The Game Ranch: September 2007 Archives

September 27, 2007

R-Eco is not garbage

by Susan Rozmiarek

When I picked up the mail yesterday there were two boxes from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club rubber-banded together and addressed to Ed. The first one, obviously a decoy, contained several books by Glen Cook, one of Ed's favorite authors. Upon opening the second box, I found two.....romance novels?? What other dark secrets is this man hiding from me?!? *

On the topic of keeping the ~~romance~~ gaming alive, we are trying to revive our old tradition of playing a game on Wednesday nights even though we are usually very tired these days. Last week, I picked up a copy of R-Eco at our local game store after it got a thumbs- up from one of the picky regulars in our group. Until now, it had pretty much flown under my radar. Since we couldn't coax Shea from a new video game and Kevin had gone to bed right after dinner, a victim of his brutal early-morning/late-evening sport practice schedule, it was just Ed and me. We were a little wary of the fact that the two-player rule adjustments were tacked on to the end of rules like an afterthought, usually a bad sign. Happily, it played quite well. In fact, in contrast to Patrician getting a "not a bad filler" from me (but only with 3!), R-Eco, a game about garbage, gets a "that was excellent; let's play again!" Greg does a great job explaining the rules in his review if you are curious. While the game reminds me of 6 Nimmt and Poison with the forced taking of cards, it is not the same. In R-Eco you are trying to manage your hand within the five card limit and time your plays in order to win points while keeping within that limit. I found it to be a challenging balancing act and I did an incredibly bad job, losing to Ed with four points to his eight. I must play this one again soon.

Ed is taking the day off from work tomorrow and we are planning to work on some landscaping projects. I wonder if I can convince him to knock off early and pull out Battlelore. We keep buying all those darned expansions but have only played the game once.

*He's now off the hook as the box also contained paperwork addressed to a lady in Minnesota. Still.....

Posted by susanroz at 3:34 PM | Comments (4)

September 26, 2007

Time for a revival

by Susan Rozmiarek

My, my, this poor little blog certainly has been a victim of neglect. My daily schedule has consisted of way too much busyness and way too little sleep. As a result, playing games and writing about them have taken a backseat to just plain surviving and getting through the daily grind and all its responsibilities. All is not bleak though, and things should ease a bit around, oh, Thanksgiving if we are lucky. Gack. Thanks to a new laptop though, I can now spend my son's soccer practices at the library and perhaps revive this blog with that bit of extra time.

So, this blog post is coming to you from the Round Rock Public Library. My new laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1720. I don't know what that means in regards to the geeky details. I'm not much of a computer nerd, I'm afraid. The important thing is that is has a 17" screen for my 40+ year old eyes and it runs important software like the PC version of Ticket to Ride. Best of all, its pink. This is to discourage the male members of the household from even thinking about sharing it. It's mine. I've even named "her." She's Lady Gormenghast. The computers in our home network are all named after castles and I'm a big fan of Mervyn Peake's quirky book trilogy.

As I said, gaming around here has been sparse, so this blog may limp along for a while with me just chattering about whatever game thoughts are bumping around inside my head that day. I'll just apologize now if you are coming here for the usual reviews and lengthy session reports. Hopefully, I'll be able to spit out one or two occasionally, but it's been a dry season for games. I do have one new game to blather about a bit:

Patrician - Michael Schacht continues his series of Dry Games for Three. Lest that sounds critical, I like most Schacht designs and this one, while not spectacular, is an okay little filler. It's not deep, but it is fun to see how the game plays out and it usually plays in less than 30 minutes. I wasn't impressed at all with my first game as it seemed chaotic and reactive, but after playing it again with fewer players, some strategy started to emerge to change my opinion. Like several of his games, it is a simple and streamlined design with a little twist or two to provide some tension. In Patrician the angst is caused by the pull between playing where you want versus getting a card you want, coupled with the two different ways to score - sets of Patricians and tower floor majorities. With two players, it is not that exciting, with five any semblance of planning goes out the door, four is a bit better and three I think hits its sweet spot. More plays will tell and this is one I hope to review soon.

Posted by susanroz at 11:36 AM | Comments (4)