I sold my complete collection of Super Fantasy Brawl to a friend for an absolute song this afternoon, all in an effort to secure a second copy of Rallyman Dirt from a local shop, which I’ll be gifting to another friend (who also got burned in the bankruptcy). Unfortunately it looks like this place only got the base game as well, so we’ll have to be happy with what we did get.
Before anyone gets any hint of generosity on my part, do know that I secured my own copy yesterday—first!—with no prior knowledge of another copy out there. This was purely to facilitate somewhat-less guiltful gaming.
Café didn’t quite do it for me; but the puzzle is genuine and my brother is a serious coffee drinker, so I’ve gifted it to him. Hopefully he enjoys it.
Maths trade saw 2 games leave. Terra Mystica BigBox plus Rome & Roll, also a Marvel United expansion toddled off.
In addition I have sold Hansa Teutonica, Callimala and got a sale agreed on Too Many Bones. Things are getting nicely trim. I have bought 2 new games in this year though and received the preorder for Horseless Carriage so still some work to do.
This feels like a momentous day as I have finally crossed the threshold to sell San Juan.
Unnecessary narrative:
Summary
I’ve probably had it for 20 years. Never loved it. But it’s small! Easy to take places and packs more punch for a game it’s size. It’s easier to teach than Race for the Galaxy! But, of course, the “teach them San Juan and then teach them Race for the Galaxy” never actually happened in 20 years. It’s better than Puerto Rico! Is it? It doesn’t have the same balance and theme issues but this opinion has kind of cooled. Every time I went to test/sell it, it was a little better than I remembered. And I occasionally found new wrinkles to it.
Finally decided:
The roles aren’t sufficient for the player count and you are often relegated to a dead turn when late in the turn order.
The tableau archetypes aren’t that varied. Yes, there’s a few different ways to go but it doesn’t take long to try each.
The velocity through the deck is too slow to really choose, or even commit to, an archetype so the game kind of plays you depending on your early draws, and you end up with something of a hybrid no matter what.
The death knell, I realized that it’s really a patience game of not choosing the Trader. No one chooses the Trader until someone gets bored and decides it’s better to trade than keep playing. This is what killed Abalone as well. Games with a dominant, defensive strategy where the first person to get frustrated and/or bored loses.
I kind of knew things would end this way but it feels good to finally decide. I don’t usually waffle this much over these decisions but San Juan was tough for some reason.
Also decided NOT to sell Fantastic Factories. Is it great? No. Is it serviceable? Absolutely. And it will be easy to get to the table. I played a few solo rounds, removing the cards I’d used after each game, and ended up with a variety of tableau engines. All had that balance of a bit of thrill and acceleration but they also required some finesse and maintenance to keep running. This really isn’t better than Furnace or Res Arcana but it can still stay for now.
As a bonus, keeping Fantastic Factories means I don’t have a justification to buy It’s a Wonderful World, so that’s kind of like another game off the shelf?
First. I don’t think they are that different; 2e has maybe three rebalanced cards and a handful of promos added? I remember looking into it at some point and being disappointed with 1e but not enough to do anything about it.
Race for the Galaxy (via the first expansion, Gathering Storm) actually has one of the original and best implemented bots ever made. There’s a little bit of additional rules but the bot is very well abstracted to keep things simple, and it does an excellent job emulating a second player. FWIW.
(edit: Though as I recall the rulebook is, as ever, poorly written. The Race manuals were all written by lawyers, there are no omissions and zero ambiguity. Also minimal structure or horizontal guiding logic.)
I actually picked up a cheap, used copy of RftG not too long ago that included Gathering Storm and Rebel vs Imperium.
I’ve set up the solo mode a couple of times over the last year or so and then tried to grok the rulebook, but without success. I’ll give it another go soon, though (as my children become more self-sufficient, I find more mental energy to sink into things like that)
Lol, I thought this would happen sooner. Eldest is 8 now, and still taking up a lot of our mental energy. Japanese education practices may be partly to blame…
Yeah, this triggers memories. I had to lay everything out and follow it step by step like a cookbook because it’s just thrown at you as a list of information. Like the game itself, it does click and when it does you wonder why it ever seemed confusing. But there’s some activation energy needed there.
I sold San Juan recently, as part of my exciting new ’ “It’s quite good” isn’t good enough, we’re only keeping games that at least one person absolutely loves’ approach to a board game collection that was over-stuffed with things I’d bought because they looked quite interesting, or might be quite fun, or were a bit different in some way. We’d had it for about ten years and hadn’t played it for at least eight, I’d guess.
