Had a chance to play some new stuff (to me at least this weekend). I finally played a game of Race for the Galaxy, which I enjoyed, but we only played one game and nobody had any experience with anything outside of San Juan. So, a lot of the potential fun of the game took a back seat to rules clarification. Because of that, though I'm keen of playing it again, I really didn't get a chance to form a solid opinion on it. This is contrasted with San Juan which, due to its streamlining, clicked almost immediately.
Also played Agricola finally. Unfortunately, I really didn't get a chance to get too into it, as someone who wasn't really much of a board gamer stopped by for a couple of drinks after we started, so I spent a lot of time conversing with that individual as opposed to getting into the game. Therefore, I only concocted a really basic strategy that was often misplayed, and missed out on a lot of what you were supposed to be doing. Still, it seemed like a pretty fun game, if a little long-ish for the group's taste. I could definitely see why it's so popular.
Finally, I played a couple of games of Yomi. On the plus side, it's a really neat concept with plenty of charm. However, it didn't really get its teeth into me just yet. I haven't really gotten a chance to really familiarize myself with any of the characters and formulate long term game plans, so more often than not it played like an interesting spin on Rock Paper Scissors. This is fun if you like the psychology involved with that, but I think I'm still missing out on what people who have praised the game have taken away from it. I think there's more there that I just haven't figured out, or at least I hope so. Because as fun as playing the "He thinks I'm going to attack, so I'm going to block, but I bet he's figured that out, so I'm going to attack!" mind game is, I don't know if it's worthy of its hefty price (for the complete set anyway) and endless replays just yet. Nevertheless, I want to again reiterate that the concept is pretty cool.
