Robinson Crusoe is a clever game, beautiful to behold, with good mechanisms and involves all the players in the desperate struggle to escape this cursed place. However, unless you are a committed masochist there will be times when you question why you play this game. I certainly feel that I wouldn't choose to play this 2 player; maybe the joy of this game is that you struggle futilely for a while, but in the end we all fail. Is this a metaphor for life?
Meanwhile, 'Princess' finally got to play Florenza: the card game. This vast, card-based game could surely not be played on anything smaller than a pool table; it made Robinson Crusoe's form factor look tiny by comparison. The first of two hideously complicated scoring games played by Jon, David and Peter M, Florenza is a game in which players are the heads of the most important families of Florence during the Renaissance. Players try to hire the best artists to embellish the monuments of the city, but they can also build workshops and houses or join guilds to strengthen their power and have more resources and money to manage. Here's Rahdo with his runthrough:
Robinson Crusoe
Aaron
Colin *Players lost
Neil C
Peter H
Florenza: the card game
David 62 (2nd place on tie-break)
Jon 79
Peter M 62
Red7
Aaron 42
Neil C 15
Peter H 0
BoardGameGeek: the card game
David 132
Jon 122
Peter M 73
My gamer of the week, based on pure arithmetic as nothing could separate them, is Jon ahead of David for victory in Florenza and 2nd place in BoardGameGeek.