Valerie Putman:  More Essen game impressions—the ones that got away

I need to write up my impressions of the games I played from Essen that I didn’t buy while they are still fresh in my mind, since I don’t have the game handy to look at as a reminder.  Here are the games that I didn’t buy and whether or not I regret it.

Shipyard Regret, regret, regret!  I assumed that since Jay already had this done and available at his booth at the convention that I’d be able to pick this up easily (or ask for it for Christmas from Amazon.com).  I’m hoping that there will still only be a slight delay before I get my hands on this one.  Are there a million bits?  Yes.  Can it be fiddly?  Yes.  Do the mechanisms sometimes feel a little forced?  Yes, there is no reason why walking in circles around a green circle gets you captains and shiphands and propellers, but walking in circles around a brown circle gets you sails, guns, cranes, and steam chimney thingys.  But it works.  It all works. 

I particularly like the mechanism used to determine which of a selection of actions you can choose in a turn.  You can’t choose the action you chose last turn—and in fact that tile moves out from under your pawn to the front of a line of tiles that work their way around a track.  You also can’t choose an action that another player’s pawn is standing on (though you can always spend $6 to take a 2nd action on your turn and there is no restriction on which action you take for the bonus one).  When you choose an action, you gain $1 for every pawn between you and the front of the line and an additional $1 for every 3 empty spaces on the track between that tile and the next one in line.  If you can’t visualize it, just know that you have to carefully time when you try to take different actions and you can be rewarded for choosing actions that are chosen less often. 

In other words, have a strategy, but be flexible.  Another way that the game rewards this mind set is by giving you 6 random goal cards for end game scoring bonuses.  You will only score 2 of them at the end of the game and about halfway through the game you need to discard 4 of them (locking in which 2 you will score).  In the first half of my game, I had my eye on which 2 I would go for and played my game accordingly, but if other players were inadvertently blocking my path, I had other options before I was committed to particular goals.  The game is meaty and thinky and good, good, good.

Gonzaga Okay, I admit, this one I didn’t buy at Essen because the garish plastic bits placed on a map just screamed Ameritrash to me.  Call me a Euro snob; it’s true.  But I love me some spatial relations challenges in a game (maybe because I’m pretty good at it) and the puzzle of figuring out where to place my pieces so that my cities connected and my castles didn’t end up in the water and I was claiming the special bonus locations was all an unexpected delight.  The game does have some Princess Bride moments (in other words, as a result of secret and simultaneous action selection, I might get into a mental debate about not being able to choose action A because you know I will choose action A and so I clearly can’t choose the wine in front of you, blah, blah, blah), but this was minor and minimal.  So while I usually hate anything with secret and simultaneous, this game was a surprise hit for me and I regret not picking it up.

Atlantis This was another case of wait and buy it in the US, and I don’t regret my decision.  I think I will still pick it up, but this fell into the good but not so awesome that I can’t wait for it category.  I’ll start by saying that I love, love, love Cartagena.  Top 10 games of all time love.  Atlantis was definitely a twist on my old favorite (by the same author).  It felt like Cartagena on steroids, actually.  I think that I prefer the elegance of the original, but I’ll be happy to play Atlantis for a year or two before going back to my standby favorite.

Strada Romana I was on the fence about this one and nearly pulled the trigger several times at Essen.  As I started to run out of suitcase space, this one ended up not making the cut—and I’m glad.  Don’t get me wrong, it was fun to play.  I can honestly say that the entire crop from Essen has been surprisingly good this year with few, if any, real dogs.  But I really only need so many 6 – 7 (out of a 10 scale) rated games in my collection and this is one that I’m perfectly happy to play only when someone else’s copy makes it to the game table.

I’m headed to BGG.con on Wednesday!  I hope to replay many of the new games that I’ve been learning (for example, I’ve taught Colonia five times already and I’ll be looking to teach it some more at the convention) and try a few of the ones that neither Dale nor I felt were worth a buy.  Who knows, maybe I was as wrong about Dungeon Lords as I was about Gonzaga!

I’d rather be gaming,
Valerie Putman

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