At a recent convetion, I walked into the room, said a few Hellos, and played Manila. It didn't take long, maybe an hour including the rules. I played a few other games, then introduced it to some others that night. My second game dragged on and wore out it's welcome. I'm not sure which is the real Manila. I suspect a little of both.

At the core, Manila is a gambling game with an auction. Each turn, three ships bring goods into the harbor. Each ship starts on a space from 0 to 5. The players go around the table three times, and can buy a job each time. You can be a shiphand, and get part of the money if that ship arrives. Some jobs man the docks -- you get paid if a ship lands. Other jobs man the repair shops -- you get paid if ships don't make it. The pirate can loot ships that fall just short of the harbor. The harbormaster can move the ships around a bit. The insurance agent gets money up front, but pays for repairs. In total, there are 11 spaces for jobs, plus the sailors on the ships.

After each round of buying jobs, a die is thrown for each ship and it moves that many spaces. After three rounds, you handle the payouts, and any goods that made it in safely move up in value. That matters because each player has shares in various goods.

Between each round you have an auction for harbormaster. The harbormaster gets to set up the ships and may purchase a share.

Once one (or more) of the goods reaches the top value of the chart (which means it's ship arrives five times), you sell the shares and most money wins.

Manila has problems -- players who don't score early have to take riskier jobs to catch up, and wind up out of the running early. Also, as we discovered, duration varies depending on strategies and plain old ornery luck. I like this game at 30 minutes, and loath it at 75. I'd prefer a variant where you start each good marker one space higher, which shortens the game. And while the components are nice, I don't believe it needs them. Funagain lists this puppy at $35, and I want something meatier for that amount. They haven't quite put lipstick on the pig, but it's close.

Overall, a filler I'd play a few more times, and won't be buying.

I agree that the game seems to vary a lot in how much fun it was. I played three times - one game was fun, one was awful, and one was just OK. In the fun and OK ones we started the commodities one row higher than specified - it does help, but doesn't guarantee a good game.