Back to the boardgame café.
We started with
Tsuro of the
Seas, which is
basically Tsuro with complications: you still lay down tiles and try
to stay on the board, but now there are 3-8 monsters moving randomly
about. If they land on you, or in front of you, you're eliminated.
We had some trouble working out from the board iconography how the
monsters were meant to fit on it: in the grid squares? Because if so,
why are the labels laid out the way they are? (Answer: yes, and
because graphic designer.)
But then, well, it's Tsuro but a random thing will come along and
knock you out of the game. It feels like a very clumsy and crude
addition to an elegant base. I note that Jordan Weisman (of
BattleTech fame) is listed as co-designer along with Tom McMurchie
who designed the original, and I can't help thinking that he saw the
basic design and thought "what this needs is MOAR RANDOM".
Not for me, but I'll keep my copy of original Tsuro.
On to
Pandemic:
Contagion
and a copy that was showing its age (we first played it here in
January 2015). There are some neat tricks for exploiting event cards
and I strongly suspect that the winning strategy is to pick up cheap
second-place points from everywhere rather than the big points from
just a few cards.
Very abstract of course, and sometimes frustrating, but overall quite
enjoyable.
Another round of Heat: Pedal to the
Metal
with a different track (which, alas, felt much like the core track). I
can see the appeal, I guess, but it just doesn't feel like racing to
me. I'll definitely play Flamme Rouge again, though.
Finally, Timeline: Historical
Events,
at which we were rubbish again.
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