Lunchtime Gaming at Corillian

I recently organized a lunchtime gaming group at Corillian in our cafe. A couple of us had met spontaneously for some gaming over the past year, but about a month ago I decided we had a critical mass of folks interested in playing regularly, so we are now meeting each Friday at 11:30-1pm. Well, most of us: I'm traveling way too much recently, so missed this week and will miss the next two. I'm glad folks are getting together without me though - this is a great way to get to know folks at work and expand the gaming community.

Two weeks ago we played San Juan and Colossal Arena (Dave was even able to join us). It was great to see Paul spontaneously decide to sit down and join us - he's now a regular attendee.

This week I was away in NJ and OH, but the group met on Friday for some Ticket to Ride action. Eric wrote up the results:

For those that couldn’t make it today, we brought out Ticket to Ride. After I explained the game to Arron, Jason, and Paul, we dug in and started. Arron was taking the early lead due to some longer connections. Jason had the west coast mostly to himself, while the rest of us fought over the Midwest. Oddly enough, there was hardly ANY activity on the eastern seaboard.

Paul started pulling in a LOT of tickets as the game progressed, while Arron focused on building track. Jason and I mixed the two around a bit. As the game neared completion, Arron and Jason were pulling out to a lead while I hung right behind with Paul bringing up the rear. Finally Arron built down to his last train. Paul gambled by taking tickets on his final turn – hoping for some free points. Jason built a two segment track somewhere and I pulled of what turned out to be the game winning move by building from New Orleans to Miami on my final turn, completing a Los Angeles to Miami ticket in the process.

Final order was Eric, Arron, Jason, Paul, and the scores were rather spread (40 points or so). However, the game was much closer than that, as had I not built that final section, I would have finished last and had Paul not gambled on the final turn, he would have been no worse than third. Overall, the game lasted 90 minutes including instruction, so we’d easily be able to finish it in an hour in the future.

Everyone came out impressed with the game, Paul even suggesting he might exchange a couple recently purchased games for it.