I don’t know, I thought the trays were great - if the metal markers fit in them, which the ones the game shipped with don’t. They did fix that afterwards.
1 Like
Went back to gaming after Christmas!
Pax Transhumanity - a rather depressing scenario where I was only solving problems on the First World and the Developing World got left behind. Space and Cloud opened up as usual (Azure Verde is back online 
). Player 2 and 3 were coming up with solutions on the D-World though. Alas, the Developing World Tipping Point card showed up first and I triggered it. Since people lacked the foresight to protect themselves against “Future Shocks”, the tipping point destroyed the Solutions and Companies within the D-World, and their pts were pretty much nuked.
Some people would have been completely turned-off from that game due to the random card draw and its very tactical nature, but the players at least found it very interesting.
Just One
Food Chain Magnate - played with “Hard Choices” on 3 players. TOP 10 GAME EVER
The Great Zimbabwe - first time playing it with 2 players! I picked the god that only gives me +1 VR when picking up a tech card. This allowed me to race towards the finish line by late game, while my opponent languished at 40 VR.
TOP 10 GAME EVER!!!
Cascadia - closing filler
10 Likes
Mysterium x2
We’d narrowly failed on the first attempt (collectively choosing wrongly on the final vision), after which our guests suggested playing again (which I was delighted about). I’d taught one of them to play the ghost for the first game, and their partner preferred to play as a Medium again so Ghost duty fell to me in game #2, and I proceeded to have one of my worst performances ever. Largely on account of the bathroom location card. If I wasn’t simultaneously trying to guide another player to a swimming pool it might have been ok, but between the two I burned my only watery cards right away (without either of them picking correctly), and then had such an appalling hand of cards even after using one of my 3 crows that I sent the ‘bathroom’ player a hand of entirely unrelated visions in the hope that they would conclude that I was indeed just burning cards. This ill-conceived move led to them finding viable connections with literally every incorrect location – finally selecting the bathroom only because it was the only remaining possibility!
I was at least hanging onto (turn after turn!) the perfect clue card for that player’s next decision, so they got that in one, and I had a pretty good final-vision set which saw us grabbing victory from the bathroom-shaped jaws of defeat! (After which I had some explaining to do!)
I can only hope the second game didn’t undo the good impression made by the first game…
7 Likes
As a new player, the “burning cards” idea never occurred to me, so I was similarly lost when the ghost did that.
4 Likes
Oh, and a ton of Rhino Hero earlier in the day with my partner’s 8-year-old niece (plus whoever else could be roped in for each game). She’d remembered playing it the last time she was here and she asked if we could play it again. My recollection of last time had been that she’d lost interest quite quickly and so I’d not even grabbed it as an initial option, but today she was happy playing it repeatedly (and in fairness we built some very tall towers which was fun, and definitely elevated the game… (so to speak)).
Several good slow-motion collapses were caused. I guess the lightweight components make that more of a given, but I hadn’t previously thought about how the game materials might cause that enjoyable moment of realisation/horror to last that little bit longer.
6 Likes
I don’t know what I’m looking at, but they ticked the ‘Presentation’ box, didn’t they?
4 Likes
Had our Crew crew over for dinner and games. Started with a quick round of That’s Not a Hat just to show them, then moved onto The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, in which we succeeded at the final set of missions! I think it was five or six that we went through. Funny enough the last mission was actually one of the easier ones of the night; got that on our first try. So that’s all of both Crews done - will definitely pick up another sequel if one comes out.
5 Likes
I think I need to know more about this game
1 Like
It’s a game of shared incentives and trying to stay on the top floor. Initial plays show that the ‘resurrection ruby’ is OP.
2 Likes
Our guests left today, but not before they had played one another at Klask and Hive and Patchwork, being the small selection of two-player games I decided to introduce them to. One of them found the inevitability of leaving gaps they couldn’t fill in Patchwork to be a little stressful, but the other two games seemed to go down a treat. From here they were heading directly to a family gathering and were pondering whether they might pick up a game or two to play with that group, so I gave them 6 nimmt as a parting gift which I figured would do the job nicely even if they don’t get a chance to pick up anything else.
I have a sense that Mysterium will be back on the cards the next time they visit – that one clearly got the thumbs up (our first-round ghost was feeling the need for redemption :).
6 Likes
Another play of Goonies: Never Say Die, and it was a close game. The good guys managed the win. We fought what we thought was the boss and the end of the game, only to have another enemy show up that we needed to escape. And the second boss couldn’t be damaged, only stunned, and if you stunned them you had a chance to roll and escape. I managed it ok (thanks to an item that stunned), but the other Goonies player was really rolling badly (like, realllly badly). She could have escaped with me, just needed a single success on a dice roll, and she didn’t get it. So finally she made a good roll, stunned the boss, and escaped. The GM had three out of four objectives done, and I had half health. If I had died, it would have given the game to the GM.
Indiana Jones: Sands of Adventure, first play, hadn’t even heard of this game. It’s fully cooperative, and a fairly light card matching game. Each round has two phases, one where you can take your time, and a second phase that is played in real time. It has one of the coolest timers I’ve seen. The timer has a bucket at each end, and you fill up the top bucket with gems as you go. once there’s enough weight, the timer swings around and then it’s on. The objective of the game is to beat all the bad guys (three) by playing attack cards. Cards have a colour and a symbol, and you have to match either the colour or the symbol. it’s fully cooperative, so you can play open handed. In the real time phase, you’re desperately pulling cards, trying to find the attack cards. You don’t have to defeat a boss (apart from the last one), but failing to beat them means you start the next round with gems already in the timer. Good, light fun, any fan of the movie would enjoy this.
Big Top, first play. This is a competitive auction game, where you are bidding on circus attractions. Attractions are won by auction, but you still have to complete the card by covering the money values on it before you get the points. So, you take turns in drawing an attraction card and putting it up for auction. If you bid the same amount as one of the spaces on your uncompleted cards, you get to cover that with a coin. If you bid the same amount as a spot on the card being auctioned, then you cover that spot with a coin from the bank. it’s possible to cover all the places on the auction card, which means whoever wins it gains a completed card. But of course you need to win the auction for it. Most cards have point values, and some cards (clown cards) have end of game points instead. Cards also have stars – if you don’t have any stars at the end of the game, you just lose, doesn’t matter how many cards you have. Which makes the auctions for star cards pretty important.
Before we played, I had checked the forums on BGG looking for any rule corrections that I may have missed. And I found one thread about how the game is “broken”, and I read a bit of it, but didn’t pay a lot of attention. The problem is this – if you auction a card, and someone else wins the auction, they pay you, which is fine. But, if you win your own auction, you pay your bid to the bank. So, you can get to a situation where you haven’t got enough money to complete your cards, and no-one can afford to pay you for a card. Basically, everyone is broke. So auction cards just get passed by everyone, and you run through the deck until the game finishes.
In spite of this, I think it’s a good game and want to play again. i think we would all approach it a bit differently. First game, we didn’t know how much cards were worth, and we all overextended ourselves with cards that couldn’t be finished.
Project ELITE, this game always brings the fun! We’ve struggled with this game before, even on the easy difficulty. But this time (on easy) we just smashed it out. Finished most rounds with no aliens on the board. I usually struggle to kill things, but I found a rocket launcher and it just rocked.
Aurum, first play. Its a team based game, but we only had 3p, so no teams. It’s a trick taker, but the idea is NOT to follow suit. And you have gold cards, which are trumps, and you get those by playing the lowest value in a trick. You have to predict how tricks you’ll win. Pretty good fun, want to play it with teams.
6 Likes
Had a couple games on BGA recently. First was Yokohama with captbnut and inkybloc. Inky won by a large margin with 113, me in second with 94, and cap coming in last with 55. It is an interesting game, and I would have done better had I picked a different technology, as the one I did pick ended up never coming into play, but it was my first play of it so was kind of winging it.
Then just finished Lost Ruins of Arnak with three randos. This was only my second play ever, and my first was around three or so years ago, so again, I was winging it. I only discovered one site and defeated just one guardian the whole game, which now I feel was mistake considering I lost. I was pleased that I was able to get my magnifying glass to the top of the research track, at least, though I was only able to get one 2 point tile after that. Scores were 85-66-57-51, with me in last place.
6 Likes
Hegemony - works at 3 players. Although, you don’t have the State working together with some Classes that would make it more interesting. But 3 works. I played as the Working Class, and didn’t do enough to increase my Prosperity. Still learning what this level does and what. Although, Strike is a pretty good action. Not sure if it’s effective against the Middle Class. I’m still figuring out how not to play WITH Middle Class and how to ruin their position in relative
Robotrick - It’s a strictly 3 player game with a Robot player that has a predictable automaton rules. This makes the game predictable in a good way, and that means you can determine by feel whether you’ll do well or not based on their hand and your hand. I think it’s very good game, but I’ll be wanting to limit my games, so for 3 players, I’ll stick with Planet Cute
Taiwan Night Market - okay. I’m done with this game. I would rather rec other shared-incentives games that I like and MarraCash did this design better
Arboretum
9 Likes
A few games over the last weeks (it’s been a slow December, gaming-wise):
Stuffed Fables, a friend brought a copy of this so we got it to the table and played through the first few missions. It wasn’t bad - it does strike me that it’s probably more aimed at kids than our all adult group. And connected to that I wish it didn’t explain the rules as you go but that’s probably the correct path for playing with kids.
Morels, still great. I wonder if it’d be worth finding some walking sticks from etsy or something…
Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, I still struggle with the animal actions - I always do the wrong one. But for silly fun it’s good.
Patchwork
Carcassonne, a game with a friend who’s been a bit preoccupied with their new baby to make it to game nights lately (fair enough). Trounced him - I ended up like 150 to 70 or so. Some aggressive farmer plays did well for me, and he spent far too long having all his meeples tied up in other projects. Was great to see and game with him though - it’d been awhile!
9 Likes
My wife suggested some Factory Fun after dinner. At two players we like to flip four machines for more choices. Things went better for me than for her - at one point she dropped to 0 money. Meanwhile that little closed circuit at the top-right of my board used to be rotated 90 degrees, but I spent the moolah to reorient it so that I could free my pink vat, which was fully blocked by machines. It worked out because the machine under the column was the very next one I acquired. In general the machines were kind to me and it was not a stressful game.
8 Likes
I’ve been thinking about 3d-printing some twigs. (Or, you know, using actual twigs.)
4 Likes
A New Year’s Eve try at Ark Nova! Despite me worrying about the teach, it went very smoothly. My partner liked it immediately and we finished in 5 hours (with several breaks).
In the end, and as ever in life, my partner’s ‘gator and pig’ farm (‘last rest stop for 80 miles’) won out over my high-fallutin’ elephant and tiger extravaganza, but there were only a few points in it. A great game that we’ll definitely be playing again.
12 Likes
Christmas gaming round up:
- Railroad Ink: Lush Green x3. In a reversal of usual trends, I won all three of the games I played with my wife, albeit by ever decreasing margins. On balance of probabilities I think she should have won the last game but the dice went very much against her on the final turn. In the first game, using the trail dice, I achieved what I think is my personal best score:
- Spirit Island. A game that I was absolutely sure we were going to lose against Sweden level 4 we ended up winning by the absolute narrowest of margins. A Spread of Rampant Green and River Surges in Sunlight maybe weren’t the best combo, offering a lot of control but struggling to do a lot of damage, particularly to Explorers.
Final Board State
Yes, that is a single Blight left on the card and no cards left to draw from the Explore deck.
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7 Wonders x4. All five player games, I won the first two, came last in the third then back up to second in the fourth. Other than the first game, they were very tight between all five players. I almost won with Halicarnassus B, which I’ve always thought was a bit weak, and came dead last with Olympia B, which I always thought was really strong. Shows what I know!
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Earthborne Rangers. We played the second day of our first campaign and it was much more difficult than our first day. We got stuck at the Northern Outpost and almost ended up achieved nothing, before our rangers suddenly sprang into action, travelled two locations and completed a quest just before our decks ran out.
10 Likes
Played a few games today. First, my wife and I played Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game with me as the Empire. Did not go my way at all and I lost, managing to only destroy my wife’s first base.
Our friends arrived to witness my defeat, and after an absolutely delicious lunch prepared by my wife, we played my new game of Star Wars: Jabba’s Palace. This is another version of Love Letter but they’ve added more cards and made two factions: Jabba and Rebels.
The Jabba cards are similar to basic Love Letter, with just a couple of changes. For instance, Jabba is the 8, but if you play him, you pick an opponent and they are out if they have a Rebel card. Meanwhile, the Rebels have a somewhat similar effect, but with a twist. For instance, C-3PO is the 1 card, so like the Guard, you guess what number an opponent has in hand, and if right they are out. However, if you are wrong, they get to guess your card and you are out if they are correct.
There are also four Agenda cards which dictate who wins if the deck runs out of cards. We just played with the basic “Highest card wins” for simplicity. Our one friend won the game handily, being the only person to even score points.
We followed this with Ethnos, using Minotaurs, Wingfolk, Giants, Elves, Trolls, and Orcs. I managed to get a pretty good lead after the first age, but the winner of Jabba’s Palace took it after the second by cashing in a full Orc board for 20 points. While I caught up in the third age, it wasn’t enough to pass her, so she won again with 97 to my 93, with my wife in third with 87, and then the winners husband in last with 69.
Rounded out the day with Lords of Waterdeep, using the Undermountain expansion. I got lucky with my Lord, as it was the expansion lord who gets 3 points per finished quest, so I didn’t have to worry about getting particular ones.
We were pretty strapped for resources, as none of the buildings which supplied adventurers came out. A good chunk of my resource acquisition came from quest rewards, and I never even managed to get a plot quest completed. Somehow I managed to have the lead for most of the game, and with some good Intrigue cards at the end, kept it and won with 120, then my wife at 113, our friend at 101, and his wife in the rear with 82.
Their daughter had been complaining that she was bored for most of the last game, so they took off after. Happy New Year everyone!
7 Likes