Sunday afternoon with the Prasads: Ghost Party, Canal Mania, Hart en der Grenze

October 22nd

Saturday night at Rick’s, Ravindra had reiterated his desire to play Canal Mania, which I had brought along, but didn’t see the table. We discussed possibly playing games the next day, and decided to go home and talk it over with the wives. Sunday, Mary called to see if we were up for some gaming. Kristin was in super prep mode, as she has a talk coming up at the University on Friday. So, I made the trek out into the country by myself.

Mary and I sat down and talked about games for a while, until Ravindra made his way upstairs. She wanted to get Ghost Party on the table, I think as preparation for the game seeing some play over Halloween weekend, so that’s what we started with.

Ghost Party

AKA Midnight Party, by Wolfgang Kramer. Yet another game that’s new to me. The players have a group of party goers, who are promenading around the house during a party. A ghost lurks in the wine cellar. Each turn, you roll a die, and then choose to move one of your party people. If you roll a ghost (the die is 1 ,2 ,4 ,5, ghost, ghost) then the ghost moves three spaces forward. Once the ghost gets to the top of the stairs (three ghost rolls, I think), then people can jump into rooms to hide. Only one person can get into a room, and if the ghost catches up with you, you go onto the steps to the cellar, scoring negative points, in decreasing amounts as more people get caught. The goal is to have the least negative points.

I figured it would take two rounds to get the rolls for the ghost to make the top of the stairs, so I grouped the majority of my pieces where they would have a good chance to get into one of the two rooms that were worth positive (3) points. However, the ghost moved up faster, and I had failed to realize the full impact of only getting to move one party person, as well as the impact of actually rolling a ghost yourself, when you get to move nobody. Consequently, this round was a bit of a debacle for me, putting me way in the rear. We played, I think, a couple more rounds, and Mary was able to edge Ravindra and come out on top. I was stuck in the cellar, although I think my play improved marginally. This was a pretty fun game, with a pleasant board and decent bits. I’d play again, on a lighter sort of evening. Maybe at a Halloween party…

Canal Mania

As has been mentioned, Ravindra has been wanting to play this. Also, as I’ve certainly said a couple times, I’ve been eager to get a play in with three players. This turned out to be the lucky rainy Sunday for the both of us.

Ravindra got first move, and grabbed the best contract, which is, I think, Birmingham-Worcester. Thankfully, Mary grabbed Worcester-Gloucester before he could, preventing the accelerated early expansion/goods movement opportunity. I went with Manchester. Ravindra and I had potential four length cube movement pretty early, but then we got stuck. Ravindra stayed in the lead for some time, with me in second, and Mary in a close third. Mary got the first five cube move, and developed a pair of nice routes going from the West all the way over to London, and started to build serious momentum. All along, the scores stayed pretty close, although Ravindra looked like he was going to have the most contracts. This certainly played a little quicker with three, and I think it balanced well, with two people to work against the leader, without the board getting too crowded. Up until the last turn and a half or so, I really thought I was going to finish last, as I felt Mary had some good cubes to move, and I didn’t think I’d have much to move in goods reduction. In the end, I was able to complete two contracts on the last turn, to tie Ravindra for most completed, and then win the tiebreaker, putting me into first, with Ravindra in second and Mary following. The goods reduction went much faster than the four player games I’ve played. There were far fewer cubes left on the board in this one. It was a close game, and pretty fun, although Mary was pretty disgruntled, stating that she felt the ten points was too much for most contracts, and had too much weight on determining the outcome of the game. I don’t personally think its too much. I wouldn’t lower it more than eight. I think the mechanism helps out people who get small/cheap contracts, which are probably worth less points than the bigger ones, and also adds some drama to the end of the game. Actually, one thing I really like about this game is how much really can change in the last turn or so, making the winner fairly hard to predict. I don’t really like playing games where I can just know, absolutely, that I can’t win, at some point fairly far from the end. It makes it a little hard to sit and come up with alternate paths to satisfaction.

Hart and der Grenze

We figured we had time for one more before I had to head home to cook dinner. Mary pulled out “the suitcase game,” another new one for me. This is a game about smuggling stuff across a border. Each player has a little metal suitcase, and will have five cards to start every round. From these cards, they can put 1-5 in the suitcase. All of them, that is, except for the player who is sheriff that round, who has a different role. Players declare to the sheriff, in order, what they put in their cases. It can only be one type of item. The sheriff then chooses one player to have their bag searched. At this point, the player and sheriff can negotiate bribes to keep the case from being exposed. If the bribe isn’t accepted, or not offered, the case is opened. If it contains what was declared, the bank pays the player an amount indicated on the cards. If it doesn’t, the player discards the undeclared merchandise, and pays the bank a fee, higher for the more valuable, contraband items.

I benefited early from getting searched when I had declared honestly. I also was paid off by drawing sets of multiples, including having a whole hand of jugs at one point. Also, I got some good bribes in, making six off of Ravindra and seven from Mary. I actually thought I had a pretty big lead, but Mary sold quite a lot of goods in the second and third rounds. In the end, I won over Mary by one little dollar. Whoopee!

This was a nice, close game. Lighthearted, yet with some odds to calculate or estimate or hunchidate, or whatever. Really nice bits, and fun interaction, which means a lot to me in the field of gaming. This is one I’d really like to own. I can see it being a hit with some of Kristin’s friends, as well as with my family. I’ll have to keep my eyes open for it. Actually – I already looked. They have it at Bouldergames.com. Maybe time to update my Christmas list…

With that, it was past time to head home for dinner, so I bade my goodbyes to Chez Prasad, and hit the gravel. One stop at Whole Foods later, and I was cooking up some chops for the little lady. Next up, a welcome visit to Dave P.’s in Durham on Tuesday.

GG, GL
JW