Yes, planning to do that before I drop money on it.
3 Likes
My wife and I were going to meet up with our new gaming friend, but she wasn’t feeling up for it so encouraged me to go alone. Plan had been to try out the Fellowship Trick-Taking game, but he said the rules for two were a bit different and wasn’t as interested at that point. On the bright side, I had brought some two player games which were relatively short.
We started with Jekyll and Hyde vs. Scotland Yard, which I have owned for at least a year without playing. It is also a cooperative trick-taker. Like the Fellowship game, it also has chapters and you just go through each one. We did the first four of ten, three of which are tutorials, the fourth being the main game.
How to play
The objective is to move the J&H piece on a board from their start space exactly to the end space of the track. One player is J and the other is H. Each player is dealt twelve cards, but then has to give four to the City. The City acts as a third player, just playing blindly off the top of its deck. Four cards are left out of the game in a reserve deck.
There are three colored suits of 1 - 8, and then four colorless potion cards valued 3+ - 6+. The plus sign is to indicate they outrank the same number of another suit.
City plays first, and there is a random coin flip to see which way play goes. This first card will indicate the weakest suit. The next differently colored card to be played will be stronger, which then automatically makes the third color strongest. Like most trick takers, you have to follow suit, though you can play a potion instead, which then takes the color of the previous ly played card. The trick goes to the person (or City) which played the highest card of the strongest suit.
If a potion is played, it has a reaction with the first colored card it is next to. Depending on the color, the players can rearrange the suit strength, choose one of them to draw the top card of the City deck and then replace it with a card from their hand, or choose one of them to take a trick the City has won.
Once the round is over, the players compare their tricks. The J&H piece moves a number of spaces equal to the tricks won by the player with the fewest. If not at the end of the track, you play a second round. If you still don’t make it, you lose.
Also, for the first couple chapters, if you overshoot the end of the track, you lose. Each chapter adds a new element. Chapter 2 makes it so any 8’s in your own tricks move you a space. Chapter 3 brings in a Scotland Yard piece which starts at the very beginning of the track. Now if you overshoot the end of the track, it moves for every space you went over. Additionally, the colored 1’s, 2’s, and 3’s have a police helmet on them. For each of those the lead player has in their own tricks, move the SY piece. If that piece ever meets or passes J&H, you lose. Chapter 4, the full game, makes it so you count the helmets for both players, meaning you really want the City to win those.
We managed to win Chapter 3, though we were really close on the others. Really enjoyed the game. Feels really hard, especially if you get a lot of low value cards as you don’t want them, but if you give them to the City, it’s likely one of you will win them, which you don’t want! Need to play this more.
After that, we got in a game of Dracula vs. Van Helsing. I played as VH.
How to play
Game consists of a board with five districts, each containing four villagers. There’s a deck of cards consisting of four suits numbered 1 - 8. One suit is randomly chosen as trump, and the other three are randomly assigned strengths. Players get five cards the start and place them in a card holder, each position matching one of the districts on the board.
Dracula’s objective is to turn all four villagers in any district into vampires. VH is trying to do 12 damage to Drac. Starting with Drac, players alternate taking turns, drawing a card from the deck and then choosing one card to discard. They can discard the just drawn card, or one from their holder, replacing it with the drawn card.
Each number has an effect when discarded. For instance, a 3 lets you reveal one of your opponent’s cards, while a 6 let’s you swap your card with your opponent’s card in the same district.
After at least six cards have been discarded, instead of taking their turn, a player can end the round. The other player gets one more turn, and then all cards are revealed.
Going district by district, the cards are compared. If one player has a trump, they win that district. If both have trump cards, the higher value wins. If neither are trump, the higher value wins. In case of a tie, the suit strength determines the winner. For every district Drac wins, a villager is flipped to a vampire. For VH, he does one damage to Drac. Then the cards are shuffled and a new round begins. If nobody has won at the end of the fifth round, it is considered a Dracula victory.
Managed to get Dracula to 1 HP going into the final round and lucked into a trump 8, which I was able to put into the first district. Killed him instantly when we compared cards.
This is a really fun game, and incredibly simple to play. Might get repetitive feeling after a lot of plays, but the mind games you get to play switching your cards around, changing the trump suit, and stealing their card just after they call end of round is really satisfying.
I also brought Cairn, but we didn’t have time for it.
Nice evening.
7 Likes
Vanuatu 2e - 3 players. It wasnt ideal. Definitely 5, maybe 4.
Azure - great game! Havent played Moytura yet but it’s my fave so far over Iliad and Ichor.
Tenby - this game is aggressively twee. Very cute. I like it. Like it more than, say, Forest Shuffle
Innovation - another intense match of Innovation
Break the Code - good deduction. Alas, it’s my first game so i have no idea what im doing
This is our first week post-UKGE so everyone was bringing their new toys
9 Likes
Speaking of new toys…
Gibberers got played last night
It actually works, which is a start. It was fun as well. The 3rd era cards are very dependent on what you draw - some things would be hard to describe in English, whereas others fit our new dictionary really well. It’s basically Concept, but with far fewer clues and you create the board yourself.
There are no guard rails and it could go spectacularly badly. I think it’s going to be very group and mood dependent. Last night 3 or 4 of us were really into it which kept it going. It’s not an RPG, but it’s going to be better if everyone leans into it
15 Likes
Games night last night, and we got two whole rounds into a 6-player game of Age of Steam before somebody went bankrupt and we abandoned the game 
This may have been a blessing in disguise because those two rounds took a looong time.
We also played King of Tokyo: Godzilla, which is the new version of King of Tokyo. As far as I can tell, it’s still silly dice chucking with nicer art.
11 Likes
Hopefully playing mine this weekend. Anything to watch out for? Did you try the casual game first, or straight in with expert?
4 Likes
Casual. Expert felt like it would be too long.
For specific advice, I think concept/ object would have been useful words. It’s so dependent on what the words are on the cards though.
Also, no one will have a clue what you’re doing and why!
2 Likes
How long did casual last?
1 Like
I’ve been playing the new (unreleased) edition of Birds of Prey - Air Combat in the Jet Age.
I think it may be the most complex game I have ever played.
Good though.
5 Likes
Around an hour.
The longest part is settling on the initial words and pronunciations
2 Likes
I’ve been playing Rajas of the Ganges on Yucata, trying to get through some backlog. The good news was, it’s fine. Nothing wrong with it, but I thought it was saleable vs other entries like Gugong, First Rat, Iki, etc. Still, it’s universally praised on Reddit and reviews, with higher ratings than any of those… I wanted to play a physical game before I did anything.
Got to do that last night, and fortunately? unfortunately? quite enjoyed it. The teach and complexity are low enough (there’s essentially four actions in the game, each with just a handful of specifics) that it’s easy to get on the table and my opponents were fully engaged rather than asking questions or making apologies. But it was also quite engaging for me.
Low dice are great for the river and the palace. High dice are great for the quarry. Karma can flip dice to their opposite side, so sometimes a 3-4 is the worst possible roll - can’t use or flip - but then the 3-4 spots on the mogul’s palace are quite tasty. There’s a nice sense of momentum as you access the combo rewards and grow your workforce.
It’s a bit reactive on what dice you have and what is available to build at the quarry, but also proactive insofar as there’s multiple ways up the mountain, so you’re always planning and rerouting the master plan. It pioneered the “two contraposed score tracks, try to cross your scoring markers” thing, so you’re free to pursue fame and money in whatever proportion works for you.
That leaves me with the situation that I have a few too many games in this slot, but no clear answer on what to sell. White Castle is gone but I’d like fo offload 1-2 more. If I played them all more I’m sure the answer would reveal itself organically. But… Iki, Gugong, Rajas, Harvest, First Rat, Honey Buzz, Rococo, Whistle Mountain, Istanbul, Everdell… no perfect overlap. Iki, Rococo, and Whistle Mountain are likely the most secure, while Gugong, Rajas, and Harvest are the least likely to survive to old age.
6 Likes
Played a game of first giants, a streamlined reimplementation of Elysium. It feels quite frictionless and inert. It might be better at more players.
2 Likes
Monster Eater - a board game that uses Dungeon Meshi as its IP. Pretty fun for a light card game
History of the World - still fun at 3 but 4 and 5 is better
Dixit
Codenames: Dixit - because why not?
Pick n Packers - this is a smashing Oink party game. Will keep
Flip 7 With a Vengeance
Medina 2e
Pinatas - reimplementation of Voodoo Prince. The production and art nails it. I even would like to rebuy this because the Pinatas art is so cute compare to Voodoo Prince’s.
Market Fresh - eh
Fresh Fish - amazing game! I wish I could just play Fresh Fish all day
Light Speed: Arena - a dad with his kids came along and we played Light Speed: Arena. It’s pretty fun and it fits well as a kids game (with their short attention spans).
8 Likes
Those are some very pretty games!
3 Likes
I’ve done Codenames Pictures with Mysterium cards…
The monochrome plastic looks to me as if everything except the blue is sinking into a sludge of its own rot.
6 Likes
Res Arcana, 3p, was fun.
Pax Renaissance, 3p. Beginning to understand the appeal, but still kind of put off by how dramatically swingy the cards are, and how few see play in any given game. Also struck by how weird the religion groupings are: Catholicism, Islam, and everything else lumped together as a monolithic group competing with the other two.
Galaxy Trucker, 4p, mad chaos, nice to revisit this one.
Altiplano, 3p. Felt like a zero interaction optimization puzzle, and fine for that, I guess, just not my thing.
5 Likes
Back home at my table, a very satisfying result 
I played on BGA while traveling but it’s not quite the same as my little game temple at home
7 Likes
Today I actually got to the end of a game of Birds of Prey v2. Five turns, four of them played all day yesterday, the fifth (with two missile shots) taking up this morning.
I am never going to buy this game but I had a great time playing and I’ll try to be back for more next year.
6 Likes
Took me a minute to understand what was going on, it looks like the bottom-most two tiles are just bending around the edge of a table and it was confusing my poor brain!
6 Likes
A two player of Tiny Towns (polyomino, very fun) and then a three player of Obsession. I hardly ever get to play this, and it’s so good. The national holiday round is craziness.
7 Likes