The Mine Shaft Gap

September 6, 2009: Games
Venue: Paul’s place
Present: Alex, Jeff, Richard, Paul
Played: Roll Through the Ages, La Strada, Street Illegal, Shark.

Small group again tonight, with Father’s Day and other commitments in place. Pictures should be decent for this session, but circumstances see me out of touch with the camera until Thursday, when I’ll try to upload them here.

Roll Through the Ages: After having it sit around for a few weeks I finally get to play this one! Yes, it’s dice rolling like Yahtzee, but the food management, developments and monument building works for me in adding theme. And the etched/stamped wooden dice are nice, too.
I will say that I agree with some of the post-game critical discussion, suggesting some imbalance in monument scores, especially those in the lower range, and also that a race to five developments seems to make for a truncated game experience. But overall, great.
15 mins rules; 41 mins game time.
Results: Jeff: 23. Paul: 17. Richard: 8. Alex: 6.

La Strada: First playing of the set picked up for me by Pat for a bargain. And first playing for both Richard and. Jeff. And first playing for me and Alex for what could be 5-10 years…
Place road tiles to join city, town and hamlet connections to your network, blocking access to your opponents while trying to work around their plays. As Al remarked, it’s bit like a trimmed-down Magna Grecia, and certainly plays well with 4p. I can see the 2p rules being pulled out for family sessions in the near future too.
9 mins rules & setup; 35 mins game time.
Results: Alex (yellow): 26. Paul (black): 22. Jeff (brown): 20 (+1r). Richard (grey): 20 (+0).

Street Illegal: The old Fette Autos car racing card game. My “Moonlight” character immediately made me think of “Fez” from That Seventies Show.
I can see all my bad judgment calls in hindsight, but sorry - I just don’t love this. I suck every time I play, and rarely feel that I have any meaningful control. Maybe I should have been ditching cards more often…
15 mins rules refresher and setup; 65 mins game time.
Results: Alex wins. Jeff 2nd, with a close challenge on the last straight. Richard 3rd, but behind an Old Pro. Then another two Old Pros before me, Fez, in last place.

Shark: Care of Pat I got this in the bargain batch with La Strada. This is the original Shark, not the re-born version with the different board, rules set and little building pieces. This game panned out as all about day-trading and little by way of medium- to long-term investment. Those that risked it a little fared better than those who stuck with the fast in-and-out strategy, with Richard cashing in big towards the end with his big yellow acquisitions.
One of the funniest, most engaging and enjoyable game plays I’ve had for a long time, even if it did run for nearly half an hour longer than any of us were expecting!
10 mins rules; 80 mins game time.
Results: Richard: 291. Paul: 288. Jeff: 125. Alex: 114.