Wrap-up #3: Stuff played 2+ times, for the first time, in 2010
As with the “played once, for the first time ever” list of last time, so with the “played for a 2nd+ time ever” list today: 2 or 3-sentence reviews of every game in that category. All 24 of them. In alphabetical order.
Alhambra. The classic tile-laying game. The addition of some light currency-evaluation elements makes it a nice step up from Carcassonne.
Automobile. Martin Wallace's new early-20th-Century automobile manufacturing/selling game. And it really feels like that's what you're doing. Despite being a bit dry, one of my favorites of the year.
Cyclades. A real genre mash-up of a game. Some fighting and dice-rolling, some auctions, some bluffing, and a very pretty board. Does a lot of things well, but just didn't really excite me.
Dixit. Clever little party game with fantastic artwork. Our current go-to game when hanging out with creative non-gamers.
Dominant Species. Big, meaty worker placement / area control game about evolution. Exceedingly impressive design, though it runs a tad long. Easily one of the best of the year.
Dungeon Lords. Fantastic concept (building a dungeon & luring heroes to their death) and artwork, but turns out to be a rather long, heavy, dry worker placement euro. Still quite good, but not what I was expecting.
Forbidden Island. The simplified, family version of Pandemic. But with better components for less money.
GIPF. I finally got around to playing the original game of Project GIPF. Clever. I like it. But I liked others in the series better.
Glory to Rome. Interesting combo-building card game, which feels similar to Race for the Galaxy, but with more card-combo potential and less balance. Interesting, but not earth-shattering.
Hey! That's My Fish! Quick, family-friendly abstract shrinking-board game with cute components. I prefer the GIPF games, though - not enough depth here.
Horus Heresy. Big 2-player Fantasy Flight war game in one of those huge $100 “coffin boxes,” about the galactic civil war that started the Warhammer 40,000 story-line. I loved it, but I'm a sucker for that mythology.
Louis XIV. Small-box bribery/area-control game with surprising depth, in which you pay various members of the Sun King's court to do you favors, so you can complete tasks. Bonus points for fitting into 2 smallish sandwich bags.
Navia Drapt. A (now-defunct) Japanese collectable miniatures game that is a variation of Chess/Shogi, which adds a fuel/resource management mechanic and a piece-drafting mechanic to those classic games. Perhaps my most intriguing find of 2010.
Onirim. A fast little solitaire card game. The “basic” game is uninspiring, but since several mix-and-match expansions come in the box, it's easy to find something to your taste and desired difficulty level. Surprisingly good.
Roll Through the Ages. Another fast solitaire game, which also boasts head-to-head play. Now available as an iphone app. Think Yahtzee meets Civilization, in 10 minutes or less, and you've got a good idea of how this one works.
Say Anything! A reverse Apples to Apples-style party game which everyone but me seems to love. Dealer picks a question, everyone else answers, dealer picks the answer they like most, everyone else tries to guess what the dealer picked, hilarity (supposedly) ensues.
Space Hulk Death Angel: The Card Game. Space Hulk was a classic Aliens (the movie)-themed game where 1 person played as the space marines and the other the aliens. The game was lavishly reprinted by Games Workshop a few years ago in limited quantities for $100. The Card Game is Fantasy Flight's attempt to reproduce Space Hulk in a single-player/team $20 card game. It's OK, but I'd rather play the original.
Successors (3rd Ed.). 4-player card-driven wargame (“CDG”) about the squabbling successors to Alexander the Great fighting over the remains of his empire. Several paths to victory are available, including gaining legitimacy by, e.g., burying Alexander in the proper location, or marrying the right person. One of the better CDGs I've played.
Summoner Wars. Interesting (and portable) chess-like 2-player board/card/wargame. Similar in many ways to Navia Drapt, above, but it uses cards rather than miniatures, and the resource you are managing is your deck/hand rather than fuel. An excellent buy for less than $20.
The Great War at Sea: Mediterranean. I'm probably wildly unqualified to review this one, as I played only the two introductory scenarios, which only had a few ships each in them. Regardless, I found it mechanically rather uninspired, and it bordered on broken with so few ships (if you think you're losing, you can make the game continue endlessly by refusing to get close to your opponent).
The Magic Labyrinth. Very clever childrens' “invisible maze” game, where the goal is to collect several randomly-generated tokens without running into one of the walls (which sends you back to your starting square). The clever bit is that the maze under the board can be rebuilt every game, for endless variety. The only down-side is that the die-rolling-for-movement mechanic + the random appearance location of the tokens = way too much randomness for planning to make much difference. A good memory for where all the invisible walls are, though, is quite handy.
TwixT. A classic (1962) Alex Randolph design for the 3M bookshelf series. Thee's a board with holes in it, and you have a collection of “telephone poles” and “telephone wire” Each turn, you place 1 pole into a hole, and wire it to any of your other adjacent poles. First player to connect both sides of the board wins. Reasonably clever, and a piece of history.
Warhammer: Invasion. Fantasy Flight's “living” (read: sort-of collectable) card game set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. Basically, each player has a 3-sided fortress they are trying to defend, and the first player to knock down two of their opponent’s 3 walls wins. I thought it was OK, but not great.
Zombie in My Pocket. A free print-and-play solitaire tile-placement game in which you draw random tiles trying to find your way out of the house and into the garden to bury your zombie totem (without running out of time or being eaten, of course). Cute, but very, very random. Bonus for fitting on airplane tray-tables, and for being free.