Boardgame session: 5 March 2016

My sister and her family visited us for the weekend, and we managed to play a few games. We started with a couple of games of Dominion. The first game utilised the random draw to determine the action cards in play and resulted in a very strange mix; three Treasure cards, the Thief and no cards that allowed additional actions! All players tried to maximise their money to enable them to purchase Victory cards and therefore the Thief card was the dominant action card, stealing opponent’s money. The game ended in a 30 point tie between Gill and myself. For the second game we used the Marketplace (?) defined set of cards to produce a more balanced game. The game played quicker because we could string together actions and make multiple buys, and I won the encounter. Dominion remains one of our all time favourite games.

Next we played Sopio using card deck #7 (mutations) with 5 players. Sopio is a nice, simple, humorous but aggressive card game. An early attack by Erin on her father, Paul, resulted in a running war between the two of them! Sopio seems to produce the feeling that no one will ever achieve victory, when out of the blue a winning card combination appears. Gill was frustrated because she was a single play away from victory when the preceding player played an attacking card on her, setting her back. I eventually drew the card which allowed me to win! This might be considered lucky but I would rather call it skill; I had kept a low profile and avoided attacks from other players, before I made my bid for victory.

The next morning we played a game of Forbidden Desert. I like this co-op game but it is hard to win, and in fact I have never yet won! The sand dunes again built up, the sun beat down and we died with only one of the four helicopter parts found. The Water Carrier character is essential to the team, and I think the Archaeologist may also be vital. I really enjoy co-op games within in the family game group, everyone contributes to the decision making process, and the next time Gill visits I plan to get Pandemic on the games table.