Shane S., Shane L., Mike, and Jared. Shane S. and I played with 2 rough & ready cards each round since we've played a lot and the other 2 were new.

I'll let Shane S. write up the story this time if he likes, since I usually beat him to it =) Suffice it to say everyone had a blast, some ships were decimated, but everyone made a profit in the end.

I don't really have a story to write up this time, so feel free if you want. But it was fun as always! I love this game every time..weither I lose badly (Which happens often), or I pull off a win (Which I somehow managed this time). And the rough roads just makes the game even more enjoyable. Rolling cosmic psychosis after every card, hoping not to get 7 and 7 and lose half your ship. Someday I will have a copy of this one.

2nd game was Donald & Kenny versus Jared and Matt C. It only took 1 hour, 50 minutes. Dan wins the over/under bet by a long shot :P

A pretty crazy game; first round had Donald & Kenny pulling off a One-Two, but we followed up by instantly getting a One-Two the very next round. It continued to be a bit back and forth, with Donald & Kenny edging away and threatening a win (845 to 655, I believe).

Until Matt and I pulled off a Tichu+One-Two, netting us a very nice 300 points and bringing us into the lead =) The final round I felt I could've Tichued, but played it safe and went for points - I was able to bomb the dragon and we were able to get most of the remaining points to push us over 1000. A very good game all around.

First game was me and Matt C vs James and Kenny. We had intended to go to 800 but ended up quitting at 500 as more players arrived.

Shane L... left this behind. And he left his Keythedral rules with it! Will it be yet another month until he sees his Keythedral rules again? Time will tell...

He got a phone call just as I was leaving and bugged out pretty quickly. Hope everything's alright.

Hey, people actually played this? cool. I've brought Take it to the Limit a few times but never thought to pull it out of the box. Maybe next time; that is, if people enjoyed this...

I believe Shane L is pretty interested in Take it to the Limit.

Pretty close one; the top 2 scores were only about $5 apart.

I'm thinking Chris likes this game..

I finally could've had a chance to play this since Chris showed up just after we finished Galaxy Trucker, but there's no way an unplayed game I think I'll like can compete with Crokinole =)

Too true. "Crokinole" is even fun to say. Does it rhyme with "croaking hole" or "guacamole"? Either way!

I'll keep bringing Chinatown. Twingee, feel free to borrow it whenever you see it unused

After more than half a year of not being able to talk anyone into trying this, I finally got to play it again. Yay! :-)

We were playing a lot of wilds, and ran out of cards the second time through while there were several regions with only 2-3 houses. I even had 4 emissaries left!

Whoa; Will, you love emissaries, and the game ended with you having 4 left? This is madness!

I'll play this with you if you want btw. The timing just hasn't worked out the past few weeks when you've brought it up; I like it.

The other times I've played this, I tried (to some extent) to get a string or two of huts built up, but had very little success. Last night, I ignored hutstringing completely and had a much better finish.

So I think this was Alan's first game; how'd you like it? (Alan, Shane S., Will, and a 4th I think; I wasn't playing in this one.)

The 4th was the other Shane; it was his first game as well.

Shane S used his last move to have his last pirate drag my last pirate overboard, leaving just the two new players :-)

Well I was impressed. I think this game packs a lot of fun into a short amount of time. I can see my family enjoying this one.

Shane S and Will were both victimized by virtue of the fact that they have played before. The old "punish the owner/designer" maxim at work.

Glad you liked it Alan...and happy to get to use my new board..which I like the feel of. Just need to get some of those pirate meeples for myself.

Drew can finally make game nights again, and he brought his Hellsinki board he just got for Christmas (and it arrived maybe 2 months ago :P). Very nifty carrying case that a friend of his made for it - would be a pain to haul around otherwise!


First reaction was - wow, this is sooo much different than the other board I've played on. This one was a bit bigger and not as slick, and the bumpers were spaced a bit further apart. First game was Matt S. & Drew vs Jared & Shane S., 2nd game was Drew & Jared vs Shane S. and Matt S. Matt started out poorly in the first round, but once he got used to it he basically showed everybody else up (and was trash talking a lot more than you'd expect Matt too, hehe). Meanwhile I was regularly sucking it up, but everyone made some good shots and fun was had by all. Shane won the trick shot award I'd say; Matt probably gets the violence award


A couple of games happened afterwards. Dan loved this to a level of utter ridiculousness.

Ok, so this is was a Hilinski board? It was very nice indeed. One obstacle to me getting this game is that I'd want to make sure I get a great board that will last and feel natural to play on. I guess I could add a Hilinski board to my christmas wishlist, meaning I might get one in May 2009?

Anyone else have thoughts on good/great/bad places to get Crokinole supplies?

Yes, my board is a Hilinski. I can't say enough good things about it or convey how happy I am with it. This one cost a bit more and took a bit longer since I wanted the burled playing surface (not something they do without a special request, as far as I know). But since I'm a sucker for good woodworking and was willing to wait, I figured it would be worth it (and it was!). My opinion, anyway

We need to bring this out more at my gaming. I just never think of it.

I love my Hilinski board with the Carrom powder! It matches my bookcases real well.

S'okay; we play it probably often enough. I still can't stress just how ridiculously different playing on the 2 boards is though Drew's board isn't nearly as slick as yours (he isn't using powder either) which is way different. I also found that the little 'nub' on one side of the disk seemed to matter more on Drew's board than yours. Noth are awesome in their own ways =)

I've played a bunch of trick-taking games recently, and this has emerged as my favorite--probably by a long shot.

The rules: Screw everyone over as often as possible.
The scoring system: Hang your head in shame as you announce your negative point total.

I think this is my favorite out of all the new trick-taking games I've played recently (David and Goliath, Cosmic Eidex, Margin for Error, Bottle Imp, Die Sieben Siegel, etc.), though I reserve the right to change that at any moment. It is an extremely impressive group of games, and I have to thank Alan for getting me back into a trick-taking state of mind.

This games represents the best of multiplayer trick-taking, in that I think a lot can be done with what seems like a bad draw. Also, I love finding the balance between taking tricks for yourself and putting the pins in other people. The "best" play is not nearly as evident in this game as others, and there are many occasions where risky play can pay off or turn you into the pincushion.

I can't wait to play more of this.

Twinge, did you play this? I got it recently but have not learned it.

I did not, no. I'd certainly give it a go - not dying to play it, but should be good to play at some point.

A better experience than the first time, and I'm not sure what the difference was (though it's possible it was because the first game was with 4 players).

I also love that it's a lot of game in a short play time.

So, obviously you and Dan often agree on games Firestone - do you agree with his assessment than this is like Alhambra but better? I'm still curious to try it based on that since I'm definitely a fan of Alhambra...

99% of the time. There's no one whose gaming opinion I trust more highly.



Yep. It's like Knizia played Alhambra and said, "Hey, I can fix that."

Right back at ya.

This was my second play, and it was very different than the first time. I felt like I had less control this time, despite the fact that I was a close second in the end.

Those powers are really unbalanced; the first one I picked was deemed too powerful, so I chose again--and then never ended up using it.

It's a good game with or without the powers.

My guess is it felt like there was less control because we pulled a anomalous high number of no-trump hands. (20% chance of playing a no-trump hand; I think we had 7 out of 11 hands as no-trump, and the other 4 with lizard trump which is another anomaly.)

I like this game well enough without the powers. But I think I like it more with the powers, and I assume I'll feel that way until someone pulls a power that is just dumb (eg, Schwarzpeter: Throw the scoring rules out the window, play the hand, the person who takes the jack of raven in a trick gets nothing and the other players each get 1 vp) and insists on playing it. The powers are definitely unbalanced and not all of them are interesting (another one, Guggitaler: oops, now you're playing Hearts.) Maybe it would be worth investing some time in ferreting out the lame ones and removing them from the initial pull of powers. But then you'd have to be familiar enough with the game to know which ones were lame; some are obvious, but some might look lame and not be in practice.

This is my 3rd full game and I finally see why there are special rules for taking all the tricks. It's practically impossible to do if you are obvious about it, but usually people don't want tricks so if you can take a few early with your losers, you can surprise people later with the strength you have left. I tried this on the last hand and was oh-so-close to pulling it off, but Dan caught on just in time.

It did seem like an atypical game, but I liked it anyway, and I'm looking forward to playing it again. I'm almost positive I'll kick out some of those powers once I buy the game, though. I swear some of them just ruin the game. The one Firestone started with was completely ridiculous (and the one he ended up with never even got used). I think over time we can find a balance, though, and either way the mechanics are really cool.

Thanks for having those player aids, Alan, because I don't think I could have wrapped my head around the scoring without checking it frequently.

Heh, I knew there was a game I saw that I was forgetting.

This was Kenny, James, Donald, and....I want to say Matt C?

Yep; Kenny and Donald 'settled' for their 2nd favorite since I wasn't going to play Tichu until after I got some Crokinole in =)

I see what you did there.

Hah, oh man. That was completely unintentional, believe it or not. Will-worthy pun right there. I actually meant it in the sense that they both love RftG too, so it wasn't exactly a huge step down for them to play this instead of Tichu.