Boxing Day Boardgames today! (A tradition that I started in 2015, for friends who live locally and don’t have family commitments.)
Today more Potion Explosion, Sushi Go!, Micro Macro Full House, and Coloretto
We played Bunny Kingdom for our slightly delayed advent calendar. The game is delightful. Heavy on chance in a way, but the art and the jokes and the sheer charm more than carry it. It’s really super fun.
Lost 132-125, so it was competitive!
Now all that’s left is Bärenpark!
Today my wife and I played Everdell, using just the Legendary cards in addition to the base game. A bit of a rough game due to our younger son suddenly deciding he needed all the attention, and 8f he couldn’t have it, he was going to kick our bedroom door until we made him stop. Make him stop. Rinse. Repeat. So the game took a while to finish.
I got lucky with some combing, though for the first time ever, I only ever geneeve berries from production cards, up until Autumn when I made a Mine. It was a bit weird.
I ended up winning, 70 - 54.
Hues and Cues a game I got from our family Bad Santa on Boxing Day. The board has coloured squares, with very little variation in some colours (or maybe that’s just me). Anyway, you take a card, which shows you several square coordinates, you choose one and give a clue. People guess the square, then you do it again (give clue, place a token). Then you get points for getting it right, or getting close to the target. I guess it could work as a party game, there are barely any rules, so that’s good. But really, getting the correct square seems like a fair bit of luck involved. Did not enjoy at all. We each had a go at giving a clue, and then it was over.
Dixit, which we haven’t played for ages. Mainly because we only had three players, which just isn’t quite enough for a good game of it. We had four people today, which was a bit better. It’s still a great game.
Heat: Pedal to the Metal, in which I again finished last, stuffing up at the last corner (just like last time - I am nothing if not consistent). Still, good fun, fairly close race. Still on the beginners US track, but keen to explore the others. And maybe throwing in some extra modules, although it’s pretty good fun with just the basic game.
6 Nimmt!, a few laughs there, good fun
The Margaret & David At The Movies Boardgame, based on the popular Australian movie show with the two hosts (Margaret and David, believe it or not) who tended to disagree a lot about movies, but in a very genteel way. So, this is a movie trivia game. The object is to find your own tokens, and then get the golden token to win. You move onto a space and get asked a question. Move onto a star space and get a harder question. To play the full game would have taken hours (unless someone was lucky enough to find all their tokens quickly). So we didn’t play a full game, but we had fun.
Azul, always fun. I think I came last.
Three Sisters. Do you like filling in boxes? Well, this might be the game for you. It’s a roll and write, featuring not one but two playing sheets to fill out. It’s all about gardens and planting crops, while tooling around in your shed. You roll the dice and fill out a rondel, then each player takes a die. The die value is used in your gardens (number from one through six). You can choose to plant or to water that garden. Planting means starting a column of crops, and watering adds to those columns already started. Then you get the action on the rondel, where you cross off more boxes in the apiary, compost, perennials, goods, or fruit. Some things are worth victory points, others can give you goods, or special abilities. It’s a bit overwhelming at first, but it wasn’t too bad to pick up. No player interaction at all, you spend the whole game hunched over your sheets doing your own thing. I didn’t think I was doing too well, but the scores weren’t too far apart (I still lost). There’s certainly a few different strategies possible.
My package for Paperback Adventures arrived just before Christmas so I kept it back as one of my „Christmas Presents“
It is another word game by Tim Fowers with roots in Paperback more than Hardback. I would describe it as a „solo word-game boss battler with deckbuilding“
So in keeping with the theme you play a character against a sequence of „Lackeys“ and „Bosses“ to write an adventures trilogy. You started with a deck with 10 Letters, a couple of „core“ items, another starter item and 20 HP. Each round you draw 4 cards to make words with. If this sounds impossible: it is hard.
To make a word you splay the cards either right to attack or left to defend with each card providing a variety of symbols depending on the splay. Each card also has a special ability but only the top card gets used. After that it becomes „Fatigued“ instead of going to your discard pile like the rest of your letters, it goes to a separate pile that will reset only after a fight is over thus reducing your deck and setting a timer for each fight,
For letters is quite difficult. So each opponent has one vowel from their name as Achilles Heel. You can use this vowel in your word. If you use the vowel the action selector of the opponent moves once. So by using it or not you can make sure some actions are skipped. Strategic use of the vowel is quite important. There is also a wildcard you can use to provide any letter. Not using it gives a little bonus at the end of your turn.
Over the course of the game you gain items, powerful McGuffins (like Chekov‘s Gun) and more letters and upgrades for your letters (they come in opaque sleeves and the back has an improved version of the card).
I found it quite difficult—maybe I should have used the introductory mode where the boss vowels provide a few symbols when used. With mostly short words I have had to use a scrabble dictionary to check if some of my attempts are valid. I can accept „Blah“ as a word if it helps me defeat the Giant Spider 
It is not a short game. Battling 6 opponents takes a while especially when each move is a puzzle on its own.
My biggest (personal) criticism is that the deck doesn‘t grow a lot. It changes but most of the time cards are just replaced not added. Only the first two „bosses“ add a card each. So most of the changes are either upgrades, switches and gaining items & McGuffins. This is more personal preference than criticism….
I have also had to consult the rulebook quite a lot initially and there are some rules that are easy to get wrong the card replacement instead of addition being quite Gntuitive because most deck builders I know tend to grow the deck. Also there are a few timing issues that one needs to be aware of.
But I have had great fun in my 2 games so far and can‘t wait to find time to play more! Definitely a keeper.
PS: I only have 1 of 3 character boxes because uncharacteristically I didn’t go for the all in pledge. I am not sure I regret not buying the other 2 boxes. One the one hand with 1 character box the game‘s size is quite acceptable on the other after 2 games with the poison lady (Damsel—that causes Distress) I am ready to try another play style… but I have yet to explore most of the content so…
I do love all the box filling and combos but definitely prefer this as a solo puzzle
So does this mean that you’re usually only making 4-6 letter words?
Finding long words is part of the joy of word games, so this sounds super weird to me.
Maybe some of the cards let you add more letters, at least? (It would make sense, as IIRC Paperback was like that; but I don’t think Paperback limited the initial hand so severely!?)
So there are items that let you draw more cards. I had a McGuffin in the first game that increased my handsize to 5.
And then some letters let you draw more cards on the next word when played “on top”.
Or a Z can be discarded to “Plot” and that gives you an additional card next turn.
The longest word I made had 7 letters I think.
The word making is far more complicated than Hardback. And I am still playing Hardback… I must have over 100 games by now… and I thought I was pretty good at finding words. For some odd reason this game defies me.
The wordmaking is still fun but I feel less central than in say Hardback. There is so much “other stuff” and strategy in battling the boss, that the word making has a smaller part of the game.
Yeah, the little bit I have played suggests to me that you are more trying to play cards in certain ways and the constraint on that is words, rather than being rewarded specifically for word building. If that distinction makes sense.
You are getting a special effect for (and then losing for the fight) whatever the card on top is, but you only get one side of the symbols based on how you “splay” the cards and that also determines which card is on top. If you need a specific card to be on top and a specific side of symbols that’s going to be a whole different word than the other way around. If you can think of one.
We played our 2nd game of Star Wars Outer Rim–this time with all of the expansion modules including the “Ambitions” (I don’t know what the actual module is called. We have the German version which is fine, luckily names never got translated in this universe) and “Favors”. Both of these really enhance the game.
This time I played Lando Calrissian and my partner was Han Solo (I was going to be Hondo, but Hondo’s special is a bit Take That and knowing us, I thought he might not be the best idea for me to play). We got off to a somewhat smoother start since we now knew which actions are too difficult at the beginning. My ambition–despite not being Hondo–was to become a Pirate King and Han Solo, absolutely in keeping with the character wanted to become a Legendary Smuggler
Lando’s ability includes re-rolling dice and being “friends” with all the factions and it is so funny how that turns out. Same with Han zipping across the board with all the bonus movement he was able to acquire… I got really lucky early in the game hiring some great crew including Boba Fett and Doctor Aphra and later Lobo and still later–after upgrading my ship to the Aerie–I scooped up Hondo from some remote place… The only small downside was that as my early game “soared” my partner looked on and got frustrated because he was somehow low on credits and it took him a while to get going… in the end we both completed our ambitions in the same round calling it a draw (I would have won, as I “finished first” but I was also start player).
Some thoughts:
This is exactly the Star Wars adventure game that I had hoped it would be.
The thematic trappings of Star Wars are well implemented and it contains references to some of the most fun moments from Clone Wars to the OG Trilogy. I have not played it without the expansion as I bought it together with the expansion (nor will I play with out the additional content ever): half of the cards in the game were in expansion box. There are additional player characters, the “Core” planets and the ambitions and favors modules… and a few rules modifications and all of that really makes a difference. I think also I wouldn’t want to play with more than 2 as it is already quite a long game with 2 players and some turns can be quick but others can take a while and there is not much to do while the other player is doing their turn.
PS: we replaced the “credits” with our poker chips and that makes the game even better. Game also needs an insert ASAP especially card trays… and no the game does not fit in the expansion box but everything fits in the core box together.
Quite a few games to report here.
I attended Friday Night Games in Hastings with another 5 players.
We had two games of Secret Hitler, where on the first one the Secret Hitler won when I made him Chancellor (I was really cornered between him and two other players that had passed Fascist laws) and a second one where we won as liberals.
Then we played a typical Friday Night two games of 7 Wonders: Architects. I did terribly on both, barely scratching the 30 points each time. We finished with a couple games of Adventure Time Fluxx on which I won the last one.
On Christmas day I had a a games evening with my friends, and even though I brought a few games, we spent the evening playing Werewords
Then on Monday we had a long day of games with the Geeks Guild, from 1 to 10 pm. Started heavily with Railroad Tycoon, between 3 on the USA eastern half board. For a first play, I did better than I expected. Being at the south of the map did not do me any favours, as looking at the East Coast where most of the cubes were was a job and a half. Finished a decent 3rd with just under 100 points, with the other two just over (102 and 104, I believe) Then we moved onto party games, for decompression. A good 8 or so rounds of Werewords, then another 8 or so of Sounds Fishy, which did impress me positively.
After that we had a go at Star Wars: The Clone Wars (they did not want to leave the Pandemic bit in it, but it is Pandemic with Star Wars minis) between 4, which we won on the edge of the game (we were one planet total invasion away from losing), then we moved onto about 6 games of Spyfall and one of Trust me, I’m a doctor. To finish the evening, we had three games of Codenames: Pictures, where I had a terrible start as a clue giver, then a win as a guesser and a win as a clue giver. After that, I called it a night (it was past 9 pm) as teh only games going were far from finishing and I had had enough short games for the day.
Oh,I really want to play Outer Rim now.
I remember SVWAG being a bit down on it, but I love the IP.
Played some escape room style game the kiddo got for Christmas, forget the name but it’s a giant deck of puzzles and you need to solve six to escape a house. Pretty decent but ruined by roll and move. Will update with a name when I’m not two hours away from the game.
Also Cat in the Box! Nephew ran away with it on a one win bid and a seven point bonus score.
We played Bärenpark to complete our advent calendar! That game’s always good fun , one of our favourites. I lost 111 (something like that, anyway)-83, she got all three challenges (two statues simultaneously, three pandas and three Gobi bears), while I only managed the statues one (second) and there weren’t enough pandas OR Gobi bears left for me to get them done. Still happy with my score, although I was happier when she’d forgotten to score her challenges (something she often does, both here and with Everdell and I thought she had 84.
And with that, the advent calendar’s done! Now we really have only two objectives remaining before I go back to work on 9 January: Play Beyond the Sun again to really give it a good go, and play one of our unplayed games. The list so far:
Aquatica
Ark Nova
Bitoku
Cryo
Furnace
Ghost stories
Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North
Khôra
Spirit Island
Choices! And of course, play other good games!
Ghost Stories is probably the easiest and quickest of your unplayed games to get to the table. You set it up, play maybe 10 - 15 turns each, and lose! Easy! 
LOL, I’ve had Ghost Stories for nearly two years, it’s just… not getting to the table for whatever reason.
You are soliciting opinions are you not?
Well, solicited or not… here‘s my bit.
We played our copy recently for the first time and it‘s a nice little auction game that is very quick to setup learn and play. The core idea is that you bid for factories with your 4 coins and you win the card when your bid is the highest as usual but all other bids get some resources as printed on the card and multiplied by their bid. With the factories you build a production engine (just play the advanced „chain“ right away, it makes for a quicker game in the end). Plays over 4 rounds and takes maybe half an hour.
It‘s been some time since I played but I remember it being quick enough to learn… and yes lose. It is really pretty, too, and it has great highs—but also great lows when you just can‘t fight off the ghosts. Everyone gets a special ability that can save the day and that feels great. You have this little 9 square village and from each side there are up to 3 columns of ghosts marching up… sometimes faster, sometimes a little less fast and you have to keep them from reaching the village by throwing colored cardboard at them… but it better be the right colors. There are dice… that always seem to roll the wrong colors. But there are also these cute little Buddha statues that ward of ghosts completely before they even appear. Those are my favorite. But eventually the ghosts take over the village tiles one by one and it is rare that you even make it to the final boss… be prepared to join the ghosts. A challenge surely but a fun one.
a lot of people are initially put off by the game because it is so difficult to grok. It is not that the rulebook is bad—but it could be better—it is just that there is a lot there to understand. So my recommendation is to find someone to teach you either a YouTube video or a person who can do it on TTS or even better a local friend who knows how to play.
It is a great game and once you know how to play you can vary the difficulty to adapt to what you want from it—the actual base game is not all that difficult once you know the rules. I also highly recommend starting with the basic spirits: Lightning, River, Earth… those have fewer but very powerful abilities and you can choose to have the cards they acquire in the first rounds fixed as well which takes away another layer of complexity for the first game.
Just yesterday I thought I could graduate from the „learner‘s permit“ to the standard Plan 0 and the game showed me what was what as the solo mode ended with a whopping -17 points. Yay!
Just like Spirit Island there are a lot of rules to learn here and I spend my first couple games with my nose in the rulebook all the time and that is after I learned the game from friends a few months ago. The solo mode is great by the way but not what you are looking for. It does remind me of Terraforming Mars a bit because of the amount of cards and the combo-ing nature of those cards—and the possibility that you need a certain card for a combo and that is at the bottom of the huge deck. Of the games on your list this is surely the most „pastoral“ especially when you play with 2 people who haven‘t played before there is likely time to explore a bit.
I played a 2 handed learning game and have not had the energy to bring it to the table (probably because I am reasonably sure my partner is not going to be a fan I bought it because the same designer as Dwellings of Eldervale which is just too huge to get to the table). I remember it is a worker placement game with a bit of combo-ing going on. Really need to get this to the table.
In any case you have a really nice list of possibilities here
Thanks for the write-up @yashima! Yeah, we got ourselves a nice list there. Gonna be fun to explore!
A couple of solo games of Sprawlopolis yesterday evening, attaining both my best and worst score.
This evening we (ambitiously) taught my parents to play Kemet: Blood and Sand. We hadn’t played Kemet for years, so teaching it was a bit stressful! My Dad seemed to pick it up fairly well but my husband just about managed to steal a win using a terrifying Soul Stealer.
