Game Night

We had a few friends over tonight for games and dinner. We’d been talking about it for over a year, but with the wedding plans, we just never got around to it. Too bad, because it was a lot of fun, and I hope we make it a regular feature at our place.

Neil arrived first, so Andrew, Neil and I started with a game of “La Strada” — a road building game that we played during the games class we took this summer. Andrew and I had brushed up on it last week, and found that it’s a lot of fun for two players along with being great for more players.

After Stef and Doug arrived, we set up “Carcasonne“, a game we had heard about from the teacher of the games class, but had only played a couple times ourselves. It is a tile-laying game where you build up cities, plains and roads to get points. It, too, is fun for any number of players. Andrew bowed out just before we started because Kendall and Kate arrived. I found that Carcasonne took on a different feel with more players. In the first game we played, the farmers were the most important point-gatherers; however, in a second game with five players, completing a key 17-tile city was the key to the winning score. We haven’t figured out the best strategy for the game, and perhaps there is no “best strategy”.

Finally we played a game of “Munchkin“. We had played last Thanksgiving with Mushi and Jeff, but couldn’t remember the rules, so we muddled through the poorly written instructions. It wasn’t as fun as the others, perhaps because of the myriad exceptions to the rules and confused instructions. We think it might be more fun in subsequent games when we have the game play down.

All in all, though, a very fun evening.