Houston Gamers wrap-up: Ad Acta is cool

I dashed over to the Houston Gamers late Saturday, just long enough to sit down for a game of Ad Acta.

In Ad Acta, all the players are bureaucrats trying to get documents processed and in the central filing cabinets in an order that gives them the most victory points. Each player has a mat with an inbox and an outbox, and on your turn, you either do your own work, or ask people to do their work. Being lazy bureacrats, you only handle the top file on your inbox. Each time you handle a file, you put a paper clip on it to show that your work is done. At the end of each round, a lazy mail-boy comes around and picks up all the documents in your outbox, and distributes them.

The hook: the documents score different points depending on which cabinet they eventually land. Any unfinished document will be negative points. All information is public.

The whole game is quick: ours took about 45 minutes, maybe a little faster than usual since it was two experienced players and two newbies who hate delay.

It's in German, rare, out-of-print, and tough to find. I see that boardsandbits has one for sale for a reasonable price; I'll think about it.