More New Games

My house is currently flooded with new games after my pusher from alternativegames.com.au visited Critical Mass last night. I bought Bridges of Shangri-La and Tikal from him. We're also still working through the pile that arrived from America. CyberKev (whom this blog is NOT about) also recently returned from America with a pile of new games. Everywhere you turn you trip over them. Anyway, here are the new ones I've got to play since the last update.

Gheos: I played this with Scrabblette and it was chaotic and vicious. Oh hang, it's me that was vicious, but the game was chaotic. If you (or your opponents) don't like "taking stuff off" games, stay away from this one. I'll need to play some more before I find a suitable audience for this one.

That's Life (Verflixxt!): CyberKev taught this at Critical Mass, and I'd just like to say "MEH". In capitals. It's a very dry game which could be analytical if I cared enough, but the die adds enough randomness that I couldn't be bothered. And what is the theme, anyway? Didn't interest me at all and I couldn't wait for it to finish.

Qwirkle: CyberKev also taught this at Critical Mass, and it was much much better than That's Life. It's best described as Scrabble without the letters which sounds stupid but when you play it you realise it's true. It has colours and shapes instead - sort of like Ingenious. As Scrabblette enjoys both Scrabble and Ingenious I suggested she'd like it and the generous and experienced CyberKev loaned it to me. She played it against the kid this morning and said she liked it a lot. Good news! I like it a lot. I wonder though if I've already seen the depths of the game. I expect it will be a solid 8 for me.

Fiji: We dragged Fiji off the pile of new toys this evening and gave it a run. It's a very very chaotic auction game which reminded me of Fist of Dragonstones and Nobody But Us Chickens. It's probably too chaotic to take it seriously, but it's cute.

Alexandros: After the kid flogged us at Fiji, Scrabblette and I banished him and played Alexandros. This is a dry almost abstract which is very much Scrabblette's style. It reminded me of Gheos in that there was "taking stuff off people", but it was nowhere near as chaotic. Scrabblette got a good lead and I found myself having to learn new dirty tricks to catch up. For example, I sent Alexander halfway across Asia Minor to excise a small piece of land from her territory. Sadly, Scrabblette had learnt from her experience at Gheos, and was very good at taking stuff off me. It was a very close game, but she won 103 to 99. I like Alexandros a lot as well.