Valerie Putman:  Prose on Cons—New Games at Gulf Games

There isn’t much new this time of year (and it is almost 2am on the last night of a gaming weekend), so hopefully this will be short but sweet.

Age of Steam: Reunion Island I finally got to play the 2-player AoS map.  It’s not my favorite map so far, but the volcano (which can wipe out spaces on the board) and the limited special actions (two are blocked each turn) made for a very different experience.

Iliade As this turned out to be one of Dale’s favorites of the week, I will leave it to him to tell you about, but I did like it enough to play it 5 times.  I liked it best with 6 players split into 3 teams of 2.

Desert Bazaar While I could have preferred some slightly different color choices in the graphics, the game play itself was a nice light weight family game.  In fact, it reminded me of Ticket to Ride in several ways.  Players collect cards or use them to build markets.  Like Attika, the tiles on the board (previously played markets) can reduce the cost of playing additional tiles.  Some of the other players in the game didn’t like the random card draws at the beginning of the game, but I think I preferred a large starting hand.  I find that when I teach Ticket to Ride, it can be confusing to a new gamer to explain 3 possible actions you could take on your turn, but then only one of those actions (drawing cards) is used for several rounds.  By giving all the players a large starting hand, you can start building (or collect more cards) from the first turn.

It’s time for bed!
Valerie Putman

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