I played my copy a few times before giving it away.
I think “Fertig!” is the only FF solo game one needs (and that has an addictive app)
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Mr. Jack New York and Mandala have now been played. Two breezy, fantastic and brain-burny games that we love dearly.
We played two games of Mr. Jack, playing once each as Jack. We each won a game by having Jack escape Manhattan. I was quite proud of my slow-burn play that got her stuck not knowing which character to pursue. She, however, won more quickly than I did when I chose to block the wrong character from an escape route he looked for all the world like he was going for. The ol’ decoy play! I fell for it where she hadn’t. Well played, worthy adversary!
Mandala was next, and I actually have a very good batting average in that one: I won it 62-48! She would’ve loved to play another, but we have errands to run tomorrow again and her back was starting to get a little uncomfortable, so rest is necessary.There’ll be other times!
So a much more even games evening than yesterday, overall! Tomorrow, we take Disney Villainous out to play!
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I am way behind on reporting our plays!
First up was a BGA game of Troyes, gracefully hosted (and won, not that there’s any relation there…) by @Captbnut. First play for me joined by his wife and @DJCT. Happily, I was not in last place, though I know I made a major error on one of my first actions, overpaying for dice I ended up not even being able to use, and not quite grasping all the events going on at the bottom at first. I caught on relatively quickly though and came in with a respectable (as far as I know, though I believe it was mentioned that we had a low scoring game) 29, tied with DJCT. As stated, captbnut won with 33, and his wife came in at 28, so very close game in any case. And a big thank you to captbnut for hosting the game!
My wife and I played Jaipur last Saturday, which we have not played in quite a while. She swept me, winning two games with 72 and 73 to my 64 and 58.
The next day, we played Ethnos, using Wingfolk, Merfolk, Minotaurs, Centaurs and Halflings. I took this one, winning 106 - 91, getting out a good number of bands, and still being competitive on the board.
We followed that up with a game of Lost Cities, which I utterly crushed, winning 170 - 101. I got two expeditions of 8 cards, for 40 bonus points, which was awesome.
Then yesterday, we had our friends over for a small birthday celebration for one of them. After eating some delicious food prepared by my lovely wife, we got in a small marathon of games, starting with Ticket to Ride: London, which they had not played before. For that matter, we had not played it with four players before, either. The map got really tight, really fast. I managed to avoid last place because of that, the birthday boy losing the ability to complete a ticket. He came in last with 18, I had 34, his wife had 37 and my wife won with 46.
We followed that up with Sushi Go. Despite being tied for last on the puddings, getting -3 points at the end of the game, I still won overall with 44. Birthday boy and my wife tied with 33, and his wife came in last with 28.
Next up was 7 Wonders, which we have not played in years. Took a minute to remember the rules, and not confuse them with 7 Wonders Duel, which we have played much more recently. It all came back pretty fast though. Wasn’t really sure how things were going until the end, where it turned out I won with 56, followed by our friend with 49, my wife with 45, and birthday boy with 44. It was nice playing this again. Maybe I should dig out my copy of Armada which we have not used yet.
Finally, we wrapped up with Arboretum, which they had never played before, and we have never played with more than just the two of us. They made a couple of mistakes, missing that you needed four cards of the same tree in order for the extra point bonus per card to kick in, though I know I stated it at least twice during the rules explanation. But, to be fair, while the game is simple, there is a lot of little details to pick up on the first play.
Playing with four is so much different than playing with two. Two is like a duel, and you have almost perfect information with just the two discard piles and two hands to consider. Adding a couple more hands and discards, and it makes tracking the cards a lot harder, and you have to potentially gamble that the missing cards for a given tree are spread between multiple players, and not all in one person’s hand who will then deny you the right to score that path.
Thankfully, our friend was incredibly generous, or was just not thinking about how her discards kept giving me cards for my best path. I only had two, but this one had six of the eight cards in it, started with the 1 and ended with the 8, and I had the 7 in hand. It was glorious and gave me the game. I won with just the one scored path at 15 points, followed by our friend at 13, birthday boy at 11, and my wife with 8. I think everyone only managed to score one path, another big difference between the four player game and the two player game.
That’s it. All caught up!
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Thanks for the reminder!
Monday might at Local Games Group, with a guest who’s played a little but generally doesn’t know many modern games:
- The Island of Doctor Lucky, basically a variant on Kill Doctor Lucky. On the up side, it doesn’t drag on and on and on; card types are now weapon / hazard / defence. and if you’ve used a hazard on someone your movement goes up permanently. On the down side it still has what I think of as a Munchkin-stype ending, where victory is gained mostly by being the player who attacked when everyone else had run out of cards to foil it.
- a couple of games of Codenames, in which I really shouldn’t be a spymaster if I’m going to fail to spot the card that’s a better match for the clue I gave than the two I intended.
- and 6 Nimmt! for which I think 5 is the magic number (the number of players at which a pile can go from 1-safe to 5-deadly between your choosing a card to play and its being resolved).
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Disney Villainous has now been added to the pile of advent calendar games played! Since we’d spent most of the afternoon running some errands (taking Baloney to the groomer’s and then food and stuff since, with the storm we’re getting tomorrow, we’re NOT going out), we only played one game, with me as the Queen of Hearts and my wife as Captain Hook.
I got hit by an early Alice combined with two copies of the Fate card that allowed my wife to move allies to another location, completely blocking me from setting up my winning condition until the turn she was ready to do hers. Unlucky, that! But it was very well played and the game still felt competitive (I destroyed her plans once or twice, including with a strength 10 Peter Pan) and it was fun! Keen to play again, but not tonight, we’re beat.
Tomorrow’s our penultimate day! It’s gonna be Bunny Kingdom, yay!
And in closing, here’s a picture of Baloney:
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It’s been a gaming packed week!
Started off on Sunday with a “Christmas party” at the new board game cafe we’ve been going to lots. (I highly recommend ReRoll if anyone finds themselves in Leicester. Lovely place, great staff, nice food/drinks, good games selection.)
Cryptid - Good 4p game of this. Unfortunately, partway through a player realised “within one of [terrain]” included that terrain and revised their answers, fully giving away what their clue was. Other than that, I pulled off a very satisfying win.
Connect Four - The cafe had a tournament for this. I went out in the first round, but my friend went on to beat the owner in the final to win. Sadly, he didn’t take my suggestion that she now owned the cafe seriously 
The Tea Dragon Society Card Game - My friend’s partner requested this as a fan of the artist/writer of the comics it’s based on. Super simple deckbuilder, but turns are at least quick enough that you’re not bored waiting for your turn to come back around again. And it’s super cute!
Marvel: Remix - Still a lot of fun with more players! Though a bit more difficult to get what you want.
Anomia - Still the most fun you can have while giving yourself a headache.
Monday would usually be D&D day, but because a couple of players were away, I decided to run a silly one-shot instead.
I picked Goat Crashers - a one-page RPG from Grant Howitt about goats crashing a party. The adventure culminated in the goats recreating Die Hard by pushing a random man with a beard and an accent off a balcony.
Tuesday was a get together with my “usual” game group of old uni friends (though we don’t get together that often these days) to exchange gifts and play games.
Coup - I went out early in both games by double elimination. First bluffing a Contessa and getting called on it and then calling the bluff of an Assassin and being wrong.
Cursed Court - A weird experience of my friends insisting they’d never played it before, but then remembering as I explained the rules (but still insisting it must have looked different). I somehow managed a runaway lead, which is pretty unusual for me in bluffing/auction games.
Infinity Gauntlet: A Love Letter Game - First time I’ve played with more than 2 players. I did quite badly as Thanos.
Then yesterday I went to see my friend (the Connect 4 champion) and her partner again.
Love Letter: Princess Princess Ever After - Almost the same as regular Love Letter, but with an extra rule about the two princesses (the highest card is an ogre in this version). I won twice as I thought it was a race to 7 wins rather than 6.
The Tea Dragon Society Card Game (Again)
Azul - I actually re-read the rules beforehand and realised I’d got the scoring wrong - I was always counting 1 point for placing a tile, even when it was touching other tiles. I won the first game, but didn’t manage it in the 2nd, even though I managed to get all of one colour for the first time ever.
Bring Your Own Book - First time in ages I’ve had a chance to play this as there aren’t any books in game cafes! Still a great game.
Mouse Cheese Cat Cucumber - Picked this up just because I liked the art and it had a funny name. Actually a nice puzzle game. Think I’ll bring it out more now I have my head around the rules.
Goat Lords - One of those random take-that heavy games in the vein of Exploding Kittens. Not that great.
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I opened my Christmas present from me to myself early… because tonight was the night we had time and my partner was willing to play Star Wars Outer Rim with me 
And so we did.
And it was lovely. Took forever. But I got to be Hera Syndulla and have Ahsoka on my crew (for a couple of rounds) and fly the Ghost (well not quite I didn‘t manage to flip it) and my partner got to be Boba Fett, rob Jabba the Hut and find his Mandalorian armor.
We included the expansion materials right away but we didn‘t play with the module for additional player goals (whatever that was named)
I won in a final burst of gaining 5 prestige rather quickly. My partner would have done the same a turn or two later… and he insisted on being allowed to play one more turn since I was start player and so Hera met Boba on an Imperial Star Destroyer to play cards and he forced me to gamble away the not-yet-Ghost… pah… still I won.
I have known for a while that I needed a Star Wars game in my collection. I think this was a very good choice for us
(That empty whisky glas had Bowmore 21 in it—mine is just out of the picture)
12 Likes
I need to break this out again. Only soloed it once, and that was before I had the expansion.
OT: I played two games of Race for the Galaxy with @Captbnut on BGA over the course of a day. What a quick and snappy game! I screwed up a few times, not understanding how a card worked now and then, or just missing a detail. There is a lot of iconography!
He won both games by a healthy margin. Good fun, and another game off my 2022 challenge.
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I haven’t had time to keep my usual log going in here, but on the plus side, I have had some time to game this month! Some of my earlier recaps are captured again here but for posterity (and brevity!), here is my December to date:
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Hard City (x1): With a victory on a particularly troublesome scenario.
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Heat: Pedal to the Metal (x4): We’re set up right now for race two of the 1961 season. I’m actually surprised it’s only 4 games so far for the month (I have 12 logged and it arrived mid-November).
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Tainted Grail (x4): Two games into a new campaign, in much better shape overall compared to the fiasco that was my first attempt.
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Evergreen (x2): a personal high score beaten.
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Mini Rogue: as the Cleric, and with a rare victory!
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Super Skill Pinball: Ramp it Up (x2): Finally exploring some of the different tables.
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Tales from the Loop The Board Game: A swift and brutal loss on Electric Bully, and came away smiling as usual. I think about this one lots.
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My wife and I played two games of Kingdomino today, and I managed to win both of them, though one was very close, separated by just a few points.
A little later, we got Mansions of Madness to the table, playing the Innsmouth scenario. We got pretty far into it, but then got overwhelmed with horror, to the point both of us had an insanity card. I ultimately succumbed to more horror, and she could not resolve the scenario by the end of the phase, thus we lost. We will try it again sometime.
EDIT: This should have been in the last played thread. Oops.
EDIT EDIT: Thanks, Roger!
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After finishing work yesterday, my partner and I played some recovery games…
First up: Heat! Oh Tom, now you’re getting me to buy games? Such is life.
We did a tutorial “single lap around USA,” and I managed to win by a well-timed sprint at the end (although Andy might’ve won if she pulled better with her last-minute “Adrenaline”). Neat, neat, neat little game. Looking forward to diving into it more… and Andy likes it more than Flamme Rouge, which I think is fair. Happy to have received it as a gift.
After that we tried out a two-player game of Cat in the Box, which isn’t great at two, but definitely worked. Very close… I won 17-16. The whole “declare the suit, don’t cause paradoxes” mechanic is a joy.
After that, we played one of our (several) unplayed Unlock! mysteries… I think this one was called “Insert Coin”? It was pretty good! We used a few hints through it, but for the most part we figured it out. The series continues to impress me with their use of experimental things (in this case, the headlamp/Metroid Helmet mechanic was fantastic).
This morning we exchanged gifts (I got her a few running shirts, a pair of running pants, and a stack of games she had requested, she got me the single most amazing LEGO kit I’ve ever laid eyes on), and then immediately cracked open My City. Actually, I took a picture of that…
Andy wrote that. I’m so proud of her.
We played through Chapter 1, and she crushed me two games in a row before I crawled out a bare-victory in the third round. Maybe a Strategic Decision™ for her, because she now has 2 wells and I only have one.
Can’t wait to get further into it, but we stopped to start assembling LEGO. We are 5 bags in, which means we are at the precipice of 1/10th of the set.
Gods I love LEGO.
We have now taken a break for lunch, I’ve thrown the pot roast into the over for the next, I dunno, 5 hours… man, sometimes? Sometimes life is okay.
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We’re at my parents’ place at the moment. So far we’ve played Everdell, Condottiere, Krypto (basically the maths bit of Countdown), and Potion Explosion.
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Today we played a quick game of Lost Cities, which I won.
Later, her brother joined us for Lords of Waterdeep, which she won with a score in the 220-230 range, while her brother and I were somewhere in the high 100’s.
Sadly, that’s all the gaming managed today. We almost got to Sobek 2-player, but my wife laid down to rest while I prepped the table, punched out the game, and reviewed the rules, and fell asleep. Since we were up before 5 AM thanks to the kids, I figured she needed it.
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Boxing Day Boardgames today! (A tradition that I started in 2015, for friends who live locally and don’t have family commitments.)
- That’s Pretty Clever!, every time I think I’m doing all right and then it turns out I came last;
- Dobble/Spot it!, clearly a game for non-gamers but I can see the appeal;
- Xia: Legends of a Drift System, still in my honeymoon phase with this, had a great time and won;
- FUSE, one of the purest iterations of Kane Klenko’s time-limit ideas and one I still have fun with.
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Today more Potion Explosion, Sushi Go!, Micro Macro Full House, and Coloretto
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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“
Some rules explanations
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
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It is not a short game. Battling 6 opponents takes a while especially when each move is a puzzle on its own.
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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….
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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…
10 Likes
I do love all the box filling and combos but definitely prefer this as a solo puzzle
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