-add-up-to-target of blackjack combined with the tap-to-do-stuff and special enchantment-like powers (the agents) of Magic. The first game seemed kind of random, but I think that was just inexperience and poor bluffing skills. I normally don't like psychological games of out-bluffing your opponent, but this should play quickly enough and has enough other stuff going on that I think I'll like it more.

OK, but need to try again.

1 play, Essen '05, with Herr Schacht himself. More fun than Coloretto, although will need to play again. Won a copy of Canyon (already had his big-box games).

It's another abstract, and I think the Essen demo-chick let me win. But it's not a bad little game!

--- Summary ---
4 x 4 diamond. Each player has 4 markers in 3 colors (squares v circles). Start with 1 ea collor in home base. Get4 MP each turn: may advance or move laterally (if get to opposite base, returns to you). If create 3-color triangle, capture all opponent's pieces. Win by capturing all of a color or any 8.

2 plays, far apart from each other. May bump up to a 7 after more plays. Pretty nice little design, with some tension coming from the secret bets. Interesting powers, too.

The brief summary: wow, this is fun! But it's not at all what I'd expect from Days of Wonder: the production is, of course, great (cute Romaneeples); but it is a deeper game than most of the others - it feels like Princes of Florence light. It shares many mechanisms with PoF (works = events, similar but different auction, improvement tiles similar to Jester variants) but also has some Settlers-like stuff (trading, dice rolling, largest-army-type thing). Definitely worth trying!

1 play, and I'm done. It's a good game, but I doubt I'll ever play it again - don't like abstracts, especially 3-d abstracts!

1 play only, but I think this is going to be a lot of fun. Vs. M44: more variety in types of units, better cards, interesting use of leaders. I just wish our group would play it - as it is, we may not buy it just for lack of opponents!

Update: I got it off the prize table at TBGT '06 !

The board shows a bunch of provinces in Italy, each with 1 city. Players each get a hand of 10 cards ( 2/city controlled). At start, the Condottiere is randomly chosen; later, it's whoever won the last battle. Condottiere chooses a city to battle over, and plays 1 card. Players in turn either play a card or pass -- continue till someone plays either the Surrender (battle ends immediately; resolve as normal) or Bishop (no battle occurs; all played cards discarded; Condottiere rotates to left), or all players pass. Then resolve cards played. Cards are either Mercenaries (base strength 1-6 or 10), Heroines (str 10), Scarecrow (str 0; when played, allows you to return a card to hand), Winter (str 0; reduces all Mercanaries' base str to 1), Drum (str 0; doubles str of YOUR Mercanaries). Highest sum wins: place control marker in city, and become new Condottiere. If no one wins, pass Condottiere to left. After a battle, all played cards are discarded; also, players MAY discard all their remaining cards if no more Mercenaries left in hand. Continue the Round till only one person has cards left in hand after a battle; resolve battle, then round ends. Deal new cards and start over; game ends when any player controls 3 adjacent cities = winner (4 cities in 2/3er game). If all cities conquered with no winner, player with most cities wins (no tiebreaker).

Good game! Some similarities to Taj Mahal, but plays more quickly. May play better with more players and/or with higher goal to win -- luck of the cards may be too important otherwise.

It seems like a really good squad level combat game, even for eurogamers like me! You get a lot of cardboard for your $70, including several boards and nice 1" rounded counters. Movement, attacking and reacting (opp fire etc) are nicely handled through a simple action point system. There will be a huge number of expansions (different theaters and wars) in the future ... it seems like a very cool system!

If a combat game were likely to see any table time around here I'd definitely buy this one.

It's an interesting game that uses king-making as a main mechanic. And it works!

Need to play again.

One of our early purchases. A quick-reaction game where you have to be the first to interpret and follow the instructions on the dice. I think it was OK; but Mary's not a fan of those games.

Mostly I play this solitaire on my Palm, but recently tried it on yucata.de ... it's like tic tac toe: once you know how to play it, every game should end up in a draw. Why bother? It's more a test of how awake you are, than anything else! But it does that pretty well, I guess; and it's a mindless time-killer. There is a Palm version called Zikex (or something like that) that is harder (bigger board, smarter player); or maybe I just don't pay enough attention?

The board is Pangea, the original continent, made of several pieces. Each piece (continent) is divided into 2+ regions. To setup, players take turns Settlers-style, placing a control token and drawing a random terrain type. 2 of the terrains are dead (volcano, sulfur); if drawn, players remove the token just played. You get a terrain card for each terrain you control. At the end of your first turn, you'll get a special power card for each terrain type of which you control more than 2 regions. Each turn, you get 5 action points; you can also use power cards for additional points. You spend points to grow (add token to a space you're already in), expand (add a token to a region adjacent to a region where you already have 2 tokens) and attack (remove an opponent token and replace with your own). You are limited by terrain type: each terrain is numbered 1-6; that number is both the maximum number of tokens allowed, and the cost to expand/attack into. For any region, a player has dominance if they have more control tokens than any other player; ties go to the player first in the region (the tokens stack so it's easy to keep track of dominance changes). If you dominate more than 2 regions of a specific type you get the associated special power card. You also get regular power cards if you grew (1 card) or expanded/attacked (2 cards) on your turn. These cards are either single-use (discard after play) or multi-use (play; return to hand at start of NEXT turn) and add 1-5 action points. Attacking is done by using your APs where attacker and defender both reveal simultaneously (there may be a 2nd round). If you end up controlling 3 adjacent regions, you may place your leader (helps speed up token placement, and gives a +2 in combat). At the end of your turn, you draw an event card and do what it says (usually allows you to place or remove some player's token). Cards are tagged with a number of years; when the running total is greater than 25million years, the continent pictured at the bottom of the card (some don't have any) splits off - that piece is pulled away from Pangea, making it much harder to move into. The game ends when all the continents have separated. You get points based on the values of the terrain you control (same numbers used during the game).

Despite some rules issues and cards missing some info, I'll have to bump this up to a 6/10. Wouldn't mind trying it again, but not going to look too hard for it.

1 play, 2er. Suspect it will be better with more players.

Played the Struggle of Empires based rules. It's actually a nice adaption of the rules. For example:
- only a few (8) of the tiles (cards in this version) are available, so it's more approachable
- combat is simplified (instead of naval combat preceding land, using the difference between 2d6, etc., you just roll a number of dice and match icons to your forces)
- currency: no population, just money

Still, I prefer the original SoE. Plus, SoE's board isn't ridiculously huge!

A weird game of supply and demand where you produce containers that only OTHER players may buy. When you buy from other players, they go into your Harbor Warehouse, where only OTHER players may buy them (loading their ships). When a ship sails to Foreign Island, it auctions the lot of containers.

Initial game with 3 was OK, but 2nd play (with 5) was better if too long: more containers in the market, more competition and price-adjustment, more options since actions weren't as limited by what was available in only 2 player's boards. However, the game feels a bit repetitive: only 4 options each turn, without enough other stuff happening to keep it from getting really interesting. Not bad, but not great, either. Next time, would play with fewer containers.

Full review here.

1 play

Fairly straightforward 2-player abstract game. I totally didn't get it, losing in a matter of minutes -- need to try it again!

--- Summary ---
Each player has a stack of tiles with various combinations of colors on the edges. A common stack of crown tiles, having all one color per tile, are shared; 2 of these are placed diagonally to each other to start the game. Players flip 3 of their own tiles face up, and take 3 gold tokens. Then, players alternate adding 2 tiles to the play area, orthogonally adjacent to tile(s) already played. If using one of their face up tiles, it's immediately replaced. Whenever a player's tile is surrounded on all 4 sides, it's scored: earn 1 gold if 4 colors match, pay 2 gold if 0-2 colors match.

The first player who cannot pay loses the game. The game can also end if there are fewer than 2 Crown tiles in the pool; the player with the most gold wins.

Interesting partnership trick-taking game, but I'd rather play Tichu.

The good stuff:
- interesting auction phase: not only is this a chance to share information about cards in hand, it's also a chance to slough suits if you win the bid.
- Controls seem to work well; all different but seemingly well-balanced and useful

The bad stuff:
- too much information! I can't remember/process all of it!
- not sure how to bid if you're not dealt high cards; partially mitigated, though, because other bid winners may get those cards to you.
- auctioning takes longer than I'd like (mostly because you're trying to remember a lot of info?)
- the Controls made it difficult for me to have any real idea of how a hand would play out ... a bit too much chaos for me!
- the artwork makes it difficult for me to easily tell the suit; also, it'd be nice having the *s visible in the upper left corner

--- Summary ---
The cards are in 4 suits (colors, and types of nuts) numbered 1-13 (1s have 2*, 3s and 7s have 1*). 8 Control Cards, which have varying effects (e.g., super trump, set trump, bonus points, etc.) are randomly shuffled; 4 will be used each hand. Reveal the 4 so everyone knows what they are, then auction them in random order. Everyone must bid (I think) using 3 cards, placed face up. Bids may be any sum current high bid. Highest bidder wins the Control Card and passes 1 of the bid cards to each player, then makes first bid on the next Control Card. After all Controls auctioned, resolve them if necessary (e.g., predict # tricks to be won, etc.). Then the player who won the most Controls sets trump (if tied, then the player winning the last auctioned Control) -- no discussion with partner!

After that, it's a traditional trick taking game where you must follow suit if possible (except Controls, which may be played to any suit) and are not forced to trump. Trick winner leads next. Hand continues till both partners of a team are out. Teams score VP = (tricks won + [#cards left in hands]/4) * (number of *s in tricks won) + bonuses from Controls + 5/Control won. Game ends when someone gets to 300; most points wins.

Pretty much just 2-player Yahtzee, where you use the dice rolls to move cow markers closer to your side of the board (into an endzone) - first to get 3 markers all the way over wins.

1 play.

My full review is here on BGG. You can watch/listen to the rules at my blog.

Wow, this game is weird! There are a lot of little rule exceptions and strangeness, but the game is oddly fun. I don't like having to constantly look up point values and track the #pts I'd taken so far - a lot of math - but even in our partial game (to 6 VP) I was starting to become familiar with all the point values. After 2 hands of the basic game, we switched to Advanced. The powers were fun, although I wonder if they're balanced? I would like to try it again, although not at the end of a game night!

I'm not sure what I think about the game -- the random opponent thing is nice because no one feels like they're picked on, no one gets ganged up on because of an even target distribution, etc ... but it's so random! The game is more one of negotiation, trying to arrange the right alliances; and hand management, trying to draw the right cards (!) and win the right battles. The various alien powers should give every game a different feel. Will have to try the game with different aliens, and/or combinations of 2 or more aliens per player.

An overly complicated push-your-luck dice-rolling game. I've only played at GameTableOnline.com. There are enough rules about when to roll or not roll that it seems like, mostly, the game is playing you!

Interesting game, poor production.

The board shows 5 companies with 20 numbered spaces each (1-20). Cards corresponding to numbers, as well as special cards (either Company 1, or Trade Shares) are shuffled. Each player gets a hand of 10 cards and one 2 Shares card. On your turn, you take 2 shares of any color still available in stock, then play 2 cards (for non-special cards, place a marker on those spaces on the board), then draw 2 cards. The specials: (1) Company 1: place a marker on the company name; each marker adds 1 to the value of the company. (2) Trade Shares: allows you to exchange one share for another in stock.

The last round is triggered when any company has a string of 10 or more contiguous markers; finish that round, then play 1 more round in which players may ONLY either play a single card or pass. Then, shares in each company are each worth the single longest contiguous chain of markers in that company, minimum length of 5. The person who triggered the end of the game gets a 10VP bonus. Player with the most VP wins.

It's an interesting game: you have a large hand size, and have some information about which strings might end up longer than others; but not enough to really control things entirely. Each turn should play pretty quickly. Unfortunately, there are some problems: the colors for each company are hard to see -- they only show in a small circle around the number. Also, the markers (plastic shaped like suitcases) STINKS! Also, with 5 players the game took too long and there was too little control. I'd guess this game would play best with 3, maybe 4 people.

It's Connect 4 in 3-D: each spot can accept 3 sizes of discs (small-medium-large) where larger sizes cover smaller ones. Only the large can be moved again and again. Some element of memory since you can't see the covered discs. Not a bad revision on an old game.