Games, games, games!
Jul. 1st, 2012 10:13 amIt's time for my six-monthly review stats round-up - and I realised I have been seriously remiss in not reviewing all the games I played on holiday in April!
Over the course of the week at Goddards, I played:
30 instances of 20 different games, 11 of which were new to me - which I think is pretty good going!
Games I had played before:
3 games of Stone Age - always awesome
3 games of Dominion - I'm back into this again after overplaying it and needing a break earlier in the year
3 games of Dungeon Lords - which I love and now own - hurrah!
1 games of Puerto Rico - I don't play this very often, but nearly always enjoy it when I do
1 game of Funny Friends - have to be in the right mood for this one, but generally fun
3 games of Bonanza - always take the opportunity to play this when I can, because I love it
1 game of Ticket to Ride - a good game to play with less experienced gamers, and worked well for that purpose here
1 game of Power Grid - only my second time playing this, and I really like it
2 games of Seven Wonders - another game that was relatively new to me - I quite like it, but I think fewer players is better
New games:
1 game of Snow Tails - this is quite a clever racing game (kind of along the same lines as Ave Caesar) but with a husky racing theme and a more complicated mechanic of balancing or unbalancing the strength of your two dogs in order to go round corners without crashing.
1 game of The Miskatonic School for Girls - very silly card game where you have to pit your plucky school girls against the demonic staff - fun for a late night end to a long day's gaming, but I don't think it has enough to it to make it a staple part of our games repertoire.
1 game of Shadow Hunters - a partially co-operative, partially competitive game, where you have to work out by process of elimination who is on your side and who is against you - I enjoyed it, but it's not the sort of game I'm going to want to play a lot
1 game of Aladdin's Dragons - I wasn't sure I'd like this game, as I'm generally not very good a bidding games, but the mechanics worked really well, and the game play was interesting - I don't remember if I was any good at it, but it was the kind of game where I didn't really mind that.
1 game of Evo - this is kind of like Pirmordial Soup, only with dragons, which appealed to me - it was quite hard, but good fun.
1 game of The IT Business - Dave's alternate version of Family Business, only with IT people, which is very cool.
2 games of Small World - this one I find really interesting, as you have to work out when it's best to cut your losses and start over with a new civilisation - I like the set-up and the mechanics a lot.
1 game of Rattus - I would have liked to play this more than once, but didn't get the chance - it was an interesting set-up, which I don't think I really got a handle on first time round.
1 game of 011 - beautifully made, but perhaps a little over-complicated - it didn't help that I was going to win in the very last round, but got soundly defeated at the last minute by someone else.
1 game of Hell Rail - love the concept, and the jigsaw-aspect was fun, but it was hard to do well at it.
1 game of Godzilla - sadly, I found this game quite tedious, as there wasn't much variety - I was glad I was partnered with someone else, who could help me decide what to do, but there wasn't enough to it to make it really interesting.
I also have to review Small Island by Andrea Levy, in order to complete my first six months of 2012 reviews:
I thought the concept was a good one - immigration to England from Jamaica after the second world war, looking at racial prejudice and immigrant expectations in that era. However, I found the style and tone very heavy-handed, which made me struggle a bit to remain interested in the story.
Over the course of the week at Goddards, I played:
30 instances of 20 different games, 11 of which were new to me - which I think is pretty good going!
Games I had played before:
3 games of Stone Age - always awesome
3 games of Dominion - I'm back into this again after overplaying it and needing a break earlier in the year
3 games of Dungeon Lords - which I love and now own - hurrah!
1 games of Puerto Rico - I don't play this very often, but nearly always enjoy it when I do
1 game of Funny Friends - have to be in the right mood for this one, but generally fun
3 games of Bonanza - always take the opportunity to play this when I can, because I love it
1 game of Ticket to Ride - a good game to play with less experienced gamers, and worked well for that purpose here
1 game of Power Grid - only my second time playing this, and I really like it
2 games of Seven Wonders - another game that was relatively new to me - I quite like it, but I think fewer players is better
New games:
1 game of Snow Tails - this is quite a clever racing game (kind of along the same lines as Ave Caesar) but with a husky racing theme and a more complicated mechanic of balancing or unbalancing the strength of your two dogs in order to go round corners without crashing.
1 game of The Miskatonic School for Girls - very silly card game where you have to pit your plucky school girls against the demonic staff - fun for a late night end to a long day's gaming, but I don't think it has enough to it to make it a staple part of our games repertoire.
1 game of Shadow Hunters - a partially co-operative, partially competitive game, where you have to work out by process of elimination who is on your side and who is against you - I enjoyed it, but it's not the sort of game I'm going to want to play a lot
1 game of Aladdin's Dragons - I wasn't sure I'd like this game, as I'm generally not very good a bidding games, but the mechanics worked really well, and the game play was interesting - I don't remember if I was any good at it, but it was the kind of game where I didn't really mind that.
1 game of Evo - this is kind of like Pirmordial Soup, only with dragons, which appealed to me - it was quite hard, but good fun.
1 game of The IT Business - Dave's alternate version of Family Business, only with IT people, which is very cool.
2 games of Small World - this one I find really interesting, as you have to work out when it's best to cut your losses and start over with a new civilisation - I like the set-up and the mechanics a lot.
1 game of Rattus - I would have liked to play this more than once, but didn't get the chance - it was an interesting set-up, which I don't think I really got a handle on first time round.
1 game of 011 - beautifully made, but perhaps a little over-complicated - it didn't help that I was going to win in the very last round, but got soundly defeated at the last minute by someone else.
1 game of Hell Rail - love the concept, and the jigsaw-aspect was fun, but it was hard to do well at it.
1 game of Godzilla - sadly, I found this game quite tedious, as there wasn't much variety - I was glad I was partnered with someone else, who could help me decide what to do, but there wasn't enough to it to make it really interesting.
I also have to review Small Island by Andrea Levy, in order to complete my first six months of 2012 reviews:
I thought the concept was a good one - immigration to England from Jamaica after the second world war, looking at racial prejudice and immigrant expectations in that era. However, I found the style and tone very heavy-handed, which made me struggle a bit to remain interested in the story.