OMG, this very sketch and quote came up last week. Small world.
4 Likes
Neom: Been playing this almost nonstop since June. I think I need a break. That’s a lot of Neom. But, I’ll say, it’s only because everyone I show the game to wants to have five or so goes thereafter. Still recommend to anyone.
Pipeline: Finished another solo, and smashed it. Having already wrestled through Trailblazers and games like Polis, I was ripe to grok this one. First game my total score was ~550. Second game just my cash was well into the 700’s and, with bonuses, I scored in the 1400’s. Not entirely fair as the automa was at the same difficulty and wasn’t taking stuff off the board fast enough, leaving me tons of tanks and oil to burn through.
I am deeply, deeply impressed with this game. I can see why it didn’t totally take off, but it has it going on.
El Dorado: Had to play after watching the SUSD top 100. Still a great time. I couldn’t say if I like the 2p or 4p experience better, but I definitely want a long, hard map.
Kingdomino: Last play almost exactly 2 years ago. I got destroyed, just smashed. This game is still too light, but it’s always more interesting than I expect it to be and when you need something at that time and weight, it’s a nice tool to have in the kit.
Forks!: That was the other one! Had to look at my log. Played with my parents. One round for everyone to figure out what was going on, then anther three for everyone to bemoan how badly they were doing. I think the single key to this game is “what decision do you hand the person on your left?” I think that’s it, the game, winning and losing. I lost.
I also watched the Courtisans review and it felt a little Forksy. Curious if they feel similar in practice.
Thanks @marksp for getting this edition out there!
Oh, and Sea Salt & Paper: Super impressed with this Cathala and also super bad. Despite being a luck-leaning game, I lose consistently, which suggests an extremely low skill floor. I want to play this a whole lot more!
Orleans: And this too. Back to my mantra, if you don’t get a game, try losing badly to someone who does. @comaestro and @mistercrayon showed me how Orleans is supposed to be played and it was far superior to my past attempts to two-hand. Looking forward to more of this.
BGA implementation is ok. Some of the tasks happen in parallel. But with 18 rounds and multiple turns each activation round, you can be looking at 60+ turns in an asynch game which adds up, calendar-wise. I was the slow player, just offline too much right now.
10 Likes
As someone who owns and has played both, there’s definitely a similarity in the overall mechanics. But the special cards and the fact you’re taking turns make Courtisans feel more competitive and vicious.
And Forks plays much faster, so you make more snap decisions rather than long-term machinations.
6 Likes
That makes perfect sense! Fairly sure that’s how I learned several CCGs.
Also, the amount of enthusiasm for Sea salt and paper on here is moving it up my wishlist.
3 Likes
Also, Forks came out way before Courtesans (unless that’s also a reprint), and really is meant to be considerably lighter and faster (although I’ve never played Courtesans, that’s the impression I get from it)
4 Likes
(It may just be @RogerBW and more recently myself, but over and over.)
(that said, give it a try. It’s got a shallow shore but the water just gets deeper and deeper the more you wade in…)
5 Likes
Indeed. On bga, but only for paying users.
2 Likes
Got in a 4p game of foundations of Rome. It’s an excellent simple thinker and the deluxe nature of it does give a good sense of city building and it finishes on a very good I just want two more turns to optimise my setup.
7 Likes
Kingdom Builder: Empire Edition - yes. the big big big box Very fancy and very fun
Can’t Stop: Sain-Am Peak - same game but uses a historical Korean painting as the background
Santa Cruz - same designer of Taluva and Attika. Very good deduction and bluff game where players hold objective cards and everyone score on those, but you, the card holder, decide when to play these objective cards and score - similar to Twilight Struggle on timing questions. Pretty fun
FIXER - yeah. Really fun Japanese trick taking game. A keeper
Let’s Go! To Japan - very cute drafting game. The theme carried a lot of the game. And I think we made the right decision to talk about each day at a time, to share our imaginary trip to Japan, so it’s not just a mere solitaire drafting + set collection game. I wouldn’t go out and buy this, but I would have a fun time with people talking about our trip - which isn’t even part of the game itself!
Chartered: Building Amsterdam - so, Jolly Dutch want to reprint Chartered, but they no longer hold the rights to Kramer’s Big Boss. And so they redesigned Chartered: Golden Age into this. I highly prefer this to Kramer’s original Big Boss/Chartered Golden Age. Often find the 2D streets very problematic when it comes to timing the mergers.
I would like to play this more, but I feel like the choices in Acquire (a game from the 60s, mind) are still more interesting, but I reserve the right to disagree with myself.
Oh and they ditched the plastic
Cities - another hot Essen SPIEL release from Devir. Very straightforward drafting game that focuses the game’s design to just drafting. it’s a good exercise on getting better on how to value options.
1 AM Jailbreak - a shedder from Saashi & Saashi that I completely missed on my radar during SPIEL. This is a pretty interesting shedder where it’s not about playing sets by beating ranks - and therefore, avoid the problem of having good/poor hands. This one leans hard on building the right sets to exit. Similar to Crisps, but for more than 2 players
Bus & Stop - Let’s Make a Bus Route: the card game from Saashi & Saashi! It’s okay.
12 Likes
I played a game of IntroTech last night with a buddy who wants to learn. That’s Battletech using mechs from 3025 and earlier… about 2,300BV.
He took a Stalker and a Panther, I had a Warhammer and a Hunchback…
Ran my Hunchy right at his Stalker. After 2 or 3 hits the Stalker had enough and unleashed everything on the Hunchback… but generated 20 heat more than the sinks could handle. It overheated and shutdown, and then the pilot failed his PSR from the AC20 hit, fell, and landed on his head (but didn’t get knocked out).
Meanwhile, my WH blasts the right arm off the Panther… hey, do you know where the Panther keeps its PPC? 
Stalker keeps getting pounded, stands up and fires on the Hunchback… more cautiously. Somewhere in the firestorm he hits me with a full 6 missiles from his SRM6, and three of them hit the cockpit. My pilot falls unconscious.
His Panther jumps behind my WH, fires it’s only remaining weapon (an SRM6), and hits my head. One consciousness roll on 3+ later, and my Warhammer pilot is also KOd.
I love this stupid game.
9 Likes
Very cool. And after seeing so much painting of mechs which had never seen field action so to speak, I’ve been really happy to see you getting to play with this stuff with some degree of frequency in recent months! I hope you and your friends keep having a blast with it!
5 Likes
Played moon for the first time at 2 players. It was… OK. Suspect I may have made an error in setup and removed all the cards with a 1 on them assuming they were only suitable for solo, as there seemed to be a lack of pink cards at the start (which locked out some of the objective cards).
Regardless it’s a solid game but not good enough to keep in the collection if the next play isn’t dynamite.
5 Likes
I built my laserox insert and then played a lovely game of Imperium X With Macedonians vs Scythian Turczi bot. I won.
Also the absurd pieces of cake acquired at the local bakery. “3 Stücke Obelix. Mach 3 Stücke!”
12 Likes
After it arrived in the week played A.I.Pokalypse today for the first time. They described it as an auto-battler which makes sense now I’ve played it. You set up a string of units and it’s randomised between which unit of yours fights which unit of the opposition or if you het a bad score from just a random card. It’s really good, we tried it out in coop mode and it was so popular we played a further 2 times. It’s a combo-tastic card game of fairly standard but nicely presented sci fi stuff fighting over some generic setting. All good as I like those things. We were playing on easy beginner setting and winning but it was tight. We had to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in all three games. The deck of units is so massive you play nicely differently each time and then it’s got another huge deck of unique special units which chucks in even more variety. Next up will no doubt be giving the campaign a bash at mid difficulty. Top stuff!
The little man woke up and had to sit with me so we switched to Love Letter. Still much fun after all this time.
Finally we played Kreus a no communication coop card game clearly inspired by the success of Hanabi. We crapped out with the new player killing the game early on a mistake. Then we had a little discussion which mainly centres around fully explaining the card construction order and it’s implications. Then we went back in and created a new world with only 1 wasted card! Wahoo! The only question we had to discuss at the end was is playing cards confidently and quickly breaking the spirit of the communication rules 
Great day’s gaming with no sneezing or cancelling before we actually start a game.
6 Likes
Went for my first “evening at a friend’s house” gaming in… many years. It was nice! They had three kids, so kid-friendly games featured heavily for the first half.
Love Letter 5-player, my Laputa re-theme. New to everyone else at the table, went down well.
Dixit 8-player
Who stole the cheese? 8-player (actual title Japanese) a one-night Werewolf-esque game where one player is secretly the thief, everyone secretly rolls a die to get the time they open their eyes, and the thief must take the cheese at their assigned time - recruiting one collaborator only if 2+ other players open their eyes at the same time. It was cute - kid-friendly social deduction.
Were words 8-player (actual title Japanese) another game in a similar vein, but Spyfall-esque. One player writes a word or phrase and deals it out to all players but one, who secretly gets a different word or phrase. Then it’s just freeform chatting and questioning to see if the team can figure who is the odd one out, and a simultaneous vote. The accused gets one chance to win by correctly guessing the group’s word or phrase.
King of Tokyo 5-player
The Crew 5-player - maybe my favourite cooperative game, being one of those rare cooperative games that require actual cooperation, and short and simple enough that everyone gets a chance to learn how to cooperate without being led by the nose.
11 Likes
Pax Renaissance - 3 players. I started with an Eastern strategy gunning for Holy Victory, but I was easily thwarted with the other two spawning up Reformist/Catholic bishops, and no cards showed up that gives me Muslim bishops for me to buy.
I then pivot in the West when Medici was vulnerable and opened up the Atlantic trade. With so much money dominating Western and Eastern trade, I bought the comet card when it showed up and won via Imperial Victory
Yunnan - literally the same as 1st edition from Argentum Verlag but with the promo expansions baked in. The Bank expansion is a game changer! The temple not so much. Aaron Haag made such an amazing old school game where I think he manage to do worker placement right. The priorities and logistics puzzles are fun too. The tempo question of the game is great. At the end of the round, you get your income: and it’s up to you how much of that will be turned into VP or money.
In Euro games, you want money at the start of the game to build up your engine and then switch to VP scoring. You tend to know when to do that after a few plays. But here? There’s no fixed rounds. You keep palying until someone reaches 80, and so when do you buy more VPs over money? No one knows as it’s all context dependent.
Nusfjord: Big Box - amazing. I’m having a whaaaale of a time.
Panda Spin - Chudyk shedding game and it’s still great
Steam Power - Martin Wallace game that is actually a Martin Wallace-designed game. Lightweight rules and he grafted some Brass philosophy into it and I really like it. I still prefer Bohrer’s co-designed Age of Steam but I will play this more. I might end up disliking it due to how factories work, but I would need more plays to confirm
10 Likes
I’ll probably wait for Age of Steam Power, but Steam Power of the World (a.k.a. Steam Power Tycoon) maybe the family-friendlier iteration
5 Likes
Splotter Double Bill
Too tired to talk about these and had a blast.
Food Chain Magnate - base game only 5 players. Tried the trainer opening and was very inefficient with it. Oh well.
Indonesia - 4 players. Amazing as usual. Threw away my game by trying to merge my rice and their spice into a siap faji and hoping they’d bid, but no, they passed and I hold Siap Faji in a very competitive market. Ah well. You live and you learn.
10 Likes
Drove down to St. Catharines for our monthly Co-Op game (we’re working our way through Divinity: Original Sin, which was a KS and is aggressively fine).
It’s fine. The rulebook is a mess, and the writing is pretty strong but the combat is kinda… weirdly balanced? The enemies average 30-50HP, and the heroes average 6-10HP… but we’re at Level 4 of 5, so we’re nearing the end of the campaign, and I’d say we’ve enjoyed it.
Then we played a round of Rebel Princess, which I was hoping would be the Trick-Taking game that would change my partner’s mind about Trick-Taking games.
It was not.
Fun, though! Would recommend. Nothing revolutionary, but some good variability in the Rounds and the Princess Powers. Solid game.
And then lastly we played Nekojima, which is a silly dexterity game, and we played it co-op. First game we lost during the 4th level, but then the second game we won!.. on easy mode. But still!
Last week I played a crushing game of Forbidden Stars, which I continue to love but gosh it was humbling (I just got my teeth absolutely stomped… the final scores were 3 - 3 - 3 - 1). Going to play it again on Thursday with a different group, and hopefully… I mean, I don’t need to win a game to enjoy it, but I would like to feel like I’m actually in the game? We’ll see.
Still my favourite knife-fight-in-a-phonebooth. So darn good.
5 Likes
On my recent visit to family in Texas, I took along two small box card games. Over four days, I played Archaeology 12 times and Point Salad 18 times. All plays were with my 12-year-old niece. Some also included my mom and/or my aunt. I like both games quite a bit. Im not sure I will be interested in playing either for quite some time.
7 Likes