Games Played: Pirateer, Space Beans, Acquire
Gamers: Sara, Lewis, Mark, Chip, Eric
Thanks to Mark for hosting.
Thanks to Lewis for providing transportation.
PIRATEER (0:14)
Sara: won
Lewis, Mark, Chip: lost
Just for the record, the designer wanted to call this game "Privateer", but gave in when more people called it "Pirateer". Ugh.
Players roll dice to move their three ships around. Landing on another ship "captures" it and removes it from play. The objective is to get return the treasure from the center of the map to your home port.
At fourteen minutes for a 4 player game, I think this game provides a good return on investment for time. There's not much to the game, but there are some choices to be made, and plenty of theme to make the time pass quickly. I'd play this again.
SPACE BEANS (1:00)
Sara: 22
Mark: 24
Eric: 25
Lewis: 29
Chip: 34
The "little brother" of Bohnanza, this game has a very different mechanic. There is a certain amount of inevitable downtime, as only one player has any cards in his or her hand at any point in the game. However, turns do move quickly.
Sara started with the "score lots of little beans quickly" strategy, but abandoned it halfway through the game.
I think with 5 players it could be possible to have two sets of cards making their rounds. This would make the game move a little quickly and shouldn't affect the game too much (unless two players go out at the same time). Otherwise, three players is possibly the optimal number to play this game.
ACQUIRE (1:17 + 0:10 rules and setup)
Mark: 23,400
Sara: 32,700
Lewis: 42,300
Chip: 48,400
Eric decided to sit this game out and read Harry Potter instead. Mark started predicting his own doom before his first turn. This continued for most of the rest of the game. In his defense, he turned out to be right.
I drew a very lucky hand of tiles, and was able to start new chains almost every turn. I didn't face any cooperative resistance from the other players, which was good for me, as I don't think I would have been able to defend all of my holdings. Sara was the majority holder in the biggest chain (Worldwide), with Lewis and I tied for second.
This is the first time I've won this game, and I feel that it was more due to lucky tile draws then any grand strategy on my part. Having said that, however, I did feel like I understood this game more then the previous times I've played.
PLUG: SOG is meeting at my house in Maynard next Monday at 7:00. Everyone is welcome, email me for directions.
posted by FlyingSheep @ 10:38 AM
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