2/28/06

Well, we welcomed John back from a long hiatus and he brought along a new gamer Jeff Green. So, the total for the evening was 6 with Charlie, James, Kris, John, Jeff, and Ted.

Vinci

First up was this History of the World/Civilization building game that plays in about 2 hours. All the different civilizations make this game different every time. John, Kris, Jeff and Charlie fought for the lead while James and I struggled not to finish last. In the end, Kris was victorious.

Prototype

Next, everyone was nice enough to try my newest prototype. It played just fine with 6 players in 45 minutes with Charlie taking the victory. I think the basic game is there, it just needs some more refinements to make it ready for prime time. Thanks everyone for being guinea pigs.

Ransom

The final game of the evening was a rousing game of negotiating and building. This is an older title that is very difficult to find and comes in a VCR case. The goal is to build various size buildings on a grid. Depending on how the buildings get built, it is possible some of the buildings will not fit on the board near the end of the game making the contracts for them useless.

On your turn you draw a card. If it is a land square, brick or labor, you may buy it or put it up for open auction. If it is a contract card to build a building, you bid secret and simultaneous. And, over time you try to build the contracts by getting the right shape land sections and the right amount of labor and bricks. Of course, very seldom does one player have it all themselves. The end of the game came down to two contracts remaining and due to the shape of the land on each, only one of them could get built. On my end I had two pieces of land for one of the contracts and three for the other. I took my best deal but, it was just not enough to surpass John who had the most money at the end of the game.

Another fun night of great gaming.