Gathering of Friends Day 2
Today was a tad more leisurely paced day for me than yesterday and I actually turned in relatively early to get a good nights sleep.
I started the morning out meeting Friedemann Friese and playing one of his new prototypes. A fun, light game that he is still working out the kinks with.
Following that game, I ran into Zev who was looking to try out another prototype that had been submitted to Z-Man Games. I still occasionally have those short internal fan boy moments here such as during this game when I looked across the table and saw that I was playing with William Attia who designed Caylus. There were aspects behind this game that I really liked, but the length kinda exceeded the fun factor.
After that I ran into snicholson who was starting up a game of Race for the Galaxy, a game with a very similar feel to San Juan. I think I liked the game, but it ended pretty quickly before I got my economic engine working with a runaway victory to one of the other players so did not really get a chance to see how components could work together.
Immediately following that game we got to play Tulip Mania 1637, a design by snicholson that is being release at Essen this year by JKLM Games. Since they have not yet published the game in its official form, we were playing with one of the prototypes. The game is based on simulating the historical tulip bulb bubble market that occurred in 1637. It is an interesting game, but I definitely had issues grasping what strategy I needed to employ.
My last game of the day was Galaxy Trucker. I liked this game and would want to play it again. It is a bit frenetic as you are all grabbing tiles from the middle of the table looking at them and trying to fit them on your available ship spaces legally. Following that phase you use the ship, no matter how "poorly" it is put together, to travel in space and have encounters. The encounters are quick and fun to resolve and overall it is a game where everyone is laughing at the various pitfalls one experiences.
I started the morning out meeting Friedemann Friese and playing one of his new prototypes. A fun, light game that he is still working out the kinks with.
Following that game, I ran into Zev who was looking to try out another prototype that had been submitted to Z-Man Games. I still occasionally have those short internal fan boy moments here such as during this game when I looked across the table and saw that I was playing with William Attia who designed Caylus. There were aspects behind this game that I really liked, but the length kinda exceeded the fun factor.
After that I ran into snicholson who was starting up a game of Race for the Galaxy, a game with a very similar feel to San Juan. I think I liked the game, but it ended pretty quickly before I got my economic engine working with a runaway victory to one of the other players so did not really get a chance to see how components could work together.
Immediately following that game we got to play Tulip Mania 1637, a design by snicholson that is being release at Essen this year by JKLM Games. Since they have not yet published the game in its official form, we were playing with one of the prototypes. The game is based on simulating the historical tulip bulb bubble market that occurred in 1637. It is an interesting game, but I definitely had issues grasping what strategy I needed to employ.
My last game of the day was Galaxy Trucker. I liked this game and would want to play it again. It is a bit frenetic as you are all grabbing tiles from the middle of the table looking at them and trying to fit them on your available ship spaces legally. Following that phase you use the ship, no matter how "poorly" it is put together, to travel in space and have encounters. The encounters are quick and fun to resolve and overall it is a game where everyone is laughing at the various pitfalls one experiences.