Yesterday was board game club day, despite nice weather, sunshine and all. We won’t let that stop us! The turnout was good, three tables going on all the time. I got a nice bunch of people playing with me the whole afternoon with few changes. I suppose I can trust the club goes well without me. With the baby coming and all, I’ve stepped down from organizing the club, but the Kajaste brothers seem to do a good job at that, so no need to worry about that.
Edel, Stein & Reich — Now here’s something I don’t have to play again! Double-guessing what your opponents are doing is probably one of my least favourite mechanics, particularly when it’s combined with a punishment mechanism like in this one. When three players choose the same option (with five players and four options, it certainly is possible), nobody gets nothing. That’s how I lost six of eighteen turns in the game.
The game itself is quite clever and I can see how someone else can like this one. Go ahead, enjoy the game, but there’s no way I’m going to play it again, even with less than five players. This just isn’t my cup of tea.
Bunte Runde — This time I played with the Veleno variant, where you add your score and the score of your left-hand neighbour. It was good, the game is slightly better with the variant. I’m not sure how necessary the variant is, but it does improve the game and I expect I’ll be using that variant from now on. The game also works well with five players.
Frank’s Zoo — My favourite relaxed climbing game. A quick three rounds did the job, when Robert and Tero both scored nine points on the last round and reached 19 points. My brave eight-point last round wasn’t enough to compete, after getting a whopping zero points on the first round.
Modern Art — Here’s a strategy clue for you: everybody gets money from the cards they sell (unless they buy them themselves and pay too much). If you buy art from others, you’ll get money from their cards as well. You’re trying to maximise the profit, and there it helps, if you can profit from everybody’s cards, not just your own.
Remembering that might’ve rescued me from the last place.
For Sale, Halli Galli — Nothing new here. Both are excellent short games. I continued my domination of the Halli Galli scene, winning all three games we played. For once, I also won For Sale once (but failed miserably in the second game).