RogerBW's Blog

Four of us this time including two newcomers to the group, and we played a series of lightweight games.

First, Love Letter, the original version rather than the Kanai Factory Edition that I picked up at UK Games Expo (it's almost the same game but some of the card powers differ and the art is entirely different). I took an early lead but ended up in second place overall. I don't want to play this every week, but it's very pleasant to bring out once in a while.

(For reference: Munchkin Loot Letter seems to have the same card powers as this game.)

Then we went on to Biblios, a card collecting game (in theory, building a monastery's collection of rare books) in two phases: first, you take turns to draw one more card than you have players, keep one for yourself, put one face down for later auction, and put the remainder face up for other players to take; once the cards are all used, you auction off the auction pile, using either cash cards (for books) or face-down book cards (for cash). Books come in five types, and whoever has the most of each type scores its value… which can be pushed up or down during the game by other cards. It's simpler than that description makes it sound, the art while irrelevant to the game is rather pleasing, and it's altogether fun. (I came last, but only by three points to the winner's five, which was closer than I'd expected.)

Finally a very informal game of The Big Idea, in which you come up with a pitch for a product based on the adjective and noun cards that you hold (as it might be Bulletproof Glue Trousers or Edible Disposable Gun). This is the stripped-down new edition: there's no investment phase as there was in the original, just a vote for whichever idea or pitch is most amusing, and we didn't even bother to keep score to that extent. It's just a very silly party game, and we played it as such.