Session Impressions: Cover your A$$ets

This game was a pleasant surprise.  Grandpa Beck’s Cover Your A$$ets looks generic as card games go.  I don’t think our group expected much from this game when Dan came back from the GAMA Trade Show with this little number in his hands, and a broad smile on his face.  We popped it open, and poked inside.  It’s clear why Dan had high hopes for the game.  The rules are simple and the gameplay is fast.  The majority of the conversation we had, while playing this game, was about and around the game itself.  The Myriad Games Playgroup plays a lot of games, so we sometimes come off as jaded and picky when about the rule, artwork and choice of mechanics.  When we played Cover Your A$$ets, though, we were just six people who found this great game, and we had an excellent time.

Grandpa Beck also has a game by the name of “Grandpa Beck’s Golf”.  On the podcast, Dan alludes that we’ll have to have another podcast about Golf when we get the group together to play that game… but that may take a while… we have a lot of games to move through.  I did talk to Dan, afterwards, and asked him if he had a chance to play Golf yet.  He has.  He said the game was fine, but it’s clear that Cover Your A$$ets is the superior game.  I’d suggest getting your hands on Cover Your A$$ets first then, even if you’re big on golf, the sport.  I’d hate for someone to play a good game based on something they like, instead of play a great game.

I did some snooping on the internet, because I wanted to find a price point on this game.  It turns out that, not only is the game not sold on Amazon.com, but among the online vendors, this game is selling out fast.  Even Grandpa Beck at www.grandpabeckgames.com has run out of copies.  I guess that makes sense.  The game looks generic… most retailers stocked their shelves with this to get impulse buyers, and won’t consider raising their price when their inventory runs short.  How would they know this is a secret winner?

The game retails at $12.  I would gladly pay $20.  Talk to your local game store owner, and tell him he should get his hands on a few copies if he can.  Offer to fork over more than retail if he says his distributor has hiked the price.  If you like the game, stock up for Christmas; there may not be any copies around by then.  I don’t know what G-pa Beck’s plan is.  I’d love to see him make a second printing of this game, and I’d love to see more games from his coffee table.  In the meantime, why don’t you have a go at our podcast?