We played a quick game of Jaipur today while our older kid took a nap and before my wife’s meds kicked in which would make her mentally fuzzy. I won the two rounds we played, first one was pretty close, just 6 points between us and neither of us got the camel bonus. I had a good lead in the second round, but I also had all the rubies, so…
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I’ve still never seen Menara in the wild. I’ll own it the day I do.
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I already played a second solo of Menara… on easiest of easy modes but this time I didn’t collapse it. Now I need to figure out how to play the Knuffies. Like what do I do with the fallen ones? The rules don’t say. Does color only change when someone drops something? Rules do not compute…
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We just toss any fallen Fuzzies (knuffiefellen?) into the cup and keep on keeping on. It’s the kind of game that usually ends with a single loser rather than a winner, so you might find it fun as a solo exercise too, FWIW. You reveal a new card after placement and then offer the tweezers to the next player.
[EDIT] You might guess I’ve tried it solo. You better believe I took the punishments. 
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We played a game of Pandemic with the purple disease from On The Brink. We were SO close! If just ONE card had come out one turn later, we would’ve won. As is, we ran out of cards before we could get the last two cures and eliminate the purple disease from the board.
What a game, though. What. A. Game.
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Local Games Group on BGA this evening, thinking about trying the pub next meeting if the numbers seem reasonable.
Haiclue, odd sort of word game: use a restricted set of word tiles to clue in players to one of four open words. Feels almost cooperative, because you get +1 for guessing another and +1 for another guessing you, like a sanded-down Dixit.
Small Islands, one of my favourite forgotten games, and it’s only from 2018. (Podcast listeners will know that this is the one I bought off @cornishlee, having borrowed it from him in our usual monthly game swap.) First time I’ve played multiplayer, first time I’ve played at all for a few months so the teaching was a bit fiddly, but I really enjoyed it and I think the others did too. Not my usual sort of game, but it’s just clicked with me. I want to try it on more people.
Draftosaurus, short and silly but one almost feels there’s something more to it.
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I met the inimitable @lalunaverde and another for games on Sunday. Mr Verde was delayed by the Sunday service of less trains so while waiting I tested out my new copy of Codex Naturalis 2 player. It has potential, the stresses didn’t feel too annoying and some practice could see some snazzy planning going on. It might be a consistent second level game of never being a favourite but a fun diversion on each play.
As the slow coach pulled in to the game station we decided to up the amount of trains in the day with 1882 Assinboia. This faster 18xx saw some ap and a 5 hour play time. This game of rushing train rushes and bankruptcies saw the table go all diesel, which was good because I started slow and chugged up to a full head of steam by the end. The lateness of play left me making some wobbly decisions but not so wobbly I lost it all.
This title is interesting, the privates were interesting, as is the Canadian national with the neutral tokens. The restrictive tile set was fun and the burgeoning financial shenanigans in my game make me think I might one day try some stuff in that department. Also the high train limit per company has potential to make the train rush all thrills and spills.
After one play, verdict was ‘will play again and maybe have a verdict after a bunch more plays’. Hopefully some more experience will speed up the play of the mystery gamer and me so it becomes a ‘school night title’. Alternately if we just get worse so we go bankrupt sooner, that’d work too.
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I really like Haiclue. Even my family understood it and you can have some great moments with it
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1882: Assiniboia and why you should pay attention to player tempo.
I was pushing the train rush by myself that, in retrospect, was a bad idea. The other two players were reserving their cash to be spent later. The correct move (I think) is to buy enough trains so I end up earning more than the 2 cautious players, and just sit there as I expand the delta between us. Which, then, compels both players to push the rush by buying more trains.
it’s very good to see that there’s a bad trade off on zealously buying trains. Indeed, I bought 5 rusty trains, which allowed both players to spend their money to grab the permanent trains. Got smashed, but it was a very good lesson that otherwise, I wouldn’t learn.
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I played a very quick 2-handed learning game of Great Plains this morning to get a feel for the gameplay. This is one of those games that is so rules-light it’s difficult to get a sense for how it all plays out.
Well, oh boy! I hope my partner gets into this because it’s a quick little thing with massive potential. It feels like it was probably born from the same sessions as their (Benjamin & Gilbert’s) last two games, Mandala and Maya, as some of the sensibilities with respect to area control feel similar. Like Maya, this one feels a bit out of its time, with a focused ruleset and simple gameplay leading to complex tactical situations.
I think this will need to be explored deeply to be truly appreciated, but given how quick and easy it is to play, that shouldn’t be much of a hurdle.
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That was exactly my thought as I read the rules yesterday and played a couple of turns against myself 
We’re going on vacation soon and I hope so very much that this one clicks with us. Mandala didn’t… (and that one was on me, normally my partner is the one who dislikes the 2 player games)
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Mandala didn’t end up working for us either, mostly because it was so damn brain-burning. Dead simple gameplay but we found that anytime we had the brainpower to play something crunchy, we just reached for something bigger. Similar with Curious Cargo, the weight just didn’t line up with the activity. Here I’m pretty confident we won’t have the same trouble, though I anticipate it’ll take a good few games before things start to get really scrappy. It’s filling the same basic space as Nanga Parbat, which has been a hit too.
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Ah that sounds great 
The ruleset is definitely simple but it feels as if it takes a bit until it gets really tight and also area control is more my kind of thing anyway so it is easier to grok what is going on in general.
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Be prepared to recognize errors after the fact. 
The bear is the only way to make an aggressive move and the “empty space” restriction can be brutal. I had made what I thought was a savvy move, weaseling myself into a space in order to block “the other player” and then boot his now-separated piece off the meadow. Well didn’t I just make it so I couldn’t use the bear at all. Whoops!
I mentioned the tactics in my post, but I think with a little experience it’ll reveal some pretty forward-looking strategies.
[EDIT] Just a hot tip that will almost certainly arise: for purposes of the bear action, any cave (excluding the one cave without a cave token) is considered occupied.
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We enjoyed playing SU&SD’s Serious Nonsense Monikers expansion after dinner recently. Chose to do the extra round where you pose someone else to get across your concept. There was a palpable sense of empowerment in the room when our kids successfully posed me in the likeness of a water bed and, later, their dad as a Mexican standoff. We recommend this round!
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Just finishedan online game of Art Decko with @Captbnut @lalunaverde and @mr.ister
I have no idea how the game ended so quickly but it was interesting.
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Took advantage of someone else’s timeshare in the mountains and got in a couple games of Mille Bornes and Paperback with some non-gamer in laws. We got as far as setting up Rallyman before the kiddos realized they hadn’t interrupted us in a while and donked up the whole works.
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I agree I was expecting a longer game, but luckily I was able to make my last move count. I played mostly on my phone where I couldn’t figure out how to see the threshold for the increases of value of each art style. I was especially surprised when I saw that money started to decrease in value at some point.
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I didn’t know what I was doing! I’ve just worked out how the powers on the cards work
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