Dennis Leung
United States
Scotch Plains
New Jersey
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This is a somewhat unconventional review, but I think it fits best here. My wife and I are expecting our first baby sometime in the very near future (possibly even the next few days!) To help us out, my wife's mother has come over to stay with us to help make sure that everything goes smoothly, particularly after my wife is recovering and I have to go back to work. My mother-in-law flew in from Hong Kong several weeks ago, so we've been spending the time getting her settled in and making sure everything is ready for the baby. It's been great having her here to help us out, and it makes us feel more relieved that we won't have to drop our newborn off at some strange daycare right away.
Those of you who are parents probably know that the last few weeks of the pregnancy is like a waiting game. In fact, after a flurry of activity getting everything in order, we've ended up just sitting around the house and waiting for the little guy to make his move. My wife and I have been spending a lot of time getting in some board games, but we wanted to do something to include her mom as well rather than having her just sit there (to be fair, we have set up a computer to allow her to watch some streaming Chinese shows and listen to Hong Kong radio, so she's not just sitting there).
However, one hurdle is that she doesn't speak any English. My Chinese is quite bad, so while I can understand some of what she's saying, true back and forth communication can be difficult. Luckily, my wife is fluent in both so she can act as a translator, but it is a fairly large language barrier. My mother-in-law is also not familiar with very many games in general, so that ruled out a lot of options in our collection. Even games like Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne seemed a little intimidating to try and teach her. Still, I searched through our collection and For Sale popped out as the best option.
I won't go over all of the rules here (even though that would take only a few sentences). Essentially, you have a deck of cards with houses of different values on them. In the first phase of the game, the players take turns bidding cash for one of a set of houses on the auction block. After all of the houses have been sold, the next phase of the game involves a blind auction where you attempt to sell one of your newly bought houses for one of a set of available checks of different monetary values. The player who makes the most money wins.
Some of the things that made For Sale ideal as an intro game:
 It's language independent. You really only need to know numbers to be able to play this game, so we were able to cross the language hurdle very quickly.
 The theme is instantly approachable and understandable. Everyone seems to get bidding for properties and then flipping them for profit. My wife's mother spends a lot of time studying the stock market, so a game involving buying and selling for profit was right up her alley.
 Similarly, the game involves money. This goes along with the approachable theme, but it's important. The game doesn't involve abstract victory points or non-intuitive win conditions, but cold, hard cash.
 The artwork and components are very nice. We have the Uberplay version and we enjoy the cartoony style of the houses as well as the checks. They just make the game very friendly to play, whether it's laughing at the Outhouse or yearning for the Mansion.
 The rules are very easy to learn. This was crucial, as my mother-in-law had watched me and my wife play several games of Le Havre with its hundreds of chits the past week so she was intimidated when we asked her to play a game.
 Similarly, it's a short game, so there's time to learn and play several games in a row. This is particularly important for an auction game so that the players start to learn the values of the different properties and how to make better bids for them.
 There is high player interactivity. Your bids are affected by what the other players are doing. You need to know when to pull out of an auction or when to stay in to force the other players to lose more money. In the selling phase, you have to be able to guess what the other players will be bidding. It really helps make people comfortable when we're all playing together and not just doing our own thing where they could feel left out (to be fair, my wife and I do like our share of "multiplayer solitaire" games, but we've found that highly interactive games are more approachable to new gamers).
We managed to convince my mother-in-law to play with us, although she was a little hesitant at first. However, she became more encouraged after my wife translated the rules for her. She immediately took to the game and really enjoyed herself! In fact, we ended up playing five games in a row that night and each of us won at least one game. Many times, we all broke up laughing as someone ended up getting stuck with the Cardboard box or if someone lost all their money with an ill-timed bid.
It was great to be able to get all three of us together and interacting and having fun. Despite the language barrier, we were able to bond and share a fun experience together over playing a game. My mother-in-law's life in Hong Kong had been pretty hard and she had to work constantly to provide for the family with little time for relaxing or enjoying herself. She later mentioned that this was one of the few times where she felt like she was able to have a little fun and play a game, and I'm happy we were able to connect over that. Hopefully even after the baby comes, there will still be time to for her to relax, have fun, and maybe even move on to more games. Games can be one of those shared experiences that can transcend language and culture and bring people together, and that's worth every penny.
My mother-in-law evaluating her properties
My mother-in-law getting serious, putting on the glasses, and counting her winnings
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Andy Andersen
United States
Newark
Delaware
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Excellent
 . Good luck withe the baby. This is a great game for three. I've been thinking of figuring out how to try it with two.
Thanks.
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Kenny VenOsdel
United States
Saint Paul
Minnesota
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Orangemoose wrote: Excellent :thumbsup:. Good luck withe the baby. This is a great game for three. I've been thinking of figuring out how to try it with two.
Thanks.
I have three suggestions for you.
1. play with normal 4 player rules and each of you controls two seperate players. Your score at the end is either the lesser of your two piles or the average of them. Whichever you find more interesting.
2. Start each player with twice the money. During the buy phase turn four cards up. Each player controls two bids but all cards bought can be placed in one pole for them. During the sell phase turn four cards up. Each player plays two cards and wins two checks. High score wins.
3. Take a peak at my solitaire variant and adapt it as follows: start the bid at 5 (adjust this amount for difficulty). If both players underbid the robot decrease its bid by one. If both players over bid it increase it by one. If one player over bids leave the bid alone. You may not match its bid. During the sell phase the robot plays only one random card.
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G W M
Australia
Sydney
New South Wales
Why is it that '90% fat free' sounds so much better than '10% fat'?
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Great alternative review of a classic game Dennis. Another game that transcends language barriers that I have recently acquired is Set - fast, furious and language no problem! GM
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Oliver Paul
Iceland
Reykjavik
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Great review.
My that's a handsome sweater.
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David Bohnenberger
United States
Swarthmore
Pennsylvania
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Thanks for the great review of what is really a great game to play with just about anyone. I always love that moment when a new player gets into a game for the first time.
Quote: I won't go over all of the rules here (even though that would take only a few sentences)
And it seems you did just that!
Oh - and congratulations on adding yet another gamer to your family!! 
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'The Completist'
United States
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Great review. Good luck with the new family. Hopefully it won't cut into your gaming much (it will). Thanks for including the awesome pictures of your mother-in-law.
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My mother-in-law getting serious, putting on the glasses, and counting her winnings
