As has been the case this Protospiel, I played another Ian Winningham game to start things off. However, this game was scheduled just for me and anyone else who showed up.
Here is Favored by Gray Detrick and Ian Winningham. I've played this at previous Protospiels and really liked it. We were testing out a new series of cards.
It's a deck-builder in the spirit of Dominion, about building favor with 4 gods, and them granting you powers and points to win. My moving on a track and achieving the highest, you get usage of a special power, HOWEVER once you get too high, you are granted a one-time bonus and your track is reset to the bottom. This keeps the special powers moving around, and it's a great balancing mechanism. The game also has "culling the deck" as a free action at the end of a turn, and the culled cards accumulate over time to grant further powers.
This expansion also adds a military and empire track expansion. It works.
This sort of game is normally more complicated than I want to play. My brain can't completely grok all of the complexities, so sometimes I end up missing a step. Not only that, Grey and Ian have invented dozens of god powers to the game. This is one of those games that, once published, you'll be able to explore nearly forever. And even though I feel inadequate at this sort of mental-weight game, I can marvel at all of the metaphorical knobs and dials and levers of the game rules working together so nicely...
