I’ve been too busy to blog, so I’m going to compress two weeks of games to one post. Can I do? Yes!

String Railway. A hit! We played this one last week and this week. I’ve so far only played the five-player game, because everybody wants to play. I like this one a lot. There’s a bit of luck, I’ve now lost two games because of weak tile draws (zero point transfer stations, for example). Well, excuses…

In today’s game, though, some moves pushed against the resolution of the game: the moving strings and stations don’t quite support the precision some moves require. Still — fun times.

Homesteaders. I bought this one from the auction I ran before Helcon. Had to pay 30 euros to get it, but it does cost 39 euros as new and I’ve heard the copies suffer a bit from being poorly printed and somewhat damp. Here I knew I was getting a decent copy, and I do find very little to complain about the components. The game looks nice.

It’s good, too. Alex Rockwell knows his resource management games, I suppose. Evo auction meets the standard get resources first and victory points then, but it’s all very well executed and thanks to a clever market system where you can collect trade tokens which can then turn goods to money and money to goods very swiftly, there’s lots of wiggle room in the system and — I believe — many ways to victory.

So, based on one game, with almost correct rules, I like it. Solid 8 rating, and I wouldn’t consider 9 impossible. I need to play more.

Marrakech. I got some games from Lautapelit.fi, and this was in the box. Marrakech has won Mensa Select, As d’Or and Spiel der Spiele — not bad, and I can definitely see why. It’s perhaps a bit light for a family game and a bit hard for a kids’ game, but I like it. I’ve played it with Nooa (who prefers to play with the coins and the carpets) and with gamer buddies, and it was a brilliant 15 minute filler that way.

The carpets are just too cool, and work real well. The early game is slightly ho-hum, when players just make poor little Assam walk around the board with no danger involved, but once the board starts to get covered by carpets, the game gets interesting. I like it.

7 Wonders. The hype game of the day… It’s crap. Nah, just kidding, but it’s not the second coming of Jesus Christ (or Dominion), either. It’s an interesting version of Fairy Tale! The drafting is fun, though it’s simultaneous only in theory: some folks are always much slower than the others. The concept is nice, explaining the game is fairly straightforward and it works well.

Our first games weren’t quite as fast as they could’ve been, but it was fun nevertheless. As a 45 minute game 7 Wonders won’t survive, but I think it should get faster than that. It’s popular enough that people will actually play it and most folks should be familiar with it soon.