Game: Catan Card Game

This game is fantastic. It costs $20 and is for 2 players only. For an additional $20, you can buy 6 expansions for it. But I have only played the base game so far.

The most surprising thing about this game, is its depth. Especially for a card game. In its simplest form, you are trying to build a province (complete with Knights, Cities, Roads, Harbors, Libraries, Churches, Farmers, etc) before your opponent does. The resources with which to do this with are limited, hence the competition. Different accomplishments award you points, and the first one to reach 12 points wins. One accomplishment for example is to have that strongest army of Knights. Another is to be the province that does the most commerce. And another is to simply build a city. You gotta beware of the brigands who steal resources, and the plague which sweeps your cities every now and then, and you gotta prepare yourself for the Knight Tournaments which happen fairly often.

All that, in a card game? You betcha. Awesome!

The expansions add things like Dragons and Wizards, Politics and Spies, and I cant remember all the others. I think there is even a Pirate expansion.

Anyone up for a challenge?

Game: Bohnanza

Ive been eyeing this card game for awhile. It has lots and lots and lots of good reviews. It is the #4 best selling game of all time. I finally broke down today and bought it. It was a little steep for a card game at $20, plus, the only place you can buy it is through the interdimensional portal into the board gaming sub-culture store known as Game Night Games in SLC.

But me and Ed went there today, and were instantly entranced at the piles of games that exist that you dont even know exist. The guy at the store was as nerdy as they come, but he knew everything about every game ever. But thats a story for a whole other topic. Lets suffice it to say that I had to remind Eddie of the world beyond the portal to break his daze and get us both out of that place.

So I broke open the game tonight and first did a run-through by myself, and then a partial game with Amy - and we LOVED it. It is fantastic. Its really made for 4-7 people, although it CAN be played with 2. But you notice immediately how much more fun it would be with more people.

The gist of the game is that you are a bean farmer. There are all sorts of beans to farm, soy beans, green beans, black-eyed beans, coffee beans, even stink beans, 11 varieties in all. You have 2 or 3 fields in which to plant them. The more you can plant before the harvest, the more money you make. But with 11 varieties of beans going in the market and only 3 fields, you are constantly faced with the decision to harvest immediately and plant a more lucrative bean or hold on and keep planting more of what you already got till they are worth more. Its basic supply and demand. The funnest part though, is during each persons turn, there is a trade and donate thing that goes on, where people are trying to dump their worthless beans and trade for better ones. It actually IS to your detriment to hold on to the worthless beans, as it forces you to harvest a more lucrative bean early to make way for the new inventory of worthless beans. So there actually is alot of donating going on, not just trading.

Anyway, we are bringing it out to Mom and Dads for the Halloween weekend (which by the way we are staying Fri through Sun). With my fam, Moms fam, and Eds fam all playing, its gonna make for a wild weekend of bean farming.

Yee Haw Amigos!

Lymanite Games

I'm gonna start keeping track of all the different games we make-up and modify. I added a bunch today to my new Lymanite Games @ games.lymanite.com blog. I have 11 so far, and I still have about 8 more to go. If you can think of any I am missing, let me know and I will get them on the list to be added.

Carcassone

Ok, so I bought this game called Carcassone. Its a board game... kind of. Its a tile game I guess. You lay tiles to create the board as you go along.

Basically you are creating the township of Carcassone in France. You lay tiles that have roads, cities, farmland, rivers, inns, towers, and some other things. Every tile has to match all its surrounding tiles so you create a nice map of the area. Then you can claim 1 thing on your tile, like the city, farm, or road. When something you have claimed gets completed, you get points for it.

It was a blast. Its like a really fun version of chess.

There are 5 expansions to it that I have all of also. Me and Ed tried a game with every single expansion. Wow! It was sooo much fun. It takes about 1.5 hours with all the expansions, but it was the most awesome game. With the expansions you can add pigs to your farms, build towers to take prisoners, there is a dragon that roams around and eats others, even giant rivers, and tunnels under the cities. It seriously is a blast! I am soooooo glad I bought it. I got mine from a local place for around $70, but I saw it on Amazon for $48. I bought the Carcassone Big Box, which has all the expansions included.

Seriously, best board, er, tile game, EVER!