gaming in photos

2 Aug 2009. I taught Michelle a 2-player variant of Automobile which I found on www.BoardGameGeek.com. I think it was by Soledade, a gamer from Portugal. It is quite simple and doesn't require many additional rules or changes from the standard game. The game is definitely better with more players, but this variant is OK to play if you don't have enough players and are keen to play Automobile.

I used black cubes to block off some spaces on the board which are not available in the 2-player variant.

Cars had been produced, and we were starting to sell them now. Michelle loved choosing the Howard character, which allowed her to sell two extra cars. She also produced many cars, flooding the market. Talk about destructive and ruthless sales strategies. Because most of my cars were older models than hers, I was usually at the suffering end when market demand was less than our car production. Ouch.

8 Aug 2009. I had one thinner than usual car piece.

The difference is more obvious in this photo.

I really like the drawings of the cars on the game board. I don't know most of the car models, the exception being the Ford Model T.

The full game board. This was a 2-player variant game in progress.

15 Aug 2009. Ticket to Ride: Europe, the second game in the Ticket to Ride family, which I had not played in a very long time. This particular game turned out to be quite exciting, despite being a 2-player game. Michelle and I needed to connect to many cities which were close to each other. This was still early in the game and the tension was already building up.

A fan-like castle in Carcassonne (with Inns and Cathedrals and Abbey and Mayor expansions, although you don't see any tiles from the latter yet). This was the game that got me into Eurogames, and this was the game that started my game group when I was in Taiwan in 2003-2004.

Early game in Attika. We had a very resource-rich starting map, but most of the resources are covered up (i.e. used up) by now.

Since we played a 2-player game, I used the unused buildings as markers to cover my already-constructed buildings.

Near game-end. Neither of us ever seriously threatened to achieve an instant win by connecting the two temples. I won by being first to construct all my buildings.

16 Aug 2009. Jing Yi, Sui Jye and Chee Seng. China, my favourite Michael Schacht game, in play. We also played Automobile, Villa Paletti and For Sale. Automobile is still great. This was my secord 4-player game, my other games being the 2-player variant. I never quite liked For Sale as much as most other people. I never quite understood the strategy. I did try to apply some, but I still do badly at this game. I wonder whether I still don't get it, or you actually do not have much control in the game.

Villa Paletti. Sui Jye very carefully trying to remove a pillar while Chee Seng watched with glee (I guess he was hoping for the whole structure to crash).