It's Essen time...

Contributors: Daniel, Peter

The boys are back from their trip to the industrial heartland of Northern Germany, and it's no surprise to find that they came back with several new games to tempt us all. So we expected an Essen themed evening and the boys did not fail to disappoint!

On my arrival there were some goats that were climbing a mountain of dice, quite the spectator sport it appears too. I have no idea which game this was but it involved lots of dice rolling and some kind of take-that interplay with jockeying Goateeples into positions on a race track up the side of a mountain. We then split into two tables, one with Mobeigea and t'other with CVlizations. Can't speak much for the former (I'm sure one of the lads will pop in soon to tell us how it is already game of the year, for this week at least), but CVlizations is nothing like CV other than sharing similar art direction (fortunately so in my opinion).


Jon and Raj turned up so we split again into a pair of threes and ended up with The Bloody Inn on both tables. After playing the rather flighty and straightforward combo based CVlizations, The Bloody Inn felt like Bloody Hard Work. Not sure what to make of this one, I thought it was okay but a real grind and we weren't even playing with the full rules either! The art and graphic design is great, the setting is oddball yet interesting, but the game itself I'm just not sure about; it didn't seem to deliver enough enjoyment to pay back the effort that went in to playing, with no real sense of satisfaction in achieving anything other than managing to survive 'not enough actions to do what I want to do' (which in this game felt particularly cruel, as in there weren't enough actions to even get started on anything let alone finish).

Neil, Raj and I finished burying the bodies with enough time to squeeze in a tilt at Royal Goods, a spiritual sequal to Port Royal, which is a nice little filler from 'man on fire' Alexander Pfister about buiding a simple production chain. The decision points are pretty straight forward, do you specialise or diversify your engine and then you play the odds with what resources will be available in the marketplace (which can potentially stall your engine for that round). Plays quickly and easily, I think this will do the rounds for a while.

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Ah yes, Mombasa...Game of the year, for this week at least...