My favourite mandering
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Last night, I played a couple of games for my 10x10 challenge:
I actually won a round of Sprawlopolis for once. With 3 measly points. But every win counts! First time ever I managed to rake in points on the one where you have a garden in every row and column.
Then I played a solo of Wingspan with āeverythingā. I won easily over the bot, I think the nectar in the Oceania expansion makes the game much easier. It counts as a wild for food and you can gain it from dice just like any other food. The changed actions on the player boards offer just additional ways to get rid of nectar again (because you loose all nectar at the end of each of the 4 rounds) and you store the nectar you paid and itās another source of points if you have the majority of ānectar paidā in any of the three environments (playing in German I may not know all the terms but I hope you get the gist).
I got a few new birds but no major game changers yet.
With the nectar, there is an additional simple step for the bot to check how much nectar he places in each round.
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Tried out Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth for the first time last night. Interesting wrinkle on what FFGās been doing with their app-driven dungeon crawlers in that as far as I can tell there are zero dice. Instead, you have a small skill deck assembled from six generic skill cards, five specific to your character, three (possibly more later? IDK.) from your chosen role, and a useless Weakness (I am less excited about the weakness just being a useless card though, they have individual names but not effects). Skill tests involve drawing a number of cards equal to your stat and checking them for success icons (or in a pinch, fate icons that you can spend an āinspirationā resource to make successes), but you also regularly get to āscoutā and modify a bit of the deck order as well as āpreppingā an actual skill effect to use later. Itās an interesting system. Iāve definitely found that actually succeeding much is not easy without burning inspiration though. Havenāt had a chance to engage with the more campaign oriented rules yet, or really figured out whatās up with the split between overland map tiles and the more traditional dungeon corridor style tiles. Fighting and the time limit both seem pretty rough.
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Played two games last night with my daughter before her bedtime. As she says, she is on holidays (they broke off yesterday) so she can now play games instead of doing homework.
First a game of Arboretum that ended up a lot closer that I anticipated, at 26-24. I had to nudge her into taking a third species half way through the game, and nearly regretted it. Her love for poplars did pay off a good 14 points. One more card and she would have leveled with me.
Then we had a quick Monopoly Deal Card Game. She won that one fair and square, left me with no properties in a swift move and snatched the final card on her last turn to go happy to bed.
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Yokohama - I can see the appeal. It is like a more souped-up version of Istanbul. Uuhhā¦ but I was bored playing it. Not my style at all. You know what would make it better? Trains. Yes. Choo! Choo!
Unmatched: Ingen vs Raptors - my first play of Unmatched. Itās pretty neato! I donāt think I will be interested on going down this rabbit hole. But Iām very happy to play if someone asks for a partner to play it with on a games night.
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so this weekend we have been mostly playing:
Pandemic where we keep being rubbish even on the widdly easy level
Sushi Roll which is firmly my favourite of the Sushi series and one of the best dice drafting games in my opinion
Aeonās End where my partner and I had a wonderfully tense and satisfying match against the Magus of Cloaks. This character has very little health but every attack has at least two damage blocked from it every time. Early on in the game we had this āoh godā moment where we looked at the available market of spells and realised that only one of them was going to inflict any damage at all. Thankfully every time it got attacked, it lost one of its āshieldsā, and we had a couple of spells that did two tiny hits instead of one big one. Usually our problem is that we donāt focus on and execute a strategy, but this time, we had a good one going.
And then on my regular Tuesday night group, it was a lovely selection of small games. First up was Pirate Dice which was Perudo with four-sided dice, and with the bidding rules reversed (I think my friend misremembered it, and I didnāt think it was going to work, but it did). Then there was Canāt Stop, which despite Boardgame arenaās best efforts Iād never played, and finally Red7, which is probably my favourite game on BGA at the moment. The advanced rules (as theyāre implemented on BGA) absolutely transform the game. I could play it for hours.
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Surprise of surprises, last night, I won another round of Sprawlopolis, matching my recorded highscore of 8!
Then I played a 2-handed solo of Iwari. Who could have predicted this?
And then I dreamed of the game all night. Itās just that good. I really really hope it holds up in actual multiplayer. Next up: testing the solo mode 
I think this is the game Iāll use to draw my friends into my favorite gaming sub-genre. The rules are so simple. And itās over so fast. How can they say no? And the simulation of a third player is pretty devious as well.
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Iām surprised that you liked Iwari with 2 dummy players. Han is passable at 2.
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Well, I played against my alter ego (she even has her own name in BGstats), so there was only one dummy. Playing two handed is different than an actual solo, I really try hard to win against myself every turn Maybe I am weirdā¦ but in the end I prevailed against my alter ego even though for the longest time I didnāt look like it, as my alter ego kept pushing into areas I had intended to occupy and destroyed my possibilities for settlements.
Obviously, this is not quite the same as a multiplayer game but I think it gives me a good impression of what it would be like and tactics and whatnot. So next up is solo and then a game with my partner.
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Fair. I mean, I thought this system doesnāt shine the best at 2 player. So if you enjoyed it at 2 handed solo, then youāll have a blast at it with more players.
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Isnāt it lovely? Every year at my local con I bring my copy of China and try to introduce at least one group to the game, because itās so quick to teach(*), so quick to play, and yet does so much with what it has.
(*) Excepting alliances, which Iāve found can be a difficult point to explain up front. Iāve had people misunderstand them more than once, so Iāve become a bit paranoid about failing to make that part of the scoring sufficiently clear. Setting up example board states covering multiple borders is definitely a good option.
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Another RPG night sans RPG (though honestly I donāt mind at this point, Iāll take boardgames while weāve got 'em!)
Suburbia, this game I nabbed the PR Firm for the first time, and there were enough rounds left that it made a big difference. I ended up with a score of 140, which is massive for us. I got my private goal (though it was only a tenner) and one of the public goals. But big income early, followed by a water purification plant and some airport action gave me a solid lead. I wish there was a proper rules reference for the goal tiles though, this is the second game thatās seen a player misunderstand their goal - it hasnāt been massively impactful on either occasion, but still, itād be helpful.
Samurai, first Iāve played this classic in awhile. It was terrific fun, though I always end up feeling really tested by it. I won this one with 2 points (and tying for the third), which is satisfying when the game feels tough. I think I enjoy Babylonia more (though they do scoring completely differently, so I wouldnāt want to overstress the connection). Iām not sure how I feel about the rules for setting up the board and choosing your starting tiles in Samurai. The setup rules seem a bit like a semi-randomised set up, as Iām not sure you can build the board āwrongā, but the choosing starting tiles is a pretty agonising decision to start off with! I may prefer random (and indeed one of the other players did just that and still came out alright), even if itās a little less strategic.
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I read that and thought: Iām not alone! Youāre totally weird. 
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The exploding kittens folk have made a dexterity game called āa game of cat and mouthā. If you want to read no more then know that my partner and I are having an absolute blast. Itās got that klask feelings but a bit more concentrated in its intensity.
Basically the game is a modification of the wooden game you might have seen where you use an elastic band to flick a disc through a small gap and get all of your discs to your opponentās half.
Instead of discs though you have these rubber balls and instead of a rubber band you have a magnetic catapult. Additionally there are two more win conditions:
- get all the yellow balls to the other side
- get 3 white that start in the middle to the other side (so the difficulty here is you need to aim for and hit balls rather than go through a giant hole)
- get the hard to get black ball to the other side.
So the game has this real time dynamically changing strategy. You can try to be consistent or try and play risky and hope one ball hits the black one - you kind of choose dynamically based on the current state of play.
The intensity is really nicely paced. Youāre always trying to win and you have no time to slow down to be tricky. You sort of have to embed the trickiness and clever play into a speedy play. You get respite from tension between rounds which is a nice moment to decompress.
The components are really fab. Everything folds into a suitcase type box. The giant scary face is made of chunky plastic and the balls have this weird softness but quite hard rubber. Itās not very bouncy but it doesnāt hurt if a ball i hits your hand (you feel it and you will get hit).
a very good game for a decent price!
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I was excited by the video you posted, so I looked up some YouTube videos of Cat and Mouth, and now Iām no longer interested.
Catapulting just isnāt as cool as something that keeps the components in the play area, like the disc thing. Itās just cheaper to make, I guess.
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I think it looks fabulous and will be adding it to the top of my wishlist immediately. Hot tip!
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Half our group was either dragooned away by overtime at their job (rushing to get stuff done before a wave of vacation-taking over the holidays) or being wiped out from a lot of now-completed rush mode work at their job, so my friend Ed and I started a coop scenario from Cloudspire, Brawnen/Heirs testing a mixed-tech set of spires and being attacked by allied Grovetenders/Narorans along the way. We got through one wave before calling it for the night (a fair amount of time was consumed in setup and getting used to the game, though I had a solid idea of play from watching Gaming Rules! playthroughs) but had a lot of fun. At first it seemed insurmountable given that the first wave starts you with no money and no minions, just three centrally located and starting-upgrade level towers and a starting hero each, against waves of five to six enemy minions per faction. Except those towers are the heir Royal Lookout towers, which spawn self-detonating āelfinkazeā every wave, and a bit of judicious suicide-bombing shredded the Naroran offense nearly entirely, while yielding Source to do some further tower upgrading with, and then the towers plinked away at the slower Grovetender units while we snuck a few kills with our heroes. A neat little puzzle for sure. And Iām really psyched to get my physical copy - itās great that I can play it online via TTS, but itās gonna be much nicer as a physical experience.
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Yeah the balls flinging out is probably the one bug in the game.
The catapults have two advantages over the discs I think. One is that it thereās a bit more a satisfying āclunkā - the idea of the catapults may be unattractive but theyāve done a good job with them. The other is that it allows better variety in strategy because you have height to consider and more variety in the horizontal direction too.
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Itās very similar to Pucket - a game I was bored of before finishing my first game. Iām not usually this harsh on dexterity games, but even winning was tedious.
Itās been a games extravaganza with the semester done and Iāve had actual time off from academic and occupational obligations.
I received Dune Imperium as a Christmas gift, and It got to the table 3 times in one week. Played 1 solo game to get the rules. Didnāt win it, but it helped me get the mechanics down. The solo is really fantastic and the Haagal cards mimic opponents very well. It was tense, very little overhead, and it was unpredictable in the way that other players can be. Played 2-player with my roommate (one AI is necessary for 2p games). AI still does its job well here. The combat is far more complex with just 1 other human player, and I took this game because I knew the game more. My roommate kept going for the mentat for card draw, but I focused instead on the swordmaster which I think benefitted me more. I also had more synergy in my deck than he did at the end. We also got a 3-player game in, and wow, did the game shine. I took this one by 2 points with 2 rounds left. My roommate was close behind but couldnāt prevent me at the end. He went the mentat strategy again this time, but had way more card draw from the market. I also found that saving troops for later rounds seems to be very beneficial. 3-player leads to way more hate-drafting, but you can still be clever about it. We had one little snag with the rules for the Kwisats Haderach card which left me with more resources than I should have had, so we put an asterisk on the win. What we all really like about the game is trying to devise each otherās plans, the tension from the intrigue cards, the pain of realizing every card in the market can benefit any of you and, oh gods, which one(s) do I get!!! We havenāt had any runaway wins. You can have incredibly swingy turns that shift things dramatically. Itās full of unexpected moves andā¦ plots within plots within plots. We all really like this game and havenāt identified any real weaknesses so far (other than that boardā¦ that really suboptimal boardā¦).
Several solo and 3p games of Village Green. Iām a sucker for bucolic themes and tableau puzzles. This is a great little puzzle that we all enjoyed. Itās a great Saturday/Sunday morning cup of coffee game. The decisions are tight. Optimizing your scoring cards is deliciously frustrating, and laying down a scoring card that turns garbage into gold is very satisfying. I think I actually like this more as a solo experience.
A game of 3-player Tiny Epic Dinosaurs. Itās a solid little worker placement. Building your pens and managing your dinos is a good bit of fun. One player just had terrible luck with the changing contracts and didnāt get many opportunities to score, but he still had a lot of fun with the mechanisms around the park. I really think that they could have just done a simple 2-sided board instead of all the cards for it. Itās a nice light game with a decent bit of crunch, but those super glossy cards go all over the place.
Root with the vagabond, lizard cult, river folk, and clockwork cats. I was the scoundrel, and lording your scorched earth torch over my enemies made it very fun. The lizard cult pulled out front since there werenāt many good uses for the riverfolk and I burned the lizardās main hub to the ground just to create problems (and give up on a shared win). Always fun. Lizard cult took it by about 6 points. Still need to get the corvids and moles in a game.
A couple games of Disney Villainous. My partner and I determined that her daughter will not be into villainous, but itās ok, because we really enjoyed it. She beat me the turn before I would have won, and she used my fate deck really well. She appreciates ruthlessness and take-that, so it was a good fit. Also played 3-player. This game is way better than I would have expected. Each villain feels different, even though you are doing very similar things with each deck. Production is great, and at 3 it was nothing but take-that every turn, which was joyful chaos.
More Isle of Skye, Lords of Vegas, Jaipurand Wavelength. All still great.
And I finally got Pax Pamir 2nd to the table with 3. I. LOVE. THIS. GAME. And I am only just understanding the depths of its strategy. We all fell in love with it, honestly. We did forget a couple of rules for the first half of the game, but we had everything down for the second half. Our table can have a tendency to be AP prone, but this oddly wasnāt the case for Pax. It moved briskly. Every decision had weight to it. Lots of great moments in the game as the rules really started to gel and manipulating actions created huge turns. This was really a discovery game to get one under our belts. Weāve been talking about it constantly since and are planning to get into it again this weekend once or twice. Very happy I pledged on this.
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