A crafty gaming weekend

by Susan Rozmiarek

You may have come across Universal Head's excellent game rule summaries and player aides on BGG but did you know that they are all in one place on a website, Headless Hollow? I stumbled across the link when I was looking at StarCraft files. I went crazy and have been printing, cutting and laminating all weekend. Too bad I have no interest in applying these skills to a proper woman's hobby, scrapbooking. Some of my friends would be thrilled to find out that I was normal after all. :-)

Anyway, these summaries are great for quick rule refreshers when you decide to actually play a game that isn't new. There are some good player aides as well.

Besides all the crafty stuff, Ed and I also played a game, Kingsburg. It worked okay with just two, but there wasn't enough competition on the board even though the rules have you roll and place for two "dummy" players. Since they are automatically placed according to the total they roll, you don't have to consider how they could split their dice up as might a real player nor do they compete on the soldier track. Of course, that made it feel a little less frustrating and it eliminated a lot of the downtime that was present in the five player game that I played. I suspect that it will be best with three or four players. I really like the game. The clever dice mechanism makes it different from our 800 other games which is quite an achievement these days with all the new games being cranked out.

I must agree with the many of the posters on BGG that the component quality of the new edition of Through the Ages is very disappointing. The game ended up being $80 at the local store. It may be worth that price in game play, but the game itself looks like a $30 game. It's setting on a table right now next to StarCraft which has the same retail price and the difference between the two is appalling. Bland art, flimsy cards, and tiny wooden bits - they could have made this so much better. I think our next crafty game project will be making tuckboxes for the cards. The wells in the insert aren't deep enough and I'm afraid to use hair bands as they might damage the cards.

Posted by Susan Rozmiarek at February 10, 2008 11:32 PM