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Received: Three From Cheapass
February 12, 2003

Just arrived at TGR, two new Hip Pocket games and one from the James Ernest label.

Steam Tunnel: An 2-5 player abstract card game "vaguely associated with steam tunnels."

Light Speed: A 2-4 player real-time full-color card game of space combat from Tom Jolly and James Ernest.

Give Me the Brain: Special Edition: Full color edition of the 3-8 player card game set at Friedey's, the Fast Food Restaurant of the Damned.

Posted by Peter at February 12, 2003 12:24 PM
Comments

As a Houston Cheapass Games Demo Monkey, I've gotten all three shipped to me recently. I demo'ed the new, full-color Give Me The Brain at OwlCon. Other than one nose-picking Faulknerian idiot man-child at the table, all the other players, 21 in number over the course of a couple of days, learned it very quickly and had a great time.
Even the npFimc figured it out on the 2nd game. It's got double the cards of the original, and the cards have been tweaked for better gameplay. I liked the original Give Me The Brain, although there was occasionally an endgame problem where it was hard to finish up and players tended to end up stalling with about three cards apiece. The new version solves this problem by making the cards more effective overall, and adding two new item cards, the Dog Brain and the Rat Brain, both of which can end up in play, being passed around the table as a substitute for the 'real brain', one clockwise, one counterclockwise. The cards overall have been made clearer, and are IMHO funnier. Adding more cards and speeding the gameplay makes the humor last for more games, makes each game far more varied. Bid cards have doubled and have full-color Brian Snoddy illo's (including the brand-new 'GIVE ME THE BRAIN: Honor Demands It!' and 'GIVE ME THE BRAIN: There's a Squirrel in my Head!').
The cost went up to $15. This is reasonable given the doubled deck size, the improved gameplay, and the addition of full color and lamination to the cards. Since I had already worn out two of the original decks, the last item is welcome indeed.

(whew, I barely have the energy to say that Light Speed is fantastic for 2-4 players)

Posted by: Todd Derscheid on February 24, 2003 12:58 AM
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