My game list for study

Skeye, I probably won't get to Settlers before you in fact it may be a wile. If you or anybody wants to say some words about a specific title on the list, go for it.

Oh I mean the LTR by Reiner Knizia.

Today I want to say something about a couple elegant games I own. They're not on the list but I am beggining to understand games more that I play more of them and am realising what I like and don't like in games.

Carcassonne, was my introduction to euro-games and is vary abstract. Even though it is vary popular, I have not had much fun with this one. I think it's because it is too abstract for my taste. If I was on a train and it was all I had to do and the passanger next to me just happened to know it well, I could see enjoying it. But, that is unlikely because I always have a pack of playing cards on me and would rather play gin rummy. Anyway the theme in it is vary weak and doesn't seem to have any dramatic elements to it that I like. I supose it has strategy to it though. Okay enough about that, let's get to the good stuff.

Dread Pirates, is a game I have been studieing lately. At first I was a little doubting of how much fun I could have with it being that it has a lot of random elements. I was wrongo in the congo. I have lots of fun with this elegant game. I marvel at the elegance. The basic rule set is about seven pages long. Two more pages of optional advanced rules, which make the game more fun. Now, with all the randomness, I wonder how much players are really in control of the outcome of the game. As an aside, I don't beleave in randomness at all. I am almost certain that there is no such thing as truly random events.

What this game does have that I just love is many great dramatic elements and great choices of engagement. I absolutely love some of the rules like "despiration gamabit", which gives a losing player a fighting chance "chance", at winning. This is cool! THe game ends when all the treasure from the four ports has been collected. If a player is in the lead and sailing for the last two juels on the map, joly roger flag blazeing, the other players can gang up on him. A losing player can potentialy steal the winning players treasure and status and totally turn the game around for himself. These scurmishes at the end of the game I particularly love because the game can be prolonged. I feel when the game is drawing to a close, I don't want it to end. I am studying this game a lot because it's fun and elegant and simpler for me to understand.

Again, I don't really know how much control players have. It could be a percieved control. I wouldn't know unless I played in lots of group play. I have been playing this one alone controling all four players and still have lots of fun. Interestingly, in four successive games, one of each ship color won the game once each.

Okay, I found this great looking game called Tomb. I'm usually finding games that have something that I have wanted to do in my game. Especially games that are out of the norm. Tomb has a cool feature that we've talked about on threads relating to my board. It has a double sided dungioun board, plus another smaller board that I have yet to understand. If ever my idea for a double sided game board was in question, perhaps I will be inspired by this game. The other feature that looks really cool is it uses lots of different characters for the player to choose from in the form of high quality chits.