We were planning to play cards this time to celebrate my book, which was finally released last Friday. Well, that didn’t happen, thanks to rather diminished number of players (four), including one particular person who doesn’t fancy traditional card games. So, card games were restricted to Flix Mix.

So, we started with Airships (aka Giganten der Lüfte), a die game from Andreas Seyfarth. Players collect cards by rolling dice and hoping to roll high enough. Cards provide more dice and various bonuses and eventually points. It’s all fun and games like any dice game, but fell flat for the same reasons.

Basically, die rolling just isn’t that much fun. Especially when someone else is having the dice. Our game took 60 minutes, so with four players you spend 15 minutes playing and 45 minutes watching something that isn’t very interesting. Talk about fixed fun. This is probably better with just two.

In our game, Hannu realized the value (high) and scarcity of point-producing points best and sailed to an easy victory.

Next we played something much better: Die Dolmengötter. The more I play this one, the more I like it. I was able to use my experience to actually win the game, too. This is such a clever and a swift-moving game, ours took just 20 minutes or so. And it’s alll good, pure fun. My current rating is eight, and I’m seriously considering upping this to a nine. A rare gem. I’m rather glad this fell flat in the Leppävaara game club and I was able to buy Tommy’s copy for a low price.

Vegas Showdown closed the evening. We played with a variant where start player rotates, except when someone chooses to renovate or publicize, in which case the first player to do that each turn gets the button. I’m not sure I like the change, but it’s not a huge deal, I can play either way.

I still like this, the economics in this game are rather interesting and mellow in a good way.