A few other pics of the park

with envy

I remember that hotel.

Nice picture, Lorna! I tried to take a similar picture a couple of years ago because I thought the hotel looked really cool at night, but the pictures didn't do it justice like yours did.

Ooooh, a new race game to try when you get back? I can't wait!

*insert sarcastic eye roll here*

Catch the fever, Bryon!

This is a lot like Royal Turf, if Royal Turf were vastly less fun and had many layers of unnecessary guff layered on top of it complete with confusing iconography that has players diving repeatedly into the rulebook to decipher.

So, perhaps not that much like Royal Turf.

B>

and have found some color matching horse bits to jazz the game up a bit

Minioneeples! Most nicely done!

Great!
Now I have Minioneeple lust.
They must be mine!

John

The question is, however, did you buy it?

Nope, the box was big and I didn't want to carry it all day and by the time I got around to get it, it was sold out!

What did you think of it? I was interested in this one, but Bruce's review wasn't very flattering.

What a shame! I would like to be able to buy this one for the name alone - it's certainly one of the more interesting titles to come out of Essen this year.

At least, I don't think there's an island in the Carribean with this name?

If there's an island called "Age of Steam Island", I'm there

B>

The game is fine and the booth people were quite nice, it's just I already have too many pick up and delivery games and it felt very similar. I would have bought the game a few years ago.

Funny you should mention that - I just took delivery of "Barbados" and "Jamaica" last month.

Look at this year's list, though. Tobago, Havana, Martinique ... you can tell they're running out of names because someone has even used the generic "Insula" as a name for an island! And the names that aren't islands sound as if they should be - Colonia, Arcana, Gonzaga ...

It is indeed Seven Hills and is not in the database :-(
Looks like a great game.

This is not web of power like at all IMHO. Larry levy says "It is not so much bad as mysterious." we gave up after two rounds. Most of my turns in those trying to draw the right color of card.

2 days later and I am still wondering what rules we messed up in that game. Must have been something big, otherwise I can't see how anyonw would have rated this jumbled pile of mechanisms anything close to a seven

Thank God we had an explanation of the rules and played a couple of turns at Essen. Otherwise, with the rules as they are, we would have never known how the game was played.
It's an area majority game a la El rande where you place your units by sets of cards drawn semi-randomly.Pros: Fast, simple, I like the artwork and clenaliness of the design. Cons: Terrible rules and maybe too simple?

Well I just bought this so it better be good!!

It's a very light game, nothing serious but I enjoyed playing it.

The game was great, we really enjoyed it, certainly something different. Thanks for the heads up!

The constraints mechanism seemed really fascinating, but all the other game play elements seemed a bit rubbish. This was frustrating. I'm tempted to buy a copy to fix, now.

B>

Boy, does my arm look stumpy in this shot. As for the game, I've played Tobago three times now and think it's an excellent family/gamer crossover title that can be played either light or serious as desired.

I like that, yeah, Year of the Expansion sounds about right, given that I'm currently most excited about Ghost Stories: White Moon, Imperial 2030, Pandemic: On the Brink, Battlestar Galactica: Pegasus, Mr. Jack in New York (not an expansion, but follow-up), Small World: Cursed & Grand Dames, 10 Year Alea Schatzkiste, Chicago Express: Narrow Gauge & Erie Railroad, and even an oldie but a goodie &cetera (Roads & Boats expansion) that my friend is picking up for me at Essen this year. Yup, not a lot of original games high up my radar, except perhaps Macao, Dungeon Lords, Shipyard, and Loyang.

Doesn't Ystari have an expansion box as well? Plus there is the Cuba expansion and Kingsburg.