Terraforming Mars and A Study in Emerald

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Spent a pleasant afternoon with AW and his wife playing Terraforming Mars, followed by A Study in Emerald.

Terraforming Mars is one of the few mainstream "euro" style games which I actually enjoy playing. Most of them leave me cold, but TFM has enough theme and card play synergy with plausible science to make it interesting to me. I didn't win and didn't expect to. AW is very, very good at games and usually wind, which is fine. I made a pretty good showing though.

With a little persuasion, I got A Study in Emerald agreed to for the next game, and it went well. I'm not sure who actually won this one, but I was the sole Restoranist. We did not add up all the points, and it may have been that I did win as I had a bunch of uncounted assissination points, where his wife's safe points would not have counted.

Anyways, good times were had by all, and bonus, liverwurst and onion sandwich for lunch!

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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.