Niña and Pinta

Pretty complicated at first but once you get the hang of it, it’s fantastic!

If you are old enough to remember (and appreciate) the complexity of the game "Risk" then chances are you will like this game. Risk was a favorite and I have memories of taking entire days during summer playing with cousins...while this game is different in actual function, the complexity is quite similar. I like complex games although they are not always simple to fit into a lifestyle these days. This board game has all the design, build and features you have come to know and love from years ago with the simple updates of today. Good stuff!

This is a game that you have to invest a lot of time and effort into learning. I spent the better part of an afternoon with the game pieces and instructions and must admit I did not feel comfortable when in the evening I had to explain it to others. The next day I went to YouTube and watched several videos on the subject and felt more at ease the next time we played. My boys are adults but we still love game play and are always on the lookout for the next big thing. We ended up liking this game. A lot. There are land tile, era markers, Culture/Science/Religion markers, Captains, settlers, towns, gold, cities, ships – all to move and manipulate without any dice rolling Oh, yes, war. You can have war. This is a 2 to 4 player game but there is a method where you can play solo. Not many adventure board games offer that. This is not a game you can purchase in the afternoon and have a family game night after supper. It is also not a true family game unless you’re playing with late teens or adult family members. I don’t want to continue with what it’s not. It is fun. It is challenging. It is a good game to have on the shelf in preparation for the zombie apocalypse.

We spent the better part of yesterday attempting to play Nina & Pinta. We must have spent an hour plus reading the rules, which would have been more sensible had they been written in html. We had to go back and forth between sections to make any sense of them. The game suffers from being a bit too complicated and not all the rules are fully fleshed out. We thought we had it more or less sorted out when we hit a place midway through the game where we were both stuck, and there was no answer in the rule book regards how to sort it out. In fact, there were several points where the rules were unclear. The board itself is nicely produced, as are the game pieces, tokens and wooden characters. It straddles a number of popular strategy games with aspects of resource, trading, civilisation and war games. Many games lose quite a bit when played with only 2 players, but I do not think that is where this one fell down. There are apparatly rules for a one player game, though I could not make sense if them at all. While I believe this game has promise, I wish the rules were more clearly written, and fully fleshed out. It reminded me of the first time we tried to play Agricola with rules which I understand were poorly translated from Hungarian. I do not believe that was the case with this game but am unsure ig3 I will ever be able to get my husband interested in playing it again given that after devoting the better part of a day to it we needed to abandon the game because of a lack of direction in a situation which was bound to come up again and again. I rated it 4 stars because conceptually it is better than most, and it is more nicely produced than most board games as well. I just wish that the rules were laid out in a more sensible way. Nina & Pinta could easily be played as a family game with kids from about ages 8 to 10. It involves both luck and strategy, and the possible variations make it one with good replay value. Expect to devote several hours to the game, with another one or two for sorting out the rules.

This game is consistently wierd...which is what makes it so cool. Board games are coming back, and periodically, they do. They are a social statement, because computer games are, for the most part, anti-social. Even if you play an online game against other players, you interact only with the game, not with the person. Board games are face to face play, or sometimes other body parts, LOL. Remember Twister? This game takes a story of the 1400's, or thereabouts, to the days explorers were desperately attempting to tap the wealth of the "New World". The name of the game correlates to the names of two of the ships of Columbus in his quest to discovery someplace other than home. That is where the story breaks the mold. The game is about multiple nations trying to get to the New World to "get rich" by bringing treasures back to the Old World. The ships can battle with each other, turn over tiles in the new world (discovery), gather wealth, etc. A new twist is the concept of parallel dimensions. Really. The concept of having one set of ships in an adjacent parallel universe enter your universe and compete with your ships. Essentially, you compete against yourself? Sort of. LOL. The game has so many possibilities built in, it may be too much for the board game player. This is vastly more complicated than board games of old, like Mouse Trap, Monopoly and even Risk. It is fun as can be, but at some points, it can get very frustrating knowing what to do next. Of course, one person's knowledge of the game can give them an advantage. In the game of Life that really is not the case. This game has a great deal of strategy involved. It is impossible to explain all aspects of the game. There are some videos online, and they are likely the best way to get an idea of the complexity. If it catches on, it could be huge, but the complexity of the game may fail to garner a large following.