Game Night

Better late than never with the game night posts, eh? And it's certainly late.

Game night for me this week started with Zooloretto, the latest Spiel des Jahres winner. This is the board game version of Coloretto (which I like very much). The board game adds a little bit of complexity (although not much) and it changes the scoring slightly. I like it but I don't think it will ever become one of my favorites. It's basically light family friendly gaming with lovely bits. Well worth playing with the family but a deep strategy game it's not.

Another game I played last Tuesday night was a really fun game of Ca$h 'n Gun$. This is a very light game where up to six players (the more the merrier) point foam guns at one another. Each player has a small deck of cards. Most of them say "click" but two say "bang" and one says "bang bang bang". On each round, each player places one card face down in front of them and then simultaneously point their gun at one other player. Next, on the count of three, each player may decide to hide. If you hide you don't get shot but you also don't get to help divide that round's loot. If you don't hide an someone points a gun at you which goes "bang" then you're shot. You take a wound and you don't get any loot that round. Too many wounds and you're out of the game. Naturally, each card can only be played once so part of the game is deciding when to bluff, when to shoot, when to hide, and when to stand brave in the face of four other muzzles. It's simple and fast and I really like it.

Next up for me was Notre Dame. This is a very cool strategy game that takes place in the neighborhoods of Paris near Notre Dame cathedral in the 14th century. I decided to pursue a vastly different strategy this time around and to say that it failed would be an understatement. I was clobbered. Still, I love the game and I'll be glad to play it again. Although this time I don't think I'll pursue that strategy again.

And wrapping up the night for me was a game of Tichu. Adam and I teamed up against Mike and Wade and we came out charging right out of the gate. Within a few hands the score was something like 865 to 35. At that point their luck began to turn and they staged a pretty good run but by then it was really much too late and we still cruised to a relatively easy victory.

I can't remember what other games were played last night but one I know for sure was Railroad Tycoon. This was one of the last and best from Eagle Games before they closed their doors. Personally, I prefer Age of Steam (upon which it's based) but there are a lot of people (some of them in our game group) who prefer this one. I can understand why, it's big, pretty, and it plays very well. Also, it's much more forgiving than Age of Steam, which has a reputation for sometimes knocking newbies out of the game before the first round is even over. It's a pity that it's out of print.