Theme: Speed-group-solitaire game Players: 2-4 Playtime: 10-20min Suggested Player Age: 8 and up
Serious Face: 4/10 This game is fairly light, as well as being super quick and fun. Dutch Blitz is all about beating your opponents in speed, if you can play your cards the fastest, you win. So those type of games don't really have too much seriousness in them. Player Interaction: 7/10 Player interact the entire game, trying to play down 1-10 on different colored stacks until all their cards are gone. You interact in that you play before and on top of other players, but you are basically racing the clock in some ways. Strateejery: 2/10 There is one strategic element, stacking cards of differing gender on your cards in front of you to get them out of your deck, but that might block cards you want to play underneath. This is really the only strategic element of the game. Feeling Lucky: 6/10 Even if you get lucky by picking lots of cards that work well in the same pile or that you can just play you might not win if someone else is faster. But the same thing rule applies the other way around, speed isn't everything and luck isn't everything, you need some of both to win this game. Teachability: 8/10 Super easy to teach, takes maybe five minutes, especially if you play without stacking the first couple of times so that everyone gets the hang of the game first. How Hard Can It Be: 7/10 Not too hard, but hard to win if you are playing someone who has played for many years. This is the kind of game that you get better at over time so if you lose every time in the beginning, that's normal. You will get better. Looking Pretty: 8/10 The cards look great, they are sturdy, the colors are bright, the designs are clear, and the artwork is plain and good.
In the Grand Scheme of Things: This game is like solitaire, with a bunch of other people trying to play on your stacks. You have to be fast, quick-thinking, and level-headed to win this game. I love it because of the speed aspect, I love fast games, and once your mind thinks this way, you will pick this game up in no time at all. Buy it, it's fun and quick!
Carcassonne
Theme: City, road, and farm building Players: 2-4 Playtime: 30-60min Suggested Player Age: 12 and up
Serious Face: 6/10 This game is also fairly light, but this is just the base-game, there are a large number of expansions for this game that make it much more serious, long, complicated, and interesting. Player Interaction: 8/10 This is a game with a large scale of player interaction, you can play where nobody interacts with each other, everyone just tries to build their own cities and roads and doesn't bother anyone else. Or you can play the way my group plays and you try to steal other peoples cities, ruin their roads, invade their farms, and take over their areas of control. This way of playing has a very high level of interaction. Strateejery: 8/10 You pick one tile every turn and you play that tile, you place one meeple and your turn is over. Pretty simple, but every meeple placement is critical, every tile placement is crucial, even if it seems stupid and uneventful. So much strategy. Even more with the expansions. Feeling Lucky: 6/10 There is luck in most games. This game has a good amount of it. You pick one tile a turn, if you pick all the wrong tiles, you will lose the games, for sure. If you pick all great tiles and play them wrong, you will still lose. Teachability: 7/10 Besides the farming aspect of this game, the rest of it is easy to teach. Farming is complicated only because it is easier to see than to explain, but you need to know how farming works before you play because you need to be planning your farming moves early in the game. How Hard Can It Be: 4/10 Not very hard. Once you understand farming and meeple placement, it is easy. You hardly ever have to reference the rulebook and there are never any rule arguments. It is easy to understand. Looking Pretty: 9/10 This game is beautiful. everything about it looks great and the production quality is super high.
In the Grand Scheme of Things: If you are trying to get non-gamers to play games with you, this is a great one to start with. Non-gamers will like how light and easy it is, how short the turns are, and how they will be able to win every once in a while even though they did it on accident. Carcassonne is fun and light, but once you have played a lot, you begin to understand the deep strategic decisions that go into every turn.