TransAmerica

Sadly, I have heard that a game designer, Franz-Benno Delonge has passed away. And in honor of him, we are dedicating this night to play his games. First up was a quintessential light and fluffy filler game TransAmerica. It has been quite a while since I have played this game. But it was easy to get back on the bicycle and ride it again. I did pretty well. I was the first to connect my five cities in two of the three rounds. And that was enough to give me the win.

Big City

Next up was the quintessential lunch time game. And that is how I got started in this field or shall I say hobby. It is an easy game that can be played in less than an hour. While I have fond memories of playing this game back when we played lunch-time games at IBM, I do not have fond memories of this playing. It seems my role was to be hosed by Jon and his playing of parks and factories. Which put me solidly in last place. Well, at least it was over quickly.

Goldbräu

After that was Goldbräu. Which is a decent game of limited actions. With only three actions that you can perform during the seven days of the week, you would think that the game would be boring. But this game forces you to make hard choices. Do you get another stock in a company? Do you expand the territory of a company that you own? Or do you try and take control of the boss position in a company?

The only annoying factor is the simultaneous reveal mechanism of this game. Where you are rewarded for choosing an option that no one else does.

Tichu

Jon started the game with a rather weak hand. But no one was able to go over what he played. So he sneaked out to finish first. Which left Doug, with the Tichu hand, missing his opportunity. I was able to get my only points out of my hand and into my tricks taken pile. So I passed when Mike got the lead and gave the other team my Phoenix.

I made a number of random wishes against Mike. But none were more infuriating than my five wish on a lead of Mah Jong, two, three, four, and Phoenix. Mike had to bomb that straight with his run-bomb containing a five. Which was good, because my partner would have to split his long straight up to satisfy that wish (and leave him with many stragglers). Perhaps I shouldn’t get too into random wishing…

You know, as I look up the games that Franz-Benno Delonge created, I realize that I own some more of his games! Games like Manila, Dos Rios, and Fjords! I am going to have to declare next week to be a continuation of the mourning process and play those games… along with Tichu hopefully.