Don't Just Take My Word - Acquire and Hey! That's My Fish

I recently ran across a couple of other opinions on Acquire and Hey! That's My Fish.  They both get high praise, but I will let you see for yourself:

Acquire Review:
http://www.boardgameinfo.com/review/15/15397/

Hey! That's My Fish Review:
http://theboardgamefamily.com/2011/05/have-a-fun-penguin-battle-hey-that%E2%80%99s-my-fish/

It's Your Move!

More Economic Game for Your Money: Acquire

If you want to challenge me in a game (other than chess), this is it.  Why?  Because I will always play, and I always lose.  I don’t recall ever winning a game of Acquire.  It isn’t a difficult game, but I haven’t found a winning strategy.  In fact, most games of Acquire in our gaming group are won by the same player – Kay’s brother.

2008 Edition (photo by sbiliby)

Nonetheless, this game is the only game (again, other than chess) that I have rated a “10” on BoardGameGeek.  My definition of a “10” (quoted from my profile on BGG) is:

I have loved these games for a long time. I expect to always love them. If I am ever forced to live in a retirement community with a closet for a room, I will make sure I somehow have a copy of these games with me.

Acquire definitely fits; I am always stoked to play.  Like Monopoly, it is a game about making money in the hotel business.  The rules are about the same in complexity, though very different mechanically.  Where Acquire beats Monopoly is in game length and player participation.

In Acquire, each player has a “hand” of tiles and some money.  Tiles placed on the game board during play abstractly represent the growth of various hotel chains.  On your turn, you will select a tile from your “hand” and place it on the board, generally creating or growing a hotel chain.  After placement of the tile, you may buy up to three stock certificates of any hotel chains on the board.  No one actually “owns” a hotel chain, just stock certificates.  At times, the tile being placed will connect two hotel chains.  At that point, a merger occurs, with the smaller hotel incorporated into the larger.  The player owning the most stock in the smaller chain gets a big bonus and the player with the second most a smaller bonus.  All players have the option of selling the stock they own in the incorporated hotel chain to generate income.  Play continues until one of the end game conditions is met; generally the game is played until one hotel chain reaches a size of 41 tiles.  At that point, all assets are converted to cash, and the player with the most money wins.

1968 Edition in play (photo by Matthew Gray)

Note that there is no die rolling.  The key to the game is having an idea of what hotel chains your opponents are interested in growing, and predicting which hotels will merge and which will grow based on that information.  Should you capitalize on that information, and try to gain one of the top two stock owning spots for that chain, or should you try to build your own chain?  Is there a middle ground?  Don’t ask me!  Remember I lose!

1968 Edition (photo by toh!)

That’s the game in a nutshell.  The rules are not much more complex than Monopoly.  The decisions are far more varied and interesting.

Acquire, however, plays in roughly 90 minutes.  It is not the four hour marathon Monopoly can be.  Turns are relatively short.  Often, players are involved even when it isn’t their turn due to the mergers.  Players are engaged the whole time.

Let me rephrase that: All players are involved the whole time.  There is no player elimination in this game, which is another huge improvement over Monopoly.  In fact, if Acquire were to be premiered today, it would be labeled a European style game.  It has no player elimination and is somewhat abstract.  With money acting as the victory points, the game has mid-game scoring (mergers) and end game scoring (final tallying of assets).  While I am not a huge fan of the thematic abstraction that Euros tend to be designed on, it seems to fit here.  After all, trading in stocks seems to be a little abstract in the real world, too.  However, Acquire was originally published in 1962 by 3M (imagine that!) before Euros were big in the US, and was pretty unique at that time.

One point Acquire loses to Monopoly is in number of players.  For any meaningful interaction to occur, the game requires three players.  There are two-player variants online at BoardGameGeek, and they work pretty well, but it’s not the same.  Additionally, this game might not engage the kids, even though they might grasp the rules.  For casual gaming and families with kids over 10, it will be great.

1999 Edition (photo by andreo)

One note about purchasing:  The current version of Acquire can be purchase at a game store, either brick-and-mortar or online.  However, older 3M versions (particularly the 1968 version) can often be found on eBay or in thrift stores for a bargain.  The components are somewhat different – some say better – but the game play is exactly the same.  So if you tend to haunt those places anyway, it may be worth your while to look for a copy.  If you find the 1999 version for a reasonable price, you found a treasure!  (And please let me know!)

Vital Statistics:

Acquire

                Ages:                     12 and up

                Time:                     90 minutes

                Players:                 3-6

It’s Your Move!

Mass Market – Monopoly

Promotional Image

Every month I try to take one posting to talk about a mass market game.  This month is Monopoly; do I really need to review this game?  Yes, Monopoly is worth looking at, since it is such an influential game in society.  Granted, Prince William and Prince Harry weren’t allowed to play it, but so many people are familiar with the game that idioms such as “Do not pass Go” have sprung from it.  However, Monopoly does suffer from several problems:  a) the game is long and has player elimination, b) house rules extend the length of the game and c) there are better economic/real estate games to play.  It’s sort of like cheese pizza.  It’s never bad, but there are better things to eat.

Player elimination in a long game is just a bad idea.  If Monopoly is the chosen for of entertainment for the evening, people are guaranteed to be sitting around with nothing to do but watch at some point.  After a few hours, one or two players will be eliminated, with a few hours to go before the winner is declared.  Worse, this is a game that telegraphs the ending.  So often you know who win before the game is actually over, leading to everyone being bored in the end game.

Our other version.  (Image by Dean)

The problem is magnified by house rules, both intentional and unintentional.  Intentional house rules are things like money in Free Parking.  This is actually against the written rules, but many people include these house rules as an attempt to solve the player elimination problem.  The catch is that it just prolongs the inevitable; players eventually have to be eliminated for someone to win.  It surprises most people, but there are unintentional house rules too.  The most common one is the rule that landing on a property is the only way to buy it.  According to the official rules, however, if the player who lands on a property chooses not to buy it, the bank puts it up for auction.  This should speed up the game, since the properties will be sold sooner.  However, I know that I have never personally played in a game where that rule was followed.

A Monopoly spin off that is supposedly pretty good.

Let’s take a moment and talk about ways to speed the game up.  First of all, get rid of all house rules.  Demand that debts are always paid in full; no one gets off light to stay in the game.  If the game still needs to move faster, the official rules suggest shuffling the properties and dealing them out.  Of course, that could set up an uneven game from the start.  Hasbro tournament rules put a 90-minute or two hour time limit on games.  In these rules, the winner is determined by adding up all assets at the end of the game.  Somehow, none of these ideas seems to be particularly satisfying.  I have another idea, though some people won’t like it.  Play a different board game.

I will suggest two real estate games to replace Monopoly.  The first is For Sale.  I haven’t played this game yet, (but it is high on my list) so I won’t review it in any way.  It’s worth mentioning solely on its reputation.  The game is for 3 − 6 players ages 8 and up.  (The BoardGameGeek entry is here.)  It plays in 20 minutes.  The other is Acquire, which is one of my favorite games.  I will review it next time, so you will have to wait a couple of days for the details.  Both are currently in print.

Of course, if you love Monopoly, than by all means play it!  There is a saying amongst amateur astronomers, “The best telescope isn’t the one with the best optics, it’s the one you will use the most.”  The same goes for everything else in life, including the games you play.  After all, there is a reason Monopoly has been around since 1933!

It’s Your Move!

The Pocket Fishermen – Hey! That’s My Fish

My version - Mayfair standard edition (Photo by Neven Rihtar)

Okay, this game won’t actually fit in your pocket.  My version probably could if you repackaged it and, well, had somewhat larger pockets.  (The box was sized to be visible on the shelf, which makes it larger than really needed.)  That’s not the point though.  The fact is that this is one of those games that every family should own.  I will review why I believe in this game, the one big downfall it has, and the three different versions (as of today’s announcement).

Hey! That’s My Fish (H!TMF) is a very simple game to learn.  In reality, it is an abstract game, with perfect information.  As such, it would provide a great stepping stone for games such as chess.  Chess has three primary strategic elements: time (who has the initiative), space (including freedom to move) and material (who has the most valuable set of pieces on the board).  H!TMF has two of those three elements, time and space.  Since everyone has the same number of pieces that all behave the same way, material is not an issue.  The theme really isn’t present, but does make for a cute presentation.

Photo by Chris Norwood

How does it play?  Sixty hexagonal tiles are laid out in rows, making the “board”. Each player takes a turn initially placing his or her penguins on tiles.  After penguins are placed, players take turns moving their penguins in one of the six directions through the sides.  After a penguin has moved, the owning player collects the penguin’s start tile from the board, leaving a hole.  Penguins can move as far as they want until they either run into another penguin or a hole, at which point they stop.  The game is over when no one has a legal move left.  Each tile has one to three fish on it, and each player counts the fish on the tiles they collected.  The player with the most fish wins.

H!TMF  is simple enough for your average 5 year-old to play.  However, it's a GREAT game for any age! Your little one will understand what they are doing, but the strategy is a bit deeper.  When I really love it is when the kids leave the table and the gloves can come off.  About halfway through the first adult game, most people have The Great Light come on, and they realize this is pretty vicious as everyone tries to cut their opponents off and strand them in a corner.  A vicious little abstract that plays up to four people in 20 minutes – I’m all over that!

It is this simple game play and cute figures that leads to the one real issue H!TMF  has.  My 13 year-old sees this and thinks of it as just a “kid’s game”.  Most people do not see it that way, but I can see how a young adult might want to separate themselves from it.  So, while it is a great family game, and I can’t say that enough, not everyone in the family will rave over it.  Though that’s probably true for any game.

The game publishing house Fantasy Flight Games just announced that they have obtained the rights to H!TMF, and will publish their version later this year.  It has previously been published by Mayfair games in two different versions: the standard version and a “deluxe” version with cute plastic figurines.  All of the versions play the same way, but the artwork is a little different.  Fantasy Flight puts a lot of effort into game components, so this will undoubtedly be a great edition to own.

H!TMF Deluxe (Promotional image from Mayfair Games)

2011 Version from Fantasy Flight (Promotional image by Fantasy Flight)

Fantasy Flight also announced that H!TMF apps will be available for both iPhones and Android phones.  The Android app will be $4.99, and it would be natural to guess the iPhone app will be priced similarly.  That’s an app I probably will skip, primarily because I am cheap, and chess and Words for Friends is the limit of my mobile gaming.

The board version though, is a must own for me.  Here are the vital statistics:

Hey! That’s My Fish

                Ages:                     8 and up (perhaps as low as 5)

                Time:                     20 minutes

                Players:                 2-4  

 It’s your Move!

Saving Humankind from Death and Disease: Pandemic

http://zwischen-zug.blogspot.com/p/gaming-glossary.html#Coop

Pandemic (image from Z-man Games)

Our gaming group, which will meet this Sunday, is regularly beaten by the game, Pandemic.  That’s right, the game beats us.  As I mentioned in the session report after last month’s game day, Pandemic is a cooperative game, where everyone is playing as a team against the game mechanisms, trying to cure the world of diseases that are threatening to wipe out the human race.  For each of the past several months, we have played this game once the group has whittled down to four players, which is the most that the game can support.  In over 25 plays, I have only been part of a winning team a handful of times.  However, in nearly every loss we have been incredibly close to winning, which is what keeps us coming back.  (Well, there was one game that went very, very badly and very, very quickly, ending with a crushing defeat in about 10 minutes.)

This game is widely regarded as a fantastic game.  On BoardGameGeek, it is ranked #4 in family games, and ranked in the top 50 for strategy games (“thinky” games) and in the overall ranking.  Everyone I personally have played it with loves it.  There are several reasons why I think this should be one of the first games anyone should own: it’s almost universally appealing theme, the ease of play, and the fact that it is a co-op.

The Roles (Photo by Richard van Vugt)

Many people enjoy having some theme, some plot line, to the game they are playing.  However, not everyone likes to play a ruthless tycoon trying to make money at the expense of others.  I understand that.  Not everyone wants to play the heroic leader of the forces of good defending against the evil horde of malicious creatures that I, AND I ALONE, COMMAND!  Yeah… this one I have trouble understanding.  But it is what it is.  Nearly everyone loves the idea of saving world, the real world, from the brink of disaster, and Pandemic allows the players to do just that.  The theme is reinforced by the different role each player has, which allow him or her to contribute to the team in different ways.  For instance, the Scientist role allows a player to find cures for diseases more easily and quickly.  The Medic, on the other hand, can treat diseases more easily.  It’s easy to see how these two can play off of one another, and the other roles similarly give each player a different way to help.  There are five roles, but a maximum of four players.  As a result, there are five different combinations of roles in a four player game, and many more combinations when the game is played with fewer players.  The game plays well with any number of players up to four; it even makes a pretty good solo game.

It's the end of the world as we know it! (Photo by Chris Norword)

The game is very easy to play.  Each player gets four actions per turn, which include moving in various ways, curing a disease if they have the right hand of cards, treating diseases, exchanging information (cards), and building research stations.  After playing their four actions, the player draws two cards.  Lastly, the player acts as “the infector” spreading the diseases a little bit.  Sounds simple enough, but there are terribly bad things that can happen.  First of all, whenever a disease reaches a certain level in a city, there is an outbreak, which infects surrounding cities.  If those cities then are above the threshold, they outbreak in a chain reaction.  Furthermore, when drawing new cards, a player can draw an “Epidemic” card, which puts infected cities at additional risk, making outbreaks more likely.  The net result is that once bad things start to happen, they tend to accelerate, which keeps the team of players on edge and forces a coordinated effort to win!

My last reason for whole-heartedly recommending Pandemic is the nature of cooperative games themselves.  As a style of play, co-op games are still relatively uncommon, and offer new players a fresh look at gaming.  Because co-ops are a team effort, the game lends itself to bringing along both new players and younger players.  Discussion amongst players is allowed, and even necessary.  Furthermore, since everyone wins or loses as a team, children tend to be less heartbroken, and can learn as the adults around the table (hopefully!) deal with the loss gracefully.  In fact, there are lots of lessons about healthy interplay that can be learned in this style of game.  That said, I have to admit the nature of co-op games makes them difficult games to play with very controlling or very passive people.  Neither person contributes equally with the rest of the team.  Either can make for a bad situation; control freaks can absolutely destroy the game experience.  This is the one drawback, though even this can also provide a lesson to a controlling or demanding child.

Pandemic is a great game.  It is right up there with my top games, both in how I rate it and in number of plays.  Your family and friends can save the world together in an easy to play game in about an hour; I am confident this will make it one of your favorite games.  Our local Barnes and Nobles are now carrying it for roughly $35.00 (USD), so it is getting easier to find.  Even at full price, the high number of plays for me means the game has yielded an entertainment value of $1.25/hr, and I am ready for more plays!  I cannot recommend this game enough!

Vital Statistics:

Pandemic

                Ages:                     10 and up (perhaps as low as 7 due to the co-op nature)

                Time:                     60 minutes

                Players:                  1-4 

 

It's Your Move!

Mass Market Monkey-business: Bananagrams

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about Scrabble and the fact that it really isn’t a vocabulary game.  This time I will cover a game that really is about your ability with words: Bananagrams.  I generally don’t like word games, with Scrabble being a rare exception.  Bananagrams turns out to be another exception.  I like how easy it is to learn, how fast it plays, and the fact that it lends itself to secret handicaps.  All of this makes the game one of those rare finds; it’s a mass-market game that really is fun!

Bananagrams promotional image

The game is incredibly easy to learn.  All of the tiles are placed face down in the middle of the table; this is called the “bunch”.  Each player draws a preset number of tiles from the bunch based on the number of players: usually eleven.  Someone calls “go!”, and everyone flips over their tiles and builds a crossword out of them.  When someone completes their crossword, they call “peel!”, and everyone draws another tile.  If you have a tile that is giving you trouble, you may call “dump!” and exchange it for three other tiles.  As letters are added, a player’s words can be disassembled and reassembled, completely rearranging their crossword.  This continues until the tiles in the bunch number less than the number of players.  The first person then done with their crossword is the winner.  There, I taught you the game!  See how easy that was!

The game plays just that fast, too.  It really falls into that category of games known as “speed games”, which tend to be short and center on getting some task completed first, or beating the clock.  (The classic example from my childhood is Perfection.)  My wife and I were judging Destination Imagination a few weeks ago, and finished two games during the half hour lunch break with other judges who had never played before.  The short playing time of this game means that those who need to be sucked in encouraged can play a game that doesn’t last long enough to be painful if they don’t like it.  You will be amazed at how fast an hour or two can go by in twenty minute increments!

Of course, this is where the language skills come into play, which reveals the biggest fault this game has.  Anyone with good language skills will outshine someone with lesser skills.  An adult will outshine a child; a writer will outclass a mathematician.  Since words only have to be two letters long, someone with good word skills can just capture the initiative and keep “peeling”, completely disrupting other players and maintaining the lead.  However, this is where the secret self-handicapping comes into the game.  An adult playing Bananagrams with a child could decide to make nothing less than three letter words to help level the playing field, without letting the child know.  My wife’s favorite secret handicap is to refuse to dump any letters, and live with what she draws.  However it’s done, it is an easy game from which to eliminate any inherent advantages.

I rate Bananagrams as just as a-peel-ing (sorry, it just had to be done!) as Scrabble.  On top of everything else, it is readily available in stores around town, and prices at roughly $15.00 (USD), and can play a bunch of people (okay, I’ll stop!), which makes it almost must have for your game library.  I will say that it is not good for the under 10 crowd, since their word skills are just not developed enough. 

Here’s the vital statistics:

Bananagrams

                Ages:                     7 and up (though I would tend to say 9 at the youngest)

                Time:                     15 minutes

                Players:                  1-8 (but really best with 3-5 players)

And it travels well too!

Mass Market Myth – Scrabble (it’s really not about vocabulary)

I am playing my first game of Word for Friends since its release on Android based phones.  (For those of you who don’t know, Words for Friends is a Scrabble knock-off for smartphones.)  My first game is against a friend of mine who rarely loses.  With sixteen letters left in “the bag”, I am up by 41 points.  I can give the toughest Scrabble program a run for its money.  The reason is that Scrabble is not about vocabulary!  It’s a strategy game.  It’s not about knowing fifteen words that have a Q and no U.  Scrabble is really about four things: making sure you occupy the bonus squares and your opponent does not, creating multiple words at the same time, understanding the power of small words, and knowing when to dump the high value letters.

So here is the disclaimer.  I do recognize that knowing a lot of words does help, as does knowing a bunch of words that start with J or have an X.  I am not saying those abilities are bad.  You probably need all that and more if you want to play at the tournament level.  I am just saying that you can be a very competitive player amongst your friends and family, even those Scrabble fans, by realizing that Scrabble is a strategy game!

The first strategic concept is to take all of the bonus squares, and in particular the triple word squares.  It’s pretty obvious.  Scoring big points this way is good offense, but more than that it’s good defense.  By denying your opponent those squares, you suppress their score.  It’s even more important in a multi-player game, since it holds everyone back, and allows you more control of the game than you have by just aiming for big scores.  Like many games, a player’s ability to control a Scrabble game is lessened with each additional player, and this is a way to combat that effect.

The future of Scrabble?

Creating multiple words at the same time is accomplished by saving the S and D tiles for making plural words and past tense verbs.  I will say it another way: never use an S, and only rarely a D, in a word that does not connect it to another that already exists on the board.  Adding one of these letters to any existing word allows you to score not only your word, but all of the letters in the existing word again!  The joining letter counts in each word.  You don’t get any of their bonus squares, but this is still incredibly powerful!  It allows you to capitalize on your opponents’ vocabulary.  When they play “quark” for a double word score, you can get half of their points for yourself by using an S to make “quarks” in the process of forming another word. 

Use small words.  My wife calls me the king of cheap words.  That’s because I will regularly play some small word to link other words or to gobble up a bonus square – preferable both!  I will admit there are some tricks here that are worth knowing.  Realize that every spelling of a letter’s name is a valid word.  The name of the letter M is spelled “em”.  That’s a word in Scrabble.  It’s in the dictionary (even if my spell checker just flagged it!) For that matter, so are all of the Greek letters, psi, phi, beta and the like.  Greek letters can be used to dump those pesky I’s that clutter up your hand of tiles.  The one, and only one, “Q without a U word” I know is “qat”.  Don’t ask me what it means, I don’t know and don’t care.  All I know is that getting an A and a T is fairly easy, and will help me score the Q.  Beyond that, I use cheap every day words: “the”, “its”, “in”, “on”.  Whatever it takes.

In combination, these three can be very powerful, as I will illustrate.  Our opponent, Dr. Evil, has just played “quell” on a double word score for 28 points, breaking out in his most diabolical “Mwu-ha-ha-ha” laugh as he gloats over his cleverness.  Nonplussed, we play “psi” across the bottom, using the S to connect it in and making “quells” in the process.  The I in “psi” also falls on the triple word score, giving us a total of 30 points!  (“Quells” makes 15 points, and the triple on “psi” is 15 also.)  Dr. Evil snarls and goes back to thinking his dark thoughts and breathing his foul breath over his tiles.  (So I like fantasy themed games, is that a problem?)  If the S would have been gracious enough to fall on the triple word score, both words would have been tripled, for a score of 60!

Lastly, keep in mind that dumping a high value letter late in the game, particularly the Q or the Z, can cause a big shift in the end of game scoring: 20 points for each of those two letters.  Players cannot trade in tiles once there are less than seven in the bag.  Just before that point, take that troublesome letter and trade it in!  In a two player game, there is a 50% chance you will give that problem to your opponent, and too late in the game for them to use the letter effectively.  In a four player game, there is a 75% chance someone else will pick it!  So if you can’t use the letter for your benefit, use it to smack your neighbor!

Hopefully, I have shown you that Scrabble isn’t a vocabulary game, it’s a strategy game.  Occupying bonus squares, making multiple words, using small words, and dumping troublesome letters late in the game will help you beat that Scrabble fanatic in the family.  Working on strategic play rather than big words will improve your score.  I realize now that I have shared all of my secrets, I will never win again.  Oh, the things I sacrifice for my readership!  I guess it’s a good thing I like playing more than winning.  I will still play.  In fact, my username on Words for Friends is feldmafx if anyone is interested…

Keep rolling along!

Getting on Board with Ticket to Ride

Last month I said I would review Ticket to Ride, which is one of my go-to games for casual gaming. No one has ever told me they dislike it, and we often have people ask to play “the train game”. With it being recommended for ages 8 and up, which is accurate, it is accessible to many children. At the same time, it is definitely a game that will appeal to adults. The publisher, Days of Wonder, produces quality games that are solidly made with artistic components, making them a joy to play.

Welcome aboard! Ticket to Ride is the cross country adventure game set in Victorian America. You are travelling the United States, attempting to become the most travelled person in the country. You will be taking trains from city to city to claim the honor, trying to get to all of your given destinations before time runs out!

Photo by Manuel Pombeiro

The artwork in Ticket to Ride is reminiscent of the novel Around the World in 80 Days. In fact, the game play has some of that feel to it. Players play sets of cards attempting to “claim routes”, placing little passenger train cars on the routes between nearby cities. These claims score points, which will determine the winner. Additionally, each player has a few cards, called “destination tickets”, which give secret goals of connecting two cities that are not near each other; Los Angeles to Miami might be one destination ticket a player might have. The end of the game occurs when one player has essentially run out of little passenger cars to place. At the end of the game, those secret goals which have been completed add to the score; those goals which failed subtract. The person with the most points at the end of the final scoring is the winner!

Since only one person can claim each route between nearby cities, there are strategic opportunities to block, giving this game a little spice. That said, we have nearly always played Ticket to Ride as a “friendly” game, with confrontation happening incidentally as a result of trying to complete destination tickets, rather than overt attempts to block someone. It’s just as fun as a friendly game. The game is not complicated (though it’s not tic-tac-toe, either) and the strategy is not so complex that you are exhausted after play. I will say again that I have never met anyone that doesn’t like the game: kids and adults alike.

Ticket to Ride belongs to the genre of “Eurogames”, a style of gaming that originated in Germany. Unlike American designed games, Eurogames do not eliminate players. Everyone is in the game until the end. Typically, there is scoring during the course of the game, with a big set of points being awarded at the end of the game to finally determine the winner. The person leading up to the end isn’t safe; someone can certainly come from behind in the endgame scoring.

Be aware there are several versions of Ticket to Ride, including Ticket to Ride: Europe, Ticket to Ride: Märklin, and Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. I will recommend the original Ticket to Ride, with the United States map, since it is slightly simpler. However, any of them would be a great purchase. They are all loved by both casual gamers and the hobby gaming community.

Ticket to Ride: ages 8 and up, 45 minutes, 2-5 players.

3rd Sunday Gaming Group – February: Modern Art

Yesterday was our monthly gaming session. As you can guess from the name of our group, we normally meet the third Sunday of every month. In all, we played three games of three different titles for a total of nine games: No Thanks!, Pandemic and Modern Art. I only remember who won Pandemic; the game won two of three. Pandemic is the big brother to Forbidden Island; both are designed by Matt Leacock. They are both cooperative games and share some mechanics, though they have different storylines and feel differently. (At some point I will review Pandemic, though there are lots of reviews available on the web if you are really curious now.) No Thanks! I have previously discussed. 

Since there were only four of us, we were able to try something new to us: Modern Art. Players are art dealers who buy paintings from each other through different types of auctions. Each round, or “auction season”, will see four paintings from five artists auctioned. When the fifth painting hits goes to auction, the season is over. Those paintings are then sold back to the bank for money. After four auction seasons, the game is over, and the person with the most money wins.
 
Of course, we played it wrong the first two times, missing a small rule with a big impact. In fact, there aren’t really any complicated rules in this game. (I was reading too fast.) Each player has a hand of cards with paintings and the associated type of auction on them. The first player selects a painting to sell, and everyone, including the seller, generally has a chance to buy. The next player offers a painting, and the game continues. When the fifth painting hits the table, it is discarded and the season ends. 

Photo by Chris Norwood

The key to the game is this fifth painting and the way paintings are sold back to the bank. The fifth painting counts as a sold painting, even though no player auction takes place. (Think of it as being auctioned to a foreign collector, with proceeds going to charity.) Furthermore, since there can be double auctions with two paintings, the fifth painting may hit the table with the fourth, or with the sixth. In this case, these paintings are also discarded and counted as sold even though no money has changed hands. Remember, the paintings are each from one of five artists. The top three selling artists have a corresponding value assigned to their paintings, and all the paintings are sold back at those values. Four seasons are played, and the values add up over the course of the game, making some artists very valuable.

I know, this sounds pretty boring. I might not be able to express how much fun this is. First of all, some of the auction types allow the seller to manipulate the price of the painting. Furthermore, because with the fifth painting (and perhaps the fourth and sixth paintings) no money changes hands, they become a way to swing the value of paintings before they are sold. This forces a player to make tough decisions on what he or she thinks paintings will be worth at the end of the round, based on how much they can influence which artists are sold the most, and how many of those they own. Yet, there are no guarantees that someone might frustrate your plans by the end of the round. Having only played this once, we have only scratched the surface on the strategy, and I can’t wait to play more.

How is it for casual or family gaming? While the rules are fairly simple, there is quite a bit of “think” in this game. It won’t be hard to learn or teach, but the strategy is probably too much for kids, and it isn’t a theme that will appeal to kids either. It also may not appeal to those who like a light game or like chucking buckets of dice. On the other hand, a group or family that likes a thoughtful game without having to learn page upon page of rules will find this to be an excellent game.
My cautiously given rating is:

Roll on!