The Crew 2 - very much a staple in our gaming gorup
Menara - I found it. I think I found it. The dexterity stacking game that requires players to be thoughtful on what to do. I love Men at Work on what it does and I’m always a sucker for dexterity games, but Menara, finally, is the stacking game that requires players to plan their game. Gauging how stable the structure is. Planning which column to put first and which floor to put next. It’s intense. It’s thrilling.
Men at Work and Junk Art are straight up fun but they take a lot of space. And so I kept Animal Upon Animal and Rhino Hero because they are straight forward stacking games that are quick and doesn’t take a lot of real estate. But Menara is, IMO, the big box stacking game that I want to actually own, play repeatedly and get better a it.
Two-fisted learning game of Everdell in the books! Quick first thoughts:
This has probably dethroned Wingspan and Inis as the prettiest game I own. Gorgeous art and components, and the whole thing just exhudes this sense of peace. It’s lovely.
Game doesn’t seem super mean, at least at two players. It’s kind of like a cross between Lost Ruins of Arnak and Terraforming Mars, maybe? Lots of different cards and combos in there, quite a bit of depth. Best path not immediately apparent.
It didn’t feel complex to teach like some other games cough cough, Brass Birmingham, cough cough. Manual is straightforward and concept is simple.
The 8-card hand limit isn’t problematic, but the 15-card tableau limit can come up FAST. One of my hands ran into it and lost 38-41.
Looking forward to my first actual game, likely tomorrow!
The Fool is really the only mean thing in the game. Well, base game anyway. I have no idea if the expansions add more. You can also screw up your opponent’s move a bit if you use one of their buildings that are OPEN, like the Inn. Not really mean in that instance, unless you are doing it just to block them from using it.
I’ve not heard of it either, but a co-operative strategic dexterity game? I don’t know whether I’d personally want that. The thing I love about Junk Art is the individual triumph and despair (and then quickly onto the next fast round), and simply marvelling at the fact that someone’s wobbly creation continues to defy physics by remaining intact. I’m not sure I want strategy or high-stakes in this genre. I’m sure the tension would be sky high near the end with the collective efforts of everyone depending on you not having an accidental clumsy moment, and that could be amazing, but it definitely sounds like a very group-dependent thing. That said, I’d definitely play it if someone offered : )
Menara is great, isn’t it? And it fits right into the smaller expansion box. It can be played solo but groups are fun, too. I gave away Junk Art after I got this.
Played a game of Imperial Steam (2021). It is now my preferred railroad type of game. (rather than Railways of the World). Tempted to host it here on a PbP.
A lot more options to choose from. It isn’t just the standard get resources to a place and perhaps complete a goal or something. You have to decide from a choice of perhaps 10+ options of what you’d like to do. The end game is who has the most $ at a set end round. So you have to choose what method you’d like to take towards getting that goal (the most money at the end of the game). Hopefully someone else who has played can answer better than me. Apologies.
EDIT: All aspects of a typical railroad game (plus more). Build tracks, buy goods, deliver goods, buy trains, upgrade them, buy stations, buy workers who build the tracks. But also has stocks and price fluctuations. All actions may affect other items within the game. Such as the more stations, goods, or workers bought up; then the more expensive they get. And at the same time, the lesser goods out there become more valuable. If you are a train era type of gamer, highly recommend trying it out.
Yep! Put this game in front of a new person (especially with the tree up) and they just want to play it, it’s so gorgeous.
You’re right about the 15 card tableau being restrictive - on turn 1-2 you think you’ll never fill it, and then towards the end you’re having to make hard choices. In my first 2-player game my partner played the Fool on my LAST SPACE and completely wrecked all of my plans for points
We played three games of Everdell yesterday. I won one, my wife won the second one and the third was a draw (screw the tie-breakers, a draw’s a draw). All wins were by around 3 points and we were both sure the other was doing WAY better than ourselves, so they were close.
It’s SO good! Absolutely adore it. It looks and plays wonderfully.
Between this, The Loop (didn’t land as well as some others, but still darn good) and MicroMacro Crime City (Full House is done, we started the original), 2022 is off to a great start!
Managed a 3 player game of Rajas of the Ganges dice charmers. Always enjoy this, a more combo-filled version of the board game.
Next up was Honey Buzz. Not played this for a while, and playing it at 3 rather than the usual 2 made a nice change. The action selection in this is really satisfying, giving you the feeling of achieving so much on certain turns. Came second in this, but definitely got the urge to play this more.
Highlight of the night was Survive: Escape from Atlantis. 4 player, silly, chaotic fun. Not sure who won and I don’t really care. It caused a lot of laughter, even from the most take-that adverse player I know. All I’ve thought about since is what other games would give that sort of experience, which speaks volumes of that gaming session.
Level 2 (which, for those who haven’t played, is the middle difficulty from the zero-to-four range).
I struggled to win a regular game at level 3 (and stopped trying after I’d done it once), but found level 2 a solid challenge that I nevertheless had a decent chance of winning, so I went into the campaign with that. Hopefully in the upcoming games I can get back to only losing by a dice roll or two : )
I’ve been playing at level 1 and typically just squeaking by with wins, so I feel like I’m at a good (for me) difficulty. I still need to play the last starting city (did Roswell and Washington D.C. a couple of times now) and then I think I’ll jump into the campaign.
That sounds like a plan. I don’t have enough experience yet to know for sure, but I suspect you can generally expect campaign missions to be harder than the normal game, so level 1 might have been be a better option for me as well. It’s fine to switch up the difficulty mid-campaign, but I think I’m going to stick it out at level 2 – partly because I’d find it slightly hilarious if I lost every single mission, but also because the campaign is replayable and variable, so I imagine I’ll play it through at least a couple of times, and can always go easier on myself the next time around.
I think higher levels of difficulty on Under Falling Skies require a lot of “luck” with the dice, from what I could remember, winning at level 1 was a struggle most times, so ramping up the difficulty is for masochistic players. Which I am not.
