Gamex Report: Saturday - 2nd Post - Notre Dame and If Wishes Were Fishes

After a whirlwind morning of errands, I finally made it down to Gamex before noon. I dropped off my sizable contribution to the Rio Grande library and checked out the nice dealer room. We've got a great crowd here and I'm thrilled to see such a big turnout.

Just after that, I got a chance to meet Jay Tummelson. As always described, Jay was a nice fellow and was cheerfully asking everyone, "Want to play a game?" Some of the games Jay Brought to show off include:

Caylus Magna Carta
Notre Dame
Guatemala Cafe
Master Thieves
Ponte De Marchio
Fiji

Jay brought a lot of terrific games to the convention to try out but the crown jewel for the simple reason of exclusivity is If Wishes Were Fishes, the Peter Sarrett game that was just published in Germany this Wednesday. Good guy that Jay is, he paid a hefty fee to have a copy shipped out so he could show it off at Gamex. Naturally, this story was good enough to get me to sit down right away. Jay showed the game to me and my buddy Bernie, who flew in from NYC for the con.

If Wishes Were Fishes is undeniably cute. I mean, you get little fish meeples ("fisheeples?") and a half-dozen rubber worms in addition to a single card representing two boats where you can store your fish. This card is cleverly divided to show two halves of two boats so you can put a fish on each side. The rainforest thanks them. You also get a colorful board with a fish stand for each fish type where some 'buyer' meeples hang out randomly to increase the amount you can get if you sell fish you caught and keep.

On your turn, you can sell a fish you have in your boat or 'fish' for a new fish card (well, draft them) and decide if you are going to keep the fish to sell at the appropriate stand or toss the fish back and receive the 'wish' the fish has on the top of his card. The wishes vary from allowing you to sell more than the limit of one fish per turn, increase the value of fish by manipulating the buyers, sell you fish as a more valuable one, get money for all your worms, get extra boats, and that kind of thing. The fish are set up in a line of four and you can only take the one to the far right free (shallow sea). If you want to take one further over, you need to use your worms - one for each card you want to skip past. Later, if there is a worm on a card you take, you get to claim it. Also, you can't take fish if you have no room in your boats.

There are also bonus cards that show up when a certain number of a type of fish (betwen 4 and 7) are sold and cycling through them will draw the game to the end. When this comes up, the two people with the largest number of fish sold for that market gain extra money (points). The market for that kind of fish is then closed - well, sort of. You can still sell these fish for their current price but now any sold fish go into the garbage and the person with the most fish in the garbage loses 10 points at the end of the game. There are some wishes that will let you pull your fish out of (or put your opponents fish into) the garbage so you can affect this later.

Unfortunately, Bernie and I played a two-player game. Like many games, it seemed fiddly at first but once we got the hang of it, we were fine and churned through quickly (it says it plays in 40 mins). Although I think the game is fine, I don't think it is suited to head-to-head play. The markets filled slowly since we could often make a lot more money with worm bonuses and other choices. I think it will shine with four, although you will have less chance of the fish you want being there by the time your turn comes around. All in all, a nice game that I will play again. I could see Puerto Rico, Mall World, Parts Unknown - sheesh - a lot of games in this one. But that's okay, it worked well.

After that, Jay taught me Notre Dame and since this one has been described extensively online, I will make my comments brief. This is another victory point builder with multiple angles you can use. It has parts of Fairy Tale, El Grande, Industrial Waste, Thurn and Taxis, Castle Merchants - egad! But, you know what? I thought it was delighftul. I'm sure much of the muted praise coming out about it is the fact that the influences are so visible. But tossed in with an intriguing board makeup, nice bits, and quick gameplay, this game is quite enjoyable! Jay has brought a bunch of pre-release copies to the convention to sell and if I hadn't already pre-ordered it, I'd already own it. As it is, I'm just going to get in some additional games of it this weekend on the two copies available in the Rio Grande Tournament.

Okay, I'm off to run the Escalation! tournament so I'll sign off until this evening.