Our first game of the weekend was an old-fashioned board game: Careers. (Although we played a relatively new printing, Heather and Bob learned to play this game from an older South African printing that has instructions written in both English and Afrikaans and uses rand for money instead of dollars.) Players roll dice and move their markers around the perimeter of the board in an effort to fulfill their own personalized success formulas (by accumulating combinations of money, happiness, and fame). There are different career paths that can be chosen by entering internal tracks on the board, all of which have their own mix of fun and suspense. During this playing, Heather went to university to become a doctor and charged us large hospital bills; Greg became that rare breed of farmer who specializes in missions to the moon; Bob became famous in the arts but struggled with taxes, unemployment, and mood swings; and Jennifer dabbled in politics and exploration before topping off her happiness in the simple realm of farming for the win.
Our next game had some career options of a sort as well as we homesteaded, built, banked, mined, and fought in and around the town of Carson City. The initial board setup started with a huge clump of mountains in the middle; there barely seemed like enough room to grow the city on the side and mining was an obvious initial focus of the game. Bob started with the best mining plot, Greg became a leader in real estate around town, and Jennifer and Heather took turns banking for points early in the game. From there Jennifer, Heather, and Bob went into arms escalation and were using every trick they could think of to bring more guns and fighters to bear on a comic yet desperate series of skirmishes and squabbles across the county. When the dust cleared, Heather stood victorious as the most rootin' tootin' gunslinger in the West!
Cartagena is a fun, quick game in which the players' career choice has already been made: the players control convicted pirates racing down a secret tunnel to escape their island prison. The only angst is in hoping to have the right cards to play at the right time. Players took turns moving and skipping their escaping pirate prisoners down the tunnel toward the rendezvous sloop. Bob kept his pirates huddled just inside the entrance of the tunnel as long as he could, then played a game of long-distance leap frog to advance to victory.
The takeaway for the weekend? One should have fun no matter what career choice is made!
Written by Bob
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