h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Had the opportunity to play a couple of family games recently, which I enjoyed thoroughly. We played two games with a similar sort of theme - basically bluffing and bidding to get control of ingame characters to further your ends.

In 'Fist of Dragonstones', you have an abstract goal to score three points. To do this, you trade in a specific number of Dragonstones and claims your points. Making the trade necessitates winning control of a character and meeting his or her requirements at the same time. So, one character allows you to trade Dragonstones of three different colours for one point. If you don't have the stones, you can get a few coins instead (which you use to complete your bidding). Other characters either allow you to trade for different combinations of stones, acquire stones through fair means or foul, and also to trouble the intentions of other players. For example, you can acquire the Witch to let you curse a character latter in the bidding process - and that character loses their ability. Everyone bidding loses all their gold, and the winner ends up with a character who can't do anything.

'Fist' makes for an hour of fun, with the prospect of quick decisive victories or long, drawn out wars to get hold of those three vital points.

The other game, 'Citadels', has a more flavoursome goal for players to pursue. All players intend to build an eight district city. Building a district costs gold equal to the amount shown on the card; and, some districts possess special abilities or interact with certain characters. You can temporarily acquire control of one from eight characters - Assassin, Thief, Merchant, Bishop, the King, Warlord, Architect and Magician - and use their powers for that turn, before they go back into a randomised pile. Four of the characters allow you to get gold - as tax - if you have a district of the right colour in front of you - so, a Merchant will extract a gold in tax from a green district. These characters also have other minor abilities they can call upon as well. The Assassin kills another character announced by the player, who loses his turn; the Architect can build three districts instead of one; the Magician can exchange or swap the unbuilt district cards he has in hand; and the Thief steals another characters gold.
All great fun, complicated by a little guesswork to figure out who has which character. If you build a city with districts of each colour, you get more points; and finishing your eight district city in the same round as the first person to do it still gives you enough points to make it possible to win at the final moment. Very enjoyable indeed; and the more satisfying of the two.