I got to get my extra large Flintstone's Vitamin today at LUICC and got to work from home.  As I'm about ready to start up, the mailwoman hits the doorbell and lo and behold, the latest Days of Wonder game is in my hands!  I'd been waiting for a couple months and preordered it.  I never preorder anything. 

Still had to work though...

But once that was done, I offered to teach the game to my 6-year-old who is extremely sharp with cards game.  I went over the rules and we played through our first game, going over the rules and working through things.  As we have TTR 1910, Switzerland and Marklin, she's quite accomplished at playing these games and she caught right on.  Naturally, she beat me, even without the usual house rules...

1. Kid Bonus.  My age minus her age.  Same goes for her sister and ends up being around 25-28 points.
2. Friendly Game.  No blocks, no picking up someone else's cards.  Once that happens, things get a little testy.
3. Cards Down.  Or, more appropriately, cards up.  Everything's visible, although with this game, trying to keep track of what you've already played, what tickets are playing to where, etc., keeps you busy enough without looking up from your own area.

Naturally, she won, 115-104.  She picked up about 8 tickets and missed completing her huge 21 point ticket of New York to Los Angeles.  I had 6.  Things were looking good.  Unfortunately, she connected to NY, Chicago and LA with more tickets than I did, so she managed to pull off the win.  And this was without the kid bonus. 

Quick impression of this game:

1. Easy to teach, pick up and learn.
2. Worth doing another game of - my daughter and I both agreed to play it soon (dinner/softball/job #2, so that'll be a different day)...
3. Nice artwork, however, the card backs are distracting and look too much like the front of the other cards.  Another beef I have is that the card color and symbol are only on the top two corners of the train card.  Not major quibbles, but for some reason, it bugs me more on this game than others I have.  On the flip side, the destination cards and bonus cards are laid out very well and the side representation of the ticket on a sliver of the long edge of the card is nifty.
4. It took a little longer than I was expecting - about 40 minutes.  This will probably get cut down in a hurry when the rules are internalized.  It seemed like there was a lot of counting, card stashing and analysis on my daughter's part (which is expected - give her a break already!  :-), but she catches on quick.  Heck, she beat me.  :-)
   
5. Like Ticket to Ride, things can get cut-throat and/or urgent in a hurry as you near the end of the deck.  Also gets interesting when you get your stack of three or four trumped.  So much for the friendly game.  This will be a fun game to play with the wife and my oldest kid.
   
6. A cross between Ticket to Ride, Rummy and Memory.

All in all, a fun one to have around and a great gateway game.  True test will be with the wife.  She's not an instant card player, but this one has a chance. 

Greetings from this area of cyberspace...

My name's Jack and I've been riding bikes, computer programming, working on computer games and throwing frisbees around disc golf courses. Of course, the primary directive has been to play Dad and help Mom, but the other stuff is good to do as well. In any event, I figured there was enough going on to share it with whomever cared, so if you found this spot, welcome!

In the next day or so, I plan on putting up some VB.NET games I've been working on. One of them is based on the game called Abande (www.abande.com). Take a look at the site and check out the blog here to give it a try.