Mark, Chip, and I got Yspahan set up, and Brett came over to fill us out at four. Just as we were ready to get underway, Brit and Carol reappeared and then quickly vanished for the night.

Anyway, due to various factors, there was never a good time for me to choose Camels... so I went the entire game without a single one of them; this in turn meant I was unable to construct any buildings without the "no camels" card (which I never drew). Meanwhile, Mark quickly built all of the buildings while Brett focused on filling out neighborhoods; Chip was all over the place as usual, hitting whatever play seemed best for him at the time. All I had managed to do was grab an obscene amount of gold (I had twelve coins at one point), and turned my attention towards the caravan when I couldn't fill a neighborhood. In the end, my caravan plan was able to squeak me past Chip and Mark to take the game -- although I'm sure the "turn no more than 10 Gold into Points" card that I lucked into was a factor as well. That's right: a no-camels, no-buildings Yspahan win -- who would have thought that was possible?

Once we learned that Brit and Carol would not be returning, we went ahead with our weekly Zooloretto session for the month. Using the same expansions as last time (everyting but construction zones, and playing a four-player game without any chimps since that way we didn't have to incorrectly refer to them as "monkies"), things got off to a crazy start as we pulled out at least six fertile animals. Then, in subsequent rounds, many of the animals that were drawn early went into hiding, wrecking many of our zoos in the process. Ultimately, Mark lucked out on some key pulls and combined with some strategic claiming of nearly-empty trucks was able to be least shafted by the cruel whims of the evil bag.

While we were in the midst of keeping our zoos, John made his final appearance at Hypermind for some time... toting his copy of Race for the Galaxy. Mark and I were more than happy to go for a second play, and Chip was willing to give it a go after catching the end of our previous game, so we went right to it as soon as Brett opted to play some Magic with James and a couple of other guys who haven't featured in our Game Nights and are thus unimportant (I keed, I keed...). The short version of what happened is that, thanks to a bargain-basement Drop Ships development (-1 for selecting the phase and another -1 for having Imperial Credits), I was able to get my forces mustered after stalling early and proceeded to crush major point-scoring worlds (Rebel Base, Rebel Outpost, Alien Ship... stuff like that) with startling efficiency, finishing the game with the Research Station(? the one that gives points for Explore abilities) development that was worth another 10 points. The other guys were doing their own thing, with John initially looking for Earth worlds and Mark attempting a sort of proto-production strategy; I'm not entirely sure what Chip was trying, but he got down an early Replicating Robots development before I stopped paying attention to the rest of the table and started my sweeping conquest of the galaxy (and extermination of the rebel scum!). This game has definitley grabbed the attention of the group and I wouldn't be surprised to see it as Game of the Month! in the near future -- probably after the 6-player expansion is released (next month, I hear?).

We finished up (as far as I know) with Chip's copy of Café International, a game that immediately grabbed us as needing a serious artistic update ("now with less suggested racism!") were it to be published today. We all grasped the rules quickly enough and went at it, with John taking an early and commanding lead. That was not to hold, however, as the bar soon began to fill up and seats became scarce. Chip placed the last tile to fill the cafe, stranding enough tiles in John's hand for him to fall from his perch and give Chip the win.