Puerto Rico with Rachel

Rachel and I played two games of Puerto Rico last night, with my usual set of custom rules and my usual set of custom buildings. Rachel won the first, and I won the second; the winner had Factory both times.

In the first game, I thought I played ok, but I made a mistake taking Settler at one point when Rachel had Hospice, resulting in her immediately being able to produce coffee. If I would have crafted first, I could have maintained parity with her and ended much closer. Neither of the usual 8 point buildings were bought, but she did buy Discretionary Hold (in both games). She won 54 to 45.

In the second game, coffee never made an appearance. This time I started off slowly, as Rachel was determined not to let me get a Tobacco plantation after I bought an early Tobacco Storage. On the fourth Settler I was able to go first and take one anyway, but only after she already was producing Tobacco, herself.

Since she detoured for Tobacco, I was able to get Factory and Large Business, two very helpful buildings. I also acquired two large buildings to her one, but both of them had poor bonuses - 4 and 3, respectively. I won, but just barely, 52 to 51.

The truth is that I had a hankering to play Go last night, but couldn't get out to the Jerusalem Go club, nor convince Rachel to play. She will only play Puerto Rico, Scrabble, and Bridge, basically, or a very occasional light game such as Apples to Apples or For Sale on rare occurrences outside the house.

Tonight is game night and I plan on trying a slight variation on The Menorah Game suggested to me by someone. I am also hankering to make it through an entire game of Netrunner, sometime.

Wired points to an article by HealthDay on some of the reasons people play video games.

Digg points to the Japanese page of Nintendo to prove that the makers of Wii are still producing and selling good old board and card games.

Games Workshop says that Talisman will be reprinted this October. (source)

Ice Chess, with giant pieces made out of ice. Pretty.

Hatchling Games has a blog about it's new online-only trading card game Encephalon. The idea is rather interesting. Read their first blog entry from December for an idea of what they're doing.

Yehuda