7 Wonders

It's rare that a game truly ropes me in the way that 7 Wonders did.

I remember seeing the game at the last BGG.CON, and was immediately hooked after more than a few drunken sessions. I was finally playing my last game of the weekend sober when I realized how special 7 Wonders really is. Here's a game that's easy to learn, plays very fast, and scales to 7 players with very little impact on total playing time. This was a game that I had to absolutely have as soon as inhumanly possible. My frantic and somewhat obsessive search for the game led me to do something that I've never done for a board game. I ended up buying three copies. Now, I do have a somewhat rational explanation for that.

I googled and internetted until I found a store that not only had a good price for the pre-order of 7 Wonders, but also had a couple of other games that I wanted to get in my hands. A few weeks after placing my order, I was informed via email that it was possible that my pre-order of 7 Wonders would not be fulfilled due to demand. I called back to see what was up, and was given the option of canceling my order or waiting to see if I would indeed get the game. I was a little annoyed, but I decided to keep my order and hope for the best. Despite this, I was determined not to be denied a copy of this game. I called my local game shop (Little Shoppe of Games here in OKC) and reserved a copy. I then felt like I had all of my bases covered.

The exact date of the games release wasn't set, so all that we had to go by was when the publisher was shipping the game to retailers. After that, it was up to the stores to get the game into our grubby little mitts. A few days after hearing that the game had shipped, I got a call from the game store. My copy was there and ready for pick-up. I was SO GIDDY. I was like a fiend hearing that the local guy had just re-upped. I raced to the store and got my copy. I then saw that they had another copy on the shelf, where then I called my gaming buddy in town and asked if he wanted a copy as well. He said yes, and I walked out with TWO copies of my coveted game. Eventually, I did get the copy that I had ordered online. Yup, three copies for all the right reasons. :)

Obviously I think the game is awesome, because I wouldn't have gone through all that trouble to get it. What makes the game special is not that it is heavily replayable, because it's not. You'll definitely start seeing the same cards over and over, so limiting your plays to once or twice a session is a good thing. Actually, an expansion would do this game "wonders". :D The game is special because very few games can be played with a crowd of people in under 40 minutes. There are times, surprisingly enough, when you don't want to sit and play a game for a couple of hours, and that goes double for playing a game with more than 4 players. 7 Wonders ingeniously serves 3 players just as well as 7, with a very small difference in playing time for each group. It's also very easy to learn and by the 2nd round of the game most people will have a good handle on how to play. There's also many different ways to actually win, save for the military route which has a hard cap on how many points you could possibly get. Still, there's more than a few ways to play the game, and all of them are fun.

7 Wonders is a rare gem of a game. Do yourself a favor when buying this game and make sure to buy some sleeves for the cards, as they see very heavy use and there aren't that many of them.