Good friends, good food, only a few games.

I spent much of yesterday enjoying hanging out with the great friends whom I only see a few times a year at events such as this.  Columbus has some excellent food options and dinner last night was at BD's Mongolian BBQ, a place I'll be taking Shelley to later in the week (she loved last year's excursions there, and wishes we had one out our way).  Also, there's amazing ice cream at Denise's which is fairly close to the hotel (short drive).  I scarfed down 1/2 scoops of Rice Pudding and Pistacio.  OK, but that's enough non-gaming stuff...

Games played:

Unpublished prototype (BEST GAME OF THE GATHERING SO FAR!)

OK, I can't say much since Peter's still working on getting this one published, but this Aussie has designed a fantastic game that takes a tidbit of Thurn and Taxis' set collection and majority idea and couples it with some dastardly Assassination of leaders.  GREAT game, very involving, and the prototype was lovingly assembled and brought all the way from Australia.  I can't wait to get my hands on the game when it gets published, and hopefully that won't be too long in coming.

Aquaretto - 

Fun, very reminiscent of its predecessor, but with some nice twists.  You have a board that's shaped a bit differently than the previous, square board, and there are no SET pens (pools?) for the animals.  You can only have ONE grouping of each type and different animals have to have space between (no seals and penguins next to each other!).  You still can 'make babies' but now you get a coin whenever you get groupings in multiples of 3 and a worker when you get a grouping in multiples of 5 (more on him in a minute).  Each player starts with 4 expansion tiles for making more space in your aquarium with the bigger size costing 2 coin and the smaller costing 1.  The benefit (besides a 4th square for placement compared to 3 in the smaller size) of the bigger size is that you get to add ANOTHER animal type.  You can only have 3 types at the start, so adding the two bigger expansions allows for 5 types.  Rejected animals go into a pool, but are stacked and ONLY the top tile can be played.  Tiles in the pool at the end of the game are -2 points UNLESS you put a worker by the pool (one of 4 spaces he can go).  Then they are only -1.

The worker can be used in a few others ways.  You can place him on a spot that gives you bonuses for animals with a fish symbol on them (1 point per fish) and there are 2 slots for that.  You can put him on one of two spots that gives you a point per coin you still have at the end of the game.  And you can put him on the board itself in order to train certain types of animals that surround that spot.  Now only certain types can be trained and only certain types have fish.  You have to plan for these eventualities.

At the end of the game it's 1 point per animal on the board, then add up your bonuses and subtract any animals in the pool.  I'm going to get a copy, and will be interested in trying out the 'combo' game of Zooloretto and Aquaretto at least once, though I can already see that taking more time than I'd wish to spend on the game....

Through the Ages - 

OK, so I knew that Shelley would NEVER be up for this one, and therefore I set up a chance to have Scott teach the game to me.  Lincoln and Nicky joined in and we took a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time to play the Advanced version.  I can't see myself EVER playing this one again.  It's just FAR too fiddly and doesn't offer me much given the downtime that seems to be inherent in the game for those who aren't experts at it.  I'm glad I played, but it just wasn't fun.  I know others love it, but... there seem to be TOO many little bits that you have to be attentive to.

OK, enough for now.  I need to either get some more people on the mic or PLAY SOME GAMES!!!!