Boardgames #5...Ankh Morpork

This weeks boardgame is Discworld; Ankh Morpork.  We bought this for our son a couple of xmas' ago and it gets a rare outing.  Much to our amazement it sells for silly amounts on eBay these days as it's out of print (or at least people ask for silly amounts of money...I' not sure anyone pays it!!)

The game has up to 4 players taking the part of a character from the Pratchett books (I was Lord Vetinari).  Each player keeps their identity secret as they each have a different victory condition.  In this weeks game my objective was to have a presence in 10 different areas while my wife was attempting to take control of a number of areas.  My son was quietly encouraging the build up of 'trouble' markers across the city.  These are placed when 2 characters are placed in the same area and of course he won when the total reached 8.  He's much better at bluffing than I am as I hadn't worked out who he was until it was too late...remind me never to play poker with him!  To be fair I'd managed to get within a turn or so of winning but I suspect as soon as I reached my target I would have been taken out in a wife/son alliance {as usual...)

Part of the attraction of the game is the quality of the components.  Similar to games like Carcassone etc, the tokens are wooden and include player pieces as well as trolls and demons which can turn up to deny players use of an area.  If you're a fan of the Pratchett books (I'm old enough to remember buying The Colour of Magic when it first came out...) the cards and the board are a big attraction too, featuring a lovely map of Ankh Morpork divided into various regions and the cards featuring lots of characters from the books.

It's a neat little game with lots of flavour and allows a nice combination of bluffing and undermining your opponents (if you can work out what they're up to).