The three biggest olgs in the US are Miniature Market, Boardlandia, and Gamenerdz. They’ve each got their thing, but Gamenerdz has (for four years) run a prime day style thing in the summer. It’s a whole affair and has some bonkers sales.
They release clues and a schedule beforehand. Then you sit at your computer and refresh like mad at the scheduled time and try to buy it before the 1,000 units go out of stock.
Then reddit and bgg are all alight with people sharing what they got, what they missed, what had a restock, what clues they think the community got wrong, etc. Frantically asking for an opinion on a game before it stocks out…
There was so much work and so little time to actually play games… so instead I bought games. And it‘s not like 3 of these aren‘t going to be at SPIEL where I am going in less than a month…
Fischen or Fishing is a trick taker that has you play tricks for the next round with cards from the tricks you took the previous round introducing new more powerful cards from the „sea“ (stack) for those who haven‘t won enough tricks… sadly 3-5 players but I couldn‘t resist getting my hands on Friedemann Friese‘s take on the hype ASAP.
The Gang is cooperative Texas Hold‘em. There is an actual poker deck in there and a bunch of poker chips and for each hand that is played you want to communicate (without using your words) with the other players how good your hand is by taking one of the numbered poker chips for the current phase (pre-flop, flop, turn and river). By the fourth phase you better have a good idea how the hands on the table are ranked (plays 3-6). If you manage to pick the right order of the poker chips, you get to crack one of the three safes. Otherwise you cause an alarm because of course it‘s a „heist game“. You win if you crack 3 safes before the police catches wind of you. In the advanced mode you also get „complications“ and „bonusses“. Sounds quite nice, no idea how hard it is going to be in actual play.
Vale of Eternity was just on SUSD. I bought it after seeing the video existed but before watching it. Because I did. Sounds like a nice card game and also is not expensive. Lots of air in the box though. There is an expansion announced or out…
Space AI Puzzle is cooperative puzzle solving and luckily it plays 2 so we could try it immediately. There is a 4 x 4 space ship with unique rooms identified by 4 different symbols. There are 6 astronauts in differently colored space suits and 4 keys. One player is the mute AI that can only communicate with a bunch of symbols f.e. colors, key symbols, room symbols or arrows, checkmarks etc. Which symbols the AI speaks is determined by the scenario which also gives a number of rounds, number of symbols the AI can play in a round to give clues to the humans. Because the AI knows (a bit like codenames) where the astronauts are supposed to be on the ship to reactivate the engines (or something like that) and who has to have which key… quickly the time runs out.
There are a bunch of setup cards that get combined with the 20 or so scenarios the first 2 are really easy where you can give the clues needed in two or three rounds but it gets much harder when you have fewer symbols and extra rules like the room that humans aren‘t supposed to enter etc. It is pretty fun so far. But also lots of air in the box. Keen to move onto higher difficulties.
Well, I got some haul today, and two more games coming:
Currently on our dining table are Quacks of Quedlinburg The Duel, Splendor Duel and Beer & Bread. We tried the first two at the gaming pub on Sunday and the last one just looks great.
On order are Kutna Hora and The Vale of Eternity. I took the plunge on the latter after the SUSD video (especially since it’s only $40), but the French-language version won’t be available until 30 September. Will receive both once the whole order can be fulfilled.
Got my copy of Cascadero today - should have had it a month ago, but apparently I failed to fill out the pledge manager, doh. So happy to finally get it.
I remembered that this was the game with the… uh, train-wreck of a new official board (comparison), and went looking in the Files section of BGG for your version, and the closest I could find were these pictures. Ah, here it is – a bit further along in the thread.
I saw a good option (NZ standards, that is) to acquire The Pursuit of Happiness+Community+Experiences+Promos all sleeved, (second hand) so I went for it, and it is on my way now.
I went to FLGS to see if they had Nekojima and they did. Surprisingly they also had Pink Dorf already which I thought was still a few weeks out. But these were all games I planned to buy anyway.
And then one of my crowdfunders delivered–without a hitch this time after they did some major chaos last time I backed anything of theirs (Ares Expedition was a delivery disaster):
Yes I got all the mats. I was unable to choose. The printing quality is excellent and I love the Tharsis design already. I am really looking forward to putting ALL the expansions on the table at the same time.
And now I need to rip open the prelude box to check out the new cards. I’ve been playing a few app games this week so… the game is quite present in my mind.
My favourite kind of purchase is the “if the shop has this then I’ll get it”. There’s something conscious lightening about having god intervene into your buying decisions.
Oops. Ordered some games. Too many games. Already have too many games; Now I’m going to have some more.
I have ‘reasons’ (well, excuses) though…
Scholars of the South Tigris, because I was always going to get this, so why not now?
Ezra and Nehemiah, because Garphill.
Ark Nova, because I’ve suspected for a while I’ll like it and it won’t be like anything else I have.
Ora et Labora, because I’ve kept thinking for ages that I’d like this one, and if you think something for ages then you must be right. Right?
And Beacon Patrol, because it looks really nice.
And because islands.
I seem to have a thing for games with islands (it can sit on a shelf of island games with Robinson Crusoe, Archipelago, Tobago, Explorers of the North Sea, Jamaica, Spirit Island, Forbidden Island, Murano, Santorini… should I include Concordia and Arnak…?).
It’s out since this week. “Sakura” … it was supposed to be a SPIEL release I thought but various German shops already have it including my FLGS.
It’s very similar and yet not. The unlocks are different. We’re 5 games in (I do much better with my partner than by myself) and I like the new stuff a lot and … the rest would be spoiling some fun discoveries.
This is not quite the correct picture for this thread because I’ve had Pink Dorf since my previous post and we’re 8 games into a solo/duo campaign where the solo scores usually suck
This picture was taken to show the stupid box size of Unconscious Mind which arrived yesterday and compare it in particular to the neat box of the German edition of Cosmic Frog. The latter of which was acquired at FLGS in a bout of needing retail therapy after a stressful week.
I put both new games to the table yesterday. The rulebook for Cosmic Frog truly is a marvel of … cosmic chaos and non-linear story telling. But someone on BGG made a nice overview that I’ll have my dad print and laminate (he likes laminating stuff) sometime this week-end.
Unconscious Mind however is mostly verbose and badly worded and made me realize I think that I could write more precise rulebook text. I doubt I have the time to rewrite that one but despite being well structured the paragraphs are needlessly ambiguous. I have more complaints that I will probably put in my post on Recent Games when I write that one It’s a perfectly fine complex euro otherwise. However perfectly fine, just doesn’t cut it these days.
It’s a perfectly fine complex euro otherwise. However perfectly fine, just doesn’t cut it these days.