John brought a new (at least to me) Cheap Ass game called Enemy Chocolatier. Marty had said that he liked it earlier, so I was willing to give it a shot. The components and packaging are up to the Cheap Ass standards. And the game play is simple. You are trying to either get 19 houses that match your secret recipe card colors. Or you are trying to score 20 victory points. You start off with an income of two dollars a turn. And houses cost from 1 to 6 dollars. You can buy up to two houses a turn. And if you cannot afford to buy a house, you can skip the turn and take one rain check token (which allows you to buy an extra house). Houses are grouped into neighborhoods of three to seven houses. If you own every house in a neighborhood, then you receive its benefits (which could include getting more income per turn, scoring victory points per turn, or special powers).
It seemed that the game was getting close to an ending. Doug was scoring many victory points per turn and he was two turns away from winning. However on the next turn, Mike surprised me by completing his nineteenth house for his secret recipe.
This was a game that would could have played way back in January. Jon had ordered it on our last Adam-Spielt order. But it never made its way off of the self. And then, a couple of months ago, John started to bring it in his cart of fluff. Well, today, we finally played it.
I was randomly chosen as start player. And boy was I screwed. The last player gets to pick their starting island which continues around until it gets to me. I was left with an island that has a starting capital of 1 dollar. Which cripples you. I was forced to get money as my first action. Jon, who went next, was able to buy cards. And cards are really, really powerful in this game. Because they allow you to perform additional actions on other people’s turns. The other action that you want to do in this game is to explore. But that costs 7 dollars. And I was too cash limited in this game to ever explore.
There were definitely too many players in this game. Having two of them Grimm really drug down the game. The slow pace was even getting to Chapel…