Cartagena

John and Chelsea were up this weekend for their anniversary, so we had a chance to visit and play a game of Cartagena.

This clever little game involves pirates that must escape from prison, with markers that are moved on the changeable board by play of cards. There are a number of different icons on the board, playing a card with the same picture allows you to advance a pawn. Once a spot is covered, other pawns can "skip" that spot, moving ahead on the board to the next occurance of the same picture.

A very cool little mechanism, is that to draw new cards, you must move pieces backwards, collecting one card for each other pirate you land next to. This means there is a balance between blizting forward, and stockpiling cards.

I love this cute game, and although we didn't finish it, my rekindled interest led me to playing (and winning) a game online at www.brettspielwelt.de.