Real Games

I think I'll start calling posts about Board and Card games "Real Games."

New games recently (several unplayed, as I've not had any chance to play them recently - too busy with life.

Two player game kick. One of my pet peeves is games designed for more players that claim to be playable with two. So often these games work so poorly with two players, that they ruin the game for me once I've played them too frequently with only one opponent.

Jaipur - Buy it here
Bought on a whim (and a quick check to BGG from my phone) and not regretted at all. Reviews are accurate - this is a beautiful game with quality components. Quick to pick up and play, and with a good amount of strategy. It is a basic race-for-resources game, with 'utility resource' component - a resource that needs to be used during the game to get other resources, but is itself worthless at end game.

Dungeon Twister 2 Prison - Buy it here
I couldn't resist. An old-school dungeon crawl with solo play option. Good looking figures (once un-twisted in boiling water), cool board and mechanics. Reserving a review until I play it more.

Mr. Jack - Buy it here
A nicely themed logic puzzle. Once player plays Jack the Ripper (the game is illustrated in an almost comic style, and I don't have any reservations playing it with kids - they are unlikely to ask about Jack), and the other plays the "investigator." Characters are placed on a board with gaslights, and each player gets to move various numbers of characters around each turn. At the beginning of the game, one character is randomly selected to be Jack the Ripper. At the end of each turn, if Jack is by a gaslight, or near another character, he becomes "seen" and is otherwise in shadows. Using this mechanic and manipulating character movement, the investigator's job is to build a logic table of characters and eliminate each until Jack is found. Jack is trying to hide, and escape out one corner of the board or the other. I think this has potential to be a better Clue, and good for the family and kids.

Roll Through the Ages - Buy it here
Ah, another Matt Leacock (of Pandemic fame) game! Not strictly a two player game (1-4), think of this as Civilization with dice. Each turn you roll a number of special dice that grows as your civilization grows. The dice provide you with goods, food, people, or badness. Avoid badness, gather enough food to feed your people, enough people to build your civilization, and enough goods to sell for technological and social developments. Nice wooden components (dice and goods pegboard for each player) and easy to play out in the world. There is already a free print-and-play expansion on Mr. Leacock's website.