Tempus and 7 Wonders first plays

Feb 22 2015

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About a half game at PL's Alameda last night. We had to teach ourselves the rules, it went slow. There were four of us, PL's brother and wife, roommate P, and myself.

We got to Turn 6 by around 11 pm, at which point I was just too tired to deal with it, and everyone else at the party was sort of hanging around being distracting as they had already finished with their Dominion game.

The game itself seems ok. I'm spoiled by wargames and heavier games, and this one is a bit light in comparison. The reviews are split pretty much 50/50. I lot of people really like it, and a lot of people really dislike it. I'm in the middle, I don't like or dislike it much either way. It would be helpful to have started playing it much, much earlier in the evening, but it seem really difficult to get people in the mood for games until 8 or 9 pm, then even more time to wrangle everyone into the same area and actually playing. This has definitely colored my opinion of the game negatively. But I think it would color my opinion of any game in the same circumstances. For example, Eldritch Horror suffered the same issue: we started far too late to really dig into the game.

Today played 7 Wonders with BB and friends for the first time as well. Pretty light game, not bad at all for a small group. Lots of ways to win. I came in second by 1 point. It's not something I think I want to own, but I'll play it again with others.

What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

Have a solo game ready to play.
Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
Referee a game in progress.