Obatron

We were introduced to this board game at GenCon 2007. Unfortunately, we were a bit drained by the time we got to the booth and they wouldn’t give us any information unless we played two continental splits. I kind of ignored it for a long time, but nostalgia for the trip got me to buy the game recently.

The game is kind of like a weird Risk. The players take on life forms and compete for dominance in the various areas of the continent. Slow the continent splits which changes strategy somewhat. It’s a game that’s really hard to explain, it’s probably a bit of luck (you could get really hosed in during the setup for instance.) and a light amount of strategy. It takes a bit to set up, and play can take an hour or so. I would say it’s good for some light fare when you don’t want a full blown war game nor want a simplistic easy game.

The rules were simple, short, and left few questions. There were a couple of instances where we had to “house rule” something that wasn’t clear though.

Infernal Contraption, a non-collectable card game by Privateer Press, is sort of like a geek’s version of the old card game Water Works.

The cards are split up among the players, this makes up your parts pile. The objective is to have parts after all other players have run out of theirs. You build a machine with your parts that when turned on, uses up parts from other players, as well as pulls items from the scrap pile, and some other effects. You have to balance how much you build as for every part you put on the machine (after the first one on your turn), you have to sacrifice one to the scrap pile.

I played it as a two player game last night and it went over very well. The rules are easy to learn, the cards pretty self-explanatory, just two pages as part of the eloquently designed storage box. It took us probably 35-50 minutes to play the first time just getting used to the rules and strategy of it. Overall, a highly recommended game! We even went out and bought the expansion to it!