it's Knizia's fault

I'm on a business trip in Manila, and I succumbed to the urge to buy a boardgame again. As is customary for me, I paid a visit to the Hobbes and Landes hobby store near the hotel. I don't always buy games. In my previous 7 trips, I have bought three games, Ark, a card game about loading Noah's ark with animals, Chicking Cha Cha Cha, a children's game, and On The Underground. So, on average I buy one game every two trips.

This time most of the games were the same as last time, no Age of Empires III or Thebes, the only two games that I have decided I want to buy (at least for now, but I have a very long list of potential buys too). They had Railroad Tycoon, Leonardo da Vinci, In the Shadow of the Emperor, Khet the laser game, Shogun (the successor to Wallenstein, not the first edition of Samurai Swords), Carcassonne, Oshi, Axis and Allies: Battle of the Bulge, Acquire. They also had lots of party games and lots and lots of Monopoly variants.

The game that caught my attention was Risk Express. I haven't seen that before. I took it off the shelf to have a closer look. This was a dice game version of Risk, with a tag line of "Conquer the world in 20 minutes". Then in the small print I found "Design by Reiner Knizia". My favourite game designer. I own many of his designs. I didn't buy the game on the spot just based on the name. I'm not that irrational. I went back to the hotel to check comments on this game at www.boardgamegeek.com. It seemed to be a light and quick game. Some compared it to Pickomino, another simple dice game also by Reiner Knizia, with a gambling / push-your-luck element, which I own. Then the next time I went to the shop I bought the game. I look forward to try this out.

So yes, it's Knizia's fault.