RogerBW's Blog

Thirsty Meeples February 2023 24 March 2023

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.

[Buy Pandemic: Contagion at Amazon] [Buy Timeline: Historical Events at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

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