Kublacon: Board Games, with Dollop of RPG on the Side

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7 Wonders

7 Wonders is a card-based game with a loose theme about building a civilization. It seems deeper than it really is, but for a fairly light game, you get a good sense of accomplishment at the end of the game. The card-passing mechanic makes it difficult to really plan a strategy, though. While the game supports up to seven players, it seems best with five.

You can play a complete game in half an hour, the rules are simple, but some of the special abilities require some planning (and luck) to execute well. All in all, a fun, light game that’s deeper than most filler games and highly appealing graphically.

6 Nimmt

This is a deceptively simple, trick-taking counting game that offers great tension coupled with some agonizing decisions. Note that it’s also a fast game, so it’s not really worth agonizing too much. Like Hearts, the player with the lowest score over a set of rounds is the winner.

The original version is the German incarnation, 6 Nimmt. It’s gone through several graphical and thematic changes, but the theme is irrelevant. The version sold currently in the US is called Category 5. It’s really a blast to play, easy to carry around and doesn’t take a lot of time, so it makes for a nice little travel game.

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a  highly rated and highly ranked card game, and has been around since 2004, but this was the first time I’d ever played it. And I won my first game, which is fairly typical.  On the other hand, my experience when I encounter a new game echoes that of Troy Goodfellow, who noted to me in a tweet, “I do really well in learning games. Then suck.”

It’s got a theme: you’re trying to acquire fame among the nobility and gentry in Czarist Russia. The artwork and cards hew nicely to the theme, but the theme doesn’t really make the game.

Each turn consists of four rounds. You use your limited money to buy workers, buildings, nobles (bribing them, I guess) or upgrades. You can only score points (fame) on the worker, building and noble round. Money is very tight, and it’s easy to spend to much in the early rounds. There are some agonizing decisions, and the game is strategically complex  enough to generate some analysis paralysis. Still, it’s a quick game, typically playable in an hour or less.

Road Kill Rally

This Z-Man game was originally going to be called “Death Race 2000,” after the movie, but last minute issues with licensing forced the name change to Road Kill Rally.

Road Kill Rally is a tile-laying racing game. You score points by running over pedestrians, shooting up your opponents and placing in the top three at the end of the race. Tiles are stacked face down, and not revealed until the race leader moves onto that tile. This causes a certain amount of tension – should I slow down, in case a sharp turn is ahead, or speed up to make the jump, if that tile is revealed?

Up to six players are supported. It’s a fun little beer-and-pretzels game marred by being overly long. It’s other key problem is that the races are rarely close in point scores, so in a six player matchup, usually several players know they don’t have a chance mid-game. Still, it’s fun in a twisted sort of way.

In the next article, I’ll talk about the rest of the games I played at Kublacon, including a board game take on <a href=http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/77130/sid-meiers-civilization-the-board-game>Sid Meier’s Civilization</a>, plus a great time playing an assassin in the Warhammer 40K universe.

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