It’s the last month of the year and all the game playing of 2024 has been done.
I plan to have a review of the year up here in about a week, but for now let’s look back over the final month, the festive month, that was December.
KICKSTARTER ARRIVALS
This one went down to the wire. Just a handful of days before the end of the month (and the end of the year!), TINY EPIC CTHULHU was dropped off on my doorstep on a late, wet, Saturday evening. I’ve been backing the Tiny Epic games since I got into Crowdfunding. I realise at this point that it’s something more akin to habbit than actually supporting specific games. The series has hits and misses, and the last two haven’t even made it to the table yet. I opened up Cthulhu to find that Gamelyn Games are continuing to stuff too much into their boxes. A lot of backers are asking them to increase their box size going forward, but I feel they should return to the symplicity of the early games like TINY EPIC GALAXIES and TINY EPIC KINGDOMS. They also need to stop their recent trend of releasing a seperate expansion box up front (unless they make this box the same as the base so that components can be stored across the two?).
NEW GAMES OF THE MONTH
RESIST! – As I’ve gotten more into solo gaming over the last couple of years, this one has been on my radar. While scanning through BGA earlier in the month I saw it was on there and figured it would be a good time to try it. And I’m glad I did because it wasn’t a great experience and I don’t think it’s a game for me. True, the Beta on BGA is a little buggy, but the overall feel of the game is one that I didn’t enjoy. That’s not to say it’s a bad game, only that it doesn’t belong in my Solo game collection.
WAVELENGTH – I’ve been wanting to try this party game since I saw an actualplay on YouTube and a family meetup at our FLGS finally offered the oppourttunity. I really like it and it works great as a fun, relaxing, family game that everyone can get stuck into. Unfortunately we were terrible at it and my wife’s team beat us 10-1. Still a fun experience.
JINJA – I purchased this game for my wife back in late 2021. Yet it’s not been sat on our Shelf Of Shame all that time. Instead, it was in a hiding place that I then forget about for 3 years. The irony is that, due to us easing of on gifts this year, I still managed to give her a birthday present because technically I didn’t make any purchase this year. Clever boy. But what of the game itself? Well, it’s a simple Worker Placement game, definitely a gateway game, where you’re actions are mostly about gathering resourses so as to build Shrines. We love the lightness of it and the Japonese theme is always good for us. It’s a winner.
BUMFUZZLE – This game looked like it had potential to disappoint at our family Christmas gathering, but it ended up being a surprise hit. Similar to games like ANOMIA or TACO CAT GOAT CHEESE PIZZA, it’s placing cards in the centre of the table and then players reacting to them first. It uses colours and words to mess with your mind and it had us in stitches.
HIGHLIGHTS
- My first ANDROMEDA’S EDGE win!!!
- My second ANROMEDA’S EDGE win!!!
- Two days of Christmas gaming
- Another published Top 50 list
- Purchasing our tickets for UKGE 2025
Always Play Blue 