Rare night out eurogaming

Due to my job I rarely have a weekday evening off, and when I do have one off it's usually for some non-gaming reason, so I don't normally have an opportunity to game with the nice folks down New Haven who "Fell Like A Kid Again" in their Meetup Group.

But yesterday I did have such an opportunity and I had a grand old time.

I had the chance to play two games I've had my eye on for some time, but it's been my policy lately to avoid buying games until I've had a chance to play them, with a few exceptions.

We started off the evening playing Winning Circle, which is sort of a Reiner Knizia version of Win, Place & Show, which is to say that it captures most of the best parts of the older game while being a far more elegant and efficient design. I managed to avoid coming in dead last in the 6-player game, but I did have a lot of fun and I resolved to pick up a copy when I get the chance. My kids like Win, Place & Show but it's a little complicated for them and it takes a pretty long time to play. While Winning Circle certainly has sufficient strategy for them to grow into, the basic structure is simple enough that they can still enjoy playing even if they haven't yet developed a sense of strategy. It also plays considerably faster.

Our second game was another one I've been thinking about for a while: Jamaica. In this case the name of the game is a big selling point, given my deep connections with that island. On the other hand, while a Caribbean pirate-themed game, it doesn't really have much to do with pirates and even less to do with the actual island of Jamaica. It's really another race game, although like Winning Circle it s extremely nicely done and involves rather more strategy than one might suppose. I did come in dead last in this one in a three-player game. While I enjoyed it, I'm less certain about buying a copy of this one, mostly because it's really a game for grownups without as much appeal for the kids. If my schedule starts to allow some regular gaming with bigger folks I'd consider having a copy, but in the meantime I'll probably hold off.

Still, the entire evening was exceptionally enjoyable. Everyone was very friendly and the venue, a small retail store, a perfect site.

Game of the Week: Dominoes

During a visit to Jamaica last summer I was struck by how much of a game-playing culture it was -- of at least one game, anyway, dominoes. In Kingston, especially, there were thousands of tiny street-side pubs (which usually had a half-dozen stools or so) and almost invariably had a hand-built sturdy dominoes table in front. More often than not there was a game in progress, too.
When Jamaicans play dominoes, it's obligatory to slap the domino down firmly with a loud crack. The sturdy little domino tables are carefully fashioned to help make that sound, with a relatively thin table top well-mounted within the thick frame. The overall effect is similar to a well-built Japanese Go game, albeit with a rustic island feel instead of the painstakingly wood-worked construction used in Japan.
In the U.S. dominoes is usually played with a rule that a player without a play must keep drawing from the graveyard until play is possible. In Jamaica the style is is allow a player without a legal play to merely pass.
This style of play probably keeps the games a little closer than the alternative U.S. rule, which can result in someone getting stuck with a big draw out of the graveyard that kills any chance of winning that round.
Dominoes are like standard playing cards in that the term really describes a set of game-playing fools, rather than a distinct game because many games can be played using the same tools. Still, there seems to be a basic "dominoes" that most people understand as being "the game" whereas card games are more distinctly differentiated in popular use into games like poker, bridge, war or solitaire.