An off-game-day find

Yesterday, I (Chris) had to run off campus for a bit, but when I was coming back I ran into Jake in the parking lot (literally! He was walking, I was driving, and I just swung my car right in front of him. He was unhurt, but complained about how dirty the car was...). We both had some time to kill, so games must be played!!

I have owned Torres for quite a while, and have never gotten to play it. The rules seemed rather complex, but it has won all sorts of awards in the US, Germany, and around the world. I knew it had to be good.

So, Jake and I pored over the rules, got the gist, and dove in.

It's great. Just great. Really fun. Really tactical.

You play as princes trying to build the best castles for your king, in order to inherit the crown. On each turn, you have a limited number of blocks you can build into your castles, and a limited number of action points to move knights around, or do other actions. Because of this limit, strategy abounds!

The game is played in three phases of a few turns each. At the end of each phase, each castle is scored. You take the surface area the castle covers, and multiply it by the height of the highest knight you have in that castle. So you have to sort of think and strategize in three dimensions. It can cause brain pain -- but is ultimately satisfying.

I can highly recommend this game. The first playthrough will seem a bit awkward (at least I thought so), but it does have a nice flow. There's a bunch of funky special rules, but they seem to make sense in an odd way once you've played the game.

I didn't record the exact scores, but I do recall -- Jake KILLED me in the first game. I won the second game by a less, but still comfortable, margin. The third game had me winning for most of it, but Jake was sneakily cranking up one of the castles I built the foundation on, and he eked out a nice strategic win.