Wet Thur – Being a Drax Report

“You’re over thinking it….”

Quote of the night last Thur.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, quite recently, a Study in Emerald is a great game….  A Study in Emerald is a great game.

But before all that there was a warm up…

“It’s a kids game and it’s Polish, but it can be played by adults…”

“Shut up and take my money already”

Kosmiczna Misja (Am I pronouncing that right?) is a kids game where you build bases on planets and score points for complete ones.  It is deceptively simple, a child could play it (ho ho) and for €5 it’s a steal.  Four of us sat down and played it so if we had only played one game we had gotten value for money for it already.  We played three games.  It’s SO simple.  The game consists of 30+ tiles shuffled face down, with three drawn and visible at all times.  Each tile consists of a quarter of a planet with varying amounts of half bases, full bases or aliens on them. When it’s your turn you roll a dice and depending on how many bases already built on your partially completed planet you draw a card and place it to hopefully complete and score a full 4 section planet.  The aliens are there to add +1 to your dice roll and the half bases make it awkward to complete a planet as you have to have a matching other half base against it.  That’s it.

All in all it’s like a cut down version of carrcasonne.  It’s fast, it’s simple and there’s just the right amount of cock blockery to make it fun.  This is a super kids game and a perfectly acceptable adults game.  Since it’s so quick there’s a real go again vibe to it

We’re fortunate in our group insofar as we have a good* group of people who actively seek out new games and bring them along for the group to try and that not everyone likes the same type of game.   Kosmiczna Misja is something we would never come across in the normal run of things and it would have been a pity to have missed out on such a simple game. If our Polish connect is back home anytime soon I’d say he’ll return with his bag stuffed with copies of this.

It was meat and potato times now with everyone suitably warmed up so we partook of the main course.  Once again a Study in Emerald.

I’ve spoke about aSiE before, it’s a great concept based on a great story, developed by a great designer so it should be well… great.  It is.  This was played at Knavecon but it didn’t go down a storm,  It takes a bit of getting into. There’s a number of elements in the game and we discovered a few more of on Thur as we played.  The whole use of agents and some deeper and more devious strategies.

I really love this game, it’s got everything, it’s semi-map based, it’s got worker placement, it’s got card drafting, it’s got alliances, teams, double crossing, bluffing, a magnificent setting and superb re-playability.  It’s like someone tried their best to get all that’s good in gaming and pack it into a game and what’s more they did it very well indeed.  Nothing is superfluous, there are no simple routes to winning and it changes every time we play.  A real desert island game.

When we played on Thur we realised a few things we hadn’t before.  How to use agents properly, how to appear to be of one faction, how to steal victory.  Having played it there was a real urge to play again but time prevented us.  I wouldn’t be at all shocked if this appears next Thur and next weekend at a gaming buddies 40th

Get your hands on this game, you won’t be disappointed.  oh yes, I actually won it as well so win win.

Huzzah!

Vic