For us, the current board game renaissance began in 2005, just as the final collectible card game boom was breathing its last. Prior to 2005 we had spend the vast majority of our time playing seemingly every CCG we could get our hands on, from
Aliens Predator to
Doomtown, but we had started to take notice of a few of the stand-alone card games that were filling game store space left by departing CCGs.
We may have been suffering from a bit of random booster pack burnout, so the self-contained nature of these games really appealed to us, as did their relative simplicity when compared to the complicated rules that most CCGs of the late 1990s are known for.
I don't recall where or when I picked up
Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper, only that the box artwork intrigued me, as did the fact that it was the first of a series of card games about famous crimes and criminals both real and fictional (although I never did pick up any of the other games in the series).
While relatively simple, the game works because it starts with the basic framework of rummy, which has been played in one form or another since at least the 18th century, and has proven its ability to stand up to multiple variants over the years.
Mystery Rummy takes the basic rummy mechanic of playing melds of matching cards with an eye towards getting rid of all your cards before your opponents do, and adds a few twists and turns to make the game a little more thematic, reflecting the hunt for Jack the Ripper in 1880s London.
Read the
original review.
Original rating:
3 (out of 5)
New rating (pass or fail):
PASS
Lost Cities is a card game by prolific designer Reiner Knizia, first published in the US by Rio Grande Games in 1999. It has all the hallmarks of a Knizia game: deceptively simple game mechanics, a complex scoring system, and a theme that fits the game perfectly. In this case, the theme is 1930s-style archaeological exploration, with card plays representing investment in, and then progress on, expeditions to the far corners of the world.
Like
Mystery Rummy,
Lost Cities has its roots in a classic card game; in this case, double solitaire. The game play feels familiar enough that it is instinctively easy to play, but there is enough going on in terms of game mechanics and theme to give players a fair amount to think about while playing.
Read the
original review.
Original rating:
3 (out of 5)
New rating (pass or fail):
PASS
Camelot Legends was introduced to us by none other than Zev Shlasinger, founder of Z-Man Games, when we met him at a convention in Denver in 2004. The game's stunning artwork (and Mr. Shlasinger's charming sales pitch) may have blinded us to its ultimately bland game play, but I think it is more likely that the game was okay for the time. However, it doesn't hold up when compared to the current standard of board and card games, which may explain why Z-Man has never republished it.
Read the
original review.
Original rating:
3 (out of 5)
New rating (pass or fail):
FAIL
