Games, Games, Games!

So this past weekend I joined a bunch of my California friends for Summer Spiele. It's a private get together where we meet at a hotel, reserve one of their meeting rooms, and play board games the whole weekend. Nerdy as it may sound, it's a great deal of fun. It's also perfect for me, because it gives me a chance to catch up with all of my friends from L.A. in one spot, while simultaneously having fun playing games.

Over the course of three days, I played 22 unique games, 13 of which were new to me. Some highlights:

Metropolys: This was the game that I was most curious about, and I was fortunate enough to get to play it twice. It's a bidding/area control game with a very unique mechanic. Players place bidding pieces on a map, and each subsequent bid is put on a new, adjacent location. This forms a little trail, so the winning bid is often quite far from the initial one. Everyone also has private goals for certain colors or combinations of locations. At first, I was bothered by the seemingly distracting artwork, but you get used to it rather quickly, and then you can appreciate the beauty of it better. The game required some thought, but wasn't too heavy. It's definitely risen on my want list.


Tinner's Trail: I had only just heard about this from my friend Mark's podcast "Boardgames to Go" a few days earlier. Ordinarily, I probably wouldn't have been interested. But since my home group often shies away from the more complex games, I thought I should give it a shot. I really liked it! It simulates mining tin and copper in southern England at the turn of the century. Exciting, no? Actually, it was. Each player has to manage the cost of extracting ore, time the acquisition of new equipment or property, and try to sell at the highest price. There were a lot of different factors that all seemed to integrate very well as a game and with the theme. I would love to try it again, but who knows when I'll get the opportunity.

Schnappchen Jagd: A perfect little trick-taking game for three. Sadly, this one is long out of print, so it will cost me a pretty penny to get a copy. Each player begins the game by picking a number they hope to collect (like 6). They'll get a point each time they take a trick that has a 6 in it. Unfortunately, they'll receive negative points for each card that isn't a 6. However, at the end of each round, players have the option of clearing out their junk pile. This reduces their negative points, but also gives the option of switching to a new number. My description doesn't do it justice, but it was really quite an interesting concept. Sometimes you could score more by taking "trash" than by pursuing your target number. The best part is that the "theme" of the game is junk collecting! Each card value is represented by a cartoonish smiling item of junk like a hairdryer or toaster. A really fun little game that I will try to get my hands on (although I bet the game could be played with other specialty decks).