Alta Società

Short but great game. Very smooth and polished Knitzia's mechanism, with the amount of "luck" that makes every game different and might crush any pre-made strategy. Spending a lot of money to win the 10-points card it's painful if you then deal the "-" card (if you keep it, you'll have to discard your shiny and new 10-points card). If you're too cautious with your money, you might end up without points too. And even if you play as balanced as you can, luck might not be on your side. For a game that introduces in an easy way the concept of auctions/bids and lasts less than half hour, it's perfect. Sometimes you cannot win, and that's good... Just play again and you might do it!

Another great Kinizia auctioning game. This has so many great twists to prevent each auction from being solvable. Such as you don't know when the game will end, your money is in fixed denominations and you can't make change, and whoever spends the most is not allowed to win. Osprey games printing of this is especially great, since the ostentatious artwork really sells the theme of wealthy socialites recklessly spending money on useless status symbols

I've had better success with casual gamers, they always get immediately into roleplaying the theme and worry less about winning. Hardcore gamers kinda sap the fun out of it and only focus on money (of course). Obviously they're bad at memorization anyway. So in theory I find it too minimalist, but I end up enjoying it anyway. I like Knizia's other light games more? I'm suspicious why this is so darn popular with gamers, but I find it more fun than Ra (it's shorter!) so I don't mind at all.

I am really impressed by this little card game. A fantastic bidding game. In some rounds you bid for stuff you want and in others you bid for not getting bad stuff. In the end the player with the least amount of remaining money has lost immediately and his points don't count. A great twist which ensures that people don't just bid all of the money they have. And the player with the most points might lose anyway because he was too wasteful. This game is a lot of fun and is full of difficult decisions when you decide how much money you can afford to bid. It doesn't take long. Works with all player counts. Highly recommend to get this.

30/01/2026 — This is a game that makes me want to trash talk, laugh, sweat through my armpits, cheer in victory, groan in defeat, and feel closer to the people I’m playing with. The tiny flaw, in my opinion, is that a player can completely ruin all of your hard work if they kamikaze their own game. This can mean that a player who would normally lose because they overspent ends up winning because someone else made Knizia’s brilliant rule irrelevant. (Maybe if someone spends all of their money, they automatically lose, and then the next lowest player also loses?) Anyway, aside from that, I think it’s a perfect game, and I’d play it anytime and with anyone. Rating: 10