To give it the full title Survive Escape from Atlantis: Operation Pick on Dad
11 Likes
Fortunately slightly too young to realise that strategy
4 Likes
Got my copy of The Matchbook Collection and got in a couple games of Eiyo and Space Lunch.
Space Lunch is solid, and I see it being a favorite āDaddy Gameā for my 9YO.
Eiyo is great, and may, in time, replace Samurai Spirit in the collection. (Although I remain wonderfully perplexed by Samurai Spiritās bizarre shift mid-game from Kurosawa to Anime)
The production of the whole collection is great. The game mats, which I wasnāt particularly excited about are beautiful.
The only hitch so far are the rulebooks, which suffer from their small size and some translation issues.
2 Likes
9 Likes
Tried the solo variant for Rome and Roll. Itās alright, but the automata really doesnāt capture player interaction very well. Thereās too few opportunities to bounce off the automataās actions for points, and with the automata just putting blocks onto the map it feels quite stale in building. Donāt think it cuts the mustard!
1 Like
Another play of Ticket to Ride: London since we had a few minutes and we really needed to engage our brains a little to stop dozing on the couch. I finished my initial tickets early, grabbed two more and finished them, then took one more, but my wife ended the game right afterward. I only had one more turn when I needed two to do the ticket. Thus, my wife won 46-30, though even with the 10 point swing the ticket would have given me, I still would have lost. Her tickets were really good.
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Iām glad I read this! I had been side-eyeing the new Kickstarter to pick up a copy for solo play, but couldnāt find too many opinions on the automa.
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Got a few games in yesterday:
Rising Sun: I donāt know if itās just our group, but this doesnāt really feel like the negotiation game that itās billed as. Itās still fun though (but not as fun as Blood Rage).
Coimbra: Iām definitely warming to this one. I like the dice drafting and the fact that you need to consider both number and colour. I went all in on monasteries this time, but didnāt manage to pick up the scoring card that gave you points for doing so 
I never felt it was a negotiation game either. The āteam playā with your ally is alright.
Some games this week split between our RPG/games group (Iām beginning to think that rebranding as a more general games evening may suit the current state of our group - Itās been awhile since weāve been RPGing) and some chilled backyard games with some friends:
Point Salad, we had a couple of games of this at the start of the evening and it went over super well. Itās just a great solid little set collection game.
Incan Gold, or Diamant as it seems to be known now. This is some silly push your luck, I did terribly which seems common, but it was enjoyed by all.
Welcome to the Dungeon/Welcome Back to the Dungeon, between getting into an argument about whether itās necessary to play with the gender swapped dungeon cards in the sequel with expansion (itās completely not, was my view but some people found the lack of symbols a bit confusing, so Iāll give some ground there). I may try a bit harder to keep the games separate in future to avoid the awkwardness. Though Iāll probably still keep the health tracker from Welcome Back for both games. One of our players decried the thematic disconnect between not wanting to go into the dungeon, rather than it being the fun thing that play rewards. I could see his point, though as the light little distraction the game is, it doesnāt bother me as much. Itāll join my short list of games not to play with specific people though - but Iād figured it wasnāt going to be the same fun and slightly silly game with everyone anyway.
Played outdoors after dinner with some friends:
Uno, they pulled this one out. I humored them. Thereās not much to the game , and I definitely do miss some of the wackier rules from games with international students back in my undergraduate days. But itās a fine distraction. I just expect a little more out of my games thesedays.
Anomia, this went over gangbusters, and we played through both decks. Was thrilled to finally get it played in the right kind of setting and it was terrific after a few drinks and played while chilling in their backyard. Great game. Though baseball team is a tough one for Aussies! Everything I know about baseball I learned from Back to the Future 2, and I suspect that might be more than most Aussies. Football team would work better in our context (though I understand the term āfootballā can indeed represent a bunch of different sports, but that to my mind just makes it a better option for an international game!)
Love Letter, this one was tense and fun and just a solid little game all round. One of the strings in my bag finally gave out. Might be an excuse to upgrade to the new version with the more diverse and (to me) better art! I wonder if the printing quality of the cards has improved - Love Letter is still the only game of mine I insisted on sleeving - the cards are definitely susceptible to getting marked. Though my wife did point out we have some sentimental attachment to the version we currently have (one of the games we played a lot when dating) so I think sheād prefer to stick with the one we have.
Lie, we had a quick round of this later in the evening. One of our players was struggling a bit at that stage in the evening, but we enjoyed it. I do definitely prefer Perudo though - the choosing the orientation of your hand is interesting but throws all the statistical crunch out the window in favour of extra mind games. It does also lack the visceral thrill of shaking up and slamming down those dice though!
2 Likes
The automata builds rubbles in set mountains. I guess when youāve learned the cards you can be a bit more strategic in building placement, but being able to predict where buildings will go feels a limp experience to me. Makes it a completely differently game to interacting with other players.
Added to that, several building cards depend upon interaction between players, so simply donāt work with the automata building zero buildings. You canāt get the adjacency bonuses through one player alone - especially the building that needs to be adjacent to three buildings of a specific type for the bonus.
Still excited for the expansion though, think it will push the (multiplayer) game from a standard resource management euro thatās a roll and write for some reason into something more interesting.
1 Like
Played a game of Istanbul with my wife last night.
We stayed very close in gem acquisition throughout the entire game. I got the first by getting both tiles from a mosque, then she got one for the other one. I got one for fully ypgrading my wheelbarrow, then she got it. Then we each got the gem for the other mosque. Then she got ahead by getting a gem from them Sultanās Palace, but I tied right after using the Gemstone Dealer.
At this point, both of us were low on resources, though I did have enough money to buy another gem. My wife started refilling at the warehouses, while I worked to get a couple of blue goods. My wife went to the Gemstone Dealer herself and got her fifth gem.
On her next turn, she moved to the Small Market and got a bunch of money. I used my family member to get my fifth gem from the Sultanās Palace. With her newfound wealth, she went back to the Gemstone Dealer and got her sixth gem. Since she went first, though, I had one more turn. However, I did not have enough money to pay her at the Dealerās space, and get my sixth gem. And even if I did, she had more money left at that point, which would break the tie in her favor.
We tried the layout using the red numbers which was a bit weird. All the warehouses and the wainwright are at the top, while the Sultan, Dealer, and mosques are at the bottom. Made for some interesting paths. Very close game.
3 Likes
I now had two solos and one two player coop of Flourish
For all that it comes in medium sized box (West Kingdom Trilogy+), itās a card-game for which they really should make a āpocketā version.
The game is played over 4 rounds in which 3 cards are played turn by turn. At the end of each round there is a scoring. The fourth round is a little special as all 3 cards are played at once. After that there is a final scoring.
This is a drafting game. Players have a hand of six cards. They select 1 to play and pass 1 each to their neighbor. For the next round they pick up the two passed from their neighbors and one from the draw pile to get back to six cards. And so on.
Cards score in various ways. There are plant symbols in 5 suits (roses, mushrooms, bugs, leafs and those blue flowers) and there are āfeaturesā like beehives, paths, walls, trees and lawns. The upper left corner has scoring (on some cards) for after a round usually counting symbols and awarding points based on what is in your garden or one or two of your neighbors. The lower right has end game scoring. After three games the iconography has settled in my brain and I donāt have to look up stuff anymore.
There is a number of modules and variants to make the game more complicated, a puzzly fun solo mode and a coop mode and up to 7 players at once.
Iāve enjoyed all 3 games. My partner did need a lot of time to optimize his card play so maybe it causes a bit of AP.
For me it sits in the same pile as Sprawlopolis and Fairy Trails right now. But in the long run the nice gardening theme (I have at least one friend who really really loves his garden) and the huge player count and ease of teaching this will hopefully bring it to the table on larger or smaller game nights.
PS: for some reason I always end up with tons of mushrooms and beehives. Let me tell you: walls are rare!
8 Likes
Just been playing Apex Theropod. More to follow on the podcast, but while I can see how this could become a lifestyle game, itās not a great shallow dive. (Thereās a huge amount of STUFF ā but you donāt see a whole lot of it in a single game.)
2 Likes
I just had to bgg (the equivalent of googling a boardgame) that and my question is why? And why now?
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@cornishlee and I have fallen into a pattern: we talk about a few games weāve played, then afterwards we exchange one each for the other to try it and follow up in the next episode. It was the one of his that sounded more fun last time, and it was ā because I can see that Iām seeing it at its worst and still having a decent time.
3 Likes
Faced with a few choices for a game this weekend (some involving a teach), my partner rather unexpectedly chose Flick 'em Up! She only tolerates Catacombs because itās a good time with friends/the family so I never would have guessed sheād be up for a dex game when itās just the two of us. Iām gonna credit the toy factor and the Looney Toons aesthetic.
Anyway, we stuck to a basic shootout, but I gave two of her lawmen Winchesters, and the ability to mulligan once per cowboy. This proved to be a pretty good handicap, as it was a close fight the whole way. In the end, though, I made a couple of deadeye long-shots with one of my cowboys, leaving me pretty much free to blitz her last (very well protected) lawman on its last hit point and take the win.
Iām so happy she enjoyed herself. I wonāt ask her to play a dex game when itās just the two of us very often, but itās nice to have the option when I need a fix.
5 Likes
I also played Istanbul with my wife, with the Mocha & Baksheesh expansion of course. It was a close game, with me winning one turn before her due to a lucky guild card draw that let me pay whatever goods I wanted for a Sultanās palace gem. This was a game where I upgraded my wagon all the way, which I very rarely due, and it was a blast going to a warehouse and getting just a whole ton of goods.
3 Likes
After our flicking showdown this morning I took some time to set up Xia for a three-handed solo game later this evening (and likely throughout the week). I was lucky and got about 90 minutes of game time in tonight, and while handling three players has been unwieldy, Iām glad I went this route as itās giving me an opportunity to see how interactive a lot of the missions are.
Iām having trouble collecting my thoughts here. I mean, Iām halfway through a hackneyed learning game and itās one of the best things Iāve ever played in my life? I gotta sleep on this.
6 Likes
They sure are!
With a bit of lateral thinking, though, I was able to significantly reduce costs when building my house by constructing the walls entirely out of mushrooms and beehives.
3 Likes