Giving Thanks for Games (a holiday session report)

My family celebrated Christmas over Thanksgiving this year (long story), so all of us descended on my aunts' house for four days of food, togetherness, and... gaming.

My family has always enjoyed playing games together--first trick-taking games like Pinochle and Rook, then party games like Scattergories and Rapid Recall, and now hobby games, beginning with Acquire. There were fifteen of us at the gathering, and we played a lot of games over the four days. I usually list what I've been playing in the weekly news, but I thought I'd write a separate post since several of these are new, and I'd prefer to treat them in more depth. So here's what we played.

News Bits: 9/23/2013

Summer is gone; fall is here. The seasons change, but the NEWS stays the same:

Terra Mystica wins Deutscher Spiele Preis [Link] And surprises...no one. Other top winners are Tzolk'in, Bruges, and Bora Bora (yes, two Stefan Feld games in the top 4). Congratulations to the winners!

To Get This Train Rolling We'll Have To Build Some Tracks (A Guide To Network Building)

Now a days whenever you hear the word network you may think more about social networks than railroads and power lines.  But board games tend to be a little bit more old fashion so you're likely to be a rail baron than a blogger when you sit down to the latest hot game (at least I don't think there are any games about social networking yet).  So get your conductor's hat on, or whatever rail barons wear, and get ready to build a network to span the globe.  Oh, we can't build railroads under water yet?  Never mind, let's leave the globe spanning to the social networkers after all.

News Bits: 3/25/2013

Lots of great news this week, including two announcements I'm very excited about from AEG. Without further ado, the NEWS:

AEG announces a summer release for Trains [Link] Trains sold out quickly at Essen, but there were whispers on the wind that a US publisher would import it. I earlier mentioned rumors that AEG would be that publisher, and this week, AEG confirmed the rumors. Trains is slated to arrive this summer, and I am super stoked. (Trains, for those not in the know, is a train/route-building game that uses a deck-building mechanic.)

Caveman Economics (a review of Power Grid: The First Sparks)

I used to follow Rare's video games because I liked GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64 so much. One of the games they had in their queue was an adventure game called Dinosaur Planet. I followed it with mild interest, mostly because GoldenEye was so good that I was willing to take a chance on an unbranded franchise. Delay after delay occurred, and finally, the game was released as Star Fox Adventures, the original game I had followed with a veneer of Star Fox theme. The game wasn't great, and the Star Foxisms were distracting. (Perhaps the greatest of this game's sins, though, was the dinosaur who followed Fox around saying, "Dum dee dum!" But I digress...)

So when I heard about Power Grid: The First Sparks, I assumed it was similar to the Dinosaur Planet/Star Fox Adventures situation: a decent game had been developed but needed the crutch of strong source material to pass muster. However, after several plays of The First Sparks, I can say that this game has truly earned its Power Grid moniker. But how does it stack up against its predecessor? Find out below!

FDQ: What Game Doesn't Love You Back?

We all have games we love and games we strongly dislike. Usually we get pretty good at our favorite games: we play them frequently, we learn the ins and outs of strategies, and our passion for the game carries us to victory.

But sometimes, sometimes we fall in love with a game that we just kinda suck at. It defies logic; you'd think getting hit over the head repeatedly would turn us off. But for some reason, these games continue to have a special grip on our hearts. It's not that we never win, we just more often than not fail to end up on top. But we sure had a blast along the way.

What game do you love that doesn't love you back? Answer in the comments!

@Futurewolfie answers:
I have a couple games that fit in this category. Kill Doctor Lucky is pretty much always a blast. It's a good laugh, it keeps me engaged the whole way through trying to figure out how to maximize my turn or get Doctor Lucky alone in a choice room for a brilliant murder attempt... but in the end, I usually fail to win.  More often than not, I draw out the last failure card from other players, only to have the next person in line strike for the victory.


Cosmic Encounter, currently my #1 favorite game, is also a game that I often lose. I'm probably victorious more often than with KDL, but I constantly find myself making terrible decisions (in restrospect), or letting someone else get great positioning, or otherwise losing the top spot.  It speaks volumes that despite my poor record, this is still my favorite game; it's just so much fun to play it doesn't matter if I win or not.

Olympos is very new to me and hasn't really been played enough to make a solid judgment, but I have yet to scrape a victory and it's still a blast every time. I love the time mechanic that makes you try and perform your actions in as few steps as possible. It's tense, it's great fun, and I still haven't nailed down a successful strategy. We haven't reviewed this one yet, but we will get it up there soon.

@FarmerLenny answers:
 Ascending Empires probably tops the list for me. For those not in the know, Ascending Empires is a dexterity space empire building game (which, incidentally, @Futurewolfie and I chose for 2011's Game of the Year). I'm not very good at flicking my ships around or with negotiating with other players, but still, more often than not, it's the game I want to play.

I'm also not terribly good at Power Grid and its various iterations, but I love economic games, and it's hard to keep me away for too long.

There and Back Again: A Farmer's Tale

This is my first post in a while. Sorry about the silence from my end; I've been traveling all over creation to celebrate Christmas with family. And I've come back with a tale or two about what I played...

My bags were packed with fun games—both for under the tree and for general consumption. I brought some old favorites and some new, and here were the results.