Game Night in Jamaica Mon!

Fore me, last night's games started off with a game of Stone Age. I've only played this game a couple of times now and my results showed that. I came in dead last by a large margin. Still, I enjoyed myself.

Stone Age is a very nice little game. The artwork is great and the game seems pretty well balanced. There is a fair amount of luck involved with the die rolls but there are enough of them that things tend to even out over time and a good strategy should allow you to mitigate the luck quite a bit. I did not have a good strategy this time but I did enjoy myself.

Next I played a couple of games of Jamaica. I'd heard a bit of buzz about this game and it seemed like something I might like so I was pretty interested in giving it a try. I'm glad I did.

Jamaica is a very light and relatively chaotic little race game. Players race their pirate ships around the island, collecting booty, firing canons at one another, and making a general piratey nuisance of themselves. The game reminded me a lot of another light race game I like: Detroit Cleveland Grand Prix. It's a similar experience but with much, much better artwork (this game is really pretty) and a pirate theme.

Now this is definitely not the game for people who want a deep thinking, highly strategic game where they're always in control, there is a LOT of luck in this game; but it plays very quickly and there is enough strategy to provide at least some illusion of control. We had a blast with it and I actually played it three times: once with 6 players, once with 3, and once with 2. I'd happily play it many more times.

The other game I played last night was To Court the King. I've talked about this one before so I won't go into it other than to say that I still enjoy this light dice-fest. It's been called "Yahtzee the Gathering" for it's mix of dice rolling and special abilities granted by the cards you collect each round. I find it to be a very enjoyable filler.

Other games I saw being played last night include Tomb (initial reactions seemed pretty negative), Agricola (comes out every single week now), and Rails of Europe.