"Dude! I actually feel like a 16th Century Italian merchant!"

At gaming weekend in September, my friend Tom and I were mesmerized by the game Traders of Genoa. The promotional materials and description on the box made it sound incredibly dull, and it was just our running joke for the night that we could think of few gaming premises less likely to be sought out by the average gamer. We tried to imagine gamers whose childhood fantasy was to be a 16th Century Italian merchants.

Since then, I decided that I absolutely had to try this game, if only for the fun I would have trying to convince people to play it with me. "You get to be a 16th Century merchant...in Genoa!" I borrowed the game and some friends and I tried it on Thursday. It was kind of fun and interesting.

Now comes the weird part. Tom told me this evening that he had to read something for one of his classes this week that was all about the fascinating changes to Capitalism that took place in 16th Century Italy. He actually had to read about how interesting it was to be a 16th Century merchant in Genoa. This would have been funny all by itself, but for it to happen the same week that we actually played the game is a very silly coincidence.