Lost Cities, Rio Grande Games

I've said before that I am not a gamer, right? Because I'm really not. I typically hate playing games. They either bore me, I don't understand how to play, or I perpetually lose at them so what's the point?

So why, why, why did God have me marry into a family that loved games?

I. have. no. idea.

I've felt DOOMED for the longest time. Then Jonathan begged me to play Carcassone (see his review by clicking on the link) and I thought that was kind of fun. Then we played Bohnanza and I liked that. So when we had the opportunity to play Lost Cities I was more willing than I was a few months back. I am happy to report that I like Lost Cities also.

Now what do these three games have in common? They are all Rio Grande Games. So now I'm thinking I'll just be a fan of Rio Grande Games and call it good. Can I do that? (Cut me some slack, people!)

Lost Cities is a two player game. It is faced paced. And I won the first round that we played so I'm all for playing it again! (Although I shouldn't have been all that gung ho about playing a second round. Jonathan won round two. We tied in the third round and stopped playing. Ultimately, he won by 3 points. I consider that to be a fairly good margin of error on my part and I would have thought more of it had he not been smiling so triumphantly. Note to self: Jonathan does not exactly win graciously.)

This game is kind of like double solitare only it revolves around a cool theme of "going on an adventure." (Appeal to Carrie's imagination and you win extra brownie points.) Your goal (simply stated) is to stack your cards in ascending numerical order (numbers 2-10) and make sure your adventure of choice earns you at least 20 points. You can play investment cards and double your adventure points. You can go on a total of five adventures (i.e., you have 5 opportunities to score). But beware! If your stack does not ultimately total 20 points, you'll risk losing valuable points to your gloating husband opponant. (You might even lose three crucial points!)

The instructions indicate that each game can take anywhere from 20-40 minutes to play. I think that's true when you are first learning how to play the game and it is supposing that you play 3-4 rounds. However, we quickly got the hang of it and since the game plays in such a way as to give you an option to play 1 round or 3, it plays fairly quickly. We timed each round at about 7-8 minutes. That makes this a great game to sit down and play when you have a few spare moments (after tucking your 2 year old into bed at night!) or to sit down with for 1/2 an hour or so to just enjoy. It's a play-at-your-own-pace and with your own time frame in mind kinda game. That is incredibly appealing to us.

We both agreed that this was a GREAT game for two players. It's quick. It's faced paced. (It's even affordable. Check it out on Amazon. It's easy to understand.

And did I mention that I won the first round?

Just wanted to make sure that you were paying attention.