Quoridor. Quarto!. Pylos. Inside. Quixo. Due to an event I had the opportunity to try out several games from Gigamic line of games. Well... not my cup of tea... but at least they were quick to play. They're not bad but too abstract for me. Dry.

Tried also Alcatraz: The Scapegoat. Quite unique goal it has... normally you have one winner and in co-op everybody shares the win/loss equally. In Alcatraz there is one loser and all other players are winners - but the base mechanics is co-op. So you have to play with others, discuss with them, plan the moves - but at the same time you have to try to guarantee that you'll be one of the winners. By the one play I had I wouldn't say that Alcatraz is something extraordinary... it was ordinary co-op until at some stage there was discussion "lets ditch him and make that move - ok" and game ended. And no, I was one of the winners :) Perhaps it should be played more to understand the mechanics better but at least now those letters needed for winning were dealt out by too... randomly I'd say.

Also a bit of old goodies as well... with London for starters. Played with 3 players and I have never had so awful run of cards... no decent money, no undergrounds, not even decent victory points - so at the end I lost badly.

Inca Empire was next to hit the table, with 4 players. I had played it only once previously - unfortunately only once, as it's a good game. This time it was quite equal until the start of the last turn. Then an massive scoring race started and my wife was most successful then, mainly thanks to her terrace's. At the end she beat me by 10 points, while having 7 or so of them. Anyway, it's a good game and definitely worth a try. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Oolalaa, Brass for 2. Can't get enough of it. There's very narrow window for selling cotton to distant markets... and I was shown that Brass can be won also without the distant markets :) This was also one of my tests about how is it to play high-income game... it was nice but still not enough money for building something more expensive at the end.

I'm also afraid that my irregular posts here will be even more scarce during the nearest future - all the attention is currently going to the preparations for Spiel 2012. I'll be there in 7-101 with my [mandatory advertisement starts] Making Profit [no more ads today] game. It has also reached the book stores here locally - the usual shopping place for mainstream boardgames. Let's hope for the best.