Don Quixote the Game

A Classic Case of Madness is happy to welcome Christine’s husband Andy as today’s guest blogger.

Even though I am not reading Don Quixote (yet?), he has invaded my life.  Maybe it’s just that I’m noticing it more after hearing about the book (a lot) from my wife.  I tend to listen to classical music at work.  It blocks out the noisy cube neighbors, but I find that it promotes concentration more than pop, rock, or jazz.    Suddenly, I heard the announcer saying that they were going to play a few different pieces of music composed about Don Quixote.  If that wasn’t enough of a coincidence for me, Don Quixote then invaded my lunch hour.  I get together with some friends at work to play a game during our lunch hour on Fridays.  A few weeks ago, someone brought Don Quixote to play.  This game is relatively new, © 2010, and published by Pegasus Spiele GmbH.

The game consists of castles, roads, churches, knights, and windmills.  Being that I haven’t read said book, I can’t say with authority how this relates to the book, other than to say that I don’t think it does at all.  In fact, quoting from the instructions, “By the way, in case you notice ruefully that Dulcinea, Sancho Panza, and the Man of La Mancha himself are missing from the tiles, you’ll be excited about what we have planned for the Don and his comrades in the future…” [ellipses original] 

So, it seems like there is an expansion pack in the works, but for now, we are left to play a game whose title doesn’t match the setup, premise, or content.  By the way, I’m not a fan of this approach to games, where they plan of having expansion packs and so don’t really give you the full game right away.  To me, that’s like releasing a movie that is To Be Continued… I mean, it seems like cheating, except, of course for the case of The Empire Strikes Back, but I digress.

OK, so the game is for 1 (yes, you lonely solitaire players out there) to 4 players, ages 8 and up.  I see no reason whey they couldn’t have included enough parts for 6 players.  OK, so only 2 of our kids are above the minimum age, but when the last one gets there, the whole family can’t play.  If you have played Carcassonne, the tiles have a similar look.  In this case, instead of playing on the same field, each player has their (pause for wife’s criticism of improper use of “their”, but I don’t like using his/her or one’s) own board.  The players are independent and can’t affect the others play, except for when they are distracted by their wife saying things like, “Kill the caller!”  The cards, which are locations a la Battleship, e.g. A4, are drawn one at a time by a caller or dealer.  Everyone puts their castles in the same place based on the cards.  Then in each round, the players draw a certain number of tiles.  The players then choose which of the drawn tiles to play on the called space.  Scoring each round is for things like connecting knights to castles by roads or connecting windmills to each other.

The game is fairly easy to learn.  Playing once is generally enough to get a decent feel for the rules and how to play.  Once experienced, each game takes about half an hour.  Although you can certainly affect the outcome of your score by your choices of piece (and direction), I would still say that this game is more chance than strategy.  This is evidenced somewhat by Christina winning the game the first time that she played.  I would call the game pleasant, but not especially exciting.  But (ooh, starting a sentence with but) if you are looking some sort of insight or new perspective on Cervantes or Don Quixote, this isn’t it.