String Railway - FoxMind Games

String Railway is weird.  String Railway is different.  String Railway was fun?  I'm not sure I can answer that yet.  But String Railway is definitely one I need to play again.

Depending on how many players are playing you take this large piece of string (more like a thin rope) and put it in square, triangle or pentagon.  We have a normal sized dining room table and I don't think the pentagon would fit.  We played 2 player which told us to use a square.  (You are free to play the chaotic version and make any shape you want.)

Each player gets a starting station tile and 5 pieces of "string", 1 long and 4 short.  You take turns drawing a new station tile, placing it and laying your string down.  The string has to start and end on a station.  It can pass through any number of stations along the way (Within the rules of each station) and may pass through the river or mountain (Blue and Brown Strings), or over other railways.  However each string you pass over you lose a point.  Points are scored depending on which new stations  your railway connects with.  Some stations can handle only a single player, some can handle up to all 5 players connecting through them.

This game is different because as seen in the photo above their is no board or any official spot where stuff goes.  It's "put it where it works for you", and then the next player does the same.  It gets a little crazy.  

We played a 2 player game which makes each player control 2 different colors of string.  Essentially playing a 4 player game with 2 people.  Because of that I would think this is better as a 3-4 player game as I had to play both players and trying to have each do well, but not hurt each other.

In the end this game was interesting and different to play.  I really want to play it again with more players.  

Players:

John Stout

Angela Stout

Pros:

Like nothing I've played before.  Very open playing surface, could even be played on the floor if needed.  

Cons:

Because it's so open a slight bump to the string can open paths that were supposed to have been blocked off.  

Play Again?

I need to play this at least once more with 3-4 players to see if it's a keeper.  It was alright with 2 but I could see it really doing well with more.  

String Railway by Foxmind games

Designer - Hisashi Hayashi

El Gaucho - Argentum Verlag

The night started with me going downstairs to get a game we haven't played before.  It was early enough to learn something new.  I came back with several including El Gaucho.  We sat down and went through the rules, most of which were easy to understand.  Only being confused by a Spanish word for pasture.

In the game you are a owner of a cattle farm and you hire gaucho's to bring the best cattle back to you so you can sell them.  Their are several breeds of cattle with numbers from 1-12 on them.  To score you want to form ascending or descending rows of cattle.  When you round up a cow that has a number that can't fit on the end of your row you need to sell the row (herd) and start a new herd.  You score by number of cattle in the heard times the largest numbered cow in the herd.  So if you have 5 cattle numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 then each cow would be worth 10, and you would score 50 points.

And you collect the cows by rolling dice (training your gaucho's) and you use the dice to pick which cattle you can get or other activities that the gaucho's can do.  Including stealing an opponents cow, or getting an extra die.

While the theme seems lighthearted and almost silly, the game had lots of interesting decisions you had to make, as to which cow to select or activity to have your gaucho preform in order to get the most points.

I enjoyed this game very much with it's fun art and theme to the interesting and thoughtful game play that forced you to think about every move in order to better your herds.

Players:
John Stout
Angela Stout

Pros:
Colorful fun art.  Tiles felt durable with nice wooden pieces.  Neat dice corral.  Fun game play.

Cons:
Nothing yet.  It may change on more plays though.

Play Again?:
I definitely would want to play this again.  I would also like to try it with multiple players.

El Gaucho by Argentum Verlag

Designer - Arve D. Fühler