I really regret not snagging Nusjord when it was deeply discounted at a couple of OGS a few months back.
Iām tempted by Njusford purely because itās so cheap. However, I got Feast for Xmas, have The Norwegians sat in the cupboard for fatherās Day and Agricola in the same cupboard for my birthday.
Iām not sure how many Uwe worker placement games I need.
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Iām glad to see Cartographers getting some solo love. With the exception that it requires a bit of table space, I find it to be as nice a little solo score-chaser as Railroad Ink. I still need to try out my little promo card pack for it (player abilities), see how it spices things up.
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My husband and I quite enjoyed the play along with SUSD via Twitch so we bought Cartographers. Iāve since tried it solo a few times. First couple of times, I also did not do so well and ended with negative final scores once the solo calculations came into play. The third time, I donāt know if I got very lucky or if the game clicked, but I ended with a score of 140 or 56 after the solo calculation. Iām currently resting on my laurels there.
Iāve ordered the skills and extra monster packs so might try it again solo once they arrive. I have a gaming friend who is also mad about maps who I told about the game. Sheās printed up some of the sheets in anticipation of a webcam game soon so that might be my next play of it. Not sure if weāll each solo rule the monsters or try to look at each otherās boards and tell the other where to draw them.
2 Likes
Been working most of the afternoon so far with a junior engineer on my team (itās strange to me that Iām brand new but brought in as a senior engineer) troubleshooting transceiver light-levels for a customerā¦ so, while we wait for site support to clean fiber terminations and frog tx/rx and clean frogs and terminate cleansā¦ I played another game of Crypt. I love how quick it is to setup; I also discovered that itās fairly easy to āsave stateā and set aside to get out of the way. I feel silly for not playing this game sooner.
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I would recommend getting some coloured pens so you can draw funny monsters for each other.
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Terra Mystica arrived yesterday. Got the kids to play. So good. Much more intuitive IRL than the app. Moving power from bowl to bowl is such a clever mechanism. Knowing when to upgrade structures is going to be a big learning curve.
Really enjoyed this after one play, I can see it hitting the table a lot. I hope it holds up at 2 players.
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With 2 players, check the 2 player variant on bgg. It changes the setup where only parts of the map are used.
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Thanks. Iāll look into that
Had a great time with friends last night (it was so good, the wine was taken keenly) after a few weeks of lockdown, and two games hit the table (well, technically only one).
Donāt Get Got was a riot, they had never played it, but even though setting it up looked like could have killed the mood (I had everything still in original wrapper inside) the missions went down great. I think nobody managed to get three, but still was a lot of fun having it going on through the evening.
Welcome To well, the Teach was tough (wine and a couple of children did not help, thoughā¦) but in the end they got it with a bit of help from my daughter and better half. I have mixed feelings about its chances to hit the table once I get a copy of Wavelength or Codenames but you never knowā¦
Still, nothing beats sounds like wine glasses over a boardgame.
3 Likes
Actual real life games!
Escape of the Dead
Sneaky little print and play which works wonders with a single laminated sheet. Always good to draw your own mini horde.
The Missing Locksmith
Nice little alternative reality game, which I made much harder for myself. Nice puzzles, one of which made me feel like a character in a mid 90s heist movie.
6 Likes
Cooper Island, first play. This is a tile laying game, where you build up your island, while sending ships out. Its pretty icon heavy, but when you get past that its fine. It has some worker placement too, as you select options on a central board. Its pretty tight too ā there are only five rounds, and a round has you placing tiles to collect resources, and then using your workers. You start with 2 workers, so if you donāt unlock any more, thats only 5 X 2, or 10 actions (from your workers) in the entire game. You have to manage your resources as well, you donāt have much space. Iād have to play again to decide how I feel about it, it was a bit of a slow start with the rules explanation.
Forgotten Waters, first play. This was so much fun! Its a pirate themed game, with its own app (well, its actually just a web site). There are five scenarios out of the box. Once you select a scenario, the app will tell you how to setup the map, and each of the boards, which keeps track of various things, like the ships health, crew, supplies, cannon etc. Each player gets their own sheet for stats and a unique backstory. Its a cooperative game (well, you can all lose if the ships hull is reduced to zero, for example), but you can do better or worse than the other players. Theres an infamy track, and having the most infamy gives you first crack at the actions, so theres a bit of rivalry there.
The game comes with a location book, which you open next to the map. It shows the actions that are possible at the location. You start a timer from the app, and then place your pirate figure next to an action. Some actions can only be done by a single pirate, and some by multiple. Each action shows various symbols, which relate to icons on a board, or from your pirate stats. More detail is given, but the idea is to pick an action based on the icons shown, and not read the detail next to it. I believe thats the use of the timer, to force you to make a selection without spending minutes going thru all possible actions.
Actions can increase your stats (in everything from brawn to swagger), and you may need to make a skill roll against a stat, which determines what actually happens.
This game was just so much damn fun! The app features full narration, which sounds awesome, very high quality. Its very light hearted, so if you want a serious game, this probably isnāt it. I loved it, cant wait to play again. Most fun Iāve had in a game this year.
Grind House, still pretty random
Timeline, Historical Events, and Science and Discoveries. Havent played these for yonks. One of them was actually still sealed.
The Crew
Awkward Guests, had absolutely no idea, couldnt get anything right.
Heist; One Team, One Mission, good for a quick bash. We play at level 4 and 5 (5 is the highest, but if you beat it, there is a mega hard level 6). 5 is pretty hard.
Silver and Gold
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We played 2 rounds of our newly acquired El Dorado with 2 players, one with the base setup and one with another more winding one of āmediumā difficulty according to the setup sheet.
Game 1: I won the first one by virtue of having removed more obstacles and managing to pull even with my partner who had arrived at the goal first.
Game 2: I won again today by looking at the map and deciding I had to buy all the joker cards and then getting a lucky draw in some awkward corner of the map that had four paddles as the only next moveā¦ I had 2 cards in my deck that could deal with that corner. It frustrated my partner to no end. Yesterday, he said it was an 8/10 game and I didnāt dare ask again today.
We havenāt played with caves yet and no expansions. I remember from the review that one was apparently better than the other?
Personally, this is a fun game that does a very nice fixed market + map thing that with four players will certainly have a much fiercer competition for the cards but then you only have to get one guy to the other end. Itāll definitely go into the gamenight pile to join Wingspan and other games I think I can pull out for just about anyone among my gaming friends.
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I was introduced to this by 2 friends who own the game. They were 10+ games in. The first game I was in last but not by masses. I looked at it and thought āthis simple enough thenā. I won the second game by 2 and a half boards. Put me off it really. Would be interested to hear how this one progresses for you. Iām occasionally tempted to reconsider my position
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Played a great game of Root. My first time as the Vagabond, and he was a lot more fun to play than I expected. Running around with Quests and occasionally bopping the Woodland Alliance on the nose (Naughty Woodland Alliance!) got me through. The Eyrie just scraped a win a turn before I would have chased away a bear to win myself. Everyoneās interested in playing more, so will finally get to play with the expansion! Played Root plenty over the years, but almost always with new players so had to keep it simple.
8 Likes
Played Marvel Champions with two new heroes: Black Widow and Doctor Strange. Both are excellent without being too powerful.
Doctor Strange has his own deck of spells (unique mechanic so far, might see more āMysticā keyword characters soon especially Scarlet Witch).
Black Widow acts as a spy in her alter-ego form, laying down āpreparationā skill traps, and then going hero and setting them off when the enemy does things. Total reverse of the way every other hero functions, thematic, works great. Going to try each solo next.
5 Likes
Just finished up Lords of Vegas, a rematch with our usual gaming couple from last weekend. Gambling happened a lot more frequently tonight than usual, which was fun to see. House won all but two attempts, which seems natural. I actually managed to win the game, though the scores were really close. Would have tied with my wife if one player had not remodeled their casino, freeing up the remaining two tiles of the purple one for me to snap up on my turn to get a 9 tile casino. Really only needed one of them, but what the heck. Let me score 8 points on the final turn to move me that one extra scoring space, which a 7 tile casino would not have allowed. Great game, and nice actually playing a game relatively back to back rather than moving on to something different.
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Had a go with the Mrs. at Welcome To, as she did not play on Friday due to Monopoly exhaustion through the week at work in the Youth Centreā¦ Managed to nick a win in the very last two rounds of cards, even though we finished because she managed the three projects, I had really escalated nicely groups of three and six houses and managed loads of park pointsā¦
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We played Caylus 1303 - I didnāt had a strategy but it was still fun. Despite being cut down by the designer, it can still bite. Damn good game.
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Just played Diamant times three and Flamme Rouge times two. Great fun but more importantly a good time including son number 2 who is often more reluctant to play games.
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