Game Night Report

As I arrived, people were putting away Bottle Imp so I can only assume that it was played as an opener.

Not everyone had arrived yet so we played a quick round of For Sale. This is a fantastic little filler game. It's fast, elegant and super easy to teach. I've played it dozens of times now and I'm still willing to play it again and again. I can't remember who all was in on the game and I can't remember who won but I know it wasn't me. Although I seem to remember doing much better than I deserved after foolishly overbidding early in the game.

Next, Christopher, Mike M., Wade and I played Plunder. This time I think I got the rules right. We actually played two games. The first game I lucked in to a very quick win. The second game I wasn't so lucky. Christopher sat to my right and he had horrible cards but unfortunately he also had just about every "screw your neighbor" card in the deck which he used to force me to miss my first several turns. While he and I were busy going nowhere, Wade and Mike raked in the silver. Mike got the win. I kind of like this game but mostly because I think the theme is really well done. The game is a bit too luck heavy. Still, I don't really mind a luck heavy game so long as I find the game play enjoyable, and in this case I do. I'll have to read the advanced rules available on-line and see if I like those better.

Meanwhile, Oren, Jose, Mike K., and Birch played Nexus Ops. I believe Oren won pretty convincingly.

Christopher, Mike M., Wade and I played Palazzo. I rather like this game but I've seen a few games like tonight's where everybody just takes money to the point where money becomes almost worthless. There were several times when people didn't want to trigger a worthless auction because then it would make a really good auction available to the next player. Mike got the win but it was relatively close all around.

Christopher had to leave early so he talked Mike M., Oren, Wade and I into joining him for a quick game of Gargon. This game is fun for what it is: a quick luck-heavy card game with some unique mechanics and a nice gimmick: cards whose backs are colored to match their suits. I have to admit that I don't like this game nearly as much as I did when I first played it. It's just too luck heavy for my tastes and while I feel there must be some strategy in there, it kind of eludes me.

Christopher and Birch had to leave early and Oren decided to call it quits too so that left five of us. We decided to play Through the Desert, a classic Knizia game which I absolutely love. This game is kind of Knizia's tip of the hat to Go. This is one of those classic games where you have tons of choices on each turn but can only act on two of them. It's a very tense game. Mike K. won it pretty handily.

We rounded out the night with a game of Aladdin's Dragons. This is a great blind bidding game by Richard Breese. I really like this game but I've only played it a couple of times. We need to get this out more. I've never played it with the magic cards and I think I'd like to give that a try sometime. Jose, in typical Jose fashion, flew in under everybody's radar to win the game.

I'm sure there were a few other games played but I can't remember what they were.