I got in a few games of Mancala this evening, which is easily the most satisfyingly tactile game I own.
And to round out the weekend, a little jaunt down to Everdell, taking on Rugwort again, the very passive automa.
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Played a game of fistful of meeples. Itās not a bad game but it doesnāt feel like a good game. Itās got this mancala esque thing going on where when you plop your seeds down the colour of the seeds interacts with the pot depending whatās in the pot. I think the problem is that itās fairly easy to parse what the best move is and probably a bit too much relies on getting the rarer grey cubes.
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Since this past week saw two new lovely solo-able game arrive from ButtonShy Games, I got them both to the table desk during boring conference calls.
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Sprawlopolis ā I had been wary of this oneā¦ it seems to have almost a cult following of fans; while I wonāt claim to be fanatically in love with it, it is quite pleasing. Itās a good puzzle but not overwhelming. I picked up the expansions with it and the Oceanfront is really the only one that looks appealing ā and only then after I get a bit more practice. My first game played saw an 18 point goal (the titular scoring card: Sprawlopolis) with the total goal of 35. I squeaked past with a score of 37 after some frantic game-end brain-thoughting.
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Hierarchy ā This one requires an expansion to play solo. This is way more of a puzzle than Sprawlopolis. I really struggled to internalize the puzzle until I was mostly done losing. This could definitely be a fun 2-player game to take to a restaurant to kill time while waiting for food ā whenever dining at restaurants will be a thing again.
Iāve been subscribed to the BGG 1-Player Guild and, additionally, the SGOYT geeklists; there are maybe 1 or 2 (more now, itās spreading) people posting about solo games of 1862: Railway Mania in the Eastern Counties; I read them greedily because, as much as I want to, itās just so hard to setup, play, and then tear down in the 2-3 hours I can eek out for myself in the evenings. Eventually, I was jealous enough that I made the effort and got my own solo game of 1862 setup last night. Unfortunately after the game dragged on longer than I thought it should, I realized I had been playing one of the many rules incorrectly and had not been exporting trains at the correct pace (which is essentially the only game-ending criteria in this game despite a few that are technically there to save the game from degenerative gamestates). I made some mistakes early on, gambling on some additional shares coming available after the first stock round, but those shares never arrived despite repeated attempts. I called the game when I realized my rules mistake, which was bitter-sweet: I knew I had to pack up the game and couldnāt try again due to time constraints, but I was also happy to be put out of my misery because my score was going to be extremely low.
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Husband and I played a two player game of Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples. Weāve owned the original El Dorado and played it several times but this was our first go at the newer Golden Temples version. I won, not by much.
A couple things related specifically to the changes for two players felt a bit off, though. So we checked with BGG forums after the game and turns out a rule from the original German was completely left out of the English translation. Thereās icon reminder markers for it still on the board if weād known to look for them, but the rule just didnāt exist in our game manual. Oops. Someday weāll have to give it another go with the proper 2 player rules, I guess. Not sure when that will be as heās temporarily on night shift and that has significantly reduced our gaming time.
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Heavy Cardboard played 1862 solo on a stream last night if youāre interested
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I just happened to see that after I packed up the game last night! What a coincidence. It was after midnight by the time I had everything put away, or I might have tried to stay up and watch some of the stream playback.
Itāll definitely be something to occupy my downtime for the next couple of days.
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Helter Skelter - Dark Judges Expansion
I got this game as a little prize to cheer myself up for lockdown-related issues, especially now that thereās a solo mode available, in the form of everyoneās favourite judicial philosophers - the Dark Judges.
I played, of course, as Mega City Oneās finest, against the dimension-jumping muderous swines. It was a quick and resounding success for the forces of law and orderā¦ so long as you subscribe to the āThe crime isss life, the ssentence isss death!ā legal framework.
Dredd was feeling confident from the outset.
As was his murderous sometime foe/ally, Mean Machine Angel.
Unfortunately, this confidence was somewhat impacted by Judge Death immediately killing Judge Anderson and waving jazz-hands over her corpseā¦
ā¦ and finally shattered by the lantern-jawed lawman himself being ganged up on by Fear and Mortis and coming offā¦ well, dead.
Meanwhile, Judge Death continued his killing spree by showing Mean Machine exactly who was
the meanestā¦
At this point, my 6-year old son joined in, and immediately (if worryingly) empathised with the undead fiends (not so much a fan of the underdogs, my son) and took over their movements.
Under his tutelage, the Dark Judges swiftly melted the valiant but ulitmately ineffective Judge Giant, and then surrounded Judge Hershey.
And, within a few minutes, it was all over, and Mega City One experienced itās lowest recorded crime rate ever. Maybe thereās something to what the Dark Judges are talking about?
All in all I enjoyed it, coming off a couple of games of Gloomhaven, itās short and to the point. I haveānt quite mastered the systems yet (I was beaten by a 6-year-old) but I shall definitely be playing it again, and bringing it along to metaspace gatherings.
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Played Kepler-3042 for the first time today. Rather enjoyed it. Sleek game around planning out things in advance while also responding to some variables and a little unseen stuff. Nice pieces and the potential to play quite snappily with space for some brian burn if youāre so inclined. Glad I got a Renegade version as it looks nice.
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Had my usual Monday night Gamers night at the club, and managed 4 games:
-First we had a go at Puerto Rico. I had never played and we were 4, with only one person having played before. Obviously he won with 60 something points, but I was happy with my 47 in second position. I did enjoy it, although if I had to choose between PR and Village, Village seems a lot more fun to me. I donāt know if it is the art, the concept or the actual gameplay system (or all of these together), but Village I find way more appealing. I still enjoyed it though.
-Second, we played Gizmos which did not really do it for me. I can see the mechanics of the game are quite original, but I found it quite confusing, and in the end the feeling of āI havenāt a chance in hell, the guy teaching us has already 13 cards out (the game ends at 15 or 16 I think) and I am only at 6ā plus the lack of knowledge of what to aim for: I think it is a bit vague.
And I have a general issue with playing a deck builder against somebody that totally owns you from the word go. Itās something I have observed with a few gamers in my club, where their desire to shine and get high scores outweighs anybody elseās fun, and it can sort of ruin the experience, even being polite. I can understand to be ruthless among peers, but for newbies at a game can be a bit of a bummer to see somebody sort of āshowing offā while you try to pick up crumbles. I guess it all goes by trying to get better at itā¦
-Finally, we had two goes at Splendor, I did enjoy it last week and I thought it would be fun to play. Didnāt do great either time, but still learning it is an enjoyable experience. I can see it making it to my collection eventually.
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Got another game of Nemoās War in, and this time had a more appropriately frustrating time. We just barely squeaked in under a notoriety failure with the anti-imperialism motive, and pulled off a success thanks to sinking a bunch of non-military craft.
The game does a good job of simulating the singularity of purpose theyāre going for, but it creates many " Yay!..Oh. Thatās really bad." moments.
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The racism? Itās the racism.
I love PR as a game, but Jesus it isnāt sensitive. Iām looking at working on a reskin for the whole thing so we can enjoy it more. From a gameplay perspective, itās very dry. I feel like thereās so much in the mechanics thatās trying to punch through because the name of the building and the effect make sense, but itās just a bunch of lilac rectangular tiles and then some differently coloured square ones.
Also; the racism.
I think Splendor takes a dip at some point. I stopped enjoying it for a while, and then when I came back to it I loved it again and itās been right up there ever since.
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Look at you New Zealanders and your social gatherings with people who donāt live in your house 
I donāt mind this too much if itās a short game, but it is definitely no fun if you have to sit there being confused and in last place for agesā¦ Has anyone ever called them out on it?
@TamiJo Iāve not played Puerto Rico, so I went and had a look at some picturesā¦ as far as I can tell thereās nothing to indicate that the Spanish didnāt just find an empty island and decide it looked nice. I guess all those plantations must have just harvested themselves, and absolutely no indigenous people died of smallpox 
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I know Iām guilty of this in many games, but all I can say is that in my case it has nothing to do with āshowing offā or being ruthless. I play most games as a contest against myself, to try and play as well as I can, and I get satisfaction from playing well. Iām not sure there is a good solution for this. Iāve heard it suggested that experienced players can set esoteric secret goals for themselves other than winning, but all I can see that doing is dragging a game out, and it seemsā¦ dishonest to me.
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Well, I suppose thereās always New Frontiers.
(Though actually, having played both, I think NF is a lot looser; I canāt see people getting obsessed about microoptimisation of strategy the way they do with PR.)
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It probably wouldnāt work for every situation, but I play with a group that likes trying to optimise everyoneās moves/scores if some of us are new to the game. As long as you can avoid quarterbacking, it works quite well.
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How do you avoid quarterbacking if you are trying to optimise everyoneās moves? Isnāt that the definition of quarterbacking?
Aside from that quibble, it sounds like an interesting, if slow, way to play. I donāt think I know anyone who would be into it though.
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It has to be a discussion, and the people who know what theyāre doing have to be okay with being ignored 
In games that are more strategic/long itās more like making sure that people understand their options and the consequences of their actions, rather than actual optimisation, otherwise it would take an extremely long timeā¦
The example I had in my head was a recent game of Rallyman GT, where we were trying to get people around the course as fast as possible.
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Iāll be honest, the name āNew Frontiersā doesnāt inspire much confidence in me for ānot racistā.
Palaces of Carrara is also on Board Game Arena.
This sounds like what I do when Iām demoing. āOK, if you do this youāll get that benefit, but this drawback; doing that will work the other way round.ā