Recap Monday week 40 - what did you play last week?
Any suggestions, warnings or memorable sessions?
For us the dust is settling after moving and yesterday we played some good old Dominion 2ed with Intrigue 2ed. I use Randominion to create the market of cards and simply wanted that at least 50% of the cards are from intrigue. We hd a very close first game with steward (chapel light) and it came down to a single point difference. The other game was a slaughter with Replace, Mill and Nobles all in the game so curses were flying left and right. We exhausted all curses quickly
We played Cartographers this week as we babbled on for a bit too long without any thought as to what we'd play.
We played it previously as a group about 2 years ago, so it was nice to revisit it finally. A simple flip-and-write game with some element of interfering with other players (namely the player to your left). A nice fun puzzle to share with the other players!
Watch out the monster cards have different directions. So not only interaction to one side.
Ooo I didn't know this! One of the few times I wasn't being a rules goblin, so I gave myself over fully to the owner! We only had one Goblin card come up anyway, so nothing too drastic.
Thank you!
Funny! Wife and I got this game out for a short session too, I’ve owned it for over a year and never played our copy, only played a friends at game nights. Finally got some colored pencils for proper map doodling! She kicked my butt, I learned not to sleep on those coins!
The coins are a worthwhile investment early on, but we managed to get some good objectives that means plenty of points all around!
Yeah I definitely failed on the objectives and didn’t realize it circles back around to A again on the last season, would’ve been good to set up for that!
Finally got Voidfall and played my first game with 2 others. It was one of the best gaming sessions I’ve had in a long time! So many great decisions to make in that game and very satisfying to play. Once you get the icons familiarized it becomes very breezy. What an amazing game and amazing production.
Played "That Time You Killed Me" for the first time.
I was in search of a good time travel game and settled on this. I've only played the first scenario so far, I'll post again once I've finished the other three scenarios. So far, it's been a little lacking in the time travel department and feels like I'm playing chess/checkers on three different boards. It's still a good game, just not enough time traveling.
Does anyone have other recommendations for a game that uses enough time travel to make Nolan blush?
Temporum has non-stop time travel and alternate history.
On the plus side is; Designer: Donald X. Vaccarino
I have not played it though, and it sounds like it may not hit the sweet spot that Dominion did. Chock full of time travel though!
Interesting to hear. When I played it, I wished the publisher was less reluctant to use words, just combining symbols with a single word would have cleared up the overview by so much. My group(4p) played the tutorial for 3 hours after watching 1h of instruction video and decided we are not going to play this regularly enough to ever get over the required training barrier. Seems you guys are more fit, and it really looks beautiful. Enjoy!
I actually adore the use of symbols because it becomes language agnostic and you don’t have to learn all the game rules, just follow the icons and you’re good. Once you play it one time and internalize symbology it’s really smooth, I suggest trying a full game that’s a low complexity scenario so you get to explore everything and it will click better
A couple of plays of Red Cathedral. We tried the advanced side of the boards for the first time. Definitely the way to go. Minimal extra rules and adds some interesting decisions. I lost both games, I think I tend to stay too committed to early decisions that are not working out instead of adjusting my strategy. Trying to decide if I want the expansion for this one. Not sure if the game needs it and it doesn't fit into the base box.
We tried the new Valley expansion for Renature. It's just a new 2-sided board with a few mushroom tokens but it shakes up the game dramatically! The mushroom tokens let you change a green area into brown and hence join brown areas together which are then considered the same area for scoring purposes. I love how this lets you raise the stakes and manipulate the board state. The new board is double-sided and the two sides are significantly different too. Gotta be one of the most impactful and yet simple expansions out there, almost like a v2.0. I am losing at this one too but loving every minute of it :)
Right now I have Nautilion on the table. Simple solo (or 2p coop) fun. I am fairly new to it, still have to try all the included expansions.
Played our 3rd game of Ark Nova, this time it took us "only" 3.5h with 2 players, omg.
Got difficult winning condition cards and starting hand. After the first 2 games had been pretty clear in terms of what to do, I struggled to find my way here. Lost with -7 to 26 or so.
Not sure if I would want to buy it (had it rented from the library), seems too luck based in terms of cards.
This is a common complaint from most new players. It can be tough to work out the right synergies with the cards you’re dealt but it can be done. I’ve got almost 50 games in now and I can always find something to do with the cards I get. And don’t sleep on upgrading your action cards that let you play from the reputation row. Those are game changers.
Sorry to hear that this is your experience with Ark Nova. I think its very little luck based but strategy heavy and finding ways to get through a lot of cards to find what you need can be crucial. I personally think its the best two player game out there
To be fair I did some stupid mistakes, so not blaming the game here. Finding optimal strategy for various situations is usually something I enjoy
I also have to correct myself, I meant to say I do not think its too much luck-based. Sure, sometimes everything can go wrong but usually there are many avenues to claw your way back in. I even had games were everything aligned, I got all the cards I needed and could aim to get the max conservation points on the green cards, in the end I lost because I did not have enough power-5 actions to play it all. So important lessons were learned :)
A full day of gaming on the weekend in this order:
Scout ( a circus employee scouting for new talent in your show. Cardgame, possible #1 Oink games release! )
Village Pillage (Cardgame, turbo'fied rock/paper/scissors where you play one card to the players left and right of you)
Judge Dredd: Wildlands (Skirmish with minis, line-of-sight and cover usage makes for some great close play. Theme is spot on 2000AD, pure gold)
Inis + Seasons expansion (dudes on a map 'The Game' Game play ebbs and flows in a subtle way. Celtic theme is 10/10)
The Fuzzies (fuzzy ball Jenga. Better than it sounds. Light fluffy filler)
Heat: Pedal to the Metal ( 1930s F1. May not be my thing, or I didn't 'get it'? Had more car fun when I played Downforce
Cyclades (1st game for 4 of us. This is Epic, in theme and gameplay. The leapfrog bidding gets hilarious. A+)
Kingdomino (create a 5x5 kingdom from various terrain dominos. Clean, bright and fun.)
It was similar for me with Heat, I did not enjoy it that much. Sure, interesting concept but in the end, I had little fun playing it.
Scout is the best little game with the worse theme ever, basically non existent theme but it doesn’t need it. I wish it had more theme but we love it anyway and play it a lot. I had a similar experience with Heat: I just didn’t find it that interesting. I think the sheer amount of hype for it kind of set my expectations too high, also it’s very lightweight and I didn’t really find myself with any interesting decisions the whole game.
I'm conscious that the theme never gets visited throughout the whole gameplay in Scout, so I do a spiel during the teach, "that we are each scouts for different circus companies trying to steal performers from other circuses to put on the best show in town." Then show the performer names and compare a low card to a high, "a human cannonball is worth more than a clown show because it draws more people in" etc.
Was pure numbers the first time I played.
Been playing a lot of Lorcana with the wife. It's been a lot of fun. Other than that I've been following the Spiel Essen conference to see if any other games are worth getting. So now I'm down a bit of a rabbit hole of board games I want lol.
Probably gonna pick up Root, Feed the Kraken, and probably Radlands soon. I have some other board games that I have yet to play that I also want to try out. Namely, Apollo and Betrayal at the House on the Hill.
After the Spiel, is before the Spiel.
I played my newly purchased Arborea. Kickstarter funded. First game with 4 players. All new to the game. After some rule hiccups we figured out all the little rules quickly. Everyone had fun and liked it. Nice Artwork , good quality, apart from the missing cube and the misprinted inlays.
Hollywood: nice social detuction game. Nice Artwork. Again a with Dutrait art. I have to admit, that his art work pops up everywhere right now.
Wizard: I won. Still believe that the only acceptable way to play this game is with mismatched tricks and first card to the forehead.
Next week I hope I have played all new games