Colosseum
Tonight was all new games for me. Sometimes I think that too many games are released. First up was Colosseum. Which was a game that I was interested in playing. Being that its theme was about Rome. But John described it as putting on a play, and while that analogy was appropriate, it kind of ruined it for me. So Chapel and I amused ourselves by naming one of the play elements Christians. With Gladiators and Lions out to get them and cages to put them in. Fortunately, John is forgiving enough not to make a big fuss about it.
There are twelve possible components to a play and 30 different plays (with titles like The Galleys of Apollo, or The Cavalry of Spartacus). With only five game rounds, it doesn’t seem like there is a lot of things to do in this game. And you do not track cumulative victory points but the victory points in your best play (which generally progress to bigger plays with more victory points).
There are a lot of random aspects to this game. You roll dice to move spectators around a track and hope that they land inside your Colosseum. There are five groups of three tiles that you can bid on and you hope that useful tiles are drawn from the bag. Also, in the version of the game that we played, money was largely useless after a while.
I will have to take a wait and see attitude with this game. If I play it more, and if it turns out to be a better game, then I will buy it. Otherwise, I am content with letting someone else own it.
Arkadia
Next up was Arkadia. This was a more interesting game. No theme was explained to me which was fine in my book. It left it as an abstract game which is what worked best. Essentially, you are trying to collect tokens (of which there are colors) by surrounding a building with your pieces, other player’s pieces, neutral pieces, or other buildings. When a building is surrounded and the tokens are handed out, then the player will take a castle wall and place it on one of ten spots. This changes the number of visible colors when you look straight down. You may optionally cause a scoring which will allow you to trade your tokens for victory points. With only four possible scoring choices, you have to wait for the best time to use them.
This was an interesting game. And one that I am willing to play again.