Alfred Wallace: Happy Black Friday!

Back when I was a cashier, my manager had somehow acquired a reputation among her family as a “gamer.” She wasn’t, really, even by her own lights--but every Christmas, just like clockwork, she would receive a new game from one or more of her extended relations: And literally every single one, I’m not kidding, was a “theme” Monopoly.  In fact, after a couple years of this, it became a tradition unto itself--another year, another -opoly.  She has an enormous stack of them now, mostly unplayed.

This shows, of course, the importance of training one’s friends and loved ones well in the art of game gift-giving.  It’s a tricky thing, and worth keeping in mind as the holiday shopping season begins in real earnest.

If you leave the non-gamers that have you on their list on their own, you’ll end up with Cranium...or the latest and greatest -opoly.  There are two competing approaches.  The first is to ask for gift certificates; these are fine, but when it comes right down to it I’d have just preferred to get money in a paper bag.  I’ve never been much for gift certificates.  The other way is to submit a Wish List.  This works fine, but there’s a danger in appearing too greedy; after a while it’s like having a wedding registry.  (Heeeyyy...now that’s an idea for BGG, Boards and Bits, et al.) If you have a list that consists entirely of the bigger entrants of the Splotter backlist, you’re essentially asking for socks.

There’s actually a third way, of course, and it’s worked well for me over the years:  Buying games for yourself, and wrapping them up and putting them under the tree. 

(I’d also like to remind everyone about Secret Santa over on BGG.)

I came back to St. Louis from school for Thanksgiving, and on Wednesday night I made my way over to Jorge and Eva’s for games.  First up was Take Stock, Simon Hunt’s freshman effort from Z-Man.  It gets only middling ratings on the ‘Geek, but I came away a pretty big fan.  It doesn’t really feel a whole lot like investing in the stock market for me (granted, my experience consists largely of withholding 5% of my paycheck for a 401k), but it did feel like a clever, fairly simple card game.  I’m certainly looking forward to giving it another try.  It seems like it’d be a very different-feeling game with six players, rather than three--lower-scoring, for one thing.  Definitely a keeper--especially for those of us who are trying to reduce the physical size of their collection…

Next up was a physically rather larger game--Die Händler, a “holy grail” for many collectors.  Y’know...I once found this game, new in shrink, in a store down in Austin.  I passed it up.  This was a while back, when it was still new.  Not regretting that one...no sir…

None of us had ever played the game before.  As it’s a blind bidding and negotiation game, we all anticipated that the first try would be a little ragged.  This is the trouble with a lot of bidding games; if one or more (or all) players are kind of clueless, the game can go haywire and the game leaves a bad taste in your mouth.  Among more experienced bidders, it can be great.  In our game, it seemed...semi-reasonable, I guess.  Who knows?  The big thing we did wrong was misinterpret one of Eva’s special powers--as we read it, it was essentially an “I Win” card, rather than merely useful--we thought it let you sell three goods out of your warehouse at the current market selling price (i.e., the price at which the market was “buying” goods) rather than the market “buying” price (which is really the price at which the market sells goods to the players).

It’s a neat game.  There are special player powers, pick-up and deliver, negotiation, bidding--and some nifty bits, too.  (I love the little carts.) The game, though, seems like it ends awfully quickly; there aren’t that many negotiations to be done, really.  I liked it, but I’m not going out of my way to find a copy.

We closed out the night introducing me to Wii--in particular, Wii Sports.  That game is pure heroin.  When it comes to electronic gaming, I’m more into “activities” than “games,” per se.  Huge adventures, games that take a huge time investment--eh.  I gravitate more towards sports games, puzzles, and oddball titles.  The Wii will have to wait until after the thesis is done, or else I’d be doing Wii Boxing until I passed out from hunger, in all liklihood…

Here’s hoping everyone stateside had a great Thanksgiving yesterday!

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