Lost Treasures of the Eurogames Reclamation Project

You twERPs, you go too far.

VonTush wrote: Outside of the more common knowledge ones, for me the stand-outs were:
Africa, Around the World in 80 Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth, California, Pueblo.

I haven't played Journey, but I'm not fond of the others. But I'm always the outlier here, so YMMV.

These are excellent Euros (some just "good") that that fall outside the list of known classics:

Aladdin's Dragons (warning: blind bidding overload)
Before the Wind (many much meanness)
Boomtown (listed again due to greatness)
Bucket King (with 2 common variant rules ; everyone in MD loves this game)
Cartagena 2 (can also be used to play the original)
Cavum (dynamite! explosions!)
Dragonland (Knizia family game, but fun for everyone)
Emerald (Dorn family game, also with a dragon)
Fast Flowing Forest Fellers (race game, needs max players)
Gold Digger (Knizia filler that we used to play a lot)
Hansa (the very definition of a good light Euro)
Magna Grecia (most brain-burny on this list)
Moai (meanest Euro ever; cannibalism!)
Shark (neat stock game)
Spectral Rails (really unique pickup and deliver game)

Ha ha! That game sucked!

Who will be the first to step up to defend Time Pirates?

ubarose wrote: Confession, I really enjoy Andromeda, you know, with the cosmic ash tray. It was huge back in the day. No one talks about it anymore.

I was looking at that last night. Robert Martin ranked it highly so it intrigued me. Barnes rated it poorly and I was confused.

Robert loved it. He made me play it several times.

Miss that guy...he could be really moody and completely not interested in playing what everyone else wanted to play, but I loved gaming with him. Great taste, apart from Andromeda. And When Darkness Comes. I think he really sort of lost interest in games altogether.

What are opinions on the Adventurers games? European designs, big deal when they came out, FFG published and now kind of forgotten...I never played either of them. Worthwhile? Family style or cluttered hybrid junk?

I've played the Temple of Choc a few times.
Overall I liked it, and I've heard the Pyramid is better.

You have a character that becomes burdened the more stuff s/he carries. At the beginning of a turn you adjust this little chart behind your character card depending on how much loot you have, it then gives you a range. The start player tosses and amount of dice and the number of dice that fall into that range tells you how many actions you get on a turn.

It's been a while so I can't remember what the actions are, but basically moving or claiming treasure.

With Choc you start off in the corridor where the walls are closing in, you can spend time studying glyphs that will help in the next room which is a lava floor, some spots of the floor collapse others are safe.

You then move into this area where you have three paths you can take to get to the exit...The first is a long way about but you can stop and try to get a high point treasure, there's a short cut where you can cross a rickety bridge potentially dropping treasure or falling into the pit, or you can jump in the water blow and swim towards the exit and find treasure in the river as well, but I think if you're carrying too much treasure you can't pull yourself out, or it is at least harder.

The game "timer" is a boulder a la Indiana Jones that is cruising down the hallway and once it reaches the end of the path it traps you inside and you die.

It's been years since I've played and within the past two weeks or so I had every intention of pulling it out to re-read the rules.


Pyramid doesn't have as many moving parts so to speak, but you have this open area where you can get stung by scorpions, once you get through there's some wondering supernatural guards guarding the tombs you're looking to raid. This game's timer is the ceiling is caving in potentially blocking your escape route. I've heard that this one is better overall, but I haven't played yet and it didn't seem to have the character of the first.

I remember the first one being fun and exiting. At the right price I think it is worth it.

Michael Barnes wrote: What are opinions on the Adventurers games? European designs, big deal when they came out, FFG published and now kind of forgotten...I never played either of them. Worthwhile? Family style or cluttered hybrid junk?

Second one is better, definitely family fare. It reminds me a little of Thebes the way you're digging through different card piles to find the good stuff. The second one is better because the first one has no tension and there's a lava bridge thing that's kind of confusing. The second game ends like Bomberman when you're taking too long, random pieces of the ceiling fall cutting off your planned exit route.

I like Temple of Chac a great deal. It's the only true Indiana Jones game.

Funny you guys both like the Pyramid of Horus, most people seem to dislike the completely random block falling mechanic that can seal off the entrance at an abritrary time.

I've just heard that it is better...Haven't played (but something I should remedy).

What I think is that it is more straight forward. There's a lot of little rules in Choc like the bridge, reading the glyphs and how they tie into the next room.

Where Horus I think is just a smash and grab in essence before the random blocks fall.

I consider Adventurers the perfect convention game. Dive right in, a blast to play... feel grateful afterwards that it's taking up space in someone else's closet.

At the local con this year, my 10yo daughter and I played the two Adventurers games and Rampage; all were a blast, but Rampage was the only one purchased (and that was a marginal call).

I enjoyed both Adventurers games but have never felt like I needed to own them. I liked Chac a bit better because of the Temple of Doom feel. Pyramid was decent too, but had a considerably less Adventure-y feel to it. They're primarily push-your-luck games; calling them Incan Gold turned up to 11 might be oversimplifying them, but it wouldn't be inaccurate either.

the Adventurer games would have been awesome if they were designed to somehow be more modular, allowing you to mix them up a bit.

charlest wrote: Funny you guys both like the Pyramid of Horus, most people seem to dislike the completely random block falling mechanic that can seal off the entrance at an abritrary time.

That's the best part. That's what makes Pyramid of Horus work. But then again I really dig DungeonQuest and feel that more non-cooperative games should have an "everybody dies" end game condition.