My friend, Eric, is finally getting his game published. Now, I'll admit that I'm not the best game player. For me to enjoy a game I have to 1) not crush my opposition, 2) not feel like I'm losing all the time, and 3) still feel like there was a challenge. I tend to play a lot of card and word games as a result, because I already have most of the learning curve in my bones. It is also why I enjoy Bridge so much. I certainly am not a master bridge player after all.
Eric is different. I am not sure that there isn't a game he won't play at least once and he is an awesome player and teacher of games. I don' make it to his game nights, because I haven't perfected my ability to go south of Boston, feed and walk the dog, and then go north of Boston in under 2 hours. I also haven't really perfected the life built on no sleep no matter what it might look like. I didn't get to play this game during the pre-production phase, but my husband did as one of the play testers.
Last night Chris and I broke open his copy and set the pieces up. Games are pretty short; 8 turns for a full length game took us including set up time and reading the instructions under 45 minutes. I had a bit of a problem with the learning curve. Like Othello, this game is easy to play but hard to master. Needless to say I lost! Maybe I'll cream my husband next time we play!
1. Time for scoring!, 2. Chris is playing Red, 3. What's in the box, 4. Nice box, wanna play?
Eric has a Kickstarter campaign in order to get funds to make a larger print run and cover more of the printing costs up front. If you like strategy games or territory control games, then this would be a great fit for your game library. It is nice to have a little quick pick me up game in the collection, especially if you are like us and your games include Pandemic (fairly quick), Thurn and Taxis (relatively speedy), Dungeon of Dorukan (long), and Talisman (super long).
Required warning: I'm one of Eric's friends, but I receive no $ or other tangibles for writing about the game on the blog.