So, this post is a little different. Chris joined us tonight, as I promised would occur. I am not sure what format makes the most sense long term for these nights as they tend to have more games, but for this time, we are going to post it as one blog post. We did add a new game but we also replayed some so have some updates to our reviews and opinions.
Mint Cooperative
We pulled this small space game out again while the kids were still awake and waiting for pizza. Again, first round, got to Danny’s roll for trouble and we didn’t make it through his double trouble. Convinced Dan and I must have been reading something wrong, we handed the directions to Chris to get his read. On the second play of the night (5 total) we finally won. Now let’s be fair, this was mostly because we got really lucky on the shuffling and the mayhem cards were all near the top so we didn’t go through as many rounds of trouble.
I think it is fair to say even after another 2 playthroughs tonight and a third person, this game still isn’t making the top anything list for any of us. Now, to try to be fair, we did then look up a playthrough video online and an FAQ document and it appears there may be some variation. We re-read the rules and still felt that what we were watching didn’t really match what was written, but it may lead to giving this game another shot with the way it appears on the video. If we do, I will be sure to update here again.
Project L
This was a brand new game to us – new game challenge credit. This has elements that feel a lot like Tetris. But there is also a good bit of strategy. Basically, for your turn you get 3 actions and can draw an image tile, place a shape, gain a shape, upgrade a shape, or do a master action (once per turn) where you place one shape on every tile you’re working on. When you completely fill a shape, you get those tiles back and a bonus and for some shapes earn victory points as well.
We actually all really enjoyed this game and I suspect it will become part of our 10 x 10 because we all seemed to enjoy it. The game was simple enough to pick and understand and jump right in. We actually played a second time at the end of the night and that’s rare for us.
Fleet
So, in my last post, I really wasn’t thrilled with Fleet. Tonight, it definitely played much better. I don’t know if it was having a third person read and interpret the rules or just having a third person which definitely added to the auction element. We also had a better (and more accurate) understanding of the bonuses for licenses and found a stronger battle for select licenses in the auction. The dynamic just changed either because we understood it better or because of the addition of a third player. This game definitely had a better chance now than it did with last nights 2 player game. We actually played 3 rounds of this game.
There was definitely a huge change in the dynamic of the auction stage and then this became a much stronger battle than it had in past games.
Challenges Update
New to Us games: the only game that gets added to this list is Project L. So, our count is now at 6
Total Plays: 17
