Initial verdicts from a Eurogames Newbie
Blinky The Tree Frog
Australia
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I’ve been a casual gamer for some time, but to appeal to my group of friends I’ve really only played party games, smaller card games, and stuff that’s available in your typical Australian toy department. I recently joined a board game club while working overseas and they’ve been introducing me week by week to a different board game, usually a eurogame (they also inspired me to actually make an account here after much lurking). Here are my impressions on what I’ve played so far, keeping in mind that I've only played one game of most of them!
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1.
Board Game: Amun-Re
[Average Rating:7.45 Overall Rank:97]
Blinky The Tree Frog
Australia
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This is the first one I played, and it’s one of my favourites. I’d consider buying it, but it’s one of those that are best with 5 players and I’m not sure how often I’d be able to round up that many people. I hadn’t really come across many games that use the bidding mechanism before, and I think it fits well in this design. If you don’t get the province that you want, you can adapt to another with smart game play, and all the provinces seem to be pretty well balanced with their positives and negatives. The different ways of getting money and points keep you thinking all the time, and building a pyramid give you a nice sense of accomplishment :-). Good fun!
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Blinky The Tree Frog
Australia
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I liked it a lot, although it’s one of the most rule-heavy of what I’ve played and it took me a while to get the hang of it. The metric ton of small plastic men didn’t help :-). The abundance of decisions always kept things interesting though, and the many decisions meant it was still absorbing, even though it took the longest of the games to play so far. I’d like to play again; I have a feeling I’ll do better now I’m more familiar with it.
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Blinky The Tree Frog
Australia
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I did have fun with it, but it seemed quite sparse after playing Age of Empires with its ten thousand different things you could do :-). The action cards were fun to play, and it’s a nice balancing act deciding whether to have more caballeros or a better action card. The Castillo adds a good twist to it as well. I would play again.
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Blinky The Tree Frog
Australia
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This one I’ve now bought. It’s up there with Amun Re as a favourite and needs less people, so when I saw it on special on a web site I decided to grab it. There are different strategies to try, it’s not too difficult to play (so it won’t be difficult to teach my friends), and it’s just a lot of fun. The theme comes across really well. The points coming from both huts and cards keep you on your toes. And the components are neat! When it’s not your turn you can build little sculptures :-).
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Blinky The Tree Frog
Australia
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I liked the mechanism of buying fuel and powering your stations. The components are cool. I don’t like how where you decide to start has such an influence. If you get hemmed in it feels like that one decision is spoiling your whole game. And yes, I know that you can buy your way out of a corner, but that can cost you a lot! It was fun though, and a nice different theme. I got suckered into buying the fusion plant for more than it was worth because of its shininess though. Dammit, won’t do that again!
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6.
Board Game: Ra
[Average Rating:7.60 Overall Rank:48]
Blinky The Tree Frog
Australia
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This is interesting, although it’s not my favourite. Playing some games with the computer version gave me a better impression of it than my initial one. I like the variety of tiles and points. The randomess of the Ra tiles coming up make it rather frustrating at times. You feel like you should be able to get a decent amount of tiles each epoch, even though statistically you know that some epochs will be shorter than others. Then there’s the frustration of finishing early with what you thought was a good set, only to have the epoch linger on for ages and the other players get stacks of tiles.
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Uppsala
*looks* Hey, looks like someone made a computer version too. I'll check that out.