For our anniversary, I gave Gwen a copy of the beautiful new Z-Man game Wasabi!.  No, I'm not crazy... this wasn't the only gift I gave her, nor was it the "main" gift by any stretch of the imagination.  But after getting the chance to play it at game night a few weeks ago, I just thought it might be something that she would like a lot and that we could play together or with friends.  Anyway, we got it to the table for the first time on Saturday night, and it went pretty well.

Gwen wanted to open it herself and punch out all the bits (a "chore" that I usually perform for her), so as she did that, I explained the basics of the game to her.  One of the things I like most about Wasabi! is how intuitive the rules are; it just makes so much freaking sense that you're trying to place out tiles to complete your recipes.  But then at the same time, there's quite a bit of tricksy play that can revolve around getting and using the special cards, and to really do well in the game you have to also keep a close eye on how the board develops and play off of or work to interrupt what your opponents are doing. 

But that's all tangential to Saturday night...  Once everything was set up, Gwen and I gave each other starting hands and then chose our starting recipes.  What is settling in to be my "standard" opening is to take my 5-ingredient recipe while the board is wide open, along with short 2- and 3-ingredient recipes that I complete quickly to pick up some action cards.  As the game progressed, however, I spent a little too much time focusing on my two 4-ingredient challenges rather than getting most of my smaller ones done.  We were playing with totally open scoring, where both the challenge tokens and the wasabi bowls are visible to the other player, and I noticed near the very end of game that Gwen had a slight lead on me.  To win, I needed to complete another 4-ingredient challenge, but it was going to take me 2 more turns to do it.  Gwen was holding the Wasabi! action card, and since it was her first game I felt compelled to remind her on her next turn that she could use it to fill in open spaces and therefore end the game.  She did so, and claimed victory (legitimately) on her first play of the game. 

We reset everything and started over, and this game was incredibly close.  We were both significantly more efficient, and the game came down to the last turn, when I managed to complete my last challenge token to get the instant win.  Gwen would have been able to do the same on her next turn. 

We both had a really good time, but in general, I think that the game probably plays a little better with more than 2 people.  It's just that the game is so darn simple that you kind of need the extra chaos of multiple players to give it just a little extra bit of complexity.  With two, the game could become just an exercise in efficiency; a race to see who can complete their challenges first.  Of course, Gwen and I were playing "nice", where we didn't work to actively hinder each others' recipes, and as our familiarity with the game increases, making the game more confrontational might go a long way to keeping it spiced up for us.  I also think that it would probably be a good idea to keep the wasabi bowls hidden behind the player screens, just so that there will be a little uncertainly about everyone's exact score.  

Still, I think that Wasabi! will be a great game for us to play alone or to introduce to our friends.  Maybe we can even get in a few more plays over the holidays!