Been playing 10 mins Blitz mode Chess in Chess.com and it reignite my love of the game. It’s basically Chess but without the AP nonsense. A lot of misplays but that’s fine. Mistakes are interesting and are lessons as a player for you to learn. My games of this ranges from 5 mins to 15. That’s way better than pretty much most games. I think Hive is the best modern Abstract ever, but 10 min Chess is just too good.
7 Likes
Played Wyrmspan, 5 players.
I will not be playing Wyrmspan, 5 players again. Too many players and I have not a care what the player 2 seats away is doing, apart from maybe grabbing a card I want. Most of the action could be simultaneous (IMO) but the card draft makes it so you can’t play simultaneous.
6 Likes
Sadly–I like dragons–this was similar to the experience I had at my table last year. The solo is nice though–If I had time for it that is.
4 Likes
Yeah, I’d probably find it tolerable with 1-2 other players.
3 Likes
I have played Wyrmspan once at two players. Can confirm it was enjoyable at a low player count.
4 Likes
Food Chain Magnate - More Food Chain Magnate, more fun. We added the Coffee + Kimchi modules. Coffee is fun and it’s still a nice way of earning side income. This is interesting as the placement of coffee shops is pretty strategic.
Wine Cellar - auction game about bidding for wine bottles. Very cute and very fast. Art by Dutrait. Nice filler that I might keep
Shallow Sea - Cascadia-esque take-and-make gameplay. It’s fine.
Bohemians - deck building game about being an artistic Parisian bum. You work on dead-end jobs (which occupies your time) while in pursuit of your creative peak. Skipping jobs will grant you a struggle card, but gives you more chance to rack up inspiration. Well, the other players have jobs, I was a beggar. Oh and we all manage to get Syphilis from each other.
Clans and Glory - new Colovini game. 20 mins and it is pretty thinky. Love to play it more.
8 Likes
That’s right, ladies and gentlefolk. It’s time… for Sidereal Confluence! With expansion!
I’ve only played twice before, so this would usually be too early for me to include the expansion, but ya know what? Screw it. We’re going to try it.
I took the dinosaur-explorers (Kjas), Ben took the bees (Kit), Mike tried the Faderan, Justin took the Kengii, and Matthew took the Deep Unity (the only expansion race selected).
Good: Still a shockingly clever game, tonnes of player interaction, and neat bidding and trading. Big fan.
Bad: The box insert doesn’t fit the expansion. Boo. So I’m going to have to fix that today at some point.
EDIT: I forgot to mention! And extremely close game. Mike as the Faderon won with 46 and 1/4th point, and Ben as the Kit came in 2nd with 46 and 1/6th point! One big cube verses one small cube. Exceptional. What a game!
After that, I pulled out Pick n’ Packers just to see if it’s as good as I think it is.
It is. It’s still not as good as Dro Polter (which we played immediately aftewards), but it is good, and silly, and fast. I remain a fan.
11 Likes
Formaggio, first play. This is a standalone expansion for Fromage, focussed on Italian cheeses now. It plays similarly, the board is made of four quadrants, each one being a minigame where to place your workers. You place your workers in three different ways, the better rewards usually come from leaving your workers out for longer. Which of course means you might be waiting until that piece is available again. Just like Fromage, you can gather fruit, animals and buildings, which allow you to get special abilities.
Board Game: The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship. To mix things up, we chose random quests and random characters. We ran out of player cards at the end, causing us to lose hope, but our Frodo character made it to Mt Doom with the required ring cards. And she had enough heart tokens to ignore half the rolled dice, giving us the win. Huzzah!
Take Time, a cool little filler where you place numbered cards around various “clocks”. Clocks have different rules about how you can place cards. The rule is always that the total of cards must always increase. We failed badly at this, since of course you can’t tell anyone what you have, and only a certain number of cards can be played face up. You can infer the information tho, if someone plays into the last space, you think they had a high card. I enjoyed this one, it’s simple but good fun. Even when we fail.
Board Game: The Key: Murder at the Oakdale Club, time for an old favourite. This is a real time deduction game, where you must identify each suspect, what method they used, where the murder took place, and finally, the colour of the golf buggy they used to escape. You know, just like a real crime. You dump all the cards on the table, and then go at it. But the winner is the one who uses the least number of cards, not necessarily the quickest. The cards just give you clues about one of the aspects of the crime, you need to combine them to actually figure out who did what and how. We played three quick games of this. I did not win any.
11 Likes
Duel for Middle Earth - not my top 2 player game but it’s nice and slightly thematic.
Coloretto x2
Twilight Struggle - someone brought their copy and we both played before so the game went fast.
Mottainai - after TS, I taught him Mottainai.
Moving Wild - more complex Sushi Go. It’s fine. Used to be known as Zuuli
8 Likes
Haha, at last! My wife and I have played Star Wars the Deckbuilding game well over 200 times now. Early on, she won a game where I did not eliminate even one of her bases. Now, about two and a half years later, I have finally matched that achievement!
14 Likes
Some light games this weekend over 2 sessions!
With 6 players:
Perudo, which is an easy sell for anyone who’s seen Pirates of the Caribbean 2. A classic and still really fun, although having played it a lot I think I have a better hold of the strategy than first time players so a win for me which felt a little unfair.
My Favourite Things, a trick taking game with secret card ranks based on categories. It’s almost completely random in terms of trick winner, especially at 6, but is fun to argue about people’s picks for favourite Pokémon, fantasy books or Friends characters.
And at 12:
Thing Thing from Jasper Beatrix, which is not designed to work at 12 and it showed, but still a very silly and enjoyable time. I’m very disappointed that DVC stopped shipping to the UK, as I’d love to pick up their latest game Pacts. Hope they get a distributor sorted at some point.
Monikers, which is works great at 12 and is always light and fun.
7 Likes
Had a wild session of Sea Salt & Paper. First round, I broke the Last Call bid, 14 over 13 (scoring 2 points with my last turn, ha!) leaving the scoreboard at 14-2. Second round went wildly differently - I discarded an Anchor, forgetting she had drawn a Seahorse in the first or second turn (pairs with any set collection cards), to give away five points. And then failed to break the Last Call bid… 16-11. Leaving the game at 19-17.
Third round I got a super fast 10 points with a Starfish trio, pair of Boats for an extra turn and pair of Crabs for an extra card, along with a single Penguin + 2/Penguin bonus. I almost didn’t notice it but fortunately gasped out wait! as she as about to draw her cards and ended it. 27-20 final score.
Looking at my bgstats record this is the first time I have won since the first training game. Sheesh.
8 Likes
Ok, Everdell.
The good news - I lost.
The great news - this could be another Castles of Burgundy for us. Meaning an evergreen that we can play a lot more with less dragging my opponent to the table.
Yeah, there’s absolutely an angle of “draw into prescriptive combos and win.” Which is what happened last night, I had a mighty green empire and a ton of resources but a serious dearth of Purple cards, both in the meadow and in hand, for the entire game.
But it’s popular for a reason. It’s good as well, I own it for a reason. And the prospect of playing it a lot more makes me happy. (despite the little yearnings for a game like Inis or La Granja or Carnegie to hit instead).
Haven’t tried Newleaf or Belfaire yet so who knows what the game can grow into?
11 Likes
Finally played something outside of the four or five games I regularly play with my wife. Got Star Wars: Mandalorian Adventures to the table for the first time since the beginning of the year. Retried the first mission, as last time I failed on what would have been the last turn of the game in any case.
This time I did much better. Mando and IG-11 took some damage, but mowed through the defending units with relative ease. Got somewhat lucky that the two keypad tokens I needed to find were randomly placed towards the front of the map, so I didn’t need to bother with the ones in the back at all. IG-11’s last turn consisted of a quick intel action, looking at one of the two objective tokens, finding an enemy, then using his second action to move to the actual objective. Survived the event phase and won. Easy peasy!
I like the system they created for this. It’s really easy to play. On your turn you do two actions, either Move, Attack, Intel, or Plan, placing one of the four cards in your hand in that column. The cards have a value of 1 - 4, indicated the strength of the action. Move 1 can move 0-1 spaces while move 4 can move 0-4. Attack does that number in damage, etc.
After actions are done, look at each column. If the total value of cards (and disruption tokens) is 5, draw an event card and clear the column. The event card will move enemies, make them attack, bring in reinforcements, etc. If the value is 6 or more, do the event card, but also resolve a crisis, which may be different in each mission, I don’t know yet. For this one it was place a token on the board and once three tokens were placed, bring in a reinforcement.
After that, draw back up to 4 cards in hand and then it’s the next player’s turn. Play continues like this until the objective is met or the missions is failed. In this first mission, if one character was defeated, it was a loss.
Simple to explain and quick to play. I’m hoping to get a few more plays in by the end of the year to justify putting the expansion on my Christmas list. 
7 Likes
Played the gorgeous looking chocolates game Truffle Shuffle.
Draw cards from a pyramid (only every second row is face up) and make poker-like hands, but with extra cards to change the number, colour, etc.
Player with the most chocolate gold coins after 3 rounds wins.
So you might be trying for a green 1-5 run but you only have a 1 2 3, a pink 4, and an “any number” green card, if you can grab that visible “change colour” card from the pyramid then you can do it.
But everyone can see that a change colour card is good, so no-one is taking the card below it to make it become available for the next player.
Very fun, delicious art, good 15-30 min filler game.
9 Likes
Last night, as advertised in the “How Are You Doing” thread, I played Catacombs 3E.
A couple significant caveats:
- We played with 6, which is technically more than is allowed. The game is really designed for 5, which is what I expected, but then my partner decided she wanted to join us and that happens seldom enough that screw player count, Imma make it work. I did this by giving the Catacomb Overlord board to one of the players and not telling any of them that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. Nobody noticed (except me, who noticed that the game was considerably easier for the heroes)
- I told everyone that SPELLS are single-use-only, and that ABILITIES are once per room (true), but pointed at the wrong icons while doing so. This made things considerably harder for the heroes, which completely balanced the fact that it was easier for them because they had 1 extra dude and I didn’t have more monsters as a result.
All that stated, it was still a very close game, right up to the last room (where I killed the Paladin, who was resurrected, and then I killed the Raven Queen, and then I killed the Amazon, but by then they had cleaned up all my minions and the Ice Mage cast Ice Bolt on my Vampire Lord for the win!).
Gosh what neat game. Every time I play it I am pleasantly surprised by both how complicated it is, but also how elegant all the systems are once you get past that terrible teach.
Afterwards everyone except Mike left, and so the two of us pulled out 1812 and played the introductory scenario, which Mike won as the Americans won (not by a lot, but still firmly). He launched a massive force from Buffalo into Fort Erie, and despite a massed British/Canadian/Indigenous counter offensive, I couldn’t reclaim it. This is my 2nd time playing the game, and honestly I continue to be impressed by it. Next time I will have to play the full game, though, since knowing that the game won’t necessarily end immediately will mean being far more conservative with my forces (and not leaving Montreal completely exposed in order to strike deep into American-held territories).
9 Likes
Kiddo woke up at 12:45 in the morning. After doing what I could to get him settled, figured since I had to be awake anyway until he fell back asleep, I could mess around with a game. Broke out Star Wars: Mandalorian Adventures again and set up Mission 2.
I was right about the crises. They are different from mission to mission.
Took some doing, but I did win the mission, though it was very close as Paz Vizsla only had one health left and losing a character would have lost the mission. But I got through it. Ready for mission 3 at a later date. Even more ready for kiddo to go to sleep. Unfortunately, it is almost 5 now and my other kid is up.
10 Likes
Aquaria - another bog standard Euro. At least it is light-weight and takes an hour or so.
HOT STREAK!!
El Grande - 4 players and ran away with it. Whoops…
Origin Story - A Stonemaier Game that is actually good.
Factory of Dreams x2
Mysterium Park - glad to play this finally! Diet Mysterium. Big pro is that the box is smaller! Otherwise, I would prefer playing with full fat Mysterium (with Polish rules)
Unlock! - we played one of the cases. The one set in Hollywood. It was good as usual.
Las Vegas Royale - good dice chucking light weight game. The box size is a bit silly though.
Ticket to Ride: Japan - I’m hyped while playing this as we are planning to visit Japan Oct 2026. the bullet trains are intriguing due to the communal use. This pushes people towards ticket accumulation which is my sort of thing. This is a very good map. The one at the back - Italy - is a fun one too. Japan/Italy is a solid expansion
Quartermaster General 1914 - I (UK/US) went for the Middle East against the Ottomans to secure VP spots. I also had Greece enter the war on our side. I tried having the US play a major role in the war but BOTH of my US Land Battle cards were discarded!! So the Americans played defence on the Western Front. France/Italy played strategically defensive in France and had Romania join the war. Russia played the bruiser and hammered Austria-Hungary. But end up conceding once the Bolsheviks took over and promised peace (though the Peace card gave us crucial points!)
Austria-Hungary/Ottomans successfully defeated the Serbians and had the Bulgarians enter the war. Crossed sabres with Russia in Eastern Europe. He did played defensively with the Ottomans and let me took over the Middle East and towards Azerbaijan (VP spots). This leaves Germany solo fighting France and try to harass me in the high seas. With Russia out of the picture: German troops by the late war successfully punched through the tired Entente forces in the Western Front and captured Paris (the last time Paris was captured by German forces prior to WW1 was in 1871! 4 decades before the start of the First World War). It was a good late game attempt to turn the tables. But the Entente have such a good lead by this point that the closing of the gap wasn’t enough to beat us.
Phenomenal game! It’s still the best QMG title
Chinatown - really prefer the theme here. The accusations that it’s racist feels rather overblown.
Piece o’ Cake - great closer. One of the best fillers
9 Likes
I think the card layout system is easier for the Ghost to manage than the two sets of cards for each stage. I’d like to adapt that into classic Mysterium. (Or, frankly, I could make a set of pegboards to replicate it. In fact I’m tempted.)
via BGG/kovray
4 Likes
I still haven’t played Mysterium Park. I love the idea of a more portable Mysterium… but that’s because I like Mysterium so much, and so every time I consider trying Park I just play the full game instead.
I’m always put off by the notion that the ghost is going to need to stare at the same cards that the other players are looking at (and the players will be able to see them doing it) which seems like such a problematic compromise.
6 Likes