EDIT: To be clear, this post is entirely fictional. Dan told me how Mischa coveted this game, so I thought it would be amusing to write this post. As it turns out, Mischa had already obtained a copy, so the joke was on me. And, for the record, San Marco is a fantastic game and I wish I owned a copy too.

Last weekend, on my way to the grocery store, I stopped at a yard sale. I really love yard sales, but I haven’t gone to one since I was back in Albuquerque. I have this recurring fantasy of finding a rare Boba Fett action figure.

It looked like the lady who was running the sale had a husband who was a board game collector and he was getting rid of a couple of things. It looks like everything had been pretty picked over before I got there. I saw this game Celtica, which I already had. But there were a few interesting-looking games which I ended up buying: San Marco (mostly because of the cool looking lion statue on the cover) and Ticket to Ride (which I had played before but never bought my own copy). Both games looked like they were in good shape and had all their pieces (though the San Marco box was a little scuffed).

I got a chance to play San Marco tonight at Great Hall. As I was setting it up, the board reminded me of this other game I had played with gondolas going around the board. The board looked like someone had gone a little bit crazy with a map of Venice and Photoshop. It came with the same little cubes you find in every game plus this figure with a little hat. Oh, and there were bridges.

Essentially it is an area control game in the vein of El Grande. I found myself constantly reminded of El Grande, which, having played both, I think is the superior game. San Marco is way more cutthroat and it felt like you couldn’t plan a long term strategy because inevitably someone would screw you over pretty badly. It had an interesting mechanic where one player divides the action cards up and then another player chooses which set of cards they will use.

Anyhow, it was kind of amusing, but it felt too much like El Grande merged with some other game that I can’t remember. When I was packing it up, one of the guys ( I don’t think I had ever actually spoken to him before) came up and offered to trade or buy it. It had only cost me $5, but he offered me $10. Score!

I also got to play this game that let you make cool little sculptures from putty. It took a while before someone guessed that one of mine was a star destroyer.