Black Friday

This remake of that older green-haired fellow’s design had a middling reception at first, but the new edition makes a few small, utterly crucial changes to its flow. For me, those are enough to elevate it to certified great-game territory (tm). It was no accident that, as soon as we finished the first game, the whole table collectively and non-negotiably demanded that we play it again immediately.

At its core, it is an honest, almost zero-luck stock market game. On my turn, I choose actions and try to understand not merely which move helps me right now, but how it connects to all the others: what will affect share prices, and what it will do to supply and demand. Once those connections become visible, the speculation gains real depth and the game starts throwing serious karate.

Interaction comes precisely from that shared market. The other players’ choices shift the conditions I care about, so I cannot treat my portfolio as a private puzzle; I have to read what is changing around the table and adapt. It works at lower counts too, but for me it shines with 4–5 players, where the pressure and the consequences of those actions become clearer.

If you like stocks and want an entertaining game of roughly an hour, without the brain-burn demanded by Rolling Stock, look no further. Black Friday is an easy candidate for BLTG Game of the Year and, as a stock-market game, it has completely won me over.

Updated session

Returning to Black Friday—as tradition demands whenever BLTG ltd’s legal counsel is present at a gathering alongside the familiar board members—confirmed rather than changed my impression. Bodies hit the floor, and the game once again justified the 10 I have given it. There is, of course, a fair objection concerning the luck factor in the initial portfolio, but overall I still consider it the best pure stock-market game after Rolling Stock.