Queen's Necklace, Samurai and Höhlengrölen

I've been busy writing reviews. I have already 91 reviews on my web site - I hear the 100 review mark calling my name already. That'll take some time, but soon, soon I'll be there.

I'm not going to write long reviews of these games now; I'll just summarize my thoughts shortly. Links are to Finnish reviews.

Höhlengrölen is very unknown (I think it has about six ratings in Geek) and, unfortunately, it's not a gem in hiding. However, it is an entertaining little Rummy game with a funny stone age music theme,so it's not completely without merit. Average, but fun. I wrote more about when I played year ago.

Queen's Necklace is very much like other Faidutti games: there's something clever about it, but the whole of it just doesn't click. I tried the online version a while ago and wrote a preview back then. I kind of like the game (I ended up giving it three stars out of five, something like 7 on the Geek scale), but haven't played it at all. It just doesn't attract me enough.

Samurai, in the other hand, is a very good game and one of Knizia's best games. I like it a lot - it's full of tension, always very exciting and gripping. I haven't played it much, though, but that's mostly because of its limited availability (I don't have it, it rarely appears in our board game club). It's certainly a game I'd recommend to all gamers, if only for the interesting scoring system.