HuntGamesAcquire
ACQUIRE
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Designer: Sid Sackson
Our Rating: 10
DESCRIPTION
Long before trendy designers like Knizia and Feld there was Sid Sackson. He worked for 3M, where Post-It™ Notes and lots of other non-game things came from. In the early 1960s they published a series of "Bookcase Games" - which we own with one exception (Jati, which is notably awful and was never commercially available). The best of them is Acquire, a game that should be on everyone's shelf.
The game is deceptively simple. Each player has tiles that correspond to spots on the board. Each turn, s/he must place a tile, and can then buy up to three stock certificates of chains on the board. Placing a tile so that two or more are orthogonally adjacent allows the creation of a chain; there are seven available. Starting a chain grants a free share of stock in that chain. Of interest is that there is no income in the game, except when chains merge. The game ends when tiles cannot be legally placed, and/or one chain takes over a substantial part of the board.
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Since the early 1960s Acquire has gone through numerous editions. Some of them, unfortunately, have introduced innovations and variants that don't need to be there. The game plays to 6, but 4 is just about the perfect number. Also, there are two ways to play - shares visible or invisible. We tend to play with them visible, as it's a game of strategy, not one of memory.
We love Acquire, and own the Avalon Hill plastic-board and plastic-pieces version, and it's plenty good enough.
