A Few More First Impressions

As what may be a new series of articles for me, I want to talk about some more games I've had a chance to play 2-5 times.  Certainly not enough to review them in depth, but enough that I want to give you my thoughts, and maybe have a basis for comparison when I do a full review of the game.

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A negotiation game where each player has a secret goal, and round to round goals.  It plays quickly, only 5 minutes per round plus book keeping.  You only play one round per player in a 4-6 player game.  I've played with 3,4, and 6 players and it's tense in each setting.  I think this is a keeper for a long time.

Imperial
This is an evolution of risk.  Each player is an investor in various European countries.  It's an economic game, not a confrontation game, yet military plays a big role in the game.  It uses a rondel, which if you're not familiar with that is a means of selecting actions based on your previous action.  It makes certain things impossible to do, others more expensive to do.  I've yet to win a game of Imperial, but I enjoy it most of the time.  It's not a favorite, and not something I'll be adding to my collection, but I will continue to enjoy playing it with the people I play it with.

TransAmerica
This is essentially a simpler Ticket to Ride.  Players work together to build track, and it's a race to connect your cities before everyone else does, but you're sharing the same track to complete your route.  I appreciate that the game plays over multiple rounds, so one bad deal doesn't ruin your game.  There's a decent amount of luck to the game, but it also has strategy elements.

Elfenland
An older game from the designer of Ticket to Ride.  I can see aspects of TtR in this game, and I find TtR to be the better game.  Elfenland is a route planning game with cards and tokens.  Players use various means of transportation (rafts, dragons, unicorns, magic clouds, elf cycles, giant pigs and troll carts) to travel from city to city.  Tokens are placed between two cities to determine which mode of transportation can be used to travel between the two points.  I like the game, but I worry that it's replay value may not be great.  It's an enjoyable game, but even after two plays I don't feel excited to play it again.

Survive: Escape from Atlantis
Survive is a game all about getting your people off the sinking island to safety as quickly as possible.  The challenge is that there are limited boats to transport your people, there are sea creatures looking to destroy your boats and/or eat your swimmers, and the other players are out to get you as well.  Also, each of your figures is worth a hidden amount that you know when you place them, but you'll forget once the game is going.  I like the game, but I don't love it.  It works well, but one player can get overly lucky and draw a lot of tiles that give them choices.  I wish there was some way to make that a little more even, but the game is still fun for what it is.

If any of these games interest you, here are the Amazon links.  You support BoBG and allow me to procure more games to review.  You can also check out the BoBG store link in the top, or click to Amazon on the right hand side.  Anything you buy through Amazon supports the blog.  Thank-you to those of you who have ordered something.