Oh My Goods!

Oh My Goods! is that honest old-school Pfister buddy that makes me look at its tiny box and wonder how so much gameplay fits in there. It is easy to explain, flows nicely, and I find it very enjoyable, especially for a group with mixed levels of experience.

Everyone gradually builds their own production engine by constructing buildings and trying to supply them correctly. Each round presents a shared pool of resources, which I need to combine with the cards in my hand in order to produce goods and pave the way towards better buildings.

That is where the push-your-luck element comes in: I do not control everything, and I have to judge what the shared supply offers me, what I can cover from my hand, and how much I am willing to risk for more efficient production. Interaction is not especially aggressive; mostly, we run our own production chains, under shared pressure from the resources and the race for the best buildings.

The base box loses me a little near the end. By the fifth or sixth building, it is often clear who has entered the home stretch with a lead, so the final round feels more procedural than suspenseful. I am not expecting miracles from this kind of little buddy, but I do feel that weakness. I still have not tried the two expansions that are sitting around gathering dust, and I am not even sure why anyone would want to load a filler up with that much extra stuff.

Even so, I prefer it to Town Builder: Coveorden, which feels fairly similar to me. If there is more time available, though, Expedition to Newdale is clearly the preferable version of this mechanism.

Updated session

Returning to the Great Alexander's “naive” push-your-luck card game did not make me appreciate it more as a game for adults — I find it rather meh by now. But it confirmed something very useful: it was perfect to bring on holiday and play with my son. Its setup makes it easy to explain to young children, its low level of aggression keeps their interest, and once they grasp the idea, they genuinely begin to enjoy it. I value it more for that purpose; for more experienced players, I would again look to the perfectly respectable Expedition to Newdale.