Container (Jumbo Edition) is the best game I've played this year.

This is all u/mrquinns's fault.

I've been a fairly casual gamer for a long time playing games like **Catan**, **Dominion**, and **Puerto Rico**. This year I've played a much wider variety of games thanks to a game group at a local game shop. I started reading reviews and watching vids and course found *Shut Up and Sit Down*, in particular [their review of **Container's 10th Anniversary Jumbo Edition**](https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/review-container/). This was (and is) a very funny and compelling review. At first I didn't think too much about it besides the entertainment value but as I played more games I discovered things about my personal taste:

* **I really like games with auctions / bluffing**. I found that I like Sheriff of Nottingham and really *adore* modern art. * **I really like games with nice tactile components.** The miniatures in Rising Sun are fun. The little cubes in Pandemic or the colonist fidding in Puerto Rico, not so much. * **I don't care that much about theme**. I grew up on abstracts like Chess, after all. Too much theme is often snooze-inducing for me, especially if magic is involved. * **I don't generally like games with complicated rulesets**. I prefer clean simple rules with deep play. I really don't like the scoring in Sheriff of Nottingham for instance. I like Rising Sun, but found it to be a bit ponderous. I think I like Brass, but have only had one play. * **I don't care that much about a game's art** * **I like games with lots of social interaction.** * **I don't care for Euro-style mechanics where everyone is basically playing Solitaire** (looking at you, Castles of Burgundy). * **I don't love games for >2 players with a lot of direct "Take That!"** mechanics. Not that there isn't a certain satisfaction in messing with opponent's cities in Carcassonne :) * **I'm not that price-sensitive**. I am willing to pay premium dollars for a game if it's a really great one and has great components. After all, one dinner out with family can cost more than even a top-tier game.

So at some point I realized I probably would like Container a lot. Parsing SUSD's review showed that they heaped praise on the gameplay and the stuff they complained about (boring art, overproduced and pricey) was not that important to me. I waffled over buying a copy until I read that [once it's gone it's *gone* and there will be no more reprints](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2087324/container-jumbo-edition-will-not-be-printed-again). At that point I knew that I would regret not buying it a lot more than buying it, even if I didn't like it. So I manned up and ordered a copy and started obsessively reading the forums at boardgamegeek. The depth of play being discussed was really intriguing and I was particularly intrigued at the way money works in this game - you *need* your opponents to be successful so they have money to buy your stuff. If you're rich and they're broke...you're not going to do very well. Simulating actual economic market behavior with such simple rules? So cool. Like Quinns said, maybe I'm just a boring person.

I got my copy last week and managed to get in a first play over the weekend. Even after one play, I am confident that Container is absolutely my favorite game this year. Maybe my favorite ever. The components are, in my opinion, really great. The ships and containers have enough heft to not go scattering everywhere. The board art is fine. Not as amazing as Brass, but fine. The wooden pieces are chunky so they are more comfortable to manipulate than Catan or PR. You don't have to worry that a jostle will send components skittering everywhere. Overall, the tactile experience is pretty great - even better than the monsters in Rising Sun. The only thing I didn't care for component-wise was the tiny cards. They seem way small compared to the oversized feel of the rest of the game. I understand why they chose to do that but eh, I didn't love it. That's okay though - I have some pretty nice clay poker chips so we used those (and played with open money) and I think that worked out much better than using the little cards. There's a real satisfaction to "Here's eight from the auction (clink, clink, clink) and here's another stack of eight from the bank".

As far as gameplay goes, it's as if the game was custom-made for my taste. You get to build stuff and fiddle with the nice components, bringing some of the tactile fun of Catan or Rising Sun. You get to do strategic planning a la Catan or Puerto Rico. You get to do a bit of feinting and auctioning a la Modern Art. You don't a lot of direct conflict but I do remember complaining that another player was "totally cockblocking my attempts to buy goods from Jenny's harbor". We had spirited discussions around topics like "well, I'd buy your crap if you weren't pricing it so unreasonably!".

Our first game went very smoothly to the point that at the end we all looked at each other and said "well that wasn't as heavy as I expected". I'm sure the depth will reveal itself as we get better and start playing more competitively but it didn't take long at all for us to establish a smooth flow without a lot of AP.

I'm posting this review because, frankly, the Jumbo reprint has been bashed a lot this year and I think that's kind of sad. If you have already played the original and don't like the changes (e.g. fewer containers) I get that. But if your tastes are similar to mine and you haven't played it I encourage you to check it out. At least one other player finished the game and said they were going to go order their own copy immediately.