We started late on this session but in the end I managed to bring some more of my new goodies out and that made me a happy camper :)
Chateau Roquefort +
Cheesy Gonzola expansion
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| Who moved my cheese? |
After playing it once at another friend's place, I knew I had to have it. The shoving mechanism where the tiles can be shifted underneath the mice feet caught me hook, line and sinker! My copies finally arrived (they seemingly traveled to Paraguay from Germany and then to Singapore. Go figure!) and I was eager to bring it to the table. That and also I needed to know how to play the game before I taught it to my colleague on wednesday. So each player controls a set of 4 mice and they are moving around the castle trying to position 2 of their mice on the same cheese tile to obtain the cheese token. First to obtain 4 different cheese tokens wins the game. It is not that simple because you only have 4 actions per turn and one of them involves the very important Shoving action. What happens is, you can take the tile that is outside of the castle and shove it in from 12 available slots. This will in turn, push the whole row/column one direction and another tile will then pop out from the other end. This can produce very surprising results for all the players as a hole may appear under your mouse and you will lose that mouse to a "trap". This game is seemingly a simple children's game but it involves memory as well as strategic planning thus I find that its great for adults too!
The expansion adds a 5th player (yay! More to share the fun!) as well as several variants. The 2nd time we played, we played with the expansion and all the variants included. It certainly makes the game a whee bit more complicated with all the options but also makes it meatier and brings it hovering to the Medium complexity fence. All in all a very good game even for adults! I heartily recommend.
Initial and final impression:
Good!
Hab & Gut
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| There goes the Spice price... crazy! |
This is a stock exchange game where players will manipulate the market, buy and sell stocks and along the way, donate to charity and try to be the player that earns the most money at the end of the game whilst not being the player that donated the least to charity. The interesting part is the Charity because at the end of the game, the player who has donated the least will automatically lose the game. Another interesting mechanism is the cards you see slotted into the stands provided. Each player can see 2 stands of cards and during the 2nd phase of the game, each player will get to choose 1 card from each stand and choose which of these 2 cards to apply the full value and which to apply half the value on the card. Then the stock markers will move accordingly. This is where your strategies come into play. It is not a very difficult game to play but its simple and quite elegantly done. I like.
Initial impression:
Good
Mission: Red Planet
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| If you believe, they put a man on Mars, man on Mars... |
Next we played Mission Red Planet. I have heard of this game from designer Bruno Faidutti (of Citadel's fame). During the game, each player will choose a role from their set of 9 roles (all players will have the same) and then play it (similar to how Citadels resolve the roles). During the game, you are populating space ships and launching them to Mars to populate the various regions on it. During the scoring rounds (the game last 10 rounds and scoring rounds are in 5th, 8th and 10th), the player which has the majority of astronauts in a region will get score tokens based on the element found in that region and the scoring round (one token for 5th, two tokens for 8th and three tokens for 10th). At the end of the game, players will count their tokens as well as any secret objectives they may have accomplished and the player with the most victory points win. This is quite a light game for me and will be good for my lunch time gamings. However the boards are rather warped as you can see from my picture and the character card sized are odd. I don't have sleeves for them :(
Initial impression: Average
Big City
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| A city that has distinct zones |
Another game! I do wish I will have the patience or the small size to paint these buildings like those I have seen on bgg. Its really small these buildings and so when i see the incredible amount of details being put into them, I must really take my hat off to the person that painted them. The one BIG problem with this game is the ending as it can be very anti climatic. Nearing the end of the game you tend to not have a lot of cards you can play and that may put you out of the game much earlier than the rest. There is also no "catch the leader" mechanism and its very difficult to overtake the leader. Hmm... the components are awesome though.... Anyone want to paint for me? *blink blink*
Initial impression: Average
KakerlakenSalat
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| Lettuce. Wait no, Tomato. No wait, Cockroach! |
There are 3 of these Kakerlaken-type games and I have played the Poker-type and decided to get this to have a go at it. KakerlakenSalat is a agility, think-fast type of game. The cards of the game will be distributed evenly to all players. Then each player will take the top card of his/her deck and reveal it into the center pile. Upon revealing the card, they must say the name of the vegetable depicted on the card: Pepper, Lettuce, Cauliflower and Tomato. There are certain rules where you have to lie about the card and this is where the game gets interesting. This is definitely a game that can be converted into a drinking game or doing something with the penalties. Great end to a fun filled day :)
Initial impression: Average
All in all, a great gaming session!
