It’s not available in the UK until 31st August! (also crying)
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Shipping direct from CMYK isn’t horrendous
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I’m very tempted by The Anarchy, it looks great!
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Perfect PBF game!
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I just got it direct from CMYK
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My CMYK page says “Pre-order - shipping Fall 2025”.
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Maybe it’s changed since I bought it!
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Played Space Empires 4X for the first time since October, 2011.
14 years. Woof.
I was playing Blue, and as you can see the vast majority of my “home” systems were at the opposite edge of the galaxy from my home system. This slowed down my economy a lot, since it took me many turns to build and move my Colony Ships outwards. The theoretical advantage is having friendly Shipyards closer to enemy fleets, but that was defeated by my enemies building bigger fleets far sooner.
Mike in particular discovered 2 Ancient Ship Wrecks which he hauled back for free tech. I spent my largest (only) fleet against him, blunting some of his tech advantage through clever use of a Nebula, but the sheer mass of ships (3 Dreadnaughts, 2 Battleships, 8 Battlecruisers) overwhelmed my far more fragile invasion (2 Battleships, 2 Battlecruisers, 2 Drestroyers, 3 Scouts). I managed, by sheer luck, to destroy 2 Dreadnaughts, but he rebuilt them almost immediately.
Despite all this, the victory actually went to Justin, who rushed a group of 6 Battlecruisers back to my Homeworld and bombed it into ashes before anyone else couls reach me foe the win.
Neat game. Next time: Advanced Tech and Ships!
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- The King is Dead (x2)
- Forks
- Courtisans
The first game of TKID was decided by French Invasion and went to the tie-breaker for that.
The second game of TKID needed every tie-breaker for a Coronation, as Wales and England were tied (Wales winning on account of the most-recently resolved region); and both the other players were leading the Welsh influence (tied at 3), as well as being tied for English influence. So of those two, the one who had used up their cards earliest took the win.
(Meanwhile I’d thought that I had it in the bag with my 5 influence over the English, but I failed to recognise that I needed to switch the order that the final regions would resolve in order to control that initial tie-break! (I’d thought Northumbria would wind up being unstable, and that England was going to have a clear majority… whoops!))
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We’re away in our van this week, so games are limited to what fits on the quite small table:
Undergrove, which turned out to much more interactive than I expected. My husband won by rushing the end of the game before I could grow most of my seedlings into trees
On the upside, I have a new favourite mushroom:
I also played a few games of Glass Garden, which is probably joint first with R.O.V.E for my favourite buttonshy game at the moment.
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Unconscious Mind, which surprisingly did fit on the table (just).
I was all ready to be mad about the vast array of icons, but it was actually fairly easy to parse 
The theme (Freudian psychoanlysis) works better than a lot of these point salady games, and I enjoyed that you could drink vast amounts of coffee to improve your various actions. Possibly that should be “coffee” (and definitely not cocaine)…
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I have an old childhood friend who has been a professional slacker (does nothing, lives off his father’s fortune) for decades now, and he decided to come for a day of gaming yesterday.
As a writer, my schedule is flexible, so I was able to take a day for gaming (I’m making it up by editing 12+ hours today), and he brought a farmer friend of his and I roped in a Real Estate agent buddy. We played games from about 10am until about 8pm. A solid day.
The day started with 6 or 7 rounds of The Crew, which went very well. We lost the final round when we had to win the Pink 7 before the Blue 7, and we couldn’t quite manage it. Close, though.
Then we played a few rounds of No Thanks, which is stupid and I love it. Great, fast, easy to explain. I won the first game by a landslide, but Alvaro (the organic farmer) won the second and third games.
Then a few rounds of Illusion, which Mike (Real Estate agent) won narrowly.
Then it was time for the Big Game… Tapestry, which I have owned for years now but never put on the table. It was… fine. It was fine. Beautiful production, no question, and pretty clear iconography, but I’m not sure if it was good? For those who haven’t played, you have 4 resources (Coin, Workers, Culture, and Food), and four tracks around the board that correspond to those resources. On your turn you either spend resources to move up one of the tracks and take the corresponding bonus, or you collect resources based on how many buildings of the 4 types you have made and score points for all the various things you’re doing.
I taught the game wrong and it lasted one Income Phase too many (there should be 5 total, and we did 6 total) which meant it dragged a bit, but even without that I’m not sure it’s a really interesting game. It felt extremely abstract and there was a lot of “If you do this then you can’t do that but you need those to get these” going on. Glad to have tried it, at least, but I think it might be heading out of the collection. I managed to win, and that’s usually a bad sign… I’m suspicious of any game I win the first time I play it.
Then we played Gravwell twice, which continues to be quick and silly. Alvaro won both games very handily.
Then we dove into Dune Imperium: Uprising, which was quite good. I continue to not understand what to do to win, but I was at least in the running for the majority of the game. Mike managed to snatch victory with Lady Fenrig (the one who can place Spies on Purple-Circle spaces), and I came last with Mua’dib again… but I remembered to use his “If during the Reveal Step you have Sandworms, gain an Intrigue Card” once, making in the first (and only) time I have ever remembered out of 4+ games.
And that was it! A great day of gaming! Tomorrow a different group (my partner, me, and our friends Wendy and Matt) are going to try our first game of Earthborn Rangers, and then Sunday is Descent!
Until then… editing novel 8!
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This is pretty much how I feel about Tapestry as well
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I’ve tried my best to avoid playing this in our club. So far, I have been very successful.
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That seems wise. I don’t think you’d like it!
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A few solos from my recent acquisitions
More Casinopolis: I think I am up to 7 or 8 games of it now.
Next up: Let’s Go To Japan
I saw this first on Kickstarter. I was already burned by quite a few lame-ish Kickstarters and decided this would not be one I fell for. Then I played it on BGA and thought: “This is kind of nice, I wonder how it plays on the table.” So I waited for the German edition because this is the kind of game that has lots of flavor text and my occasions to play this other than solo would prefer a German text … I’ve played this about 2 or 3 times on BGA and now twice as a solo on my table and I must say it’s as cozy on the table as I had hoped. My partner might enjoy this, too. The big Japan trip is the last remaining item on our “bucket list” of travels …
I am glad I got this for myself as an early bday gift (along with the next one).
More Japan: Shinjuku
I first stumbled across this on some post on BGG or maybe it was Spacebiff or … I really don’t remember. It was a small printrun and quickly unavailable and also my occasions for “train”-y games are rare. Then the German translation appeared … and I looked at it again. It does not have a solo mode, I simply played 2-handed to learn this. I labeled it “teachable” in my geekgroup.app
Because it is one of those games with simple rules that hopefully have good retention.
This game is about Shopping in Tokyo and your goal is to collect sets of customers to get the most points. To that end customers with 4 different needs (food, electronics, books and clothing) appear in the queue and get placed in the various districts. You get to collect customers from a district by sending them to one of the shops you built via the trains you and everyone else built. Thus 5 actions, 2 of which you take on your turn.
So on your turn: take all customers from the first card in the queue and put them in the district the card shows. Then take the card. Move the queue and add as many customers as you just added to the district. (Customer in queue placement is simple, just add it to the card where that type of customer already is or to the next free card).
Then do 2 different actions:
- Build 1 (no card cost) or 2 train sections (pay with card from one of the districts involved)
- Build shop (pay with card of the district)
- Upgrade shop an on a ‘square’ station to department store (satisfies all needs gets you a few joker customers and moves the arc of the game forward) → return a customer to the queue and pay with a card of the district)
- Put all customers from a district on a train and have them travel as far as you want along any trainlines. You may not circle and if there is a matching shop at the start the first customer gets out there and you can stop if you want. As customers pass stations with relevant shops they stop. Owner of the shop collects the customer. If you used any trains other than your own, that player gets a free Income action. Customers who didn’t find a shop stay in the district of the last station you chose for the trip.
- Income–draw up to 4 cards or draw 1 card if you have 4 (kind of the Verlegenheitsaktion, as you get a card each turn and if things go well, other players might use your trains giving you free income)
One more thing: cards of districts where you have shops are wild Now you can play. Sets of 4 customers net 10 points, 3 customers 6, 2 customers 4, single customers give 1 point. There are gold customers who shop for 2 and jokers you get from upgrade to a department store. Everyone has 2 of each shop and 3 department stores. The game ends when there are no more customers in the queue. That’s about it. I don’t expect to get to play this often but I am definitely hoping to find a few occasions for it. If not, even 2 handed play was fun. At first glance there seems to be a nice amount of tactics involved. And on a shared map like this interaction is a given.
9 Likes
Chicago Express - chooooo! choooo! I started with a Red share. Player B bought the 2nd and 3rd and let her take it all the way to Chicago. Prevented the other ones to do the same. Won the game via superior portfolio. Player B, to be fair, tried to make Wabash work as her way of earning a lot of money, but it was way too late game for it and I intentionally ended the game.
Heat: Pedal to the Metal
Startup - glad to play this again. Cool top tier Oink game. I love discarding just to annoy people because that means they have to pay up if they want to top deck.
Istanbul + Mocha & Baksheesh I seem to be turning around on Istanbul. I still hate how there’s so many micro rules for a light weight 1 hour game. But there’s sooooooooome interaction and a shared board. Flows REALLY well once the newbies got a few turns in. The Euro efficiency in this design wasn’t annoying as there isn’t much “Cube Accounting”.
I understand that people prefer Yokohama over this. But if you do put Yokohama in front of me, I would internally tell you to piss off and play some party games with the party games people on the other table.
Hol’s der Geier
Mega Istanbul = base game + Mocha & Baksheesh + Letters & Seals - grand! I really like the Letters and Seals. The companion made the map tighter! It is a fear of mine that the larger Istanbul just let players do their own thing that the whole shared board thing becomes useless. But no, companions should be in the game every time an expansion is used.
HOOOOOOOOOOOOT STREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAK!!! - this group are easily excitable that they stand up from their seats when shit happens. Also, we had a good variability on the performance of the mascots so there wasn’t a clear favourite
Castle Combo - tolerable closer. I wouldn’t play it in any other case.
Vivo - trick taking game where if you played the highest card, you put it face down and it scores 2 VPs. The lowest card will score face up and it scores its face value. It’s okay…
Barony new edition - waaaauuuuwww!! I really enjoyed this. The new production is so nice while feeling tasteful. Not garish like these new kickstarter games.
Barony seemed to got it right. And it’s a great game too! Last I played was with @Whistle_Pig at AireCon this year, which I also remember being a great game back then.
Path of Civilizations - noticed that the art was done with AI and just as I expected, people are having a fuss in the comments. The game looks fine. But I think that is its ultimate problem. It’s a derivative design that does work, but it’s competing with other civ-themed games.
Advantages: it’s fast! 1.5 hrs in our game. You can shorten that with no rules explanation. The decisions are okay, but it’s so dependent on what leaders and what wonders show up.
Another good thing is that you can play simultaneous on each phase. With each faction having tiebreakers if there’s a clash.
But yeah, it’s just another civ game
3 Chapters - drafting combo game. I don’t like drafting games.
Karawane - 3 players and the game seems to fall apart with 3. Or maybe we are figuring out how to break it. Upsetting because this game got a really great idea.
Innovation ULTIMAAAATE = base game + Echoes of the Past + Unseen - 2 of us left while the others are playing their games. We decided to give Inno Ult a crack!!
We played with 3 sets of decks. The Unseen is straight forward. Echoes slightly less but I love the Echoes! Player 2 used Colonialism repeatedly to junk Deck 5, 6, and 7. Unfortunately for him, it was me who broke out of Level 4 tech and jumped all the way to Level 8 tech and kept playing these broken cards while he struggled to break out of Level 4.
To be fair, he was on a good position by taking all the low level achievements, but I manage to turn that around.
Absolutely bonkers game. Didn’t care that it wasn’t as thoughtful and cerebral as base game only which I played a lot. I went in with 3 sets for the rollercoaster ride
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I have looked at the set-up for this, where each mascot has a standard specific starting spot (yes?), and wondered how often Mum, say, gets an early “veer right” card (or left, if turned around) and immediately crashes out of the race?
Do the centre two characters not have a higher probability of going the distance?
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The two right mascots - Mum and Dangle - have swerve left cards. While Hurley and Gobbler on the left got swerve right cards.
What would be fatal would be a Turn Around card and a Swerve X card - instant DQ.
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Ah, I see! I’d been assuming that they all had the same set of cards.
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