Play2Relax

Thurn and Taxis

July 1st, 2010

It’s time for a new Game of the Month here at Play2Relax and for the rest of July I would like to spend some quality time with the 2006 Spiel des Jahres winner, Thurn and Taxis.

Designed by Karen and Andreas Seyfarth, Thurn and Taxis simulates all of the nail-biting excitement and thrills of the expansion of the German postal service in the 17th century. Seriously.

I’ve played Thurn and Taxis a few times, but I usually get my butt kicked. Maybe with a little practice, I can successfully challenge my buddy Mark Johnson online at yucata.de. We played a game early last month and he crushed me like a bug, so I need to level up a bit before I can take him.

Your goal is to build delivery routes by collecting and playing cards that correspond to major cities. You earn points according the the number of adjacent cities in your route, and you place a certain number of city markers each time you complete a route. You can earn additional points by having markers that cover an entire region or by having markers in all regions. You can also take advantage of one of several advisors that can help you manipulate your card choices, play additional cards, draw additional cards, or increase your route score.

That’s all for now. Play a few games of Thurn and Taxis this month and then report back with your thoughts and strategies.

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A Month of Forbidden Island

June 30th, 2010

I picked up a copy of Forbidden Island when I was at Kublacon last month. It was one of the few games I purchased at full retail price, but considering that was only about $16, I felt pretty good about my purchase. I’ve played it ten times since I bought it, and I imagine it will continue to hit the table throughout the summer.

Forbidden Island is a cooperative game for two to four players designed by Matt Leacock, who designed Pandemic.

During the game, the players work together to gather four special artifacts from the island and then escape by helicopter before the island sinks beneath the sea. There is no invididual victory in Forbidden Island. Either everyone escapes with the treasures or everyone dies.

Gameplay is very simple. Players take their actions, draw treasure cards, and then determine which tiles are sinking that turn. Actions include turning in treasure cards to take artifacts, keeping tiles from sinking, and moving around the island. Once a player gathers four treasure cards of a certain type, then that player can journey to a temple tile and get the treasure. Each tile has a card that signals when it needs to be flipped over to the sinking side. If a tile is already sinking and the cards indicate fhat it should be flipped, then the tile is removed from the game.

The game takes about 30 minutes and is recommended for players ages ten and older. My son loves this game and can play it with very little help, so a smart six-year-old will have no trouble.

I think Forbidden Island is a great little game. Go find it somewhere and play it with your family.

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Kublacon 2010

June 24th, 2010

It’s been a few weeks since I got back from Kublacon, and I thought it was time to talk about my experience. This was my second trip to Kublacon, and I had much more time to enjoy myself. If you want to read about last year, here is a link to Kublacon 2009. The con takes place on Memorial Day weekend and I got there in the early afternoon Friday and didn’t leave until late afternoon Monday. I had a wonderful and relaxing weekend, and there were far too many great experiences to mention all of them, but I wanted to share some of the highlights.

I actually played some RPGs! I’ve been talking about this for a long time, but I finally got to play both Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition and Savage Worlds. I had been very hesitant to do so last year at Kublacon, because I just didn’t want to sit down with total strangers, who could end up being total dweebs, and be stuck there for six hours.

I got up early Saturday morning and got in on the first Kublacon dungeon crawl of the day. The dungeon crawl had a four hour time limit, so I figured I was pretty safe. Actually, I got up early every day. Gamers are notorious for sleeping in, and it was wonderful to get up and have breakfast alone in the beautiful atrium at the Hyatt in Burlingame. There were a few of us early morning folk, and we would silently nod in understanding of our elite club. I especially appreciated the recommendation for the Eggs Benedict made by my buddy I referred to as “Old Breakfast Guy.” Read the rest of this entry »

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