4 New Games!

[dagibbs]

I have 4 new games -- 3 I bought from Tanga, through the help of eviljohn, and the 4th was a "thank you" gift from metalana and rbowsprite for staying at my place last weekend.

The ones I picked up were Buy Low Sell High, The Bridges of Shangri-La, and Tongiaki. The gift was Dead Man's Treasure. All 4 look to be fairly quick playing and not overly complex, with the Shangri-La then Tongiaki looking to have the most strategy/thinking involved.

Buy Low Sell High, though, is about the most over-packaged game I can recall seeing in ages. It is in a largish box (about 1' x 1' x 3"), with the interior plastic tray being about 2.5" tall -- that is, most of the box interior is utterly wasted. The board is nicely made -- but way over-designed, and could easily have been 1/3 the size it is. And the rest of the bits are smallish, with an oddly small deck of cards for the game, given the large size of everything else.

The big problem -- where to put the new games? My games shelving unit is full. This will be resolved in the future, by having a built-to-fit shelving unit in the same place with a lot more space, but until then, I don't know what to do. Maybe I'll have to rearrange and juggle things for now.

[edit]Moved a few games to another shelving unit, rearranged a few games. Everything is good.[/edit]

Comments

[ragnhildr.livejournal.com]

Hmmm....if you have found more space, that clearly means you need more games! ;-)

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, probably.

I think I'll wait until after I play a bunch of games at Cangames (http://www.cangames.ca/) (which is 3 blocks from my house, and on the May long weekend) before I decide what else to buy.

Next set of purchases may focus on two-player games for gabriel_le and me to play.

[mycrazyhair.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure this has been asked previously, but the answer may have changed. What are your top five favourite games, and why?

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it has been asked previously. And, it is a complicated question - at least to some extent, my preferences are situational and change over time. But, I'll take a stab at it.

1. Go. Ancient, incredibly elegent and minimalist, yet with a depth of strategy that I will never master, and a handicapping method that lets players of widely varying skill levels play a game that is challenging for both AND plays like a game of Go for both of them.

2. Bridge. The best of the partnership card games -- awesome depth in three very different, and yet very overlapping areas. Rewards memorization, judgement, reading people, mathematical (probablity calculations) skills, bluffing, and much more. In some ways, it is three tightly-interrelated games in one: bidding, playing, and defense with different, yet interlinked, skills for the three of them.

Now, I'm betting neither of those were what you were looking for -- probably expecting more in the board game categories. :)

3. Caylus. Lots of choices, lots of routes to win, lots of interaction. Plays well with full range of 2-5 players, and yet is also a different game with different numbers of players -- the decisions and strategies and flow of the game are quite different. Also, still fairly fresh and new to me -- I have some tendency to get bored with games if they don't have enough depth. (Go and Bridge have enough -- most of the board games I play at the gaming parties have nowhere near the depth of those classics.)

4. Tigris and Euphrates. I don't get to play this often -- but it is a very deep game, with lots of tough choices and a very interesting set of victory conditions that can make judging the win difficult.

5. Traders of Genoa. But, only with 5 people. With 5 people this is an awesome game of negotiation and bargaining, with practically everything and anything that is an in-game item available for the bargaining. (Unlike, say, Settlers of Catan, where you can only trade goods -- not a road-building card, for instance.)

6. El Grande. I think the best of the area-control games that I've played. Lots of good choices, lots of interaction, a nice inclusion of simultaneous blind actions to make for some tough decisions. Plays well with varying sizes of groups (though I haven't tried it 2-player yet).

7. Jungle Speed. Just whole barrels of fun. It is a pattern-matching and reaction time game. I most often playing it at conventions, sometimes for a couple of hours, though one game will generally last no longer than 5-10 minutes. Great with a group of 4-8 or so. And, occasionally, blood is drawn. :)