Fraser McHarg: Working Through the Pile

Around Essen time we decided to make an effort on the pile(s) of unplayed games.  This also included playing some new (to us) things at games nights etc.

Starting off with our games:

Australian Rails - Melissa’s first foray into crayon rails, my second (or possibly third - I have dim memories of friends playing a crayon rail game a decade or so ago, but don’t entirely remember if I played or not, which probably means that I didn’t).  Melissa enjoyed it, which means that some of our crayon rail games might hit the table soon.

Thebes I had heard a little about this, but not much in terms of details.  A nice set of choices to be made along the way and the drawing from the bags seemed fine.

On the Underground - Nowhere near as cut-throat as the London Game.  It plays well with different numbers of players which is always good.

Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper Another one of those games where I read the rules and by the time I had finished I still didn’t know how to play the game.  I tried reading them again, still no go with the game and I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew less about the universe in general compared to before I had picked up the rules.  Gregor kindly volunteered to teach me and after a hand it or two it was all quite obvious.

Power Grid Power Plant Deck 2 Yes it is just a new deck of power plants, but they are different, they go down to number one and there’s one or more that power eight cities.  All this is just “blah blah blah” if you don’t play Power Grid, but I like it.  One day I may play the Power Grid Mega Hello Kitty Grand Tichu Humungous Deck variant where you merge this deck and the original deck, but for now I a happy to just play the maps with the new deck.

Other people’s games:

Princess Ryan’s Star Marines - Much more your beer and pretzel type game.  It probably didn’t help that we didn’t have a bad guy player, but we really didn’t see much in this to elevate it above the basic B&P game.  With an active bad guy, I can see that the interplay between the “good” guys could get more interesting though.

Shazamm! - My feeling is that you need to play this a couple of times to get an idea of what the various cards are before you will be able to play it well.  On a single play it did not light my fire.

Risk - Star Wars: The Clone Wars Edition - As with most versions of Risk, after a single play I am undefeated.  I would rank this above Risk 2210, but slightly below Risk Transformers.

Before I Kill You, Mr Bond - I can see quite a nice game underlying this.  I am not sure that it has all managed to get out though.  It feels like with the card draw it can become a little unbalanced a finish what seems to quickly.

Eurorails - Do the different maps and goods make the various crayon rails different enough or at an abstract level are they all just the same game?  I think my vote falls for the former.  This one certainly tests the European geography of the players.

Ziegen Kriegen - Similar to 6 Nimmt! in many ways, but the Geeple (goat meeple) and building of the island during the first four rounds influences whether you want to be scoring high or low.

Downfall of Pompeii - The different stages are almost different games and the whole thing is surprisingly quick.  Daughter the Elder was quite taken by it, possibly due to the fun she had dropping my citizens in to Mt Etna.

1960: The Making of the President - Another game where I think you need a couple of plays under your belt to have a good idea of the various possibilities, and build up an idea of the general worth of various states and regions.  I gave up the fight for the East Coast on the last turn, partially to repair some damage in the West, but mainly because I had crap cards.  However it was engrossing and I will definitely play it again - and I might even have a proper idea of how the media works this time.

Mmm meeples taste like…

(This article first appeared on Gone Gaming on the date referenced below.)
© 2007 Fraser McHarg

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