She can’t help it if she’s done her best but it isn’t very good. She’s ploddingly typed out her half-assedly apropos review, then clicked on the stars- seven of them, yellow and cartoony, her blithe summation of a designer’s painstakingly wrought offering to twenty-first century board games. He probably spent years designing and researching this thing, which she already rated like an ebay-seller transaction, and reviewed with all the thoughtfulness and care of a drunk college kid’s Facebook status update….
Does it work? It works. She fumbles through the rules at first, and maybe misplays a thing or ten…but then the rhythm kicks in, and that dopamine hit of engine synergy, of playing a card and knowing, somehow, it matters. She respects that.
She learns that trying to get good at Race for the Galaxy is like Jedi Training. And to even dare to write about it, she has become a Padawan of those Jedi that came before her. Those are the ones posting insightful strategy threads from 2007, back when the only board game she knew was Candy Land. She notes there’s a review on BGG from someone with 11,000 plays. Eleven thousand! That’s not even a person anymore, she thinks. That’s a satellite orbiting a sun of victory points. So what can she possibly add to the conversation? Nothing. The answer is nothing. But…she can keep trying to keep you entertained.
Because this is a fabulous game, and in her opinion, one of the greatest card games- despite the fact that, for her, it was not exactly a breeze to get into. It wasn’t painful or anything, but nor was it one she sat down and plowed through like a maniac either. She carried the thing around with her and poked at it in fits and starts over a period of time. Weeks…months…She thinks Thomas Lehmann is probably a genius, but there’s something slightly inaccessible about him. Or his games anyway. Maybe because she’s not a genius, or not a game designer, or not so into grey and silver tones.
She loves the moment of trying to outguess her opponent. What phase will they pick? What phase won’t they pick? It’s not just action selection. It’s a mind game in which she begins psychologically analyzing her opponents. She learns that the real race in Race is the race to second-guess everyone else and pretend she planned it that way.
She used to think ‘engine-building’ meant something clunky and diesel-smelling, but now she knows it can mean the divine thrill of playing one card that gives her two cards, which lets her settle a world that triggers a windfall that lets her consume for points.
She stares at the alien symbols, translating them like the Rosetta Stone. At first, it’s all hieroglyphics but then, suddenly one day she’s reading fluently in icon-ese. She can play whole games in 20 minutes. She’s bilingual now.
She doesn’t want to talk it up too much, and she can’t promise Race for the Galaxy will have the same effect on you. However, it is a great game, and everyone should play it. Plus, she’s pretty sure there’s a loophole in the Important Game rules that says people who’ve played Race don’t have to play Gloomhaven, *especially* if you’re a 30-something year old girl (hey, she knows that’s not fair but she doesn’t make the rules). And if time is an issue, this is a great deal to take advantage of, as Race is not only a great deal shorter, but also way more accessible.
By the time she’s done, she’s resolved to find more of the designer’s work. Although this isn’t the greatest game she’s ever played, she enjoyed it, and she bet’s he’s done just as good elsewhere. She googles his name with the reverence of someone who’s just discovered auteur cinema. She adds Res Arcana to the list, another classic, which, when she plays it, will make her feel vastly superior for understanding the path that yet another classic paved for where board games are today. It’s all part of her personal narrative arc. Race isn’t her favorite game- not yet- but it is now an artifact in the sacred museum of Games That Made Her Feel Smarter, and that, in the end, might be even better.
Many thanks to Rio Grande for a review copy.