Wow. I can’t believe half the year has passed by already.
We’ve had a busy month, board gaming wise. UKGE right at the start of June (see here). We’ve made a major effort in our 10×10. And We also got through some new games too.
10×10
Still determined not to fail our 10×10 challenge like we did last year, my girlfriend has been on a charge when it comes to what we’re playing. We did realise the other day that there are some great games in our collection that we want to get back to, only having played once (like CASTLES OF BURGANDY and AGRICOLA), but we agreed that, with mere weeks to go, we’ll have the back half of 2022 to dive into those if we just sprint for the finish now.
So, with great celebration, and an evening that saw the last three games of the challenge played back-to-back . . . we have completed out 10×10 challange for this year!
We definitely picked some better games this year, ones that were known quantities and that we’re always eager to play. And my girlfriend’s focused determiniation kept us on track.
Now we just have 11 more plays on our 52×1 challenge (a new game a week, to assist keeping our Shelf Of Shame down). And then it’s the freedom of playing anything from our collection.
It’s this ‘freedom’ thought that has made us realise how the 10×10 challenge can perhaps be a little resticting, and we’ve already talked about not doing one for next year. And while some of these 10 games will continue to get played this year (can’t wait to try 7 WONDERS DUEL and PALADINS OF THE WEST KINGDOM with their expansions), other games may revert back to being played once every couple of months.
NEW GAMES OF THE MONTH
Returning from UKGE with eight new games had me wanting to keep as many as possible off of our Shelf Of Shame.
The simplest of our new games to learn was HASHI. It’s a Flip ‘n’ Write game that has you placing bridges between islands based on the limiting number and bridge count revealed each time you flip a card. It looks simple and was easy to teach, but once you get playing it, it begins to fry your brain. I realised early on that chucking a number on an island without thinking is a recipe for disaster towards the end. You completely limit yourself and will be forced to skip turns. I later looked into the game more and found it’s based on a Japanese puzzle, akin to SODUKU, so no wonder it was so crunchy.
It wasn’t long before we got another of our UKGE purchases to the table. After the SU&SD review of LONG SHOT: THE DICE GAME went up, its been a tough game to track the game down. Somehow my girlfriend found a copy, and I enthusiastically encouraged her to add it to our collection. It’s a fun game of betting on horses, wishing for certain ones to reach the line based on the bets you’ve made, and all the while using abilities to manipulate the horses, both positivly and negativly. It’s a fun game, even at it’s lowest player count of 2, and we’re looking forward to playing at higher. I think it’s a simple enough party Roll ‘n’ Write to be able to introduce to our non-gamer gamer friends too.
Next up was AZUL: QUEENS GARDEN. We love the original AZUL, and the sequel, AZUL: STAINED GLASS OF SINTRA is one of our favourite games. But we’d not managed to play the third and fourth games in the series. We got lucky at UKGE and played AZUL: SUMMER PAVILION one evening after stumbling across it in the games library. But with no sign of AZUL: QUEENS GARDEN to borrow or purchase, I grabbed it online the day we got back, and we got it to the table as soon as it turned up. It feels similar to Summer Pavilion, with the pieces cost to place and the non-liniar layout. We really enjoyed it, but it’s another of the games we need to get back to soon once our 10×10 is done.
My girlfriend’s final Kickstarter game arrived this month. She only ever backed seven, giving up after bad experiences with two of them. MONSTERS ON BOARD falls into her love of beautiful components (ironically, the two that failed to arrive were the most boring looking ones of her selection). With busy looking boards, colourful cute miniatures, and a whole bunch of busy looking dice, MONSTERS ON BOARD is a visual treat once its all set up. It was an easy teach and a good first play. It has some flaws (a couple of mechanics like the score track and Spider Jack Dice were woefully underestimated), and we were quick to realise that you probably won’t get many monsters to the end of the street in only six rounds. But overall, it’s a fun game with some nice table presence.
We go back to the UKGE purchases now with recent reskin release GET ON BOARD: NEW YORK & LONDON. This is a Flip ‘n’ Write without the writing. Instead of marking your route on each individual players sheet/board, you are instead laying out little wooden blocks on a shared city map. The game comes with two maps that are chosen based on player count, and sharing a space with other players adds interaction as you start tripping over each others routes and paying a cost to do so. It played quicker than I expected, with only 12 turns, and it became obvious that you can’t waste turns trying a bit of everything. I think you need to decide your tactic on your first turn and go for it, or you’ll score pretty low like I did (I lost the first game 19-6 thanks to the amount of negative points my lack of a plan caused me to gather). But good fun. Look forward to trying again.
1vs1 CHALLENGE 2022
This is not going well at all. I seem to be having a return to my 2020 form. And to make matters worse, I am losing the few games I’m normally really strong at (lost three games of STAR REALMS in a row, a game that my girlfriend had only ever beaten me at once before!).
Add to this the 10×10 games that I can’t avoid but am really really bad at (CUBITOS, LOST RUINS OF ARNAK, PALADINS OF THE WEST KINGDOM, and WINGSPAN), and I’m tumbling down the rabbit hole of forgetting what a win feels like.
I feel like the challenge is already over for this year, and now it’s all about damage control. Either that, or I convince my girlfriend to play 150 straight games of KAHUNA. Maybe we’ll call that plan B.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Going to our second UKGE.
- Finally winning a game of SPLENDOR against my work gaming group.
- Running #30DaysOfDice on Instagram.
- A work colleague defacing a copy of GUESS WHO with photos of everyone at the company.
- Completing our 10×10 for this year.
Always Play Blue 