I scored Hues and Clues today from a family Bad Santa. I had to steal it from someone, my first choice was Connect Four, but you had to bounce the balls in like beer bong. It was refreshing to see a lot of games being exchanged, unless of course everyone thought a board game was a bad choice of a present.
And I got home and bought THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, on sale.
Got Written in the Cards as a gift from a friend. A party game of doing comedy tarot reading/fortune telling. In the vein of Funemployed, Snake Oil, etc.
Got given The Mole for Christmas, and reading the rules it reminds me a lot of Spyfall At least it is a smaller box?
Silver was on the list. Reports are that this is the most āgamerā iteration and a glance over the cards confirms it. Lots of powerful effects with interesting implications.
Canvas was not the list but was a gift from gamer friends. Like Cascadia I hear?
Venn never heard of. Gift from a non-gamer trying to get something Iād never heard of. Success at that! Looks a bit like Mysterium meets Just One - combining pictures to get someone to guess a specified word.
But letās talk about the behemoth in the corner: I know we talk about it all the time and these forums are rife with the big three of co-op: Spirit Island, Pandemic(s), and Mermaid Island. Took some years to hunt this down and Iāve never seen one in the wild, but at last this grail is mine!
Gift from my eldest and hopefully her gateway drug. Promising initial signs are that if I ask her if she wants to play āthe mermaid gameā she says āItās Mermaid Island.ā Thatās the spirit of a gamer, that is. As I understand it, weāll be racing the Sea Witch back to Mermaid Island to seal the fate of who owns it. Wish me luck.
ā
Circling back to Venn - I opened it up. No designer named on the box. So this is some corporate conference room product. Inside matches that - the concept is absolutely fine (if derivative) but the cards are photoshopped clip art and very little thought has been put into the guessing words. Likely a failure of execution but Iām committed to a couple of games before I pass it on due to the social constraints of the gift.
Nor on BGG - published by The Op (formerly USAOpoly) who generally donāt credit designers.
Today I received a game that I donāt even remember buying (Akropolis)
Drunk buying is best buying?
Not a drinker - but Iām guessing it was a late night purchase
Bought London 2nd ed, because Iāve been watching it be cheap on Amazon for a year and finally ran out of patience and got it for Ā£15 (on Ebay, Amazon went up in price at the last minute).
Went down to see my family over new year and got Unmatched Vol. 2 as a Christmas gift 
And came home to a package containing my previous order 
A late package delivery contained gifts from my parents, so I now also have Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest, and the Marvel Champions Hero packs for Wolverine, Storm, Phoenix, and Spider-Ham.
Need to finish up the Sinister Motives campaign so I can try out all my new content!
Found out this is a thing. Three days later itās MY thing. I was on the fence but then found a $30 copy, with sleeves and plano. Things started happening quickly at that point.
I found it! You know, BGG is an odd place. Iāve found the forums to be frequently toxic and tribal. Yet I found not one but two kind souls who had listed T&T āfor tradeā six years ago. Both still had it. The closer one parted with it for MSRP. And asked if I wanted to meet at a cafe to play sometime.
My experience has been that the game forums are mostly fine, the 1PG forums are fine, but there are people who spend their entire online lives out on the less-specific forums and those are horribly under-moderated.
Agree on the whole tribal bit. I am too busy playing and with real life to spend too much time on the BGG forums.
BGG template:
Hi, can anyone clarify this rule?
Itās in the rules.
Hereās how the rule works:
OK, thanks. That is helpful.
@, Thatās not how it works. Who are you, the developer?
@, No, hereās a link to another thread where the developer clarified.
@OP, Why are you even playing? This is basic worker placement. Is this your first game? LOL.
Hi, this is the developer. The clarification is correct. Glad you enjoyed the game.
@Developer, I didnāt enjoy the game. This one strategy is overpowered.
@, Youāre playing the game wrong.
Developer: We found that in playtesting. But strategy X is an effective counter. Youāll find different groups may avoid that strategy entirely.
@, why would you call this a worker placement game? Itās obviously action selection.
@, I donāt think Iām playing the game wrong. It was just a question.
Maybe I just play games that donāt attract those guys. 
Wow. Iām happy to say I canāt recall ever seeing anything that obnoxious on BGG.
Ooh. Ok, Iāve seen this before. Not on a board-gaming forum, but somewhere else with a āGeneral Chatā sub-forum which is just awful. Iāve been visiting the forum generally forā¦ (checksā¦ goodnessā¦ 23 years ā and thatās the replacement forum for the original one), but Iāve rarely ever set a virtual foot in that particular corner of it in all that time.
Christmas acquisitions!
or
How my family continues to spoil me
When I asked both of my daughters, separately, what they liked to do with their mom, they both mentioned āplay gamesā, so it was easy to let them select a game at Target to get for my partner for Christmas.
Hungry Hungry Hippos ā
I remember this one fondly from my childhood. The current version has a couple of different scoring methods which is interesting (and I donāt think we had when I was a child?)
Enchanted Cupcake Party Game ā
At first glance, I wasnāt even sure this was a game. It certainly is, but later I discovered the edition we bought isnāt even databased on BGG (which I plan to submitā¦ you knowā¦ because Iām a totally sane person with valid priorities). It was actually a bit of a surprise; itās fun! Itās a cooperative game with a clever āaction selectionā mechanism (I mean, clever for a kids game). My partner was being (ironically?) helpful when she pointed out that I could play it solo if I wanted. It was the perfect game for our family to play, as it even kept the 3-year-old engaged.
Additionally, I finally gave my partner a couple of games that Iāve had for a while but was waiting for a special occasion:
The Fuzzies ā
I knew my partner would enjoy this, but at the time I received it, I knew our children would ensure the components would be scattered hopelessly around our house the first time they got ahold of it. Our oldest is old enough now that I would trust her to play it, but probably not the 3yo yet. My partner really loved the old Popcap game Chuzzle, and I canāt look at The Fuzzies without thinking about Chuzzle. Glad to have finally given it to her.
Ticket to Ride: San Francisco ā
I regularly buy my partner a new Ticket to Ride for most gift-giving occasions (birthday, Christmas, and even our wedding anniversary when I gave her TTR: Europe 15th Anniversary Edition).
I actually donāt know anything about TTR:SFI just bothered to read the BGG description for the game and, just as I suspected, itās very much like the other small-box TTR games.
Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza ā
This past spring, we took the family to a friendās milestone birthday where he was hosting an all-day games day; my partner made it there before I could and managed to sit in on a game of Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza. I know nothing about it other than she really enjoyed playing it; Iāve heard it described as dumb fun.
My partner didnāt have time to go to our FLGS, so picked me up a couple of games from Target (or maybe Amazon? She wasnāt very clear about it):
Dominion: Seaside ā
We havenāt played Dominion in a long time, but I do know that my partner really enjoys when we do. Perhaps this is a nudge to get it back on the table. While adding this to my BGG collection, I noticed that there is a very recent 2nd edition of Seaside, but thatās not what I was given, so I will be on the lookout for the 2nd edition upgrade pack.
Disney Villainous: Evil Comes Prepared ā
We really enjoyed Disney Villainous, so I put all of the expansions on my wishlist. I think this is the second one and features Yzma (The Emperorās New Groove), Scar (The Lion King), and Ratigan (The Great Mouse Detective). Iām not big into Disney (but we have a few friends who really are; and my partner still likes to watch the Disney movies she remembers from her childhood), but this box hits on some of my more memorable Disney memories. I remember, in particular, enjoying The Great Mouse Detective as a child, though I havenāt returned to it as an adult.
And a couple even from my partnerās family! With my partnerās siblings, we are given one other person to buy for, and they will buy for someone else, and they for someone else, etc, but we put a $25 limit on it. My partnerās brother was given me to shop for and managed to pick:
SCOUT ā
Iāve been hearing a lot about SCOUT lately from a number of sources. Iām very excited to get a chance to play it.
Additionally, while I was out shopping with one of my daughters to have her pick a gift for my partner, I was in Barnes & Noble and saw they had a hard-to-find game on sale. I texted a picture of it to my partner, letting her know that if anyone was looking for a last minute gift idea (it was like 2 days before Christmas, I think?), this would be a good choice. Well, lo-and-behold:
Quirky Circuits ā
I feel like this one flew completely under the radar until earlier this year, after which it quickly sold out most places. I do think another printing is underway, but I was very surprised to see it on the shelf at B&N. I expect to mostly explore it with my oldest daughter who I think will really enjoy it when sheās just a bit older.
We have one more family Christmas gathering and I suspect thereās a 50-50 chance Iāll get another game then.
Iāve only ever visited the game-specific forums for rules queries. Outside of rules queries, I usually find theyāre made up of the following:
But hey, itās useful for rules queries.
