I’ve heard so much about the board game Puerto Rico and I’ve always wanted to try it. It seems to be a balance of allocating production assets, positioning oneself to make the most out of a limited shipment space, and balancing easy, short-term exports against exports that are more exclusive and, possibly, financially rewarding. Having said this, I’ve never played the game. But Alex turned me on to a free, Java-based clone of Puerto Rico called Tropic Euro, which takes the gameplay of the original board game (plus its two-player variant, plus its building expansion) and changes its context to a post-World War II tropical island. In it you plant, harvest, and export goods back to Europe for victory points and, ultimately, some crazy abstraction that we like to call victory.
Not having played the original game, I found Tropic Euro somewhat daunting to enter. There’s a brief set of rules on its website, but these rules are geared to players already familiar with Puerto Rico rather than those, like me, who lack prior knowledge. I played three or four games of Tropic Euro versus the computer, and I didn’t understand a single darned thing. The problem is that Tropic Euro automates any moves where the player would naturally lack choice. For example, if it were my turn to ship a good, and if I only had, say, coffee to export, then the game would automatically put my coffee on the ship where other coffee is stored, which allows me to watch the game unfold according to its rules while not laboriously clicking the mouse to advance inevitable outcomes. Having said that, I acknowledge that automation is gravy for the veteran. But it’s also somewhat distancing to the beginner, particularly if he wants to learn by careful observation. So, after feeling completely overwhelmed but very much intrigued, I went to the publishing website for Puerto Rico and downloaded a .pdf of its rules. I’ve read far clearer documents in my life, but these did their job. And after a handful of additional rounds, I felt rather comfortable with what I was playing.
Tropic Euro supports drop-in multiplayer, which I’ve yet to try but seems like a pretty good idea. When you host a game you can choose to lock this option out. If you don’t, someone can replace an AI opponent for a few rounds, which could seemingly add strategic variety within a single gaming session. Tropic Euro also allows spectators. It has a chat window. And it sports some pretty useful tooltips that have grown rather helpful now that I understand the rules. I feel more inclined to buy Puerto Rico having playing Tropic Euro, and I think that’s part of the purpose here: to promote something that Tropic Euro’s developer, Chris Gibbs, feels passionate about. But on the other side TropicEuro is also a front-end for the Gibbs’s music album called Piano Sketches. When playing the game you can stream this album in the background. The author even encourages you to support the game by purchasing his music. I think this is a rather clever and honest marketing idea, and I have no qualms with it. While playing Tropic Euro I’m never bombarded by the author’s album marketing. Gameplay is never halted, and the lobby is never spammed with promotional or donation-querying text. In fact, the music is disabled by default so I must choose to turn it on. It’s so non-intrusive and it sits so quietly on the website’s “about” page (where Gibbs writes that if I like the game I should consider purchasing his album) that I almost feel like I’m at a farmer’s market. I buy the black-eyed peas because they’re local and because they’re not pushed on me and because I want to help the farm about 30 minutes south. Tropic Euro feels small and authentic and somewhat mousy in its purpose. All of this is rather endearing.
