New Year. New Game(s).

It should not be a great surprise given yesterday's blip that the new year starts with games.  Indeed we're holding a smaller version of one of our games weekends to celebrate the occasion.

I colonised a bit of deep space this morning, traded goods in sailing ships, freed some slaves (but failed to abolish slavery) this afternoon, and attempted to develop property in the evening.

This one, Magnate, The First City, is an interesting approach to games. The designer is deliberately 'updating' Monopoly including, specifically, the point that Monopoly set out to deliver the pain of property speculation.  


Magnate has a 'financial crash' built into the design and the aim is to make as much money as possible, and bottle out at the right time.

It was OK, but many things didn't do it for me, and that's not (well, not much) sour grapes of losing the last auction with catastrophic results.  Some of the mechanisms are a bit arbitrary and the graphic design - whilst involving 'cool' detailed buildings - really didn't help the flow of the game and that is what graphic design is supposed to do in my opinion.

I'm going to continue to be wary of games that lean on snazzy plastic models to prop up an unpolished game.