Game night

Ian's work held a game night tonight for the first time in ages. We both went - in fact, Ian is still there playing games but I was getting tired and figured I was done thinking.

We played two games: Container and Battlestar Galactica. I've played Container before: it's a game where players set up a mini-economy around the production, warehouse, and shipping of different coloured containers. It's interesting because all the usual problems with economies - inflation, recession, credit problems, and so on - can happen.

This game doesn't take long to learn, either, so it's a good game to try out if you're not used to complicated board games. The only problem with the game is that two of the container colours are almost indistinguishable so if you buy this game, you might want to paint one of them a different colour. I love this game and highly recommend it.

Battlestar Galactica is another animal entirely. It's a game based on the tv series, where humans try to get the ship to safety and hidden - later revealed - Cylons try and stop them. This game has tons of differently-shaped pieces and different cards and different roles and different ship attributes - and everything has different abilities. This is not a simple game to learn: the instruction book is quite a few pages and you have to refer to it frequently throughout the game.

This is a game for the most advanced players who are willing to put in the time to learn it. There's a lot to read and understand and the interaction of certain things also needs to be understood. There is a reward for all that work, however: once you figure out how to play this game with all of its roles and actions and modifiers, it's a lot of fun to play. Before the Cylons are revealed, there's mystery and intrigue and afterwards, there's a lot of battling and choosing sides. This game is worth the commitment if you're into board games and especially if you're a BSG fan.