I’m visiting Jyväskylä again. I saw my mother two weeks ago at my brother’s birthday party and gave her my Finca, so they could learn the game before I come to visit. This time it was a success, they’d played the game couple of times already so we could just jump in and play and avoid the first learning game altogether.
Finca won the Game of the Year in the adult game category in Finland last year, and I think it was a very good choice. Finca is a pleasant mixture of strategy, tactics and luck, with simple rules, short play time and beautiful components. These all come together as a very nice game, particularly for the target group of casual gamers for which the award is most useful.
We played two games and while I didn’t win, it was close in the second game and I did improve my score by ten points from the first game,which counts as a small victory. All in all a pleasant game, which I’m probably going to leave here, because I don’t really see playing this with my gamer friends. Here Finca is a good game, and something I’d definitely play again.
I’ve got the El Razul expansion, too, and if we play again, I think we should give at least the marionette special tiles a go — the ones that allow you to move someone else’s farmer on the windmill. That sounds like a fiendishly good idea.
We also played 7 Wonders, which they hadn’t rehearsed before. Thus, we had a proper learning game. As I expected, they were very confused in the beginning, but figured it out by the end of the game. I was able to win with a clear margin, despite producing few resources and having very little cash. Next time, perhaps, they’ll focus a bit more on scoring points and there’ll be more competition.
I’ve now played 7 Wonders with 4, 5, and 6 players, and it has worked well with all counts. I find four the best, as there’s that much more control.
My copy of Robber Barons arrived, by the way. Looks like fun, maybe a bit over-priced at 50 euros, but then again, it’s for the collection… and it looks like a potentially interesting game.