It is indeed! What I don’t recall them mentioning was the casual jingoism, but it’s easy enough to ignore. The font choice isn’t. Heheh.
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After a busy few weeks, I managed to get a weekend away to stay with friends and get through five games with them. The two quick warm up games Get Bit and No Thanks didn’t particularly grab them but luckily the other three went down really well. King of Tokyo proved pretty fun for them and they loved Survive - which pleased me no end as it was one of my favourite games from my childhood. The hit of the weekend for all of us though was Codenames which we played in two separate sessions and started to get better at each game. The undoubted highlight was when my partner gave the clue “Musical 4” and the first word I choose was a bystander - and afterwards we realised there was 6 or 7 words in the grid that could have related to that clue, including the assassin.
Now, I just have to step them slowly into slightly more complicated games - maybe Lords of Vegas or hopefully get them into worker placement titles somehow. I did bring Architects of the West Kingdom with me but left that in the bag this time.
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Managed to play our first game of Sleeping Gods last night. Just my partner and I because of (gestures at everything).
It was good! Gosh there are a lot of rules, and thank heavens for fellow-Canadian Rodney Smith’s “How to Play.” But even so, most of the mechanics seem to make sense… although with that stated, there is also a remarkable curve to those first few missions we attempted.
What I will say is that Laukat has really tightened up the Choose Your Own Adventure parts that we’ve encountered (still riddled with typos, but fewer!) in a meaningful way. I look forward to smashing through a full day of this after the holiday rush!
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Got a few games to report. Sunday avo we managed to convinced my better half to a game of Architects of the West Kingdom. She was not very convinced at the beginning, but then she got the gist of it. So a game of three between my daughter (9) and also the little one (5) helped daddy and mummy counting coins. I got the win last minute scoring an 8 points building, with scores being 33, 27 and 27. Iyt was fun to hear my partner half way through the game : this not that dissimilar from Splendor…!
Then yesterday I went to our Games Night. Started well, where I was asked if I wanted to join an ongoing D&D campaign for next year. I have not played for over 20 years, but I was not going to say no. So we played first The Networks with four players. It was fun, but I doubt how much “replayability” is there. It was fun to see the TV programs similarities, with the favourite of the night being Communist-y. I finished 3rd after fumbling the season before last, where I got in the lead and that made me last to choose from available shows for the 5th and last season. Enjoyable. But didn’t win my heart.
Then we read the room and the mood was for a short game only. So we played NMBR 9 between 3. I finished close second 51 to 52. Keeping in mind that I don’t particularly consider myself a fan of polyomino games, I was quite chuffed I had a go at the win.
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Finally, for the first time in what feels like ages today after dinner I had the energy to play a bigger game—I‘ve been playing plenty of small games and my usual BGA goings on. So I got out Burgle Bros II and played the first heist for a second time. Halfway through the game—which was going rather badly for me with lots of heat on all four characters—I noticed that I was not getting any dice for the safe?!? And then I noticed that I made a bad mistake in the first game not removing Mole tokens after use. Oopsie 
Glad I didn‘t count that one for the campaign.
I very narrowly made it out of the Casino in the end with Rook, Raven, Spotter and Acrobat. I don‘t think I‘ll take Spotter again. But maybe I just got lucky with moves and peeking and most of the yucky tokens got removed because I managed to peek in all the right places…
I noticed that nooks to hide in can be rather helpful in avoiding bouncers. Unless of course there‘s a tile there that like Slots that always causes a commotion when you enter. I need to develop a better wall-building strategy for this game. And… more strategy. Right now I am bumbling around the casino like a metaphor with a limp.
The arc of the game is weird. So I start out all excited and vow to do better, run around explore some tiles and run into trouble. In the middle part I get impatient because I lack pieces of the puzzle and they just won‘t appear while I gather heat cubes. That middlepart almost saw me throw the game on purpose because I was frustrated. Then I had to step away to take a longer phone-call and when I came back suddenly all the pieces fell into place for a nice finale.
It was similar in my first game. I really need to figure out what is going on in that middle part.
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Played several rounds of Business Walrus with my students today, to fill time as the semester wraps up. This is my new replacement for Cards Against Humanity, which I don’t allow in my classroom for a whole host of reasons.
The winner of the day was a set of 5 linkable toilets to “help you make friends”.
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I got to meet three of my local discord friends in person tonight (one comically overdue), ostensibly for dinner though we all just had a couple of drinks. We played In Too Deep, all new players… and our host left the manual at home, having read up for the teach earlier that day. A quick scan of the rules PDF was enough to get going thanks in large part to the player aid, though we could have used that manual for referencing the (quite good) iconography.
I have an unusual first impression here. On its face I didn’t really enjoy myself much at all. Turns can be short and uneventful, and it takes a while for them to come around again. The early cases can be ridiculously easy to complete, putting a lucky player or two off to a hot start, and it’s generally luck dependent throughout. The round/game timer is supposed to be a thematic centrepiece but felt purely mechanical, and end scoring is a complicated, baffling affair.
I can’t wait to play it again.
Here’s the thing: I think we kind of played it “wrong”. Elements of the round/game timer are tied directly to the completion of the main case (a semi-co-op mechanism of sorts) and when you place evidence—face down—into the various case files you’re supposed to communicate what you’re placing, with no requirement for honesty. Most of the side cases have aggressive effects upon completion along with their rewards. Going hard into corruption seems risky but potentially lucrative. The chaos of the board state can’t be reined in, per se, but you can conceivably deduce what other players are going for based on their actions and make opportunistic plays. This plays into the two card hand limit and constant ability to cycle those cards. I think it’s a game that wants players to think like sneaking puppeteers.
There’s something juicy in there and I’m not sure if it’ll end up making me enjoy it more, but it’s something unique and worth pursuing a little at the very least. Colour me intrigued.
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Just had a virtual Christmas party with some friends.
Started with For Sale on BGA.
We played online versions of Decrypto (the one I posted before seems to have sorted it’s security - pm me if you want the link).
Garticphone - this isTelestrations on crack. You don’t get a starting clue, you can write any old nonsense. It’s very, very funny.
And Just One. Not always a huge fan of this but it was excellent tonight.
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To my great surprise and huge delight… a friend came over to pick up our raclette machine for their New Year‘s Eve and stayed to let me teach her Spirit Island 
We played on easy mode with Thunderspeaker (her) and Shifting Memory of Ages (me).
She already made plans for next game and said we needed to raise the difficulty
It has been more than a year since I played a non-solo of this game. This was completely unexpected, too.
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Went to a games night! blasted through some short ones
Played
Game of Thrones: Hand of the King - simple set collection game with a nonsense theming
Schrille Stille - great speculation game with shared incnetives and problematic artwork (top left in particular)
Full Throttle - Much better with adults and four players
Loco - It’s Knizia, it’s speculation, it’s cards! It’s great!
Senators - purchased on @lalunaverde’s recent write up. Needs another play to decide if it’s a keeper
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Played on BGA:
2 player Gaia Project. Taught someone how to play it as they are keen on it. Then we played El Grande with 5 players. We ended with Coloretto and we called it a night.
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Lots more games of the Lost Ruins of Arnak with the Expedition Leaders expansion. Now managed to play as all the different leaders in the game and they really do allow you to play in unique ways. I put off playing as the professor as it was the one that seemed the most dull. Instead it was one of my favourites. His skills gives you access to your very own collection of artifacts to buy. This means that for the first and second rounds, while all other player’s only see one/two of these cards you’ve got access to 4 or 5. You also have the ability to switch cards in to your own personal shop window, meaning you can plan ahead which cards you will buy and when. It meant the game had a very different flow - buying up lots of artifact cards early on rather than exploring.
The mystic is the hardest out of the lot and turns fear cards in to an important resource. Not sure I fully mastered how to play as him, but it was a lot of fun… Though the most brain burny of the lot.
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I got another round of Seal Team Flix under my belt again this morning, and suffered a pretty brutal loss. My task was to capture and extract the mastermind from the board or kill her if I didn’t think I could make it out, and I failed at both. Time had gotten tight, and the situation was grim, but I was still fairly confident I could achieve the primary objective of extraction.
We had the mastermind captured and had managed to escape into an office, but our prior actions led to an absolute hornet’s nest of patrols hanging out in the long, wide area between us and the extraction point. One SEAL was waiting in cover to make a mad dash with the mastermind, while my other had broken off to lob a grenade down a back corridor to try and pull the guards from the area. This worked to some degree, but with only so many spots for the guards to relocate to, several remained in locations which would have allowed for line of sight to our escapees. Oh, and my grenadier was KIA for her efforts.
If I ran now, I’d have been subject to a hail of dice I would not survive, but I still couldn’t give up the primary objective. My remaining SEAL lobbed a flashbang into the room with a keen shot, but still had two active guards ready to fire. This meant fewer attacks, but with my first action spent, it also meant they’d get to attack twice, so while it was a nice move, it didn’t represent much of an advantage in the end. To hell with it, let’s try my luck!
Deadskies and a failed mission. 
I’ve been enjoying this a whole lot. This mission introduced some of the more complicated rules in the game and it still ran fairly smoothly, so I think I’m prepared to reset and start a campaign. I think I’ll set it up for three SEALs though, since managing each comes with very little overhead, but should really amp up the tactical choices.
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This came much quicker than expected, but the mood struck and I played the “Fistful of Darkstone” mission from Shadows of Brimstone using the slightly modified first-game setup, and ignoring the advanced rules. This was a short, one-off session (no cash or XP) and it ended in catastrophe for my duo of would be heroes when I underestimated the damage potential of a lesser foe.
The final showdown was against a quartet of tentacles and two “slashers”, which were my big bads for the session. I took one down and had the other on death’s door with my preacher ready to finish it off, but the tentacles would get their turn first. In a spectacular series of rolls, I needed to deliver 12 successful hits (6 critical!!) split evenly between my heroes, almost all of which went on to deal their maximum damage from a D6. I mean, I didn’t just lose, they vaporized me.
I’ve spent an awful lot of time and money looking for a dungeon crawler that suits me. They’ve all fallen flat in some critical way, and quite frankly I was starting to feel ashamed for trying so hard to find something that clearly wasn’t a fit. Shadows of Brimstone has so many obvious flaws. It’s a mess of componentry, gives zero shits about your pathetic banquet table, demands careful bookkeeping and upkeep (with stationery! Not included!), sells enough content across enough SKUs with varying degrees of availability to cause an aneurysm, and then laughs at your dreams carrying off like seed pods when you realize the absurd coffin box won’t fit the paper content let alone the miniatures. It laughs again when your new bin is already full and the god damned Harbinger model still won’t fit anywhere!
Oh god, do I love it? Yes I do. I ran out and bought the Blasted Wastes “Other Worlds” set with some Christmas money this afternoon. There will be more.
Here’s a couple of dead wannabe heroes for your troubles.
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Had the friend who gifted it to us over to play Oceans and folks… I just don’t think this one’s going the distance. Don’t get me wrong, it was a hell of a lot more fun with 3 players and the deep than with 2 and just the surface cards, but the game still had the same kind of limited feeling. Not enough surface card variety (especially since there are some that are just never used) and we only had two or three turns after the Cambrian Explosion to actually use the Deep cards we’d collected. So yeah, this isn’t one I’ll be dying to get out again.
But after that we played Bunny Kingdom and that one is still a great time!
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We finished our Exit: Advent Calendar. It’s such a clever piece of design. We know their systems pretty well so not too taxing, but it’s been a lovely puzzle to solve as a family every day for a month. Would thoroughly recommend.
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Treated myself to Spirit Island for Christmas as have heard many good things, and just tried a solo game as a single spirit (Lightning’s Swift Strike). I may have been swift but not very effective as I became overwhelmed with blight very quickly. I didn’t seem to have much defence and ended up losing three of my little dolman chaps very early on. Certainly a learning experience but I wonder if the game may solo better as a two hander? I enjoyed it greatly regardless. Definitely shall try more games over Christmas!
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Played my first game of Obsession, solo against the weakest opponent. Did terribly but still squeaked a victory 104 to 93.
Started well, bought lots of servants and service cards. Then ran out of money and did not a lot for the middle game, Market was against me a lot, had zero cash for the Builder’s Holiday round anyway, hit the “National Holiday” and went CRAZY inviting everyone to a huge event using all my extra servants, limped into the endgame not getting near winning the Courtship.
Missed 2/3 of my objectives, still got enough to beat the very lowest level (thanks to a big hand of guests and lots of servants).
I like it! As with many games based around genteel manners, it’s completely evil. Hard enough solo, but with another player to screw over it’d get cutthroat very fast. Definitely one where you finish your first game, see how the flow of the special rounds goes over the whole of it, and immediately want to play it again.
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Just played Royal Visit with my guinea pig Mum, it’s good.
It’s staying, lovely tug of war between two players
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single spirit games can be hard. did your copy have the updated rule that you get to (2*number of players +1) starting blight on the island card? this is an important balancing change from the original.
I find 2 spirit games easier to win but of course you need to wrap your head around more concepts. so starting out, stay with 1 I think. Lightning is a good choice because they can act in swift phase a lot. I’m sure you’ll quickly get the hang of it.
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