I think this one relies on quick play to be fun. It;'s my turn, I’ll dispose of that, next. This is probably the lightest game I’ve met that suffers from this; I usually see it more with something like Suburbia. One chap I know wanted to work out the cost/reward of every tile in the market, and basically I’ll never play it with him again.
(Haven’t heard of Stew. I’ll give it a try if I see it.)
Played Splendor: duel and Botanicus yesterday.
I liked Splendor: duel, although since I have regular Splendor, I wouldn’t bother to buy it. It is in a much more sensibly-sized box than its predecessor.
Botanicus is an action selection point salad about creating a garden. Fairly inoffensive - I preferred Unconscious Mind but Botanicus would be easier to teach.
Awesome night at pub meetup because I got to play my new copy of Courtisans (great at 5 players) and then a new guy brought HOT STREAK!!
NOOO DANGLE YOU STUPID FISH WHYYY
(I will be buying Hot Streak the very second it becomes available in the UK in September)
I introduced some of my colleagues to That’s Not a Hat at lunchtime today. We found that at 5 it was a little too easy, but at 6 everything started to fall apart 
Last night was a 5 player game of Eclipse 2nd Dawn where I played the Hydrean (Scientists) and did exceptionally badly.
I got an awful Tier 2 tile (2VPs and an Exploration tile), but the Orion werr knocking at my door so I had to take it before they did. The game was razor tight for 3 players (final scores 37 - 36 - 34 - 17 - 16), with me at the bottom.
Still had fun. Great game, and not super long.
We then dived into a dozen rounds of The Gang, which continues to impress. The second round we lost…
That is Justin taking the 5-star (strongest) chip with a High Card 5.
After that I managed to gwt a 3 player Brass Birmingham. Gods, what a banger of a game. And at 3am, no less! Good times.
My wife bought Slay the Spire because she loves the video game and we gave it a try tonight! I was the Silent, who seems to be about deck control (lots of cards to draw cards), free attacks, and poison, although I didn’t get much in the way of the last two. I was also big on potions because that’s just my personality (I love potions).
It was a really good time! We died to an Elite enemy in Act 2. My wife says it’s a really good adaptation of the video game to a medium where you have to keep track of your own upkeep, and we’re both excited to play it again. I’m not the biggest deckbuilding fan (understatement), but only in the rarest of circumstances will you have a hand of cards that are completely useless, and even playing three 1-damage attacks is a good chunk of an enemy’s health and feels good to do. Plus it’s really cool how each character can have different builds - maybe next time I’ll get more poison cards near the beginning and lean heavily into that.
Another game of Vantage this week, and we managed the win (but not the epic win). If you succeed in your mission it’s a win, and if you also complete one or more destinies its an epic win. Our mission was to collect money, which we thought was going to be a big problem, since we only ever had 1 coin during last weeks game. We had a few items with a coin value, we just needed to be able to sell them. We found an easier version of our mission, where we only needed 10 coins. And eventually one of our players found a sentient who we could sell to, job done!
Dorfromantik: Sakura, a new high score! (ok, it’s only our third game). Things went fairly well overall.
9 Lives, a tricktaker where you make bids (with cats!) and attempt to win that many tricks.
Gudetama: The Tricky Egg Card Game, very simple trick taker. On your turn, you either play a card higher than (or equal to) the highest played card, or you play your lowest. On the last trick in a round, if you win you take your scoring card as points. Points are bad. The game continues until someone goes over 21 points, and the winner is whoever had the least points. The winner was not me.
The library session is quiet this week. Holiday season, innit? The staff also remarked that the library itself is also deserted. So it’s not just us.
The Grizzled - co-op game where you try to shed your cards each round until the Armistice deck run out and so our heroes get to go home from the war. I like the theme but man, it’s wanting in both fun and cleverness.
A Feast for Odin + Norwegians - fuuuuuun. After playing some shit Euros where the complexity arms race keeps on going and going, going back to AFFO feels so good. Exponential growth goodness done with sublime engine building and worker budgeting. Because there’s so few bonuses and so tedious to get, they matter a lot more.
Gipfelstürmer - Yahtzee style dice game where you try to move goats up the mountain and the bumping between your goats and your opponents is fun, I want to see this in action with more players
This week-end I had the privilege of celebrating that I turned older yet again at some point in July with my wonderful friends. Due to some scheduling issues we had a pre party on Friday night where I got to play my first in-person Daybreak with my friend with whom I’ve accumulated 117 BGA plays of this.
Then for old-time’s sake I asked if we could play a few rounds of Dixit before midnight. This is the same group I originally played this game with the very first time. It was one very memorable New Year’s eve more than 15 years ago. And it still had the same magic as back then. Sadly, it was late and one of us had a long drive ahead of them the next day early in the morning. I am amazed though that I got to play with the same people again and that even just two rounds were able to conjure up magic.
This is a classic prompt for us. This time being more relevant then ever because all 3 of the others have just been let go by their respective firms (I think all 3 are relieved and happy they are finally rid of those particular jobs, all work(ed) in tech and expect to line up new jobs before their garden leave runs out. We had a very nice celebratory drink together)
The next day we had the big yearly celebration with most of my favorite people in the world. My partner made his famous pulled pork, some teriyaki wings (with my recently acquired sauce recipe) and I made the veg burgers I made last year and when I told the vegetarians their eyes lit up. Everyone brought food. The kids are old enough to help out around the party… well some of them, the ones I now list under “adult” in my party planning. We’re around 25 adults this time and 9 (high-entropy) kids. And before they left the last guests helped us clean up the kitchen.
We got super-lucky with the weather. It rained only the smallest bit and even though it was cold we could sit outside for most of the day.
A lot of food was eaten. A lot. We have some hungry friends . Still there are pulled pork leftovers that will enrich our upcoming RPG session on Monday.
A few rounds of That’s Not A Hat and some unidentified “Do you have a regular card deck?” games were played by the kids later in the evening.
PS: my 90s playlist made a well-received appearance.
Have been delighted to play Irish Gauge on BGA. I’d only played my copy once before, all with newbies to the game AND genre, and we all left with a quiet inkling that a great game had just whispered by us undetected.
Now I’ve gotten two more session in and it IS a great game. Like, really really great. And it helps that I’ve now won once 
Also got to try Chicago Express, while my physical copy(ies) lie unplayed. I like Irish Gauge better. But Chicago the Cannonball to Wabash has a lot more going on, sidling toward 18xx mechanics in places. I imagine that once you’ve grown in the genre and flexed your muscles, these extra danglers will be a plus rather than a distraction.
Continued to play Donuts both on BGA and IRL. I’ve even won once. Folks, give it a try. Seriously.
And Beyond the Sun. We’re a few clicks away from my 15th game and 13th loss. With games averaging 3 players I should be at least at 5 wins. I think as others have said, it’s a great game where you can have a great time without ever winning - and in this case it’s not because it’s solitaire. I really like BtS and I hope one day to figure out what I’m missing about it.
Also winding down on Carson City with some random Europeans. More on that later, some stories to tell. Let’s play.
Gave Maryse her birthday gift of Everdell Duo and Trio yesterday. Since it was just the two of us, I learned Everdell Duo and we had our first two games, all in the competitive mode.
It’s really great! Different enough to the base game that it’s worth having even if you have it. The timing element makes a big difference. Also, it’s basically travel-sized! That’s a big plus! Though we managed to play base Everdell in a hospital room, so we’re good at maximizing space, LOL.
The one thing I don’t like is that the cards are tiny. I find them a tad hard to manipulate, especially when shuffling. But that’s a minor quibble.
Brains: Burgen und Drachen: 1/5
Competitive speed puzzle. Solve the puzzle as fast as possible. Score 3 VPs and you win. But the more VPs you get the higher the requirement to solve the puzzle. It’s fine. It went samey pretty fast.
Brains: Zaubertrank: 4/5
Better. As a solo game, Knizia can make this more head scratching than Burgen und Drachen. I am actually keen on solving all the puzzles here. The puzzles are also bite size so you just keep nomming!!
I haven’t touched Brains: Schatzkarte and Brains: Japanischer Garten yet. Will get into them next.
