I played Dominant Species yesterday and it was good. It was third time for me - first time I played with two players, second time with 3 players and now with 6. And it was really good, I even raised the rating from 8 to 9. On the other hand I've heard also quite many complaints about DS: it's too random, too AP-prone, cards are too powerful, game itself is too abstract, scoring is too random etc etc. This made me also wonder - why do I like this game?

I'd say that I like the freedom of choices Dominant Species offers. You have always some meaningful moves and actions - sometimes they're more obvious, sometimes you have to find them. But they're there. At least they've been there in those 3 games I've had. I like also the opportunistic behaviour this game enforces. You can't just gather a great pile of your species and then "rule the Earth", no, you have to choose wisely. Some of your species die here and enter the game there, you have to be aware about all the options your opponents are offering to you. Do you want to rule the tundra (and score with Survival) or just hang around in Wetland/Sea? Didn't reach the Domination action? You have always Glaciation or Wanderlust. Plus scores for second/third place. Like I said, plenty of opportunities to choose from - but I admit that you can't have a Cunning Masterplan from Round 1 and follow it throughout the game. And that's why I like it.

Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island - it just keeps going better and better. Short overview about previous games can be found here (in Estonian).

And Loopin' Louie rocks! Excellent both with my kid and wargamer friend of mine. So simple... yet brilliant.

Infiltration is something that may be good but my two plays gave me just a meh-feeling. Seems there is lot of potential hidden, but during those games the play was too dictated by the cards you receive at the beginning. I understand that this may be the idea, to keep some variety in the game, but... meh.

Infinite City. Well... I've tried it with 2. I've tried it with 3. I've tried it with 4. I'm not going to try it with 5 or 6 players. I just refuse to believe that there is something in this game. It cant be. Too much randomness.

King of Tokyo. Lots of randomness - but in this case 'me likey, me very likey'. When we gave it a first try in Essen, it was quite meh... but with every play I like it more and more. If you accept it as filler, it's perfect - you roll some dice, take/make some damage and move on. Always ready to play it.

Schafe Scheuchen (or "The Shepherd") is another game for childrens I bought from Spiel - just wanted to have something different from ordinary roll-and-moves - and it's good. There's plenty of rolling dice, variable game length, some opponent blocking - just enough for getting children to use their brain.

Love Letter is nice one, too! In BGG it is described as "filler filler" - and it truly is. You draw one card, you play one card, you keep one card. Next player. But the card interaction is quite good, so there is pretty high chance that you'll be challenged - and one of you will be out of the round then :)

And finally Uchronia. With Innovation I had very steep learning curve - I got to understand what's going on only during third (or fourth?) game - and as Uchronia is designed also by Chudyk I was prepared for worst. Luckily this one is a lot simpler but gives a lot to think about and opportunites as well. I liked it. Good one.

So... back in business. Visiting Essen (fourth time there, first year as publisher) and launch of my own game Making Profit - there was just not enough time to update this blog. But let's continue then, aye? I'm not going to list here all the plays since last update - there wouldn't be any point in doing this - I'd just list some more interesting games/sessions instead.

So. From where do we start? Perhaps Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island. Despite of rules being quite messy and sometimes hard to understand (8 pages of rules questions in BGG) the gameplay itself is quite enjoyable. We managed to win the first scenario but even then there were some crucial moments where all our preparations were starting to fall apart. Have played it only once so far, with 4 players, but I'm really curious about how it would be with 2 players or even solo.

Android: Netrunner was played during Lautapelaamaan convention in Helsinki, Finland. I don't know why but until then I thought that it's usual 2-4 player game - instead I discovered it's 1v1. Nevertheless the mechanics is interesting, theme is good (one side is protecting the servers and data, other side tries to hack them and steal the data) but as it was first game for both of us we were not quite prepared to the game logic, so attacker got easy access to servers and stole everything needed for winning.

And to keep the story short perhaps only one more comment. About 1817. I've played it now three times (twice during this year - this should be good number for such monster-18xx) and it keeps going better and better with every time. This time I decided to test the more passive-ish investment side and also running-selling only 2-share companies. As it appeared, there were both ups and downs with this approach - it was quite conservative and risk-avoiding but also not profitable enough. As we played with 8 players the certificate limit was very low, so president's double certificate had high influence. From other hand this game was first where I saw so much shorting shares - at the end 3 players were damaged as a result of their companies being shorted (one bankrupt, two on autoplay as passive investors). An excellent game with plenty of opportunities!

I'm not dead yet!