Vinyl

Vinyl sat on my shelf of unplayed games for more than two years, mostly because I could not make sense of what exactly was going on between the reprint and its expansions. I eventually learned that with the retail edition you cannot play the full game: you get either the base game or the expansions as standalones. A bit awkward for anyone who thought they had bought a complete route through the game, but anyway; I should have done the research sooner.

For a first try, we played the base game. It is a simple action-selection game in which we are record collectors moving around a record shop, trying to build the best collection for our favourite “scratcher”™. Its core is straightforward: you choose actions to advance your collection and try to get what you need before everyone else does.

Its interest lies in the bump, that small bit of friction where player choices affect the available space and one player forces another to adapt. It reminded me a little of The Gallerist in that respect, without claiming that it reaches the same scale or complexity. The interaction is not really about fighting over a record; it is about having to watch where and when everyone else places themselves.

It is not earth-shattering, and I did not leave the session ready to throw out my record collection and open a shop. But it is interesting and fun, provided you know what you are getting and which edition is in front of you. And, apparently, reasonably cheap copies are now available, so trying it does not have to become a collector’s investment.