Yesterday, with some friends, we went discovering new games. We played in an association who owns a lot of author games. One of the most well known is the Settlers of Catan which inspired a free computer game: pioneers. Yesterday evening we played two interesting games: Carcassonne and La Traversée du Désert. Here are some notes on those games.

Carcassone (fr): a really good game, but I recommend to use some variants of the rules. To avoid big unfinished constructions, only the finished elements are counted. To reduce the amount of randomness, we have chosen to have 3 cards in hand every time instead of one. That makes the game even better, playing during approximately 45 minutes.

La traversée du Désert (fr): a game where you have to place your dromedaries to gain water and oasis and block the enemies. Interesting quick game with beautiful pieces, it's a bit long to read the rules and prepare the game. However it should be much better for the next games: the games mechanic is really easy to understand.