This afternoon, decided to learn La Granja, which was all the rage here a while back.
So I set the game up, read the rulebook and set up my traditional two-handed learning game. Lost to the stuffed monkey 42-40. Very proud of my comeback, though, he roared ahead like 9-0 in the first or second round.
First impression is that it is a VERY good game with lots of options and replayability. It’s pacy, though, because unlike, say, Arnak, the later turns don’t become longer, or hardly. Iconography is super clear and that player aid that seems so opaque at the start becomes invaluable as the game progresses.
Not overly complex, too. If you can play, like, Great Western Trail, you can play this. Surprisingly quick to set up and physically tight, doesn’t take a lot of table real estate. Caveat that I only played the base game, without any of the 8 (!) expansions included in the box.
But man, I liked this one a lot. Looking forward to an actual game, likely tomorrow.
Two games of La Granja today. Base game, only the additional cards added. I actually won both, 46-45 and 42-40! Really glad at how tight the scores were, and I really enjoyed it. So far, not game of the year, but a solid contender for second place!
Maryse is of the same opinion. So a success! Really happy with how quick the game is to set up and tear down, as well.
Arcs: played this for the first time and it was great! The trick taking (ish) system was really interesting and I do enjoy a good tactical fighty game. The result was very close, with the winner having steadily accumulated points through the game and second place getting almost all of his points in the last round! Looking forward to playing again
Endeavor 2.0: a more friendly version of Endeavor with no sea battles or slavery. The mechanisms are very similar but it’s all a bit faster and smoother.
Power Grid: very dull auctions this time which probably meant that I had too much advantage from going first since nobody forced me to pay loads for a rubbish power plant.
Voidfall: this has a diabolical faff to fun ratio - and I say that as someone who has voluntarily played multiple games of Europa Universalis! I paid no attention to what anyone else was doing and still managed to win. Even worse, having to consult a 4*A4 booklet multiple times every turn to decipher anything on the cards or board gives me rage
I guess you could maybe make that argument for Eclipse, but the only similarities with TI4 are that it’s set in space and takes up loads of table room, as far as I can tell
I’ve been reflecting on this (I car share to work, it was my compratiots turn to drive and we don’t talk much).
I think it’s becuase RftG doesn’t try and fit the symbols in the game ‘lore’. Take a card in hand is literally that. Make a good? It’s a card shaped object of that colour etc etc
A very gameful weekend: the Oxford Meeples quarterly game day at Wolvercote first, with Imperium, Sea Salt & Paper, and The Gibberers. (Which I enjoyed, but it’s very stressful and I wouldn’t want to play it often.)
Then on Sunday some of the people I see at Thirsty Meeples came over to my place—the genesis of this was when we played Chariot Race there a while back, and I wanted to show them Rush ‘n’ Crush which has a similar lane change mechanic. Then Sea Salt & Paper and lunch, and more Imperium (a very aggressive game, Romans, Celts, Magyar and Vikings).
Game meet-up tonight. We had a table of 3 players and played 3 games.
Tokyo Highway
A not-so-little dexterity game (it’s quite a lot of components!), where each player builds their own fully-independent highway, getting points for going over or under other players’ highways, circling buildings, and going near/on/through other landmarks, but without touching another road, or building over the top of an existing support column. Every piece of the highway must climb or descend by one column block, with the exception of the two yellow blocks each player has, which (a) let you change height by any amount, and (b) are the only way you can create a fork in your highway. Obviously knocking things over is bad, but remarkably that only happened once in the whole game! It’s not the best dexterity game I’ve played, but I definitely had fun.
I really appreciate how quickly this plays. You spend 5 minutes thinking you know what you’re doing; another 5 minutes going “Aaaahhhh, this is evil and all of my options are bad!”; and then, no matter how badly it went, the game is finished and you shuffle up for another try. Fast to teach; fast to play; gives you some decisions to make while trying to manage the luck of the draw and whatever bad options the other players hand you; gets a reaction from players; and doesn’t outstay its welcome. An excellent little filler – happy to have backed this. I’d say that players ought to be comfortable doing quick sums in their heads (and they may be looking at the numbers side-on or upside down) – but it’s not critical, and knowing the exact numbers doesn’t necessarily help you!
Mantis
An equally quick card game of trying to steal cards from the other players and bank them before someone steals them back again. The face-down deck displays a set of three colours (out of seven) on the back of each card, and the card face will be one of those three colours. On your turn you attempt to either (a) steal cards, or (b) bank cards. If you steal, you nominate another player, flip the top card of the deck, and then you take that card plus any cards of the same colour in front of the nominated player. If you bank, you flip the top card of the deck and, if you have cards of that colour, you can bank them (including the new card); otherwise you just add the new card to your other face-up cards for future banking/theft. First to bank 10 cards is the winner. There’s not a lot to it but, once again, you get a bit of luck, a bit of outrage, and it’s all over too quickly to ever outstay its welcome.
I get the impression that Tokyo Highway is really a 2-player game? It was re-released as a 4-player game, but given that a destructive collapse could basically end the game, I’m not sure if that really works. Just speculation, having never played it.
There was a 2 player version on sale at SPIEL.
I have been tempted I admit. But on the other hand as much as I enjoy stacking games, I seem to be the only one (here) and this one probably doesn’t make sense solo unlike Menara
I dont trust my thoughts as I only played it twice.
Times of Empires - an interesting real-time experience as it is a worker placement with sandtimers. You can only move the worker when the sand runs out on that worker.
It’s not a game i would suggest, but damn, no AP! It’s glorious!!!
Luxor - big meh. Never really like Rudiger Dorn. One of the “old school” designers and I’m getting tired of exploring OG games, honestly.
Just One - timeless filler
Liar’s Dice (Playte’s edition) - 5 players and, again, the new rules made a big difference. Eternal filler game!
Trias - dino area control with drifting tectonic plates. Good game! But I don’t need it in my life. A shame because the dino meeples look like vitamins. Super cute!
Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth - Fun as usual. Now… the question is: do I prefer this or Lord of the Rings: Confrontation? Hmmmm…
Also I realised why this game is better than the original: there are no points crunching. Three victory conditions and no points in sight.
Top game of this year!
Lifeboats - this is the new Chinese edition. I played the OG and the new rules here made it faster and the results are better. This is probably gonna be one of my favourite light games ever along with other “table talk” games like Zoo Vadis, Bohnanza, and Goodcritters
I’ve played Lost Kingdoms: Pangea in Pieces which one BGG user describes as a simplified and tweaked Trias, but thus far I’ve only played it solo and I found that disappointing. I still need to give it a whirl with other people.
The tiles sure are different in Trias, but I really like the look of them.
Love it! Need more of those.