Four up and four down: Monday night David, Greg, Megan, John, and I got through four games!
First up, we played Cat in the Box. This was our third play of it, and the game finally started to click with me. My priority was to not create a paradox. During the second hand I focused on creating scoring patterns. In the last hand I anticipated a probable paradox when bidding. When someone busts, no one wins that trick. I bid two tricks and would have taken a third on the final round until John created a paradox. That ended the hand and saved my bid.
Game Two
Next up, we had the Pharaoh Edition of Ra. WOW, this version is BIG! The production is so over the top that we were almost embarrassed to be playing it. However, by the end of the game we were acclimated to its big chunky pieces and its huge ornate bag. It’s such a great game that it deserves to be readily available! First and second place were neck-and-neck, with John edging out David by a single point.
Game Three
We kept the Knizia them going with High Society. This was a great follow-on to Ra. It’s another auction game, only this time you are bidding with cards with varying values and you don’t make change. Let’s say you bid $22M by playing your $20M card and your $2M card. If you are outbid and now want to raise your bid to $25M, then add your $3M card. You only have one card of each denomination, so you are managing the amount you spend versus the amounts you can formulate with your remaining cards. Pretty clever.
Game Four
We finished the evening with two laps around the France track in Heat: Pedal to the Metal. We like to play with the Weather module and the Legends racers. The race came down to the final turn with all four of the human drivers screaming down the home stretch. David won by several spaces. I drew poorly on my boost to miss second place by one space!
