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November 06, 2007

Essen 07 Releases

Got to play a number of the Essen 07 Releases over the weekend and enjoyed almost all of them.

The one I had been most looking forward to was Tom Lehmann's Race for the Galaxy which I had played and really enjoyed a couple of times in prototype with Tom at David's house. The released version looks great and was really fun to play and all three of us quite enjoyed it. Still, the learning curve for the icons is definitely going to be a factor for brand new players and I hope people stick with it because I expect they will be easy to remember after a couple of games. I still really like San Juan and don't think this will replace it for me although will probably play this one more. Both are 8+ and definite buys for me.

The game I was most surprised by how much I enjoyed was Galaxy Trucker, which is kind of a timed puzzle game of ship building (similar to Factory Fun in this phase but major differences too) followed by a semi-random adventure game, where you will do better in the second part based on how well you did the puzzle aspect. I thought the whole thing quite cool and will likely buy this. My only concern is that the person with a ship that is only a small amount better may end up doing significantly better in the adventure phase as the other person takes more damage in an escalating way. Anyway, fun and pretty and my kind of game.

Gipsy King is an area placement game where one is constantly making the choice of putting down more pieces vs. important pieces (quantity or quality) and works quite well but I just didn't find it that exciting.

Cash & Guns: Yakuza without the special powers felt pretty much just like the regular game, although I was one of the Yakuza and they seem just plain weaker than the regular characters so kind of think one should use the special powers to try to balance this back a bit. Despite this, our Yakuza team won. Its a good party game but just not really my thing. The team aspect of Yakuza (we had 3 teams of 3) did help some for me and made decisions a bit more interesting.

Amyitis is the new Ystari game (makers of Caylus) and feels like it will appeal to the people who like Caylus. The fact that you can do a fair amount with only 2 different action types I found impressive and good. However, this feels like it is a style of game which I don't like very much (Caylus is also in this category) where the game often feels more painful than fun as you have a plan and then the guy in front of you takes the thing you need (not in a 'take that' way - just that he also wants it) and so you are constantly having to adjust to bad things happening. So the game certainly works very well and may be popular but just isn't my thing.

Cheeky Monkey is an animal-themed game similar to Zirkus Flohcatti but with tons of stealing of animals from the other players. I thought the level of stealing, at least with 6 players, was just too much and almost totally random but still enjoyed the one play.

Master of the Rules feels like a trick-taking game but isn't. Has a lot in common with Was Sticht? in that people on each round are going for different goals and that you can, if your memory is a lot better than mine, know the cards in other players hands. I would happily play this again but probably won't try to buy it, although I think Matt and some others in his group would like it so might try to pick up a copy for him.

There was one abstract game vaguely similar to Ricochet Robot that we played that I didn't like but I think maybe we had a rule or two wrong and I am not sure of the exact name but was only dud of the day.

Oh, I also played the new 1960: Making of the President last week with David and quite enjoyed it. Does feel much like Twilight Struggle but somewhat simpler and significantly shorter. I like both and would play either but probably won't buy either so rating around 7.

Posted by aarondf at November 6, 2007 02:09 PM

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