3/15 - Some new purchases with Hilary

So as you may have read elsewhere, Just Awesome Board Games is basically my favorite new place in the world, to the point where I have decided to buy games there instead of online despite the price difference. To that end, Hilary and I ordered a copy of Campaign Manager 2008 there for Marissa and Justin. When we went in to pick it up, they were having a "buy-2-get-1-50%-off" sale, so we kinda accidentally bought Word on the Street, Cardcassonne, and for good measure we put in our pre-order for the new Dominion expansion. The more we buy, the more we save! A couple days later, we sat down to try a couple of them out.

Word on the Street

Pulled this one out first. It's a game that is designed to be played by 2 teams, but can just as easily be played by 2 players. I enjoy word games, but I feel like they need a speed and/or simultaneous play element to be fun, especially with more than 2 players. Boggle and Bananagrams are both great in this regard, but Word on the Street is different enough from either of those that I don't mind owning it as well.

The board is a street with most of the letters of the alphabet (sans vowels and X/J/Z) represented as tiles. Players/teams take 30-second turns drawing a category card ("Things that you push", "Makes/models of cars", etc.), spelling a word that fits the category, and pulling the letters still on the board that are contained in that word towards them. If a letter is moved three spaces towards one team or the other, it is pulled off the board and that team claims it. First team to claim 8 letters (of 17) wins.

Unfortunately, the sand timer included in the game either came broken or broke the first time I flipped it over, but our kitchen timer was quickly drafted as a replacement. With 2 players, the game was quite a bit quieter and more thoughtful than I imagine it would be with more, but I feel like it will work either way (in fact at the last Just Awesome adult game night there had been a group of 10-12 playing it very loudly and having a great time). The game takes maybe 15 minutes, and Hilary liked it so much that she wanted to play it again immediately.

Cardcassonne

Chris 437, Hilary 378
This one we actually played with Erik (one of the Just Awesome owners) at their previous adult game night, and Hilary won it, so she was already predisposed to like it (and in fact it had been her suggestion to get it when we went on our mini shopping spree). It's a set-collection game where you are often playing things that other people are going to end with, so you need to be circumspect about what you play when.

With 3 I thought it was interesting, and I think I'll like it with 4-5 as well, but with 2 I found it just a little static and flat, which is too bad because I was hopeful it would work well. I'll try to play it a couple more times with more players, but I already begin suspect that Ra does everything Cardcassonne does but better (which is no slight on Cardcassonne as Ra is one of my favorites). Also the scores with 2 are kind of stupid-high, and for some reason I find that aesthetically off-putting. Must be why I like baseball and soccer too.