As we head towards Autumn, we still have lots of games playing days on the calandar, and September was no exception.
KICKSTARTER ARRIVALS
After months of small card games or nothing at all, September saw the first big box arrival in a while with the ANDROMEDA’S EDGE all-in pledge. I’d just missed DWELLINGS OF ELDERVALE when I first got into crowdfunding board games and I had always wanted to try it. So when Cardboard Alchemy launched a sci-fi re-implementation, I backed it immediately. It’s been a while since I’ve had so much to punch, sort, and pack, and it was a little bit of a chore. But with a handful of 2-player games now under our belt , I can say that it was definitely worth it. See below for our first experience.
NEW GAMES OF THE MONTH
We started the month with a family visit to Dice board game cafe in Portsmouth. This meant we needed 6-player games that were easy to teach and so we started with BANG! We’d played the dice version a couple of times together, so the switch to cards wasn’t too tough. And I’d say that I prefer this card game version as it’s a little less luck based with players being able to choose what to do with their hand of cards.
SHOOT FOR THE STARS is similar to WITS & WAGERS in that a statement is read out and you have to guess closest to the answer. The difference here is that you takes turns at guessing, so there’s a little escalation. You also have the chance to move a meeple around a cardboard shuttle to either get more points or get out to avoid losing points. The scoring rules make the teach a little fiddly, and I prefer WITS & WAGERS a little more just because you’re betting your points each time, but SHOOT FOR THE STARS is a good family game.
A week or so after the Dice visit, my wife and I headed to Brighton for a day out together. Part of this was spending a few hours in Dice Saloon, a games cafe I’d always wanted to try. QUORIDOR was our first game and it was one I’d seen often on social media (especially the recent Pac-Man version). It has players trying to get their piece across the board before their opponent(s) but you have a number of walls you can place to block and reroute the pieces. After just one play, I couldn’t see what the fuss was about. It became very clear close to the end that I had won based on the number of moves left, the walls already in place, and the position of our pieces. It was over quick but we both didn’t have the urge to go again. I’m glad that I’ve ticked it off, but it’s not one for us.
We’ve enjoyed KINGDOMINO since we first started gaming together, and I’ve always been curious as to what the follow up QUEENDOMINO brings to the table. When I spotted it on the Dice Saloon shelves, I figured we knew the original enough that it would be an easy teach. And it was. But more importantly, it’s a much better version of the game. I still think the original is great, and it’s still one of the best gateway games around. But this sequel brings just enough new stuff to the table (the buildings, the money, the Queen) to make things interesting and layered. If I ever had to choose between the two to play, I would pick QUEENDOMINO every time.
Sometimes you see a game with a gimmick and you just want to try it. POTION EXPLOSION is one such game with it’s cascading marbles in a plastic tray. You take a coloured marble out, and if the marbles either side match (very much like the classic video game Zuma) you get those two. This can allow for nice chains where you get a whole bunch of marbles. But why do you need marbles, I don’t hear anyone ask? Well, each player has concoctions in front of them that they are trying to complete and these need different coloured marbles to do so. It’s basically a race to complete a certain number of potions. While I like that completed potions give you abilities to use, I was unsure if we were playing the game wrong as their didn’t seem to be a negative for taking too many marbles over the limit you can hold between turns. Some games make you pass excess to the next player (like in NOCTALUCA), so not having this took away any danger. Other than that, it was a lot of fun.
PULSAR 2849 is a game that my wife brought not long after we met because she “likes space games”. But in all the years we’ve owned it, we’ve never played it. As we had a week off work together and had planned to spend that time mostly playing games all day long, I figured that it was as good a time as any. And, as always with big intimidating games that we put off, it really wasn’t that difficult to learn and ended up being a lot of fun. It’s drafting dice and carrying out actions as you move around a galaxy. We both took different approaches; my wife focused on the tech board while I explored more and developing pulsars. A really interesting game that played just fine at two, but I really want to try it at four now.
I can’t tell you why I wanted to buy ANNO 1800. I saw it on social media and then started to hunt it down. But because I wasn’t sure if I’d like it, I was trying to find it as cheap as possible. That only happened this year (thank you Chaos Cards) and, as with the previous new game, our week of gaming seemed like the best time to try it. While it just doesn’t seem like a game my brain can handle, I did well enough to take the victory, triggering the end game when it really benifited me most. Overall the game looks extremely confusing with all of its different tiles laid out, but it’s a lot simpler than it appears and has a nice flow to it. You’re basically using worker cubes to claim resources when trying to build new technologies and products. The end game trigger is interesting because you need to get rid of your cards, but to be better at things, you need to take more cards. I really enjoyed it and need to play it again soon.
Due to a cancelled D&D session, we ended up having some of our players over for a spooky themed games night on Firday 13th. Obviously LAST FRIDAY was first to the table. It’s a hidden movement game akin to JAWS or FURY OF DRACULA, but it’s reversed so that you’re not really trying to find the hidden player and actually want to avoid them. It seemed interesting as we worked on finding keys and getting to the cabins, but I think the first senario is too basic to be fun. We all made it and only lost one character right at the end. It was okay, but there are much better hidden movement games out there now (I’m looking at you, MIND MGMT).
I wasn’t sure what to expect with our next spooky themed game, but ELDER SIGN was my favourite of the night. And not only because I kept getting excited when I realised that all the characters were the same as those in ARKHAM HORROR LCG. Essentially working together and trying to roll dice to clear cards, ELDER SIGN has you going up against an Ancient One and trying to get more Elder Signs before they get a certain number of Doom tokens. There are character abilities and other ways to manipulate dice and it has variablitly with different enemies each time you play. I’d definitely play agian.
LAST NIGHT ON EARTH was one of the first Wil Wheaton Tabletop episodes I saw, and all I could remember from it was Will widing Felicia up with his voices and zombie characters. This play also felt like the game is dated (I believe it’s about 17 years old now) and it was quite a stale playthrough. I lost one character early on (stupid Jock) and then my Cheerleader just stayed in place and avenged her dead boyfriend by becoming an absolute zombie killing machine. Meanwhile my wife’s Nurse and Hobo got boxed in on the opposite corner of the board and eventually fell despite putting up a good fight. It’s another one of those older games that I was happy to tick of the list, but probably wouldn’t play again.
ANDROMEDA’S EDGE was the big new game of the month. Not only is the production some of the best in our collection, but it’s a great game to play, even at only two. It’s basically worker placement with a lot of bells and whistles attached. You place your ship, do the action, and usually gain something. But then comes the space battles (so simple to action that they are never intrusive) and the building of developments, and the climbing of tracks to make your end game points better, and the modules, and the asymetric player abilities, and, and, and . . . Okay, so yes, we definitly love it and are glad we backed it (my wife has already given it the title of her “best game ever”). It does have a few flaws (it’s a tablehog, there’s a lot of luck-of-the-draw with modules and planets, the insert is counter productive, the rule book could be better) but once you’re sat down and playing, these little things drift away. I’ve lost all four games so far (some by a fair few points) and I’ve still enjoyed every game.
After getting a Waterstones voucher for my birthday I made the sensible decision to go to this bookstore and instead buy board games. Obviously. There were two games on my radar that they had in stock (the Southampton store has an amazing board game section). CITIES was the first. It’s a short play length drafting game where you pick from goal cards, city tiles, features, and buildings. You also have overall goals to aim for as you build your 3×3 tiled city. And I love it. We’ve brought a whole bunch of big games lately and it’s nice to have a shorter game that is done in around 15-20mins. Really like it and highly recommend it.
The other game I bought at the same time as CITIES was 3 RING CIRCUS (I promise this post is not sponsored by Devir). It came out around the same time as THE WHITE CASTLE, and that’s the one I went for at the time, but 3 RING CIRCUS has still been calling me. I think it’s taken this long because I’m always cautiuous around games with area control mechanics, mainly because it’s mostly just the two of us and this doesn’t tend to work great. But 3 RING CIRCUS does enough other stuff that the area control isn’t the main thrust of the game and we’ve enjoyed our plays so far. It does however feel like its a game that’s much better at three and four, so it might not get played as much as others in the collection, but it’s definitely a keeper.
ORCHARD is one of my favourite solo games (60 plays in two years) and I’ve grabbed each sequel when it’s hit Kickstarter. But as with GROVE before it, I find FORAGE a little too fidly and ultimately, somewhat uneccessary. It’s still nice to own the trilogy, and if I ever want to mix things up when ORCHARD gets stale, I now have options. But the beauty of ORCHARD is just how relaxing it is. GROVE and FORAGE retain the same overlaying card mechanicare but are just that extra bit fiddly.
A cancelled guys day out at Thirsty Meeples in Oxford saw us pivot to having another games meet up with family to save the day. We’d recently bought WANDERING TOWERS as a present for my brother-in-law and we were all eager to try it out. And what a fun game it is. At first we didn’t quite ‘get it’ and thought it was a little simple as you moved the towers and wizards closer to Ravenskeep. But the moment the first wizard went in and Ravenskeep moved, we all let our a collective “oooooh” and it all clicked. Then it was every wizard for themselves as we screwed each oher in the ways our family regularly does. If you get a chance to try this game, don’t hesitate. It’s a lot of fun.
I grabbed a copy of SABOTEUR to take to the 24 Board Game Marathon this year but never got it played. Our family meet ups regulary need games that play up to seven, so I thought it would be good to take a long. We do enjoy games that have players turning on each other so SABOTEUR fit right in as we began to deduce who was working against the team. I specifically like two things about this game. First is that the draft means you only know there is one Saboteur guarenteed. So once one is discovered, it actually gets tenser. The second is that, even when a Saboteur is revealed, it doesn’t put them out of the game and they can still do a lot of damage.
RANSOM NOTES is cut from the same cloth as CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY, and for that reason, it didn’t stand much of a chance against me. As with ‘Cards‘, it can have some highlights depending on the group, it’s all luck of the draw (several of us had rounds where we just couldn’t use anything we had), and the results are based on judging. Not a game for me.
We love CHAMPIONS OF MIDGARD and I’ve always been keen to at least try it’s sequel, REAVERS OF MIDGARD. But surpisingly it’s not a game that comes up often at meetups for us to see if we’d like it. So, instead, I just pulled the trigger and grabbed a copy when we visited Dice at the beginning of the month. It’s more worker placement viking mayhem mixed with dice rolling. I will say that we messed up a rule that means our next game will definitely score higher, but even with this issue, we still both enjoyed it. The board makes it look a lot busier than it is. Hopefully playing again this week to iron out those rule kinks.
HIGHLIGHTS
- A family board game afternoon at Dice, Portsmouth
- Finally visting Dice Saloon in Brighton
- ANDROMEDA’S EDGE all-in pledge arriving
- An impromtu board game day with family
- Recieving my missing FORAGE card in the post
Always Play Blue 