My wife didn't want to come out on the night I first played Tobago.  She said she was tired.  Which means she wanted a night away from me, which is clearly a ludicrous idea, as most would pay large percentages of their income for me to merely stand by them in a picture.  Fame is tough on the whole family, I suppose.  But still, she didn't come, and she doesn't know what she missed, and she sucks and is lame.

This paragraph will now be dedicated to apologizing to my wife for the previous paragraph in which I apparently stated – this is not an admission of guilt – that she sucks and is lame.  She has recently informed me that not only is this not the case, but it is I in fact who sucks and is lame.

Tobago was fun.  There were two mechanics in the game that I found quite different.  The game is based around the concept of creating a map to lead you to treasure.  The way this is accomplished is to play clue cards that slowly focus the map down to one space on the board.  A player can subsequently jump in his little SUV and drive to retrieve the treasure.  Then, the treasure is split among all the players who had a hand in creating the map.  Each players gets information about the amount of the treasure based on how much they contributed to the finding, then the treasures are dolled out last in, first out style, with a passing option, so if you know there's a better card coming, you can hold out.  Very different and quite fun.

The re-playability is quite good, with three board sections that can be combined in various ways to create 32 different maps.  My friend says none of them look anything like Tobago, but then again, I don't believe I suck and am lame so who's the expert on all of this stuff anyway?

I digress.  The game, overall is quite fun; built for fun, you might even say.  Besides a few hiccups, such as being too damn far away from a given treasure, you usually have the ability in your hands to affect the game in various ways, the key to fun for any strategy game player.  Just fun, and a little different.

If you need any other incentive to give it a shot, I just used the word fun (wait, let me get the control F action going) 6 times, not counting the one in this sentence.

Bad writing or good game?  You decide!

With the Christmas season approaching, I'd also like to point out some of my faves in terms of giftery giving.  My all time favorite game Ra is out and about in its new edition.  Also, that weird, artsy version of Caylus looks pretty badass.  And not too long ago a big box version of the 2003 Spiel de Jahres winner Alhambra came out, which would be a great addition to any collector's library for it contains 5, count 'em, 5 major expansions.

And socks.  People love to get socks for Christmas.

At least that's what the wife tells me right after I open the socks.