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The Funk family rented a (new to us) game called Stone Age this weekend. It's a worker placement game made by the same board game company as Puerto Rico.
(You'll notice that a lot of the game chits look much like Puerto Rico.)
One of the major benefits of this game is that there are relatively few components compared to a game like Endeavor (an acquisition from about six months ago currently gathering dust in our game closet). The set-up takes about five minutes. Game play is really easy to pick up, but the scoring and winning the game is nuanced enough to satisfy those who don't like to play games more to the tune of Ticket to Ride.
Essentially, one must feed and place workers to do tasks: of hunting or gathering food; collecting one of the four resources (wood, clay, iron, and gold); reproducing new workers (at which point, we both said, "Woooooo!" every time); and building huts. The number of resources attained is determined by dice roll (you get a die for each worker placed by the respective resource, thus increasing odds of getting more of that resource). I can see the chance element appealing to people who are turned off by the pure strategy games.
It differs from Agricola in that your workers aren't perpetually on the brink of starvation, though workers do require "food." I found it was fairly easy to keep all my workers fed.
The players acquire points by building huts and by purchasing cards with resources that provide various point multipliers and other advantages. The scoring took me a couple of games to really get a handle on, but after that, it's pretty straightforward. Game play is between 60-80 minutes, but I imagine it'd be a pretty easy game to step away from for awhile. Stone Age is lighter worker placement game that plays up to 4 people; it does play great with two, however.
I see us probably purchasing this one.
(You'll notice that a lot of the game chits look much like Puerto Rico.)
One of the major benefits of this game is that there are relatively few components compared to a game like Endeavor (an acquisition from about six months ago currently gathering dust in our game closet). The set-up takes about five minutes. Game play is really easy to pick up, but the scoring and winning the game is nuanced enough to satisfy those who don't like to play games more to the tune of Ticket to Ride.
Essentially, one must feed and place workers to do tasks: of hunting or gathering food; collecting one of the four resources (wood, clay, iron, and gold); reproducing new workers (at which point, we both said, "Woooooo!" every time); and building huts. The number of resources attained is determined by dice roll (you get a die for each worker placed by the respective resource, thus increasing odds of getting more of that resource). I can see the chance element appealing to people who are turned off by the pure strategy games.
It differs from Agricola in that your workers aren't perpetually on the brink of starvation, though workers do require "food." I found it was fairly easy to keep all my workers fed.
The players acquire points by building huts and by purchasing cards with resources that provide various point multipliers and other advantages. The scoring took me a couple of games to really get a handle on, but after that, it's pretty straightforward. Game play is between 60-80 minutes, but I imagine it'd be a pretty easy game to step away from for awhile. Stone Age is lighter worker placement game that plays up to 4 people; it does play great with two, however.
I see us probably purchasing this one.
My daughter has the European version that is a bit more complex, since you have tunnels and bridges added, plus train stations that you can use to get into crowded cities. And the names of the cities around Europe are spelled according to the language of the country, so you have to think a bit harder about Munchen vs. Munich, Etc.
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