Infarkt

Your day job fiercely competes for every bit of free time and patience with the demands of family life and the lure of hobbies. The consequences of wild nightlife, sloth and other sins are barely balanced by the occasional burst of sport activity and more-or-less random jabs at a healthy lifestyle.

Sound familiar? No, we are not talking about your life, but about what you are up against in Infarkt ("Heart Attack"), a party game in which you want to be the last one left at the party - literally.

Each player has an individual player board on which she'll track her blood pressure, depression, lung health, weight and so on. Everyone starts out as healthy as possible, with some money ($1) in the pocket, too. Each round, a number of event cards equal to one more than the number of players is revealed. In turn, each player will choose an event card and suffer the effects of that card, moving her health indicators as needed. Did you run out of gas? Or have a bout of diarrhea? Man, life sucks.

Players then simultaneously deploy three action markers to indicate where they plan to go that day: the supermarket, the office, a pharmacy, a flea market, the gym, and so on. In turn order, players then execute all three of their actions in whatever order they desire. Maybe you'll hit the office to earn money, but at the cost of having your depression grow more intense. A trip to the supermarket will let you buy food, which you can then eat later at home or give to your neighbors who come to the party you throw. Force them to eat cake and get fat! If you have extra money on hand, you might want to visit the pharmacy to buy drugs; you never know what the pharmacist will give you, but if you don't like it (or the food you've acquired), you can hit the flea market to swap food and drugs - and maybe pick up some change in the bargain.

At the end of the round, you check your health levels to see whether your body is deteriorating without you even knowing. Get too depressed, for example, and the depression only gets worse; high blood pressure can affect your blood cholesterol level, and vice versa. If a health indicator rises to the tombstone at the top of the column, you've partied your last and are now out of the game. (Everyone else has to chip in for the funeral, suffering depression if they can't afford to pony up for a decent burial for a good friend like you.) The last player alive in the game wins and dances on the graves of everyone else!