What I Played Today: March 29

Love Letter, Race for the Galaxy, Legends of Andor, Guillotine, A Fool's Fortune

They have finally gotten around to reprinted Love Letter, and I picked up a copy. Then I played a few rounds with some people who did not get the game and did not like it. Come on guys, it's filler. It's not supposed to be complicated.

Then a game of Race for the Galaxy, where I went full military and came in fourth, even though I had the most prestige and three of the 8+ military strength planets, which are worth a ton of points. I just don't know where I went wrong. Well, I didn't get the 6 cost technology that would have actually taken advantage of my insane military, so that might have been. Stupid Race.

Then we tried Legends of Andor, which is interesting! It has this odd time mechanic and no rulebook for some reason, but a lot of fun little pieces. There is this super weird part where if you move yourself, you can only move one space per hour, but if you move an ally, you can move up to four spaces in an hour. I guess it can be used to drive player interaction... Anyway, it became clear that we needed to fight this really strong super boss, and so we all got together and tried to beat the crap out of it, and we just had a series of really bad rolls and it didn't happen, and now everyone hates the game. Well, I don't hate the game, but apparently that doesn't matter.

A quick filler game of Guillotine, in which all four players got the exact number of points. It was...uncanny. I don't even know how that works.

Also finally got to try out A Fool's Fortune, which is a trick taking with a lot of weird rules and I don't know how to explain it to anyone. Apparently you make sets. I got a hand of all characters to start though, so I didn't start well, and it didn't end well for me. But I get the game now, seems like a fun two-player.

What I Played Today: February 13

Zombie Dice, Guillotine, Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar

Some game store hommieing, played a fast and loose game of Zombie Dice. This game is always fast and loose. It is almost impossible to care while you are playing it.

Guillotine is a really easy game where you play a card, and then you take a card, and whoever has the most points wins. There's a bit of a take that element, and you are almost guaranteed not to get the card you want, but hey, it's pretty fun for a gruesome theme. Definitely filler-y.

Then the main event: Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar. It's a worker placement game that uses time as a resource, and it does so with this super sweet set of gears. There are five individual gears that are all attached to a central gear. You place your workers on little slots on each gear. After each round, you turn the central gear and the workers move up to the next space in line. For your turn, instead of placing guys, you can remove guys to take the action of the space you are currently on. It is so damn neat, I just like playing it because the decisions are simple (kinda) and the feel of spinning the wheel each turn is really cool.

I won because I saw right away that the best strategy would be to please the gods, since the other methods of getting points (the jungle wheel and buying monuments) are expensive, while pleasing the gods is less reliable, but only takes time. I botched a couple of rules early on, (you aren't required to beg for more money, for example) but eventually we figured it out. I like it! The game just looks great and plays well enough.