Desert, Chess960, Empire Builder

My Northwest airlines flight back from Detroit to Wilkes-Barre was cancelled on Wednesday night (apparently the pilots had spent too much time in the air and there were no pilots available). I called my Dad and he and Mom shot up from Toledo and picked me up!

Took a 2.5 day vacation in Toledo, and of course Dad and I had to get some boardgames in -

In two days we played about 20 games of Knizia's Through the Desert, a lovely little go-like game I have written about before. Victories went back and forth, we probably split the games, although I had a 3-game win streak going at the end. We tried to talk Mom into a game, but she wasn't biting.

We brought out Chess once, and tried Bobby Fischer's Chess960 (Fischerandom). We took turns picking pieces for a pseudo-random setup. The white queen was in the right corner, next to a rook, then king, then bishop and rook, then knight, knight and bishop. A bizarre battle took place on the opposite side of the board after Dad castled. We got to about 40 moves and I managed a queen-backed checkmate.

Stopped by a game store on Sylvania Ave. in Toledo (the Game Room) that I had never been too before, and the owner was actually one of the friendliest and nicest I've ever met. Mind Games (my 'home store') has been good to me for years, but all the owners and workers are generally very passive. They typically only engage you in conversation (despite the fact that I have been shopping there for 20 years) if you initiate it. Sometimes I wander around in total silence. Here, the well stocked store had 4-5 customers shopping, painting, reading, and the owner was chatting with everyone.

Sadly, and no doubt slightly under the spell of this nice game store owner, I grabbed a copy (at 10% off) of Empire Builder, from Mayfair. Published originally in 1980, it has spawned numerous expansions, and sold very well over the years. On the strength of reputation (and vacationish weakness), I plunked down my $35 and boy am I sorry I did.

Let me just say that this is a classic example of why I don't play American games anymore.

No, let me add some more: Too long ('Geek reports 1.5 hours plus .5 per player), ugly components (butt-ugly would be a better description), super dry theme and mechanics (move goods from point-a to point-b by drawing from point-to-point on a white board with a crayon), odd damaging random events, and the ability for a veteran to memorize ideal locations - forcing an inexperienced player to spend tons of time hunting for possible delivery locations that you might have missed, zero interaction, loads of down time waiting for your turn (which often consists of turning in 3 cards, and drawing three more - exciting!)... I mean come ON.

I have come to the conclusion that I need to stay out of game stores/never buy anything that I haven't thoroughly researched/never buy an American game again/stop assuming that the number of sales/expansions has anything to do with how much I will like the game. (Probably the only games with huge popularity that I enjoy are: Carcassone, Puerto Rico, Settlers)

One fact that was not published on the box (but was in the manual) was the original date of publication: 1980. This edition had different box art, and had a 2002 date on it, making me think it was perhaps something new that I had missed. Nope. The 80's were pretty sad overall for gaming (except perhaps some conflict sims that I no longer play due to length: Squard Leader, Star Fleet Battles, etc.). Empire Builder is proof. Fun maybe 25 years ago before the internet and modern publishing techniques reduced my attention span and raised my expectations (i.e. made actual quality important), but not today. Ebay, here we come.