All the Games on Our Shelves

When we played Abalone recently (game 128), it just didn't feel as satisfying as it used to - at all.  I love games of pure strategy, and especially when they are as pure as this one, just a straight-up battle for territory between black pieces and white pieces.  After we played last time I read up on the game a little bit, and it turns out that in the standard set-up with all the white pieces starting on one side and all the black pieces starting on the other, that if the players are good, the one who goes first will win.  Because of this, alternative starting set-ups have been created for tournament play.  The set-up above is called the Belgian Daisy.  The set-up below is called the Germain Daisy.  For tonight we decided to try the German Daisy starting position.  This absolutely made for more interesting game play.  I didn't check the time, but it took us quite a while, and it really felt like a battle that we were both invested in.  (It ...

  I have to leave this game un-numbered for now, as it is not a game on OUR shelves.  It belongs to my brother, and our sons showed up with it this afternoon.  In Obscurio , the players (with two exceptions) are wizards who are trying to escape a sorcerer's library.  One player is a traitor who is trying to mislead the others; the traitor wins if escape doesn't happen.  One other player, known as the "grimoire" knows the correct door to choose for each round and tries to communicate it through images.  The game is a bit like Mysterium , but it has some interesting twists - not only is there a traitor, but there are also one or more "traps" in each round.  There is also a timer, and not finishing a round in time results in one or more extra traps in the next round; this certainly does keep the game moving.   It is a cooperative game, so players talk and try to help and convince each other of the right door to choose, but the traitor has a role...

Well, one thing about this venture is that it gets us playing games we haven't played in years.  I think we've had Abalone since the late 1980s.  We used to play it quite a bit.  I always liked it for its simple elegance - simple design, simple rules, but complex possibilities.  Those are elements that are always a draw for me.  This is a game of pure strategy.  I'm the one that suggested we play tonight and the one that suggested this particular game, but I probably should have waited for a night on which I was not so tired!  Anyway, below is the initial set-up.  You're allowed to push one, two or three marbles one space (forward, backward, or to the side).  The goal is to knock off all the other player's pieces before all of yours are knocked off.*  (At some point in time we lost one of our black marbles, and this was in the days before the Internet, so we didn't have an easy way to replace it; thankfully we found a dark green marble ...