Board Game Profiles continue!
In January 2016,
KaCSFFS member and notable board game collector David Means gave
a presentation to the club about his collection. It was so interesting, I asked
for permission to reprint it as a series of posts on this blog. He graciously
agreed, and supplied me with his script. I have added the illustrations,
hyperlinks, embedded videos, etc. as seemed appropriate. –Jan S.
Gephardt
Power Grid
If you prefer auctions,
you might enjoy Power Grid. Each turn, players bid for different types of
power plants to power cities, then they must buy the fuel for their plants.
Players must be careful in choosing their energy
source—coal, oil, trash, nuclear, or wind—because if other players are using
the same fuel, scarcity will drive up the price.
At the end of each turn players are paid based on the
number of homes each one powers. If a player spends all their cash on fuel,
they won’t have enough money in the next turn to buy a more efficient power
plant.
Players must carefully balance their income and expenses, and try to
plan a few turns ahead to keep themselves as efficient as possible.
Dixit
Players who enjoy word
usage should try Dixit, which has some mechanics similar to Balderdash
and Apples to Apples.
One player is the storyteller for the turn, and looks at
the images on the six cards in her hand. From one of these, she gives a cryptic
clue (word, phrase, sound, etc.) and says it out loud (without showing the card
to the other players).
The other players select the card in their hand which
best matches the clue and give the selected card to the storyteller, without
showing it to the others.
 |
| Some Dixit cards. |
The storyteller shuffles her card with all the
received cards. All pictures are turned face up and every player has to bet
upon which picture was the storyteller’s.
If nobody or everybody
finds the correct card, the storyteller scores 0, and each of the other players
scores 2.
Otherwise, the storyteller and whoever found the correct answer score
3.
Players score 1 point for every vote for their own card. The game ends when
the deck is empty or if a player scores 30 points. In either case, the player
with the most points wins the game.
The
first two posts in this series covered more general topics that cover many types
of games. They were published on June 4, 2016, and June 18, 2016, and were well-received. The third, published on December 29, 2016, initiated a series
of Game Profiles with a more
in-depth view of Catan/The Settlers of Catan. The fourth, on Carcassone and
Ticket to Ride, went live January
23, 2017. We hope you will continue to enjoy this series!
IMAGES:
Many thanks to Board Game Geek for the Power Grid box cover design, and to Dad's Gaming Addiction for the photo of the board and playing pieces.
Many thanks to Board Game Rules for the photo of the Dixit box, to Pinterest for the illustration of some of the Dixit cards, and to the review post on Shut Up & Sit Down for the photo of the game board and playing pieces.
