Decided to unilaterally launch a 6x6 on the Mrs. She does enjoy playing, but hates learning, so there’s some benefit here. The goal was to make it accessible and build a habit. So three very light and quick, 2 on the light to moderate scale, and only one that may take more than an hour:
Jaipur
Patchwork
Air, Land, & Sea
Quacks of Quedlinburg
Nusfjord
Oceans
For that last, I held up Grand Austria Hotel and Oceans and had her pick based on the box art. Oceans by a mile.
So far we have 1 Patchwork and 2 Jaipur down. Two obvious conclusions so far:
Well, another game of Star Trek Ascendancy, but that’s the only one from the list.
Did actually get a few games of other stuff in this month. MonDRAWsity fell kinda flat with my group (who all prefer Pictomania, which is sublime), but we had a great time with Spicy and really appreciated both the nuance to the bluffing and the artwork. So pretty.
I also got to play some spooky themed games on the live stream for work… specifically Welcome to the Dungeon (great push-your-luck that’s just a little too fiddley for some beginners), Flick 'em Up Dead of Winter (solid, weird dexterity game that’s not as good as either of its foundational games but so weird that I love having it in my collection), and… something else. Obviously didn’t leave a last impression.
I had an Eclipse game scheduled, but had to reschedule due to life.
Pretty miserable month for gaming overall, with only 8 games played total, and just 1 for the 10 x 10. I was hoping to solo something this evening, but due to a meltdown from our older kiddo, I need to replace a door and seal up a hole in a wall. At least I already got the materials earlier today.
I’ve not really thought about a 10 x 10 seriously until this seemed to work, so I thought I’d look at my gaming since June (when I started logging)
Top ten in terms of plays at the mo:
|KeyForge: Call of the Archons|24|
|Caverna: Cave vs Cave|10|
|A Gentle Rain|10|
|Race for the Galaxy|10|
|7 Wonders Duel|7|
|MicroMacro: Crime City|7|
|Sprawlopolis|7|
|Air, Land & Sea|6|
|Codenames: Duet|6|
|Hallertau|6|
I’m pretty certain I can do the remaining games for these lot by Xmas. Maybe I commit?!
Search for planet X is a great one. Make time for it! You can start playing before you’re confident on the rules as the app prompts most things and the screens have the rest. You mainly just need to know what info you have to share.
Imhotep is easy to learn and doesn’t take too long. I didn’t like it with two, but it’s an easy teach so aim for 3+?
A better month for the challenge with three donuts chomped, all tasty, and a bit of progress on the games not played (despite a few more incoming items).
Games in: Custom Heroes; MicroMacro Crime City, Ashes Reborn: Rise of the Phoenixborn, The Search for Planet X; Great Western Trail
Games played: Parade; Alchemists; Steampunk Rally; T.I.M.E Stories; Everdell Collectors Edition.
Not sure yet if I like Parade. It’s an interesting mechanism, but is there too much luck involved?
T.I.M.E. Stories is quite an experience, if rather exhausting after three runs in a row trying to get through the mission.
Alchemists is jolly good fun.
Love the art in Everdell and Steampunk, and both are very satisfying once you get your engine going.
Hope everyone’s December dice-rolling is delightful
Only 4 plays for the challenge, though Lords of Vegas, Concordia, and Orleans all got another play. Happy that A War of Whispers finally hit the table. Hoping to get at least one play each of Imperial Assault and Pandemic Legacy this month so that each game in my 18 x 5 is played at least once. With a lot of luck, maybe I can knock another game or two off the 10 x 1 as well.
60 plays total so far. It’d be amazing if I could get to 75 for the 3/4 completion, which would be the best I have ever done with one of these.
Once again, another game of Star Trek Ascendancy, but that is it for the list.
Did actually get a few games in with my partner over the last month. We played the tutorial game of Destinies, and she liked it pretty well. I made the classical error of winning, and I really should know better than that by now, but she didn’t hate it as a result so we’re chalking that up to a success!
In a strange twist of fate, the only other game I have played recently is the TTRPG Star Trek Adventures, which has exactly the same acronym. Weird! The campaign is still young, and the 4 players aren’t super versed int he rules still, but it’s weirdly enjoyable to be running a game again. It’s been decades. I still haven’t finished reading the rules, though, so I’m doing my traditional trick of “faking everything I’m uncertain about, fixing it afterwards,” so no change there from when I was a teenager running campaigns.
The current quest/mission they’re on is almost totally cribbed from an old video game I love (Star Control)… with lots of modifications, of course, but even in Star Control it wasn’t a new idea. Basically the crew of the USS Pegasus B (hey, if the Enterprise can get up to an “E”, the Pegasus can get a “B”… a Nova Class Scout/Research vessel) has encountered a massive starship with a dormant, sentient robotic species called “The Mrrhrrnrr” (Murr-hurr-nurr) which is heading for their fabled destination, “The Origin, Zero Comma Zero Comma Zero.” The Mrrhrrnrr don’t know what will happen when they arrive there, but something went wrong about 150 years ago and the ship has been traveling at sublight speeds since then, and it would continue to do so for millennia except it is getting rather close to the Klingon border… the Federation dispatched the Pegasus to see if the ship is a threat (maybe!), if it requires assistance (definitely!), and to learn about what’s going on (confusing!).
The Klingons have sent a war fleet, and our heroes have about 4 hours before the Klingons attempt to exterminate the ship and everyone on board.
Anyway!
Still nothing from the list.
December is a heavy ramping up of my work load at the game store, plus a dog pile of other stresses too numerous and depressing to list, so it’s unlikely I will get to play many games this month. Going to try and get another game of Destinies in at least, see if we really like it, but I think that might be it until post-holidays.
My impromptu and unplanned “can I do a 10x10 without actually realising I was” seems almost done (started counting in June). I’ll have to actually pick games next time in advance, rather than just looking for the top 10 played ones after a bit.
I’m at 5 plays already. It’s a quickie and IMO a 10 play online is a great litmus test for longevity.
[EDIT] I felt it was worth adding that because it’s a quickie, I wouldn’t expect 10 plays to be getting full value for the cost. As it stands now I think we’ll get far more than that from it.
