JOOOIN US

A couple days ago we were flush with Barnes and Noble gift certificates, and you know how that goes. You start out at Where's Spot and before you know it you're all hopped up on lattes throwing your underwear at the authors at the Discover Great New Writers Book Group.

As we were heading out the door Aaron suggested that a board game might be a good idea, so I nerdily scurried back to the computer to look up recommendations from Games Magazine. I thought the Game of the Year might be too obscure for B & N, but lo, there it was, right between Mind Benders and Dog-Opoly. We looked around a little more, but once the idea of a highly recommended bright shiny new board game gets in your head it's hard to think of anything else. And so it was that we ended up the proud owners of Pillars of the Earth, the board game.

It has to be specified that this is a board game because it is a game based on a novel. I feel like that should have been some kind of signal that we were exploring new depths of geekdom, as if the description wasn't enough, "At the beginning of the 13th century, construction of the greatest and most beautiful cathedral in England begins. Players are builders who try to contribute the most to this cathedral's construction..."

Saturday night we invited some unwitting friends over for dinner, then innocently suggested hey, we've got this new board game, let's check it out. Three hours and one very thick rulebook later they stumbled out into the cold night, images of masons and resource markets dancing in their heads. Unfortunately, now we're hooked and need some more suckers to come play with us. And you're invited!

The game is actually German in the same vein as Settlers of Catan. We are hoping that the game makers are not native English speakers, for the following reason. Each player has a bunch of colorful workers in yellow, red, green, or blue. There are a few grey workers you can also use from time to time. And there is one lone black worker, Otto Blackface, who sits by himself at the side of the board for most of the game.