A couple of quick games of Timeline and a try out of Vajazzle with @BigJackBrass , both went down well I think.
8 Likes
First play of Gulf Mobile & Ohio. Very opaque. I did learn some things like more paper means more income, but money is not the end, but rather means to achieve VPs. This mainstream style made this Cube Rail very different. Will try to play this more (along with other Cube Rails I wanna playā¦)
Maybe, I should just sell off my shame pile and just play Cube Rails.
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Online plays:
Finished Horseless Carriage with @Benkyo and @mr.ister . Very enlightening experience, but very difficult learning when async
Learning more and more with Trick of the Railswith @mr.ister and @Acacia . One of the deepest trick takers.
4 player Itās a Wonderful World with forumites.
6 Likes
Just played a game of Everdale with my youngest and my better half (the oldest daughter is at a sleepover). I was lucky enough to score a few Unique buildings and critters, and even though the girls went for castle and palace (plus royals, obviously) I stole the win with a decent 40 something against their high 20s.
Getting the University and clock tower early, plus the general store and their respective critters was too much for them, I got a good engine rolling that paid dividends. I could focus on closing events and theatre plus bard gave me enough points at autumn to run away with the victory.
6 Likes
Played about 2/5ths of a game of Great Western Trail with my wife and her brother tonight. After about two hours of setup, teach, and play, it was just after 11, so we called it and plan to try again Sunday evening. Now that they know how the game works, it should go quicker.
8 Likes
Double victory for me today in Ginkgopolis and IKI 
13 Likes
Before night time, the little one wanted to play Love Letter, so we played two games, in which we came terribly close (just won by one piece difference on both). Sheās taking after mum, I was not that good at playing at anything when I was 6.
5 Likes
Two games of Kingdomino with my wife. Lost both, first game 46 - 42, but really got slaughtered in the second game, 39 - 24.
6 Likes
Went over to a friend to play a couple games for his birthday. First was 7 Wonders with 7 people and 3 expansions (Cities, Leaders, Armada) and lots of promo boards / cards mixed in. I went science crazy and my neighbors mostly just let me so I won with 112 points. Second was a tie at 89 then my science alone at 84 points would have come in next.
Next was Imperial 2030 with 6 people. It was about half new players / half experienced players and took a bit for some people to figure it out. Basically, itās a ātrain gameā mixed with a war game and new people frequently canāt handle one side or the other depending on their prior game experience. Itās a fairly simple game in terms of possible actions to take. You can be in control of a country and you move a marker around a rounded to pick actions like build military forces, maneuver for combat / board control, or tax the places you control to gain money for the country. The difficulty is that you the player arenāt actually the country. You are a rich nebulous investor who has money invested in two countries in the start on the game - one controlling plurality and one minority share. At certain points in the game you can make the country you control pay money out to investors and you can get the chance to buy shares in countries - getting more in something you already have or buying something new. Itās possible for someone to buy enough shares in the country you control so you lose control of it then you get more chances to invest but donāt control a country on the map. Some actions make a country more valuable and game ends when one country hits max value and you see who has the most cash in hand and points based on stock in countries at their current value. I also won this one, but it was a close race at the end. I had 122 and second was at 113.
11 Likes
Iāve played a whole bunch for the first time recently, some are objectively good games that just donāt fit my wheelhouse, but others are euro Kickstarters with issues.
Stationfall- Love it, even if itās got the worst rulebook and imbalanced characters. Just daft fun that tells a story. Everyone is in a space station falling ot earth and are going to die, but nobody knows this, or who each other is and their ultimate goals. You just play out a farce.
Gravwell- a Ā£10 second hand Airecon pick up with a missing card. Race from the centre of the board by playing cards which move you depending upon the positions of everyone around you. Love it. So much so Iām on a hunt for the sequel now just for the two extra players. Janky daft fun.
Hamlet (build a village or something)- Really didnāt like this one at all. Massive issues with the design- ridiculous shaped tiles just add to the cognitive load and make drawing tiles from a bag randomly impossible. Tiny fiddly pieces are just frustrating and annoying. And I didnāt even think much of the core concept of the game. Just a worse version of Raods & Boats and Keyflower, two games I really enjoy playing.
Historia- Attempt number 18 in the āEuro style Civ played in under 2 hoursā genre. OK, glad I played it once, but in that one game I felt I had seen everything the game had to offer, which wasnāt much tbh. Donāt like the way they did military at all- no harm in losing battles, which meant there was literally no way to interfere with the winning player who abandoned military partway through. Death for a civ game that.
Footsetps of Darwin- An objectively good game which everyone I have played with really enjoys, but just not in my wheelhouse. Iām happy to play it, but Iāll be selling it simply because I donāt find the point salad aspect of it all that interesting. Beautiful game though, and really well paced, just not for me.
Crescent Moon- Not a fan of this. Completely asymmetric, which Iām not a fan of (I feel disconnected from the game as a result). Was the warring faction, which meant I was the only player who could muster armies easily, so thatās all I did and conquered people and won. Apparently thereās an errata out which changes the order of the factions as well as other things, which screams āclever but not playtestedā to me. I know from the 5 players, 2 definitely wonāt play it again, and I think only the owner really wants another shot.
9 Likes
Two games of Spirit Island:
A disastrously shambolic three-person game where everything just ended up getting utterly out of control and the entire island was a sea of white before the blight finally put us out of our miseryā¦
But then the next day - we decided we at least understood how the game works (even if weāre not very good at it) enough to mix in the Branch and Claw stuff. So we played for the first time with a blight card, events, and the tokens - and with moderately complex spirits (Thunderspeaker and Spread of Rampant Green), as well as all the extra power cards. With all the new stuff to take on board, we did make it easier for ourselves by skipping the initial explore - thatās in the rules though, so itās okay, right? - but we were delighted to win at the start of stage 3.
I like the tokens and the events very much indeed - they add nice additional little wrinkles to it.
This game is a work of genius.
8 Likes
Managed to get another game of Spirit Island in this weekend, with River Surges In Sunlight (me) and Oceanās Hungry Grasp (my wife) taking on Brandenburg-Prussia level 2. The mixed up Explore deck comboed nicely to focus the invaders on just two terrains types in the early game, which was a real struggle because two of those lands were in the far corner of Oceanās island board.
Thankfully one of these terrains was wetlands and I gained the defend 10 in a sacred site minor power exactly when I needed it. Without that Iām not sure we would have won, but it meant we could stabilise then turn the tide on the invaders with River pushing explorers and towns into Oceanās reach and using its innate Massive Flooding power to clear out lands where the invaders were entrenched.
7 Likes
This afternoon with fellow forumites:
- Seasons a teaching game, lots of moving parts, I like it but Iām not sure Iād ever play it often. One to try again now that I have some feel of the flow.
- Crokinole because Crokinole. (Bought in the UK from Crokinole Boards & Crokinole Accessories by the way.)
- Project L, I should upgrade more.
- Nokosu Dice (with my Parade deck), a bit of a headcracker but one Iād like to try again.
- The Quacks of Quedlinburg, always good fun for me.
7 Likes
Thursday this week I played in another session of Frosthaven. I enjoyed it much more now we were playing an actual scenario. My character remains interesting with the novel mechanics, but Iāve learnt it reasonably quickly so not convinced itāll have legs. Thereās a some I donāt like in this version and some I do. Personally I hate the thing of breaking scenarios up in the book. Makes everything take longer and I get no more thematic immersion. It also makes the strategic aspects significantly lesser. Big thumbs down in my books there.
Today I had the pleasure of playing games with @RogerBW @Gus and @lalunaverde. Started off with a game of Seasons learning game for 2 people so I hope they had fun. I still like this game a bunch. Definitely helped by being colourful and having fun art.
Crokinole got played and was excellent. Damn you Roger for bringing it over!!! Itās really expensive but oh so good.
Got my first try of Project L ? It was fun, I hope Roger brings it again next time. Not sure Iād want to play too often but enjoyed it plenty.
We tried a tricker with some dice and played it wrong so no comment currently.
After @lalunaverde left the 3 remaining played Quacks of Quedlinburg. I had some rotten luck in the middle portion so my strategy didnāt kick off at all. @RogerBW chose some very sensible yellow chits as often as possible and won by a big margin.
Great day and now Iām stripping wallpaper 
11 Likes
Thank you for hosting,@EnterTheWyvern, and for the Seasons intro. Iād definitely be happy to play it again, and might even develop a Plan second time round 
A most enjoyable afternoon.
8 Likes
We played two back-to-back games of Ark Nova. I lost the first one bad 43-1 due to a combination of bad luck (not drawing the animals I needed), mistakes on my part (releasing the animals I needed) and great plays from my darling wife (generally bring a holy terror at games).
I won the second one 24-13 by basically playing less moronically and actually drawing useful stuff (like eight sponsors while having the card that gives you points for each).
This is a wonderful game. Itās got a very relaxed rhythm in the beginning, but when someoneās engine gets going, it can end in a flash, so you need to be able to pivot to your end-game super quickly. Itās a very fine balancing act.
Game of the year so far.
6 Likes
Had a first game of final girl, played Charlie vs Hans at camp happy trail. It was close, i got a win and it came down to If I didnāt kill him he would definitely get me as his dark power was just revealed and would have done 6 damage which would have revealed my heart token.
Itās pretty fun. Enjoying the variability and will play through the other scenarios and this one a few times.
Donāt think itās a forever game but I reckon Iāll get a good amount of plays of it,
6 Likes
Tonight at Local Game Group:
Inkling, in which youāre using letter cards to give clues to words ā but you can get inventive with how those letter components are arranged. I suspect that like Hanabi the real pleasure is in working out a set of conventions, but I had a good time anyway and Iād like to try this again (ideally with four or more players).
Then on to Tiny Epic Galaxies, in which I went all-out for my secret mission (have fewer planets than anyone else) without quite realising how few points it would give ā but since it meant I went for the high-value planets, that turned out to be quite a good thing. I feel more favourably about the game than last time I played it.
9 Likes
Played a quick gane of Everdell with just Bellfaire. Gave a shot to the player powers, I drew the mice while Maryse had the hedgehogs. They really added quite a bit of wrinkles to the game, we liked 'em a lot more than we remembered.
I lost 73-67 in an absolute nail-biter. My Doctor, my Monk, my Monastery and my events combined to net me 24 points on their own. It was one of our better games.
7 Likes
Well, we lost power at about noon here due to an ice storm (40 mm of freezing rain fell down) and have yet to recover it, so with nothing better to do, we played two more games of Ark Nova back to back.
In a stunning display of luck (and some skill), I actually won both by crushing margins! I like these power outages!
10 Likes
Just stay warm!
3 Likes