Euroquest review
8 November 2010 17:59![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kmusserOnce of the things I like about Euroquest is the opportunity to play all the new stuff that came out at Essen. This year played mostly new stuff, with a clear winner in the "hot new game" category with 7 Wonders. Total games played: 7 Wonders (x4 at least), Ancients (x3), Cafe Race, Dominion (x3), Glory to Rome, Isla Dorada, Maamut, Macau, Olympus, Piece o Cake, Race for the Galaxy (x2), Rattus, Telestrations, Vegas Showdown. Also saw Navegador which looked cool but I didn't get a chance to play.
7 Wonders - there were probably 5 or 6 copies of this at the convention and all of them were in constant use throughout. It's a resource management game that uses card drafting as the central mechanic. You are each trying to build a wonder and need to collect various resources to do that, each player is collecting different stuff. You get a hand of cards, get to keep one and play it, and then pass the rest on to the next player. It plays very quickly, roughly 30-40 minutes, and packs a lot of depth into that timeframe - every pass you have to balance keeping good stuff for yourself vs denying your opponents what they need.
Cafe Race - a short (15 minute) filler game about racing around the office with coffee, cute but not much to it.
Isla Dorada - a bidding game in which you're trying to control what direction an expedition goes in as each player wants it to visit a different set of sites. The movement gave it a similar feel to Elfenland, but it was longer and you had less control over your fate, which made it somewhat tedious. I'd give it a miss.
Maamut - a short game about mammoth hunting, players place traps and try to steer the mammoth towards their traps without getting trampled. I thought it was cute, and more interesting than Cafe Race above.
Olympus - yet another resource management game, in this you are praying to Gods to give you resources to move up various development tracks. I quite liked it, but there wasn't a whole lot to distinguish it from the zillion other resource management games out there and it was a little longish.
Piece of Cake - another cute filler game, form a cake out of the pie shaped pieces and it gets divided among the players. You get a choice between eating the pies for instant points or saving them hoping to collect a set of slices from the same kind of cake.
Rattus - a game about the black death, you have population in various regions across Europe and can use various roles to try and protect your people from the plague, with the object of having the most survivors at the end. Morbidly fun, probably my favorite after 7 Wonders.
Telestrations - got sucked into one party game. I'm usually not a big fan of taking public domain games and slapping copyrights on them (in this case Eat Poop You Cat, aka Telephone Pictionary) but have to admit we had fun and the components are quite nice - and definitely funnier than Pictionary. Rules can be found here.
Navegador - I didn't get to play, but its a new rondel game ala Imperial and Antike which I like and this one has a exploration theme which I'd probably like, may just buy it on speculation when it comes out in English.
7 Wonders - there were probably 5 or 6 copies of this at the convention and all of them were in constant use throughout. It's a resource management game that uses card drafting as the central mechanic. You are each trying to build a wonder and need to collect various resources to do that, each player is collecting different stuff. You get a hand of cards, get to keep one and play it, and then pass the rest on to the next player. It plays very quickly, roughly 30-40 minutes, and packs a lot of depth into that timeframe - every pass you have to balance keeping good stuff for yourself vs denying your opponents what they need.
Cafe Race - a short (15 minute) filler game about racing around the office with coffee, cute but not much to it.
Isla Dorada - a bidding game in which you're trying to control what direction an expedition goes in as each player wants it to visit a different set of sites. The movement gave it a similar feel to Elfenland, but it was longer and you had less control over your fate, which made it somewhat tedious. I'd give it a miss.
Maamut - a short game about mammoth hunting, players place traps and try to steer the mammoth towards their traps without getting trampled. I thought it was cute, and more interesting than Cafe Race above.
Olympus - yet another resource management game, in this you are praying to Gods to give you resources to move up various development tracks. I quite liked it, but there wasn't a whole lot to distinguish it from the zillion other resource management games out there and it was a little longish.
Piece of Cake - another cute filler game, form a cake out of the pie shaped pieces and it gets divided among the players. You get a choice between eating the pies for instant points or saving them hoping to collect a set of slices from the same kind of cake.
Rattus - a game about the black death, you have population in various regions across Europe and can use various roles to try and protect your people from the plague, with the object of having the most survivors at the end. Morbidly fun, probably my favorite after 7 Wonders.
Telestrations - got sucked into one party game. I'm usually not a big fan of taking public domain games and slapping copyrights on them (in this case Eat Poop You Cat, aka Telephone Pictionary) but have to admit we had fun and the components are quite nice - and definitely funnier than Pictionary. Rules can be found here.
Navegador - I didn't get to play, but its a new rondel game ala Imperial and Antike which I like and this one has a exploration theme which I'd probably like, may just buy it on speculation when it comes out in English.