Date: 29th August 2003
Game played: Ad Acta ( BeWitched Spiele ) BGG Id: 4421

I had seen this listed on this year’s International Gamer’s Award nominations and was curious to try it. I managed to get hold of a copy a couple of weeks ago and somehow persuaded people that a game about bureacracy and filing cabinets was worthy of trying out. Each player runs a government department and is trying to get his files processed and filed away at the right time to score maximum points. However, each file has to processed by two or three different departments in strict order and the other departments will try to ensure your file is sped through or delayed so that you get fewer points. On a player’s turn, they have three (or two) actions and these are to process their top-most file or force an opponent to process his top-most file or store actions for future turns. Once a file has been processed, it is put in the outbox and at the end of the round is transported to the next department or, if complete, sent for filing. There are six filing cabinets and is each becomes full, players get points. Once all the cabinets have been filled or someone reaches 35 points, the game ends and the person with the most points wins.

This turned out to be a bit of a brain-burner and lasted a bit too long. I also felt that the random dealing out of files could prove a bit unfair if your files, which benefited from scoring early, were buried at the bottom of someone’s inbox and vice versa. There were some nice ideas in the game and we, perhaps, ought to try it again to see if our opinion differs on a second playing. Nige proved to be the top bureaucrat.

 
Player
Rating
Score
Position
Winner
Nige
6
26
1
Mark K
6
24
2
Garry
6
20
3
Mark G
6
13
4

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