Acquire

In 1962 the game Acquire was released: "High Adventure in the World of High Finance". The idea is to place numbered tiles on a game board to form hotels. The value of a hotel is determined by how many tiles form a chain. Players buy shares in the hotels and the price per share varies according to its size. What makes the game interesting is that smaller hotels can be bought by larger hotels, giving the players with the smaller hotels cash and the larger hotels added value. The game is a balance of managing limited funds, selling off small hotels, and becoming the majority shareholder in a large hotel chain.

In the original version, the game is played with hotel names. The game has been updated a few times from 1962 and the game now uses corporation names. In either case, the game plays exactly the same. One of the new corporation names is "Sackson" which is a reference to the game designer Sid Sackson.

The lists of names below range in value and in order from lowest to highest (top down).

The game can played over an hour and half stretch with 4 players. Trust me, it will become addictive and favorite with your friends.

Events

June 13, 2008: Acquire will be re-released by Avalon Hill on June 13, 2008. The "updated" version will be based around merging and investing into hotels from the original version of the game. The game pieces are cardboard and the game plays flat on the board.

NetAcquire

If you can't get a "live" game together there is an online option called NetAcquire. It's a small Windows-based application that links up Acquire players via the Internet to a NetAcquire Server. The game rules follow the original rules and use the hotel names and colors.

NetAcquire v2.0.3 [Download] [Homepage]

Game Server: acquire.game-host.org [1001]

 

©1996- Hans Scharler.