Post originally by Chris Farrell at 2005-03-16 15:12:30
Converted from Phorums BB System

Tom writes:

>the game is few and far between, with outrageous prices (I’ve seen it going for $100)

This seemed a little low to me, so on a lark I did a check ... the main online retailers simply don't have it. The only one I found which had a copy was Boards & Bits (http://www.boardsandbits.com/), which had copies for $130. There's a copy on BoardGameGeek on sale for about $100 (it's in Germany), albeit with severe damage.

I bought mine for about $65 (ding-n-dent) when it was new; the print run was large enough at ~1000 copies that it wasn't hard to get even a month after release so the price took a little while to spike, unlike R&D's other 500-copy runs (Keydom, Keytown) which sold out immediately. Anyway, at about $75 total cost, Reef Encounter was fairly pricey but probably worth it for the ludophile. There is absolutely no way I can recommend it at what you currently have to pay, though. It's a nice game - very professionally done, unusual for these small-time publishers - but no better than a decent Knizia, certainly not as interesting as its cousin Tigris & Euphrates, which can be had for under $35. The main reason to buy the game at this point is to have something uncommon that your buddies don't have.