A game of DungeonQuest with my daughter. She died from a cave-in, I ran into too many dead-ends on the way out and night fell. Good times.
Funny breaking out a game with stained tiles, warped jigsaw board, cheap cards that were torn out from sheets by hand, and a pre-teen paint job on the miniatures.
Condottiere - rubbish at 2 player. I can see how at higher player counts (4or more) it could be a very tight, tense game.
Played a few new (to me) games yesterday: Ride the Rails, The Expanse, and Kingdomino with the Age of Giants expansion.
I thought Ride the Rails was fairly nice and quick for a train game, although I think I still prefer Age of Steam. The way that you score points by moving passengers is quite interesting.
We werenāt sure about the Kingdomino expansion. It makes the scoring quite a lot more swingy. The tiles that give you a giant are also poor scoring tiles, so you get doubly punished for taking one - which you are not always in control of.
My husband and I also got our first play of Architects of the West Kingdom in last knight. I felt like I could never get anything going whereas my husband got a reasonable engine up and running so he kicked my butt pretty badly. We both want to try it again with the bot and some day with more actual players to see how that changes the feel of the game.
Finally finished pandemic legacy season zero.
And I think itās probably the worst of the three but with a caveat that itās probably the most clean, smooth and balanced version of the three and remedies the problems in seasons one and two but creates an overall more boring thing.
Season one and two both had problems relating to creating new mechanics all the way through, season one started the trend and two went wild with it. Season two had this issue where it didnāt know the players pace so created problems with doling out fun stuff in a good rate.
In zero I think you get basically all the main things you do at about half way through and the last half of the game is very consistent in making those into trickier and interesting combinations.
I will say Iām disappointed with the legacy content of the game. Thereās nothing as wild or wacky as pulling out a new type of building or deck of cards that you write on. There are a couple of interesting ideas hidden but ultimately I think they are less good than their potential end game spoilers the Pearl facility was a bit of a bust to me I donāt like the action of going in Pearl and being disappointed at being able to do nothing. For being the secret hinted at in the false bottom by perforations I was hoping for a less drudge filled activity - the smaller ones were fun but the large one was too much.
Overall this is legacy refined to the max but it seems like it could easily have been a normal campaign game. But that doesnāt mean the game itself was bad.
I think these one are worth mentioning as well. The little one had a bit of fever last night, so I am at home looking after her as she cannot go to kindy. So we played Buckaroo, because she is four, and because she always loves when it jolts, specially on daddyās turn.
Totally worth it, although soon she was tired and we played more calmly with her Lego.
We have off brand Buckaroo, Kangaroo Game, in this house.
Still got the best part, the flinging, but possibly a more fiddly set up.
Gotten to sneak in some games over the last month or so on Fridays to relax after long weeks of doc work and work work. Had to maintain some self-care boundaries for general sanity, and I have actually been on a big win streak.
Played 2 games of Isle of Skye. Iāve played this a lot digitally, but finally got a copy in a trade. I lost the first one handily then won the second game by one point. I didnāt get much in the scoring conditions (made some dumb auction decisions early that bit me hard), but I took a long shot and just did all I could to maximize my income and it paid off. I really love this game and it was a quick hit with my group. One of them stated "This is what I wish Carcassonne was, which offended me because Carc is one of my all-time favorites, but it made me even more satisfied that I beat him. I love the variability in scoring and that you canāt be 100% sure if anyone is really running away with it because there are aspects that can be a bit opaque. Iām not a big fan of auctions in general, but here it just works so well and creates great moments around the table.
Played 3 player Everdell with Spirecrest. I took this one pretty well because I play it so much solo that I knew the likelihood of some of my choices more than the group whoāve only played it once. They really enjoyed it, and one of the things we all enjoy about the game is the stories you tell around your town. Spirecrest integrates so well into the game and the weather is a fantastic addition that creates some really tight decision spaces with the conditions placed upon the board. Also, your meeples can ride a giant bear.
A great game of Oceans at 3 that saw a lot of migrating fish hopping from space to space to take advantage of the conditions in the ocean spaces adding additional aging and feeding opportunities. This was the first time that deep cards really got to shine. I had a species that I intentionally set up as a lynchpin for my opponentsā species to feed off of and let it die at a critical moment to really send their systems into disarray. Vestigial limb has become a favorite deep card among us to frustrate each other and it never stops being fun to plop a useless appendage on an up-and-coming species rendering them basically inert. The game ended the turn before I got to play a trait that would effectively let me extinguish any species off which I fed. A lot of creative moves and this continues to be a favorite of ours, again for telling stories around the table and then just giving our species the most ridiculous names we can think of.
Won a few games of Air, Land, and Sea and am starting to believe that no one wants to play me in it anymore because Iāve yet to lose. I just grok this game and it tickles all the right brain parts each time I play. So tight. So tense. So easy to crush hopes.
Lastly, just won my first game of Lords of Vegas finally using the Up expansion (never playing without it again). I ended up one space above both of my opponents thanks to building up early to keep them from being able to take over my casinos. This was a game heavy on gambling (about 20 or so attempts), and the house won all but 2. Weāre starting to believe we need to look out for one of us if he ever considers going to a casino because he has no self-control. I love that winning LoV is less memorable than the absolute madness you engage in during the actual play and the references to it that come after. You never get angry about someone being underhanded because youāre just going to turn around and do the same thing. Itās also hilarious to watch someone reorganize a casino after spending a bunch of cash only to reroll the exact same numbers they started with, which happened 3 times and left us hurting from laughing so hard. Love this game.
Hoping to get into some heavier stuff once the semester ends and my brain recovers from academic fatigue.
Just a game of Jaipur tonight. Was hoping to maybe play a few things, but any gaming is welcome. I lost two rounds on the trot, and so that was it. The camel bonus decided the first round. I then proceeded to gift the camel bonus to my opponent at the end of second round in exchange for points I never actually got to score, only to find that the final score margin was once again smaller than the camel bonus and not in my favour. Dāoh : )
I have also won all (3) of the games Iāve played. Letās break this streak for at least one of us!
Had another crack at Brass: Lancashire last night between two. Got beaten fair and square, after a canal phase that was very levelled, I got too tempted by the money from coal and my better half managed two shipyards (even after I snatched Liverpool when she was getting ready for it) and plenty of railways in the rail phase that gave her a massive edge. Not even ending with 6 extra points in cash saved me from a crushing defeat 122 - 142.
I think I have to stop panicking about the coal and build less cotton mills, in the end I had plenty of money to spare that I could have used for coal from the market.
āBuild less cotton millsā?
āCotton is kingā I believe was the phrase. A lot of VPs tied up in cotton, winning without them sounds tricky.
Oops, I meant less coal mines. Or more cotton mills.
I played a short game (maximum fractures) of Cosmic Frog with my partner last night. To be clear right off the bat, this is a game I purchased with the understanding that it wouldnāt be any good at two, and our session absolutely confirmed that. It was however a highly illustrative session for a number of reasons.
First and absolutely foremost is that, while the game has a ton of little rules, theyāre easy to backbench until they become relevant. The core mechanisms are actually quite straightforward and as a result, I was able to relay enough of the basics to get us playing in just over 5 minutes. This was astounding to me. Iāve played simpler games that took considerably more effort and time to explain.
I think this is, partly, thanks the utterly bonkers nature of the scoring system. It is at once incredibly easy to explain in broad strokes, yet so bewildering I think most folks getting taught would agree to just get playing and see how it all comes together at the end. Importantly, itās also really flexible, so leaving the more detailed explanation of the scoring to the end not only provides an awesome āa-ha!ā moment, but also a chance to fix mistakes or even capitalize on things they might not have seen. This is a lovely piece of incidental design in the sense that itās rewarding to a first time player while immediately lighting a fire to perform better next time. Thereās a really juicy puzzle there.
Between that and the crazy turn orders, wild abilities and swings of power, it kind of inspires players to just dig in and see what happens. If you did get a stickler that needed the scoring fully explained, prepare for an extra 5 minutes with demonstrations. Avoid that person. 
I donāt have a lot more to add, unfortunately, as it was pretty much a game of easy harvests with some forced battles just to see what happens. We didnāt even get to see the outer dimentions. It wonāt get brought out again until I can share a table with more friends, but it certainly made me hungry for that time to come!
it certainly made me hungry for that time to come!
Iām hearing that your cosmic frog is going to eat the future.
Played two games last night with my 8 yo daughter, Welcome To and Arboretum.
Welcome Toā¦ having played the other day with her mum really gave me the edge, I didnāt make any silly mistakes this time, managed a score of 131: the cards were rolling nicely, so much so that I ended the game by doing all three building plans with 3 houses to spare.
Arboretum, well, wasnāt that tense! My daughter retained really well the rules, considering we havenāt played for a few months now, and I only managed to win 18-22 by blocking her Jacaranda with a 1 that cost me dropping two 8s towards the end of the game that would benefit her.
I have to play Arboretum more often, such a good game.
Last Will , hadnāt played this for so long. Love the theme. Game isnt too bad to get back into, a few fiddly rules.
Legend of Andor ā Journey to the North , played the next scenario, still hard as hell. Had a hard time even defeating the basic enemies. The enemy just rolled so well (so many sixes). Very frustrating. Random storm card threw our ship across the map (without any of us onboard). Cant say Iām enjoying it .
Nova Luna , lost by one token, so close!
Really getting into Brass: Lancashire now, this one head to head ended 161 - 157. It is great to see how are the scores getting higher and higher. Getting a shipyard in Liverpool in the turn before last gave me the edge besides being behind for quite a while. The final counting of money was so tense, she had still Ā£60 something poundsā¦ 
Nice! I think our highest ever is 103 or something. Have you gotten a game with >140 yet? Thatās the highest achievement on the certificate if I remember correctlyā¦ Always seemed impossible to me but I suppose it must be doable.
I think you really need to be very lucky with what cards come out, not using Bis, dodging construction sites, and scoring well on swimming pools and adding value to your lots. Plus I managed to build all three site plans first. Not sure if it is my best score, but I havenāt gone much higher from memoryā¦