Afternoon games: Cluedo, Cosmic Eidex, Amazonas

I met the Ollis for the last time for now - I'm moving in the end of July and just don't have enough time for games right now. Too bad, but that's life.

Anyway, we started our games with Cluedo Card Game. It's a simple deduction game and quite clearly too simple for gamers. As a family game it's probably pretty good (and since it lacks the die-rolling, it's probably a lot better than the board game). Olli H. didn't like it, but I got the idea he has played the original Cluedo to death.

I wouldn't mind playing the card game version again. It's certainly nothing like Black Vienna, but it's still a fairly pleasant distraction.

Second on the list was Amazonas, second time for me. This time I knew how the tiles scored before the game started, which was probably the biggest reason for my loss.

Amazonas is decent fun, but slightly on the grey "don't know" area. I kind of like it, but right now wouldn't buy it for me. It's easy and fun to play, but something clicks. The game is also probably better with four players than the three we now had.

Next up was a sweet treat: Cosmic Eidex. Man, now here's a good game. Definitely THE bright spot this year so far (this and the fact that Johanna loves Lost Valley).

This time we all had special powers that work before the hand is played. Olli M. had Differenzler. Differenzler guesses how many points he gets in the round, correct guess scores two game points. What's even better, Olli pulled off a good guess (32 points, I reckon) once in the game.

Olli H. had Guggitaler, which changes the game a lot. Instead of regular points, hearts are worth one point each and king of stars is 4, making for total of 13 points in the deck. Playing Guggitaler was fun, too bad Olli wanted to play just few Guggitaler rounds.

I had Fledderer, the grave robber. I could lay down a second card in the beginning of the round and use it to take a discarded card from another player. That was nifty, but has limited usability. Probably the better use is to give a certain card to the other player.

The game started well, as I pulled off a two-pointer. I got all the tricks, even though I tried to give some away in the end. They didn't want to take the tricks, so I just had to keep them all. Unfortunately Olli M. did the same later in the game. I could've stopped him, but didn't, as it would've made me lose a point and the same went with Olli H. - a nasty situation! Our selfishness allowed Olli M. to score two points while he was already in substantial lead. Taking one for the team isn't easy.

Thanks to two two-point rounds, Olli M. waltzed to an easy 7-3-2 victory. Pathetic play from Olli H. and me, but fun nevertheless.

Rest of the afternoon consisted of poorly played game of Samurai I lost and an interesting match of Industrial Waste. There's another gem, I like that one more every time I play it. I did surprisingly well this time, considering how I felt during the game. I didn't produce much, but sold some raw materials in the early game. In the end my money-making started to fall down, so I lost to Olli H., who was a bit more consistent. Olli M. proved that having three accidents in one game isn't a good thing...