There are few things more satisfying to me than watching someone get drawn into the world of designer board games (strategy games? European-style board games? there's really no word for them that doesn't sound pretentious...then again I guess spending one's free time indulging in mutiplayer, competitive logic/probability/game theory puzzles is a little pretentious).
Alana is a good friend of my wife's from business school. She started down the path (as so many do) bymarrying a German playing Settlers of Catan. She went through a brief period where she wanted to play nothing but Catan but soon she was introduced to other games and now an ever increasing amount bookshelf area in Alana and Thorsten's home is devoted to board games. One of us! One of us!
Board games have become increasingly the focus of our every 5-or-6-week book club, to the point where often several people haven't even tried to read the book but show up to socialize and play games. On this evening, Alana and Thorsten decided to dispatch with the pretense and just host an evening of games. As per usual I showed up with a way-too-large tub of games. In addition to Alana and Thorsten, we were joined by Trevor, Eric, and Catherine.
Coloretto
We started with a game of Coloretto. Catherine hadn't played these sorts of games before and her initial reaction to Coloretto was doubt that she was going to "get it." We assured her that this was a pretty simple game and she caught on pretty quickly. Coloretto is a great introductory game because it has a couple of simple yet novel mechanics - it demonstrates nicely that a game can be approachable and fun without being "roll dice, move, do what the space says." Despite her initial misgivings, Catherine ended up winning the game with 26 points, with myself (24), Thorsten (20), Hilary (18), and Alana (15) trailing behind. She learned a game. I learned that even sober Australians can swear and talk trash like nobody's business.
Ra
Trevor and Eric arrived as we finished Coloretto and we started a 5-player game of Ra as Thorsten worked on dinner. Catherine kind of played on a team with Alana and I was impressed by how good her instincts for this game were given that she was just learning it. Ra is an auction game where a player can either increase the number of items up for auction or begin their auction on a given turn. Most new players do not begin an auction (call "ra") nearly often enough, but Catherine seemed to quickly realize that calling auctions frequently was often a good move, as it means that you get to bid last, which is a pretty huge advantage. Hilary won this one going away, with 37 points with me in a pretty distant second with 32.
Alana is a good friend of my wife's from business school. She started down the path (as so many do) by
Board games have become increasingly the focus of our every 5-or-6-week book club, to the point where often several people haven't even tried to read the book but show up to socialize and play games. On this evening, Alana and Thorsten decided to dispatch with the pretense and just host an evening of games. As per usual I showed up with a way-too-large tub of games. In addition to Alana and Thorsten, we were joined by Trevor, Eric, and Catherine.
Coloretto
We started with a game of Coloretto. Catherine hadn't played these sorts of games before and her initial reaction to Coloretto was doubt that she was going to "get it." We assured her that this was a pretty simple game and she caught on pretty quickly. Coloretto is a great introductory game because it has a couple of simple yet novel mechanics - it demonstrates nicely that a game can be approachable and fun without being "roll dice, move, do what the space says." Despite her initial misgivings, Catherine ended up winning the game with 26 points, with myself (24), Thorsten (20), Hilary (18), and Alana (15) trailing behind. She learned a game. I learned that even sober Australians can swear and talk trash like nobody's business.
Ra
Trevor and Eric arrived as we finished Coloretto and we started a 5-player game of Ra as Thorsten worked on dinner. Catherine kind of played on a team with Alana and I was impressed by how good her instincts for this game were given that she was just learning it. Ra is an auction game where a player can either increase the number of items up for auction or begin their auction on a given turn. Most new players do not begin an auction (call "ra") nearly often enough, but Catherine seemed to quickly realize that calling auctions frequently was often a good move, as it means that you get to bid last, which is a pretty huge advantage. Hilary won this one going away, with 37 points with me in a pretty distant second with 32.
Agricola
The 3-step climb up the complexity ladder ended with Agricola, a subsistance-farming simulation that is currently the darling of the euro-gamerati. Given Catherine's early doubts about the much simpler Coloretto at the beginning of the evening, I suspected this might be somewhere between a bit too much and a lot too much for her. Eric knew he wouldn't be able to stay for the whole game, so he and Catherine formed a team so she could learn as she went.
It really seemed like Trevor was in control of this game. He grew his family first and generally had a better developed farm. However, thanks to a healthy chunk of bonus points from a number of improvements, I managed to pull out the victory with 34 points, and Eric/Catherine managed to edge Trevor by one with 32.
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