#88 Marrying Mr. Darcy
Marrying Mr. Darcy is a hard game to recommend. I absolutely love the game, but … let me see if I can explain. Based on the Jane Austen novel "Pride And Prejudice," Marrying Mr. Darcy sees players take the roles of female characters from the novel as each tries to earn the hand of their favored suitor.
On a player's turn, they draw a card from the Event Deck and they do what it says. This almost invariably involves drawing cards from a second deck of cards called the Character Deck. The Character Deck is mostly made up of favorable qualities like, Wit, Beauty, Reputation, and Friendliness. When you draw cards, you usually draw several but must choose to keep only one. This you add to your tableau to build up your character to make you more appealing to your chosen suitor.
Each character scores differently based on the fella she likes from the novel. So, players will be trying to win the hand of "their guy." Other factors to consider are Dowry and Cunning. Some suitors expect a dowry of a minimum level, and while most don't want a woman of high cunning (heaven forbid) the player with the highest cunning is able to roll for her marriage proposal first.
Ah, you saw that didn't you? "... roll for her marriage proposal … " So, yes. You draw random events in order to draw more random cards in order to roll the dice at the end of the game to hopefully win the hand of the suitor that you want. Marrying Mr. Darcy is very random. As a game, it is a little bit of a mess. As an experience, Marrying Mr. Darcy is amazing! It's so much fun. But, if you are a hyper competitive gamer looking to out strategize your opponents. You should probably turn around and walk the other way.
For me Marrying Mr. Darcy is amazeballs! It even has a zombie expansion! (You heard that right!!) Marrying Mr. Darcy is a great thematic experience that is super light and easy to table. The game is more about enjoying the experience than the game play. So, it's one for themers, not thinkers. For me, it's my 88th favorite game of all time.
#87 Fabled Fruit
Fabled Fruit is a campaign card game about jungle (and other) animals making fruit juice. Cards on the table represent action spots and Fabled Fruit is a worker placement game. Each player has only one worker. You choose your spot and you take your action. Those actions put fruit cards in your hand. When you have the right combination of fruit cards you can make juice. The first player to make a certain number of juices (based on player count) wins the hand.
The trick to the game is the worker placement spots. These are cards. At first you have six spots. These are each made up of six different cards. These different stacks are made up of four identical cards. So, worker spot one might be a stack of four identical cards and each of these cards instructs the player to draw three fruits into their hand. Worker spot two is a stack of four different cards that tells the player to do something else … and so on.
On the bottom of the cards is a formula consisting of different combinations of fruits. You can go to a location if you have the correct formula and make fruit juice. If you do this, you take the card from the top of the location showing the formula that you just completed, and you place it in front of you face down. The face down side of the location card shows a juice bottle. (It looks like a wine bottle. I think all of these animals are really making wine and getting drunk.) Tahdah! You have made juice. You are on your way to winning the game.
Don't worry, even though you have taken one of the location cards from the stack, there are still three left. So, the location is still there to be used on future turns. However, everytime a location card is removed, it is replaced with a new one from the location deck. Now there is something new that players can do on their turns.
The location deck is numbered so the locations are in a specific order. Every location has four copies. When you add a location from the deck, if there is already a copy of that location in play, you put the new card on top of its matching location. If there isn't a copy of that location in play, you add a new location spot to the board. This gives Fabled Fruit its campaign quality.
You can play as many hands as you want, and then save your progress when you put Fabled Fruit away. So, that way the new locations come out to start your next game. The location deck is huge, and you will play many game sessions before you complete it.
Julie and I have played all the way through Fabled Fruit once. I am not sure that we will play through the whole campaign again, but this one holds some really fond memories for us, and it's a lot of fun to just pull out and play every once in a while. That's why Fabled Fruit is my 87th favorite game of all time.
#86 CV
CV is a card drafting game where players roll dice to gain resources to buy cards that represent important events during different stages of a person's life.
Cards will often provide permanent resources (like the cards in Splendor) that will improve your ability to get better cards later. Events on the cards are things like, getting a job, going out to dinner, buying a house, getting married, and having a baby.
Like Marrying Mr. Darcy, the dice rolling in CV make this one feel pretty random, and a large part of the enjoyment of the game is in the experience as you watch this fictional life unfold in front of you.
It is an experience that I really enjoy and the art on the cards is lovely and funny and it often tells its own story. All of this makes CV my 86th favorite game of all time.
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