And It Was Game Night!
One of the things that lured me to Atlanta was the prospect of living near more gamers. We finally had our first Game Night here at the new house.
We started with 8-Legged Peacock, a fairly new one from Brexwerx. It's about the Maratus jumping spiders, which are beautifully colored; the males dance – really! – to attract mates. You're collecting cards to build the right dance. Absent from the game is the real-world consequence of a bad dance (nom nom nom). But no cannibalism is required to make it a great game-night opener. The rules could have used a soundtrack suggestion (Crab Rave, anybody?), and you should absolutely look up the Maratus videos on YouTube. PS: I won this one. Best line: "Yay! I get to mate with a green spider!"
Then we got to the main event: Free Ride, or Frei Fahrt in the original German, designed by Friedemann Friese. This has been cruelly described as "What if Ticket to Ride were good?" I happen to think TTR is quick fun, but Free Ride definitely has the same vibes and is a couple of steps up in its demand for planning. A lovely board is made less useful by teeny type on the cities, making it very hard to see where you might want to go. Irene got out her label maker and fixed that, so we could play without peering. She also demolished us, scoring more than twice the second-place rail baron. I concentrated on laying track; she concentrated on carrying passengers; we saw which was better.