Spring is nearly here folks, so lets look back over February.
KICKSTARTER ARRIVALS
While the Kickstarter arrival drought continues, my oldest outstanding campaign (backed in Sept 2021) finally arrived. And it was a big one! AGEMONIA was a campaign that I followed with a lot of excitment in the months leading up to its launch and I ended up going all in. The box that turned up on my doorstep was huge and very heavy. Upon opening it, I removed all of the ‘all in extras’ (more dice, coins, chips, miniatures) and then found that the base game was within another big box. I have to say that Spiral Galaxy did a fantastic job with packaging. I dont think my copy could have been safer. But what of the game itself? Well, see below.
NEW GAMES OF THE MONTH
A lot of board gamers have those purchases that they are eager to add to the collection but then don’t get around to playing them for 2+ years. GODZILLA: TOKYO CLASH was one of those for me, so I used this years 20×5 Challenge to make it happen. And it’s pretty good after our first play. A little fidly to get to grips with the mechanics at first (especially regarding what you can and can’t get energy from and the ways you do it). Is it the greatest game ever? No. Will it stay in my collection after we’ve ticked it off the 20×5 Challenge? Maybe. It’s Godzilla, after all, and the production and theme appeal to me. I guess only time will tell.
AGEMONIA is a big game. Really, really big. After following it’s build up to Kickstarter launch back in 2021, I knew I was going to go all in on it. Not only did it look like something that two GLOOMHAVEN fans like us would enjoy, it also looked different enough to give us an experiance that wasn’t a carbon copy. When it turned up, it frightened me. The box contained all the extras and then another box for the main game. It took a whole afternoon to unpack, punch, sort, and get ready. But a few days later we had it all set up and ready to go and, while it was only the two ‘training’ missions that I’ve seen played several times, the experiance itself was brilliant. From the constant feeding of story cards to the ease of set up, it was a fun time playing. It’s definitely different to GLOOMHAVEN. That game is more about combat with some light story sprinkled on top. AGEMONIA is more like running a D&D session without the DM, and in a fasinating and deep world. On top of that, my extra miniatures that I recieved came with the wash on them which I did not pay for. So that was a nice little bonus.
KUTNA HORA was a game I stumbled across on YouTube and within five minutes I knew I wanted it. After a couple of plays during February I am so glad I made the gamble on the purchase, especially in this era of us trying to claw back room on our shelves. KUTNA HORA is quite clever with its constatantly changing markets and it’s card based action selection mechanic. And the production is beautiful. Duel layerd boards, metalic golds and silvers across all the boards and tiles, and some really nice re-wood tokens for each player. We’re both really looking forward to playing this more.
MICRO CITY (SECOND EDITION) was a Kickstarter I backed in my early days of crowd funding when I went in on a lot of small box games. And this is definitaly a small one. But for some reason I hadn’t gotten round to it until now and after a first play (which may end up being my only play) it was quite dissapointing. The small box is packed with variable set up content as well as extra modular stuff. But the game itself is quite boring, especially for something that is prodominently a solo game (I might try the 2-player competative mode). On easy you have 10 rounds to move your meeple around the four card city and gather resourses to build. But a lot of the more powerful actions are stuck behind specfic dice values and if you roll bad and don’t have the coin to adjust it, you’ll just get slowed down. Perhaps there is a good game to find if I was to dig deeper, but if I had to choose between playing MICRO CITY and playing other games on our shelf, it probably won’t get a look in.
SCOUT is a small box card game that I saw a lot of positivity around when it was released a couple of years ago. But it looked like a game that played best at higher counts, so I didn’t pick it up. A few weeks ago I was looking for a purchase to cheer me up and it called to me from the shelf. And it was a good decision. We played a 5-player game last weekend and, once everyone grasped the concept, the game gained a great flow, and we were all really enjoying the ups and downs of end round scoring. I did fantastic in round one, but slipped to average for the rest of the game. And when another player had a perfect five card run that ended the round earlier than we expected, we all looked wide-eyed at the amount of cards we were all still holding. So, sure, it might not get to the table often with the two of us, but it will be one I always take to friends, family, and group meetups.
THE GREAT CULLING
After beginning the difficult yet fullfilling task of reducing our board game collection last year, we’ve gained momentum in the first couple of months of 2024 as I turned things up a level and went a little harsher than before.
I pulled games off the shelf that I never thought I’d ever get rid of and also admited to myself that some Kickstarters we’ve played once were just a let down.
So gone are the three Century Golem games. In three years we’ve played CENTURY GOLEM: EASTERN MOUNTAINS and CENTURY GOLEM: AN ENDLESS WORLD once each. And as for CENTURY GOLEM, well I’ve not enjoyed that one for a while. I was always holding onto the second and third games to give them another chance, while the first game only hung around because I couldn’t split them up. But now that they’re gone I don’t miss them.
HARRY POTTER: HOGWARTS BATTLE is a game that we thoroughly enjoyed playing through, but haven’t felt the urge to go back to since finishing Year 7. Like AEON’S END LEGACY, you can play it once you’ve completely opened up all the unlockables, but without the potential rewards after each game, it doesn’t have the same zing. It’s also not a perfect Deck Builder, and if I want to play that genre, we’ve got much better in our collection.
After that I began to look at games that don’t necessarily play well at just two. This was the toughest selection because it is less about the lack of enjoyment and more the lack of potential. Being okay at two won’t get it to the table, but I’ve held onto them in the hope of playing at those better higher counts. Because group play isn’t too common, getting games of four is rare enough that we can’t play all of them and it wouldn’t be more than once or twice. So TINY TOWNS is out as it’s too breezy at two. TERROR BELOW is gone because the admin at two isn’t worth it (but it is really good at four). HIDDEN LEADERS is gone because ROYAL VISIT is the better 2-player game.
I also shocked myself by getting ride of FORMULA D and about four extra tracks. It wasn’t until I realised two things; I only seem to play it at Games Cafes, and HEAT is better.
And finally we have Kickstarters that didn’t grab us after the first play and have since gathered dust. These include:
- DREADFUL MEADOWS – found the scoring fiddly and the gameplay repetative if you want to optimise your character power.
- ISLAND SIEGE – great production but a little repetative.
- LIZARD WIZARD – we prefer RACCOON TYCOON as it takes up less room on the table.
- MARVEL DICE THRONE – I sang it’s praises, but got bored of it quite quickley and found that I didn’t feel like the cool heroes and villains I was playing. I actually prefer vanilla YAHTZEE.
- MONSTERS ON BOARD – over produced and fiddly.
- POWER PLANTS – recalling all the different Plant abilities bogs this one down.
- RIFTFORCE – okay but prefer SCHOTTEN TOTTEN which it’s similar to.
- TRIAL BY TROLLEY – Does need higher player count and it turned out to not be as much fun as the playthrough content from the campaign made it out to be. Perhaps, like CARDS AGAINST HUMMANITY, it really does depend on the group.
- TREKKING THE WORLD – really nice production and great gateway game, but too many other things I’d rather play.
There are still more to move on, as well as a fair few Crowdfunding games still to arrive. But space has been made. While it was a task full of tough choices as well as a little stress (from back and forth messaging, boxing up games, and posting them), the sight of seeing the shelves, as well as having a visual on more games due to needing less front facing boxes, has made it worth while.
And a bonus side effect is that I’m more careful on what I purchase because I see the games whole lifespan and think about a) do I already own something better, b) is it good, or does coverage of the game just make it look good, and c) what would my wife say when she came home from work to find another purchase?
HIGHLIGHTS
- The arrival of AGEMONIA
- Making more space by selling and donating games
- My first win of UNDER FALLING SKIES
- Getting to grips with AGRICOLA
- Having my closest loss of DUNGEON BALL (only 2 pts in it)
Always Play Blue 