The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Pat’s place
Present: Alex, Jeff, Brad, Rick D., Pat, Paula, Paul
Played: Vegas Showdown, Tobago, Galaxy Trucker, Ghost Stories, Ad Astra, Tabaijana, Corsaro, Bluff, Rails of Europe, Diamonds Club, Factory Manager, Pandemic, Race for the Galaxy, Keltis das Kartenspiel, Dominion Seaside, Apples to Apples.

The New Years Day gaming event at Pat’s place is beginning to emerge as the second most significant tradition on our gaming calendar (ConTrail being the first ;-). As an observer of traditions (the good ones, at least) I couldn’t let this one pass. While two of us got there at about 2:30pm, all the others in attendance had already been there for at least another 3 hours or so. Hence for the hard-core, we’re talking 13 hours straight of gaming, broken only by pizza and meta-gaming. Hello Twenty-ten!

Vegas Showdown: This one was already in progress when we arrived by the ‘first five’. No data – perhaps one of the participants can fill in the gaps here. And also, anything else that was played earlier…?
Played by: Pat, Alex, Brad, Jeff, Rick.

Tobago: Nifty new game I hadn’t seen before. Narrow down buried treasure locations, dig them up for points. Locations are narrowed through little reductive puzzles on the cards. Miniature ATVs, palm trees and idol statues add to the sense of theme (especially the idols!).
Pics from mobile phone camera here, so not so great.
20 mins rules and setup; 52 mins game time.
Results: Paula (green), Paul (red): 39. Pat (blue): 28. Jeff (yellow): 27.

Galaxy Trucker: Brad ends with a respectable score, but apparently this was not always the most likely outcome given the fate of his first ship…
68 mins.
Results: Alex: 79. Rick: 74. Brad: 70.

Ghost Stories: Next in the line co-operative games for this bunch.
70 mins.
Results: The team of Pat, Alex and Brad wins. Hooray. Apparently Alex wins the ‘ghost kill’, whatever that means.

Ad Astra: Another new one, this one being about space discovery, colonisation and economic growth. Guess the decisions of your opponents to maximise the timing of your own plays. I could have won, except for one play towards the end when I took the card points - I should have kept the water card for one final Terraformer build and a potential +5 points net on my score…
Nice game once you get used to all of the elements, but I’m not so sure about the alien artefact cards even though we were playing with a reduced set removing the game-deciding couple.
Pic from mobile phone camera.
18 mins rules and setup; 117 mins game time.
Results: Rick (blue): 76. Paul (red): 75. Paula (green): 69. Jeff (yellow): 66.

Tabaijana: An oldie I had only ever seen sitting on Pat’s game shelf, and apparently one of the first games to use the co-operative play objectives; ie., players working together against the game system.
About 25 mins incl. rules.
Results: The team of Pat, Alex and Brad win with 19 points (which seem a little meaningless in a cooperative game where the result is either a win or a loss…)

Corsaro: So this is apparently the ’sequel’ to Tabaijana – another co-op, this one with a South American pirates theme. Nice looking in spite of its apparent age.
Pic from mobile - maybe the best one tonight from this cam, even if a little two-dimensional.
About 30 mins total.
Again apparently won by the Pat, Alex and Brad team.

Bluff: A quick in-between-games game.
Less than 10 mins.
Brad the first victim, then Paul, Paula, Pat, Jeff, with Alex the victor.

Rails of Europe: Trainy goodness - the expansion to the M. Wallace Railroad Tycoon, but in Europe of course.
Good fun, nice looking, tricky, but too short.
Mobile phone cam pic.
20 mins rules and setup; 63 mins total game time, interrupted by a 25 min pizza break.
Results: Pat (blue): 59. Paul (green): 41. Alex (yellow): 28.

Diamonds Club: Played on the other table. Look how close the score were…
16 mins rules and setup; 80 mins game time.
Results: Brad (white): 66. Rick (blue): 64. Paula (green): 63. Jeff (red): 62.

Factory Manager: Another new one that from the box looks like a Power Grid expansion, but actually isn’t.
Some were saying that this was better than Power Grid. After one playing I’m not convinced. The decision-making may be as rich as PG, but it doesn’t feel so yet, nor as interesting. But, I’d like to give this another playing or two before dismissing it.
One pic from the mobile phone cam, the other, out-of-focus close-up is from the ‘good camera’.
26 mins rules and setup; 65 mins game time.
Results: Jeff (yellow): 154. Rick (blue): 152. Paula (green): 140. Paul (red): 133.

Pandemic: Apparently played with some variant (mutations?). Also at least the fourth co-op game played today.
55 mins.
Results: Alex, Brad and Pat lost against the disease.

Race for the Galaxy: The co-operators not co-operating for a change.
28 mins.
Results: Pat: 26+. Alex: 26. Brad 17.

Keltis das Kartenspiel: Exactly like Lost Cities TBG, but not exactly. Build sequences of cards, but an extra mechanism of bonus points for cards gained through playing pairs. This is an interesting addition, provided the distribution plays out ‘evenly’ (I don’t think it did in our case, with Brad and Paula picking up about 7 of the 8 bonuses between them). One key affect was to break the usual deadlock of no cards played into the discards pile – making for perhaps a more dynamic, but maybe less tense game.
5 mins rules; 25 mins game time.
Results: Brad: 19. Paula: 11. Paul: 9. Jeff: 7.

Dominion Seaside: New expansion for the most recent Spiel des Jahres winner. I can’t offer any more comment on this one. Maybe I will be able to do this after our next session.
About 65 mins for two games.
Results: Game 1: Rick: 38. Alex: 27. Pat: 19.
Game 2: Alex: 54. Pat: 43. Rick: 32.

Apples to Apples: This was supposed to be a short one to finish on while we waited for the Dominion boys to end up. Well, five minutes of silliness became half an hour, and…
31 mins.
Results: Jeff: 9. Paula, Brad: 8. Paul: 7.