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Today, I played Amazonas and Cuarenta. Cuarenta was in anticipation of a tournament of it today, so I'll be brief today, and talk about it mostly tomorrow

Amazonas
Amazonas is a game of income cards, settlement building, and specimen collecting. In Amazonas, the players have six income cards, which they play each turn to build settlements which are connected to their previous settlements. Depending on where you build your settlement, you get different specimens. At the end of the game, a player's specimens give them victory points, and the player with the most victory points wins. In our group's game, no one knew what they were doing at first, but my strategy worked in the end, and I won on tiebreaks (which are common since it's a low scoring game).

The income cards were interesting, as it was tricky to figure out how to use them best. The settlement building was also interesting, as you get a card with places on it that you need to build on or lose 3 points, which is a lot in this game.

It took a little while to understand the rules, and as a result, strategy creation was delayed. Gameplay went smoothly once everyone understood the rules, with only a few minor hiccups.

It was a generally a friendly game. The player interaction was minimal, but I almost got a needed settlement blocked out. Luckily I got it.

In conclusion, a fun friendly game of exploration and collection.

Cuarenta
Cuarenta is the national card game of Ecuador. You take the standard deck and take out the 8's, 9's, and 10's to form a deck of 40 cards. It is a card game of matching with two rounds of 20 cards. The rules were not explained well, and it took a while to learn, but we finally got it. My team won. More on this game tomorrow.