Goonies: Never Say Die, things are getting tougher. We lost, fairly badly. When the GM got his last piece (that ends the game), we were almost dead, which would have finished the game as well. The enemies are getting tougher, and we were realllly rolling badly, so that didn’t help. The game gets tougher, but there isn’t really anything to help us out, we don’t get stronger or get any items from game to game. We were down a player, which doesn’t help. Still fun. I never got to use my grenade item!
Roam, pretty light game of area control. You start with three characters, and when you use one you get to place tokens of your colour on a map made of cards. Each character has it’s own pattern to put down. When a map cards is complete, whoever has majority gets to keep it, and that adds another character to you tableau. Pretty easy to play.
Inflation!, first play. Just got this in the last week from KS. It’s trick taking, but with a bit of a twist. You keep all your played cards in front of you. So you might play a “6” in a trick, and then a “1” in the next trick. Your total is now 61. Whoever has the highest number wins the trick. There are 12 tricks to play, so the numbers get pretty big (but of course you usually only have to compare the first couple of values). The “10” card is a bit weird – you play it as a ten, but then on your next trick you cover the 1, making it worth 0, if that makes sense. You have to predict the number of tricks you will win, and if you do that correctly you’ll get two points per trick. Otherwise it’s one point per trick, but if you win the most tricks AND fail to get your prediction, you get ZERO. Really enjoyed this – it’s trick taking, but with a bit more to think about.
Charms, first play. Came in with Inflation! – same designer (Taiki Shinzawa). Again, it’s a trick taking game, but with it’s own gimmick. Your cards are either suit cards, or number cards. Your first play is two cards, a number and a suit. Usual rules, you have to follow suit if you can. In the next 12 tricks, you can only play one card. The winner of each trick gets to choose to change either the suit card or the number card. If the winner changes the suit, you have to follow that if you can. If you already have the correct suit, you can change the number. It’s pretty crazy, you can use the same number card over and over, just changing the suit. As with Inflation!, you have to predict the number of tricks you will win, which can be tricky (pun not intended). You get points according to how far you were from your prediction – you don’t want points, the player with the least points wins. This was also really good fun, really changing up trick taking.
So Clover, always good fun. I was proud of my clue for the words “french” and “stud”, I wrote “Pepe”, and they got it! We didn’t quite get a perfect game.
American Bookshop, another trick taker, but one we had played before. And yet another game by Shinzawa. For each player count, there is a value limit (for 3p, its 14). So if you play a card and reach the limit, you take all the cards played. You sort your cards by colour, if you have the most of a colour at the end, you’ll get positive points (otherwise, they are negative). So, if you play a high card, maybe you’ll win the trick, or you’ve just made it easier for someone to reach the limit and take the cards.
Big Top, and again it’s by Shinzawa, but it’s an auction game, not trick taking, just for a change. Loving this game (but I do like auctions). It’s pretty cool, you bid on cards, which all have multiple values on them. if you make a bid that matches one of your cards, you put a coin on it. And even better, if you bid an amount that’s on the card being auctioned, you get to place a coin from the bank onto that card. Which is great if you win the card, otherwise you’re just making it easier for whoever wins the card. Its a genius system, you’re incentivised to make higher bids so you can complete your cards and score points. Fairly close game, i think it was 65/61/40. The player in last place was a bit annoyed by the game ending just before he was going to finish off a couple of cards (the game ending card is shuffled into the last four cards of the deck). Probably wouldn’t have won him the game, but would have closed the gap. The winner basically led for the entire game.
So, lots of games from Taiki Shinzawa today, and they were all pretty great.
And I would have continued with another game if there were not a few preparations to be made for the superbowl snacks (I don’t think I will be awake for the whole game but my partner will… and who says no to late night wings and fries?)
). It was great on the one side, as it gave me a hint of what Twilight Imperium could be like, but as it tends to happen to me with this big roll and writes, I end up diversifying myself too much and not managing to score very well in the end. So I ended a terrible last with only 39 points, while the owners of the game ran away to high 60s and low 70s.
Hoping that’ll change soon (though catching Covid in the middle hasn’t helped…)
