Breakfast with friends, most games (and it's only 4PM), Shelley's on the way!

Michelle and Earl came in last night, and our usual Gathering excursion of breakfast (minus Shelley) happened at 9:30AM.  That meant an earlier bedtime last night (probably a good thing), but not before I played a couple of more games.

it's light, it's fairly quick, and it's not bad...but not that great either.  I talked about this in my first blog, and if I were to get it cheaply, it MIGHT make it in to the collection, but I'm not sure I need this one.  The luck is somewhat high as to how the tiles you're collecting come out, many never make it out of the draw pile, and the added luck of what cards you use to "build" your grouped buildings means there doesn't seem to be much control.  Meh.... as my students would say.

OK, MAYBE I was too tired, or MAYBE we missed something in the rules... but I don't think so.  YUCK!

Each player takes 5 wooden people into his/her hand at the start of a round.  These are then placed one at a time in turn order into the 'provinces' which are in a column along one side of the board and are color coated.  THEN, in turn order, players draw EXACTLY 5 cards for movement of a 'prince' pawn around the board  these cards can only be drawn from the space if you have a person in the adjoining province.  The main part of the board, by the way, is separated into regions of a particular color that are further separated into 3 districts.  The cards allow for movement between districts where you attempt to establish majorities to gain chits for scoring OR place into cloisters, etc.  Only 1st & second majority moves into the 3 city buildings in each district,  which gains you those chits (2 for first, 1 for second, or 1 & 1 if there's a tie).

So you move your prince pawn around the board, and then place people (0-3) from the province of that color into the district in which the prince stands.  Scoring happens after Rounds 2, 4, and 6.  Those are too convoluted to discuss here...

If we read the rules correctly, we seemed to be playing this right and I was about 20+ points ahead of second place...but we decided to abandon the game after Round 4 since it was so tedious!  I MIGHT try it again, but yuck!

This one's cute enough...and the goal is to come in LAST (like Leste Kamel (I think that's the name, but The Geek is currently down...I'll tell Scott)).  The horses with jockeys are very nice.

Everyone gets an identical set of 15 cards that correspond to his/her jockey.  Everyone also is secretly assigned a horse color. You also get 2 cards that allow you to mess with the current situation (more on that later). Each round you choose 3 of your 15 cards (which have 2 horse colors on them), lay them out face down, turn them over when everyone has their choices, and then in turn order (last in previous round becomes start player, then you shuffle turn cards for everyone else) you pick one of your 3 cards and place it in the middle of the racetrack.  Everyone places, then again, and now there are 2 cards from each player in the middle.  Now the horses move.  If there are an odd number of a color out, it moves that many spaces.  If there's an even number, the horse doesn't move.

That's it...except for the cards that allow you to mess with the situation.  You can switch horses, move the two furthest behind ahead two, switch lanes, and one other thing.

Light, probably better with its full contingent of 5 than the 3 that we had.  I wouldn't refuse to get it, but it's not one I'll seek out.

If you've played Tutankhamen or Verflixxt, you have the general idea of how this game works.  Lay out a single-file line of wooden circle flowing away from a step-ladder at one end.  The steps on the ladder are labeled 0-4.  There are 5 colored pawns in the game, but 7 colors of wooden circles.  The pawns are placed at the opposite end of the line from the steps.  On a turn you move a pawn (any color) to its next wooden circle of the same color.  Then you take either UNOCCUPIED wooden circle on either side of that pawn into your hand.  As pawns get to the end of the row, they climb to the top-most unoccupied step.  Therefore, the wooden circles that correspond in color to the pawn on the top step earn 4 points each at the end of the game...and so on.  The white and black circles are different.  Black circles allow you to move AGAIN on your turn, but you can also move BACKWARDS.  They are not worth anything at the end of the game, except in relation to the which circles.... White circles earn a point for every different color circle you have.  So that means I can earn up to 6 points per white circle (other colors + black) if I have circles in each of those colors.

This one's quick and fun, so I can see picking it up and playing it at school with the kids, or with non-gamers at a dinner party

New, odd titles are always on the tables around The Gathering, so I tracked this one down and had to try it.  It sounded a bit Carcassonne-ish, and the tiles you use to construct the zoo must fit together in a Carcassonne fashion (roads match, light and dark green cannot be next to each other, even diagonally).  You can then (like Carcassonne) claim a spot on the tile you place.  However, the tokens are small, medium, and large - corresponding to small, medium and large animals who take up 2, 4 and 6 spaces respectively.  Only one person can have a particular size in any particular area (unless, like Carc, two areas join together).  When an area is surrounded (with road, lake, or wall) you see what animals fit in the area from big to small.  Bigs score 5, Mediums score 3, Smalls score 1.  Interesting, but anticlimactic.  I'd like to try it again now that we've played it once, since I'd have a better idea of how everything comes together.

And Finally - Trapper:

From Kramer, this one's a light discovery game where you don't control any ONE pawn, but have cards that could influence the movement of ANY of the 4 pawns in the game.  You lay out an 8x8 grid of tiles, remove the middle 4 to randomize (and set up starting spots for the pawns).  Then the tiles around the pawns are turned over and oriented in a particular way.  Players then play cards (initial hand of 6) to move any 1 pawn on their turn.  2 cards of one color equal one of another color.  You can move as many times as you are willing and able.  The only restriction to movement is that you can't cross through water (so a pawn can be blocked and then moved ANYWHERE on the board for a next move which is something you want to plan for).

What are you collecting?  Well, you have animal-specific canoes that hold 1-3 animals, plants and mushrooms.  You want to fill your canoe with the proper animals with bonuses for mushrooms and plants (one per canoe of each is allowed), and those must be in the canoe BEFORE it fills with the needed animals.  As soon as a canoe is filled, you add up its points, double them, and that's how much $$ you receive.  You also earn a bonus chit for final scoring that equals the value of some of the higher-value canoes.  Animals/plants/mushrooms that aren't in a canoe at the end of the game are negative valued (turn in $$ equal to the value on the tile) and canoes that are empty are minus however many animals they were supposed to hold.  Incomplete canoes score, but aren't doubled.  There are those bonus chit which provide a 12/8/5/3/1 bonus.

It's quick, fairly fun, but definitely luck-based given the discovery aspect of the game.  I enjoyed it, but don't know that I'd have to buy it.

OK, that's a less-than-quick rundown of what's up for today.  Hope you're enjoying these!

Doug