I really feel like base rrink is best rrink. I fell in love with blue and I’ve disliked it more and more the more I play Challenge.
2 Likes
The Goonies: Never Say Die, our last game, even tho we failed last time we played. And really should have failed this time as well, our GM was taking it easy on us. He could have easily attacked me and killed me, which would have given him the last piece of the hourglass, and winning the game. It’s been a fairly fun game, although I did get a bit sick of the same old bats and rats to fight.
Floating Floors, a dexterity game, where you have to move your ninja around and collect tokens. You play various pieces, and then add a floor for your ninja. As your ninja moves around, the floor can overbalance and end your turn. Good game, dexterity is always fun when you stuff up.
Harvest X 2. It’s a simple game of adding vegetable tokens with values from -20 to +40, and scoring when you have three vegetables of the same kind. It takes 30 seconds to learn, it’s pretty straight forward. But it’s so much fun, we had to have another game. Wanted to have another game at the end of the day, but just couldn’t fit it in. So satisfying to drop negative cards onto your opponents field. My favourite game of the day!
Did SUSD review this at some point? Can’t seem to find it?
Bridge City Poker, from the recent kickstarter of Tricktakers. It’s a shedding game, you are trying to play all your cards. You can place singles, pairs, triples, full houses, runs, and flushes, and players have to play the same type, but better (of course). What makes this different is the power cards, which allow you to modify the rules in some way. We actually stuffed this up, you should only have five of the power cards in the deck, but somehow all of them (all 27) were added when we shuffled the cards for round 2. I’m not actually a huge fan of games like this, they seem to just play themselves a bit. The power cards give a bit more variety.
Five Three Five, and another game from the Tricktakers kickstarter. And it’s another shedding game. We enjoyed this more than Bridge City Poker, because you can overwrite a meld, but also add to it, gave a few more options. This game originally was called Oh!Meow!Bow! and themed as cats and dogs (and poop). In this version the cards have different weather conditions, from rainy to cloudy to sunny, but there’s no mention of the theme anywhere else in the rules. No effect on gameplay obviously.
Edit: Apparently the game started off as Five Three Five, and then was redone as Oh!Meow!Bow!. And it’s named Five Three Five because the cards are 1-5 (ie 5 cards), skipping 6, then 7-9 (3 cards), skip 10, and 11 to 15 (five cards again)…
Beacon Patrol, finished up with a co-op game, where you move your ship around and try and surround tiles for points. Pretty relaxed fun, the only point is to increase your score. We did…okay, room for improvement.
7 Likes
Looks like it gets a mention in podcast 231, along with BCP and 535.
2 Likes
Age of Innovations
First time playing, 3 player game (thankfully, as it lasted hours!). Felt like there were a lot more options than Terra Mystica- I got a super workshop which gave me a 3 worker income round one, and all of us upgraded our terraforming ability, which never happens in the original. Loads of setup and packdown though as a result of all that randomness. I’m already looking for an insert.
9 Likes
The other board is tighter for 3 players 
2 Likes
Took advantage of it being my birthday as an excuse to get a few people together for some games at the cafe. Unfortunately, the two I contacted as possible 5th players were working there that day, and the 4th player was a no-show. But 3 was enough for what I wanted to play.
Inis - Been dying to play this for ages and it didn’t disappoint. I was doing well with being non-aggressive and going for a sanctuary victory, but then I got removed from a territory that included two of my sanctuaries.
My last action card now being pointless (as it would build a 4th rather than a 6th sanctury), I used an advantage card to discard it and draw an epic tale card. As luck would have it, I got a card that let me remove a clan from anywhere.
I took my revenge and denied victory to my friend who’d denied it to me and handed it to the 3rd player.
Cryptid - 3 games of this. The first hilariously ending after just three turns when the first hex investigated turned out to hold the cryptid.
Trust Me, I’m a Superhero - Silly game in the vein of Snake Oil where instead you’re combining cards to create superpowers (eg “Cloak of” and “Mist”) and explaining how you’d use them to save someone in a dangerous situation. Would be better with more players and some of the options available are too sensible.
Arboretum - Down to 2-players for this one. The puzzle is still fun, but the main enjoyment (especially when introducing it to someone new) is the exasperated noises they make as they work out what to do.
10 Likes
Age of Innovation was my main UKGE purchase (I could only find one copy so jumped early!). I bought despite not having played any games in the Terra Mystica family, mostly on the positive views here.
First, learning 2 player game yesterday. And it did take a long time to set up and get, but I think it will speed up in repeated play.
And it was a joy! So thanks for all the opinions here - it would have passed me by otherwise!
7 Likes
Played Redwood for the first time yesterday. It’s got some cool stuff in it.
The idea is this kind of weird mix of x wing miniatures game where you path out your movement before you move and then from that spot try and take a photograph (meaning use a wedge shaped piece - representing a viewing cone like in metal gear solid) by covering icons on a board ( animals and plants).
There’s a nice breeziness about deciding what you want to do and a tension in ascertaining whether that plan will work. (Sometimes you’ll misjudge the required pathing distance or the wedge you choose is too narrow or whatever). It works surprisingly well as I thought it would be a bit too easy.
Lastly there is a subtle but small inconveniencing aspect which can be funny.
It’s also got some cool routes to victory as you can choose different priorities to score points. I quite like it.
7 Likes
I also bought one first thing on Firday as I saw it nowhere except GamesLore
2 Likes
Transatlantic
Hollywood 1947 - shit games like this makes me yearn for the Resistance: Avalon.
Brazil Imperial - Im tired of this game. There’s really not much depth here yet the rules are just tedious to teach. Glad I wasnt teaching it.
Ticket to Ride Legacy - played the final game and it was a great campaign
Cascadero - 4 players. Needs more plays
Windmill Valley - standard Euro game. I like that there’s more look ahead here with the gears a la Noria. But Noria is better
Hansa Toot - HT is great. It allows me to channel my inner a-hole self.
Loot - noisy 8 player card game
Bottle Imp - one of the games that the club member who work-travelled from Korea have brought back to the UK. Very good game. This edition got good production
8 Likes
You and I may have sold out the whole convention…
5 Likes
I got my giant bunch of boxes for Unsettled (after quite a wait, I did a group-pledge thing with crowdfinder and it took a long long time for them to get their batch of games). Unboxing it I was a bit shocked to find out that I have one base game box that fits exactly the base game. Everything else comes in small fiddly boxes that need to be shelved separately. I‘ve completely fallen out of love with those plastic inserts that so many Kickstarters advertise as super-cool. I am done with them since Voidfall. In any case, surprise of surprises… we played a game together the day after Unsettled arrived:
And it was fun. The system is pretty easy to learn. The rulebook is okay enough. We found a few unclear parts that were a bit difficult to parse from the base rules but were explained in the appendices and largely intuitive. As usual the movement rules needed clarifications: unless you use your move or a traverse action you do not resolve the edge symbols on the locations which often means you do not advance the timer.
We played the suggested first planet Wenora. It felt quite like what we wanted from it: exploration. Reminds me of No Man‘s Sky. This scenario was not complicated to solve we made a few mistakes of course both in our favor and against us so we‘ll call it even.
The biggest issue is probably that I am excited to try another one and my partner is still rather not so keen on games. It feels like if I explore a new planet on my own, my partner will not get that experience, like it will be used up even if we play another scenario on that planet.
As for the scenario: I thought it was pretty neat. Some ups and downs and twists and turns. The writing is funny so far even if it is trying a bit hard. The balance was pretty good, of course we knew we were on a timer and hurried to make it through. We have had some practice with such things with Gloomhaven. No dawdling.
I will want to have a look at a 2nd planet soon to see how big the differences can get. I‘ll do my best to keep it pristine for my partner to experience it as well.
So far my verdict is:
- delivers what was promised: puzzly exploration and all that in a decent amount of time per play.
- Production values are good overall.
- But: Too many boxes, but not much air inside just too much plastic
- Content seems fair enough with the all-in package but on the expensive side because it‘ll get used up. The gameplay while fun is focussed on discovery not replay value. Discovery by definition gets used up quickly. You can‘t discover something again.
- Pretty unique among the games I own. Without having played a lot of Exit (et al) games it seems to be Exit: the Boardgame System.
6 Likes
Last night with local friends, Spirit Island again. We lost to Blight, but not as hard as last time. My home tile was pretty much clear by the end, but I wasn’t far enough ahead to be able to export my powers to help others. I’m actually enjoying these games with relative novices (even relative to me, this was my game #6) more than I enjoyed playing with experts, because while those experts were definitely helpful there’s a certain tension in knowing that nobody is available to point out options I haven’t seen.
9 Likes
Played again and lost Unsettled by 1 or 2 turns or by losing track of time and messing up on a new plannet „Grakkis“ … big storm, lots of sand, sound familiar? Anyway, I am now of the opinion that maybe the content doesn‘t get used up so quickly. The task felt very different from the previous one. I‘ve set up for another attempt and will write more once that one is done.
Mostly, playing 2 handed solo it is very very easy to lose track of time and constitution which is the timer for the game. But I don‘t think playing a single explorer is feasible. Especially not with the 2nd scenario.
6 Likes
Age of Innovation - 3 players and played with the Illussionists. Definitely my experience was a factor but again, they feel more powerful than other factions
Marco Polo 2: Dice Placement Boogaloo - better than MP1 with just the base game. I feel that the craziness of MP1 with all the expansions give MP1 more playing field to be creative with your plays.
I do like MP2 for its tighter integrqtion of mechanisms. Travelling is now mandatory
Through the Desert x3 - First game was all basic. 2nd game was base with the River map. The third game was with all-in expansions.
Expansion module ranking goes:
- Special watering holes - the extra camel and trading goods are nice and I think I will include them every time
- Bazaars - nice. Nothing ground breaking but I like the additional avenue to score.
- Objectives - i dont dislike it, but it can have that effect where it will dictate the strategy of the game, rather than the freeform style that the base game allows you
- Djinns - turned the cerebral game of TTD into a more tactical game. Not bad but not my style. So I dont think I will be including it in, unless I spice things up.
4 Likes
Played Charioteer with @Captbnut and friends last night.
There’s something cool about it… but also something quite sterile too.
I like how you do have to make decisions about how to move with an eye to maximise future bonuses and card draw. I also like you can seemingly play it really straightforwardly but I think there might be something clever behind the scenes which could benefit with a second play or more. (In particular there’s a set of four bonus movements which I think could really swing the game… but I don’t think any of us triggered more than one)
What I was somewhat less pleased with with how abstract it felt. There’s a tiny amount of interaction but it never feels like you’re bothered or really aware of other players. That being said if you don’t like being punched or needled it’s quite a nice beer in the hand game.
6 Likes
Is that because you don’t need the beer hand for punching or needling?
3 Likes
played Guild of Merchant Explorers again to figure out why it’s nominated. it’s fine though more or less just an oversized solo game IMO. Even Harmonies has more interaction. Kingdom Builder did this particular thing better. Must be a bad year 
6 Likes
People are weirdly keen on GoMExpl. It’s high up some online top 10s, and not in others’ top 100.
1 Like
Exactly. Also you only need one hand to rub a single temple rather than the custom two hands for simultaneous temples rubbing
2 Likes