I met Gargoyle and Laura for a session of Knizia games, as it turned out. We started the games with Blue Moon City, which turned out to be quite a sweet game. 40 minutes of fairly intense hand management stuff, with room for clever moves. We played twice in a row, and in the second game, I collected a huge pile of crystals and made four contributions to the obelisk on one move. That was fun, too bad I lost momentum and in the end lost, because I was one step too far on my last move…
It’s a cool game, and has the sign of Knizia all over it. It’s well designed, seems balanced and exciting. The need to help others (Laura lost the first game when she wandered a lot on her own, and didn’t get involved in our buildings — that’s a strategy lesson learnt), the need to keep certain cards for the end game, while there’s the temptation to just burn through the cards right away… Excellent stuff. That makes it almost too good — I think I might have to get it. I like the Blue Moon world, so why not… Damn Knizia, too many good games.
Tower of Babel made a second appearance, this time with three players. I won hands down, thanks to previous experience, but it was still good. It’s a clever game, indeed, and starting to look like a keeper.
In the other hand, I finally decided I don’t want to keep Through the Desert. It’s great in theory, but not that great in practise. Playing it isn’t simply as much fun as it should be. Strange game, but I think I’ll rather sell it and get, say, Blue Moon City instead. The fact that the setup takes almost longer than a two-player game is somewhat annoying.
6 responses to “Knizia games: Blue Moon City, Tower of Babel, Through the Desert”
I’m not sure Through the Desert is ideal with two. I’ve always enjoyed my 5 player games very much.
Don’t know, I kind of prefer the game with less players. It might not be best with two, but perhaps with three.
How many pillar cards did you use for that quad contribution? 3? Because you can’t do more than one contribution to the obelisk per turn otherwise.
When I tried amassing a pile of crystals, my opponent walked away with the game since he was paying less per contribution.
Yeah, took three Pillar cards. Others hadn’t built anything yet, just one contribution or so, so it was fairly cheap. Nothing I’d plan for, but it was fun to do when the opportunity presented itself.
If you made four contributions to the obelisk, how did you not win? The object of the game is to build four obelisk stones first. If you built four obelisk stones, you won, unless someone else had already won and you were playing for second.
In the three-player game you need five to win.