2024 Week 37 to Week 40 – Tabletop Game Play Session Reports #11

This article is the compilation of my play session reports #11. All games were played during Week 37 to Week 40 of 2024 from 8 September 2024 to 5 October 2024.

Usually, I do short reports per week on my BGG blog. or for the Daily Session here. For pictures of each play session, check out my TikTok account in slideshow form. Maybe I’ll add more social media accounts to share in the future and the best way to find out is to check my LinkTree account.

By writing the session reports, it helps me to write the review for the game later. So, it is part of the review process even though I may not even write the review.

Sometimes, I also write a longer session report for one game where I describe what happened turn by turn with more pictures. There are links at the bottom of each entry to BGG post of that long report.

Some new games get more play until it reaches the target minimum of play. They might appear in multiple months. I also revisit some older ones from time to time. These are just games in my collection.

Click or tab on any sections from the table of contents to jump right to that part. Use the red arrow button on the bottom right corner of the screen to head back to the top.

List of Games

Here are the links to the Weekly Session Reports for shorter version: Week 37, Week 38, Week 39, Week 40.

Compilation of links to reports of individual games can be found in this article. Those are just for newer games and my initial impression for each. This is the list for all games with a Full Review.

Here are links to previous entries.
#1. November to December 2023
#2. 2024 Week 1 to Week 4 (January)
#3 2024 Week 5 to Week 8 (February)
#4 2024 Week 9 to Week 12 (March)
#5 2024 Week 13 to Week 16 (April)
#6 2024 Week 17 to Week 20 (May)
#7 2024 Week 21 to Week 24 (June)
#8 2024 Week 25 to Week 28 (June – July)
#9 2024 Week 29 to Week 32 (July – August)
#10 2024 Week 33 to Week 36 (August  – September)

Daily articles for individual game are posted on my Patreon for those who feel the need to read right away.

Chocobo’s Dungeon: The Board Game

More pictures of this Chocobo’s Dungeon: The Board Game session on TikTok
Part 1 and Part 2 or on Instagram.

Help Chocobo crawl through the dungeon and beat the final boss in Chocobo’s Dungeon: The Board Game.

This was a new game, released in 2024. I just got my first play, 2-handed probably with some incorrect rule. As the title suggests, it is a dungeon crawler with Chocobo character from the Final Fantasy video game series.

The box also has logo that says this is the 4th game in the Chocobo Analog Game Series. I heard about the Crystal Hunt and the Party Up! which didn’t get good rating but not sure about the 3rd one. At the time of this writing, this 4th one already higher on BGG overall ranking than those 2.

I think I played the Chocobo’s Dungeon the video game but I don’t remember much. You play and control Chocobo, going through several floors of a dungeon. Each floor will have randomized elements but usually they will always have same elements. It’s just different position of starting point and stairs to proceed and where you can find things.

I also remember 2 things that this board game doesn’t have. In the video game, you can have friends to help you beat monsters and also taking damage for you. Friends like the Golem or the White Mage.

The Chocobo can also equip a weapon but the weapon has durability limit. The more you use the weapon it will eventually break down. Other than those I don’t remember much.

Well, that’s the video game. So, what about this board game version?

The Chocobo’s Dungeon: The Board Game is a solo or cooperative game. You are going to move Chocobo, moving its very thick meeple going through a number of spaces from the starting position to find the stairs. That is for one floor and you do that for 3 floors where the deeper you go the more difficult the challenge you have to deal with. Then on the 4th floor you will fight the final boss.

During the game, you have to collect foods and spell books, maintaining Chocobo’s health and also manage the supply of your hand of cards. On the first 3 floors, there is a timer but not restricted, tracked using the Reaper Meeple on their Reaper track.

You need to go to the next floor before the Reaper reaches the end of that track, like 12 spaces or lose the game instantly. During the boss, fight, the timer element is removed but the Reaper will determine how much damage you get at the end of each round. You also don’t want the reaper to be next to Chocobo or the Reaper will instantly kill Chocobo.

As you can see from the Dungeon board, Chocobo will have to move through a different kind of spaces. Some of them are just empty but some others can move the Reaper farther, damage Chocobo or provide some of the resources. You have to move the exact space and only where Chocobo stops you trigger the action of that space.

What about the regular enemy? Each round, the board will tell you to draw up to 2 cards from either Basic Monster Deck or Elite Monster Deck. Chocobo will do actions first and one of the actions are about attacking, either one of these Monsters or, in the Boss Fight, the Boss.

Each Monster will have different health, between 2 to 6 while the Bosses are either 20 or 25. The enemies that you didn’t defeat will then deal damage to Chocobo, between 1 or 2 damage per enemy. Chocobo has maximum of 15 health and of course, if you reach 0, you lose.

By defeating each enemy, you will get a bonus, either healing, food or Spell book. You can let them stay and keep running but then the undefeated enemy stays while the next round will still add 2 more.

You can have up to 3 Spell Books at a time. The game comes with only 15 spells can be about healing, extra movement, casting Fire or Lightning. From what I understand, you either use them once or discard and they are out of the game.

I already mentioned that you will be collecting food. Food is not to heal but a way to generate cards. You have to gather food first and then using the EAT ACTION, you can draw more cards. It’s like if you play Regicide where you need to play Heart card first when the deck is empty then you play the diamond to draw.

That’s the general idea of the game. So, how does the game work?

The main system is the ACTION DIAL. As shown by the picture, the dial will have 7 sections, numbered from 1 to 5 and the other 2 as unavailable. Each section will show one of up to 2 actions you have to resolve from section number 1 to 5 in that order. The Actions are MOVE (BLUE), EAT (GREEN), ATTACK (RED), PURPLE (REAPER).

So, you know in all of the 5 actions, including the Reaper you do in a round and in that specific order. At the end of the round, you spin the dial one space and it will create a new set of 5 actions. Maybe you can even try to predict your potential actions in the next few rounds.

One of them will have the Reaper moves twice. Another time will have Chocobo do 3 attacks which can end the game during the Boss Fight.

Those are all just the Action types. The Chocobo cards in your hand determine the value of how powerful each action is. But there is a restriction of how you can play them.

As you can see that each Chocobo card will have a number and a value, indicated by the Chocobo’s footprint below the number. The value is between 1 to 5. So for Move action, move between 1 to 5 spaces, attack between 1 to 5 damage, eat means spend food and draw that many cards and Reaper moves that number of spaces.

The number is the order of cards. This is a similar system to a different game, THE LOST EXPEDITION from Osprey. Players will play between a card without telling the other the exact number. Once revealed, all cards will be rearranged in ascending order.

There are 5 spaces each round and every player plays 1 or 2, depending on player count plus bonus drawn from the deck to make up to 5. The bonus is drawn first in multiplayer game. A bit different in solo. In solo you play 1 card first, then draw 2 and then play 2 cards.

With that Action Dial system, of course you want the Reaper action, maybe in 3rd space to get card with a value of 1. But the cards with a value of 1 can be number 7, 37, 75 or 94 which is not always available in any player’s hand. If you can’t then, maybe giving value of 2 is not that bad.

This actually happened during my play. The Reaper action was at space 1 and the drawn bonus was card number 6 with a value of 4. I had no cards lower so it forced me to reach the stair sooner.

The next action to prioritize is probably the Move. Especially the deeper you go, you really want to avoid getting damage or move the Reaper by playing the exact value. Sometimes, you just cannot avoid it.

For the Attack action, you can only target one enemy per action. Ideally, the value is enough to kill the enemy with just single attack. Or choose the weaker enemy so only one less enemy deals damage at the end.

EAT FOOD action is tricky but essential. You want to have a lot of cards to have more options. But you need to have the food first. In Multiplayer, you don’t have hand size limit but you can only draw up to 5 that you need to spread them out to every player. This is different with Solo mode where you can only have 12 but not a hard limit.

So, that’s all about this game. It is very simple to play, completely language independent.

A couple of my thoughts after my first game.

I actually played 2-handed instead of using the solo mode. Mike from One Stop Co-Op Shop says that the game is hard which I assume he talks about the solo mode. Somehow, the solo mode doesn’t have EASY difficulty.

So, I thought, maybe I should learn first with the multiplayer variant. Even though I ended up mixing the cards between the 2 hands. And with multiplayer mode, I am not supposed to know the exact number. If I understand correctly, you can still point out that you can play for this exact action space with this exact value even if you don’t tell the number.

Well, I won, in Easy difficulty but not an easy win. I probably cheated even by drawing easier Monster during the boss.

Surprisingly, this game can be crunchy. I got the almost similar feeling as when you play something like Under Falling Skies. Especially during the boss Fight where your Chocobo movement can always trigger Reaper movement and you want to avoid both of them ended on adjacent spaces.

It’s like instead of assigning dice with value between 1 to 6, you assign cards with value between 1 to 5. In Under Falling Skies sometimes you need to fill size 2 room with 2 dice. When you cannot reach the total value you want then you need to rethink how to use those 2 dice which can affect the other 3 dice.

Similarly in this one, you probably want to play specific value for specific action. Since the card has specific order number then it may affect the placement of other cards. Then maybe you try to use the other cards with different number and rethink about playing the other cards.

That part is fun. However, this is probably because I played 2-handed knowing about all cards from both hands. Maybe with solo mode it is different experience. I think some people already mention that the game is a bit too random, mainly from the cards.

So, in solo, you have to play 1 then draw 2. Hopefully, you have in your hand cards that can still manipulate the placement of those first 3. Don’t forget that in addition to that, you still need to make time to gain food and use the action to draw, always keep at 12 cards.

At first, I thought maybe you should hold some cards. Something like keep cards with the lowest and highest number just to make sure you can still move cards in the middle. Well, maybe possible at least in multiplayer mode with no hand limit. However, it feels like you always struggling with lack of cards. I think I had one player had 2 cards left and the other had 1 only. Luckily, that was before resolving and I got to choose the Eat Action.

One comment says that the difficulty ramps up during Boss Fight. I think that is because you are supposed to explore the upper level more in order to get specific Spell Books or Food. While there is a timer, it seems you can retrigger the bonuses from the board using different actions assuming you are lucky to have longer time.

The biggest negative about this game is probably the lack of variety. You only have 2 Bosses and it’s more like Easier or Harder Boss. The Dungeon Board for 2nd and 3rd Floor are double sided, also one for easier and one for harder variant that you can mix and match.

Even then, you are still dealing with the same set of Monsters and challenge of managing your resources. No progression like level up for Chocobo. I think, with easy house rule, you can just play straight with the Boss Fight. But that means, even lower replay value.

Overall, this is definitely not a bad game. I had fun with my first play and I still need to try the solo mode. For me personally, I don’t mind playing not with that exact rule, multi-handed if that solo mode is too hard.

The system feels unique so I at least recommend people to try it. It’s just, the replay value is rather low, especially for solo players. Maybe it is really meant for multiplayers and for family.

Playing time was about 120 minutes.

Chomp

More pictures of this Chomp game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Form herds of herbivore and carnivore dinosaurs and make sure they have their own food source or one will eat the other in a game of Chomp.

Played 2 solo sessions using just the base game. First one started with 2 goal cards about nests and the other card with a lot of half sections for smaller dinosaurs.

One goal will give points for having nest adjacent to another nest. So, I thought that was a good idea to start collecting them and get more eggs. Unfortunately, I misread the other goal. I thought I just needed to get at least 3 nests but apparently I had to get 3 empty nests. By the time I realized that error, I already had 3 nests with egg so I scored nothing from that other goal card.

So, I played 2nd game. One scoring of this one was about eggs not nest with eggs. Apparently you want to get dinosaurs with eggs next to each other. The other scoring card was about score per fed small dinosaurs.

My starting Dino tile had a Tar Pit, medium herbivore, Plant and the half of different small dinosaurs. First I took the dino tile with 2 quarters having half area for small dinos. Probably my first tile from previous session.

It had meat source so I wanted to make sure that the Small Carnivore got fed first. I placed it right above the starting tile. Now the small Herbivore from that new card got access to plants from the first card.

2nd ROUND. There were 2 almost exact the same Dino tiles. Both had large herbivore, Plant and medium carnivore. With almost the exact Wall. The only difference was that one card had an egg with that medium carnivore. I took the one with an egg and placed it so that the new carnivore was next to the existing meat source. Also the new plant was next to the existing small herbivore of the first card.

3rd ROUND. The new card had large carnivore, medium herbivore and a nest. I took that one and the large carnivore covered a medium herbivore of my 2nd tile. By doing so, the large carnivore connected the 2 small carnivores of that 2nd tile. I had 2 sides to place a food source there.

4th ROUND. I took the first Dino tile with an egg, placed it at top left so the section with an egg was next to the existing section of medium carnivore with an egg. Got 4 points from the goal tile. That new herbivore was connected to the existing small herbivore so this group had a size of 4 dinos, 3 small and 1 medium. Also got an egg to my one empty nest.

5th ROUND. There was a dino tile with a plant and a meat source that was perfect to feed the 2 existing groups. Even though I had to cover a medium herbivore and no more ways to expand that herbivore group. The tile also had tar pit and empty nest. None of them were connected directly to the herd.

6th ROUND. I still had visible tar pit from first tile to cover to save the herbivore and potentially make larger herd of new herbivores. There was one with large herbivore and a medium herbivore with an egg. Used the large one to cover the tar pit while at the same time connected the small and medium herbivore and access to plants for them. Another egg to my 2nd nest.

7th ROUND. Continuing with the 2nd goal card of feeding as many small dinosaurs as possible, I took the only dino tile at the moment with 2 small herbivores. This was placed at the bottom left end of my tableau so that the small herbivores got access to existing plant. The tile also had a plant feeding the existing medium. Got my 3rd nest ready for more eggs.

8th ROUND. There was only one dino tile with an egg. It had large herbivore, a plant and a medium herbivore. I took it, got egg for 3rd nest. Used the large herbivore to connect medium one with a plant and another large without any food. So, this formed 4th or 5th fed herbivore herd. More like expanding the 4th one.

9th ROUND. During my play I took another dino tile that expanded the recent group of herbivore with a larger one and a medium one. That got me 5 extra points.

Apparently, had I took one of the scoring card, I got a chance to score 12 for having all types of species fed on my land. The 3rd one could have scored me 9 points.

Well, as it is, my final score according to my play was 59. 15 from large, 10 from each Medium and Small fed dinos, 6 from eggs and 18 from the goal cards. I could have scored actually 66 by just switching from expanding the land to getting more goal tiles.

I have to keep that in mind for my next play.

Playing time was about 16 to 22 minutes per session.

Nautilion

More pictures of this Nautilion game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Race to the Abyss while gathering crews for your submarine to defeat the Darkhouse before their Phantom minion reaches the Happy Isle in Nautilion.

Another solo session using all of the modules. This time played with the 2nd to last Nautilion board. This Green one had 3 columns and only connected with single horizontal line in the middle for the crew spaces. This means I have to start with either Crew 2, 5 or 9 and try to secure it.

Another change from previous play was that I tried the more difficult variant of the Darkhouse module. Instead of using 4 red cards plus 1 blue, I played with 5 red Darkhouse cards.

1ST ROUND. 1, 2, 2.

Darkhouse: Choose 1 Figure. Roll a die and give it to that figure. Then. roll 2 dice and give them to the 2 remaining figures.

Chose the Nautilion first and rolled a 1, crew 4 on a reef. Unfortunately the Phantom had to take Crew 8 so they got 1 harpoon.

Rolled 4 for Nautilion and they got away from the Reef this turn.

2nd ROUND. 1, 3, 4.

Darkhouse: Play phases 2 through 5 twice with the same dice. The dice may be given to different figures the second time around.

Darkhouse had to take the 1. Definitely not 4 for Phantom so they got the 3, removing Crew 3. Nautilion got to move 4 and landed on Crew 2 which couldn’t be placed on the board. So, I spent 2 tokens to replace it with Crew 5 that I could place from 10 spaces away. Not sure why I picked those.

For the 2nd time, Darkhouse still took the 1. Actually everybody got the same dice. Phantom removed Mage B while Nautilion took Mage C.

3rd ROUND. 1, 2, 3.

Darkhouse: Recover a token from the discard and add it to the path between the Nautilion and the Abyss.

Recovered Crew 3 and placed it somewhere in the middle. Giving the 1 to Phantom so they could remove a reef and Crew 1. Darkhouse took the 2 so Nautilion took the 3, recruiting Mage B.

4th ROUND. 2, 4, 4.

Darkhouse: The Nautilion moves backwards this turn.

Spent 1 token to reroll those and got 1, 2, 2. Otherwise I had to give Phantom a 4 which got them a Mercenary. This way I let Phantom took a 1, removing Mage A. Darkhouse took the 2. Nautilion moved back 2 for another Crew 2 and a Reef. Recruited Crew 2 on board.

Rolled a 2 for the reef so Nautilion was stuck next round.

5th ROUND. 3, 3

Darkhouse: Take the token on which the Phantom ends its movement. The Phantom receives the token on which the Nautilion ends its movement.

So, I had no choice and Darkhouse took 1 token from me. Phantom also landed on Mercenary so Nautilion got it without giving anything back. The Mercenary was placed on Crew 1 space.

6th ROUND. 3, 1, 1.

Darkhouse: Choose 1 Figure. Roll a die and give it to that figure. Then. roll 2 dice and give them to the 2 remaining figures.

Chose Nautilion again so they got the 3, getting them another Crew 2. This was the one that was replaced earlier so it just became a token. Phantom removed Crew 6.

7th ROUND. 1, 2, 4.

Darkhouse: Play phases 2 through 5 twice with the same dice. The dice may be given to different figures the second time around.

Not giving 4 to Phantom but to Nautilion and they got another Mercenary. That Mercenary occupied the Crew 7 space. Phantom took a 1, removing crew 7 and a reef. Then for the 2nd time, assigned the same dice for the same figure. Nautilion got Crew 7 on reef and Phantom removed Crew 3. Crew 7 went to the Mage Board.

Rolled a 1 for the reef so Nautilion was stuck again.

8th ROUND. 1, 1.

Darkhouse: Recover a token from the discard and add it to the path between the Nautilion and the Abyss.

Recovered Crew 7 and placed it somewhere in the middle, next to the previous token, 5 rounds ago. Phantom removed Crew 6.

9th ROUND. 1, 2, 2.

Darkhouse: The Nautilion moves backwards this turn.

Definitely not 2 for Phantom but 1, letting them remove Crew 7. Nautilion moved backwards to get Crew 9.

10th ROUND. 2, 2, 2.

Darkhouse: Take the token on which the Phantom ends its movement. The Phantom receives the token on which the Nautilion ends its movement.

Phantom landed on Crew 1 so Nautilion took it. The Nautilion board was occupied for that crew so it went to Mage Board. Nautilion landed and removed Crew 9.

11th ROUND. 3, 1, 2.

Darkhouse: Choose 1 Figure. Roll a die and give it to that figure. Then. roll 2 dice and give them to the 2 remaining figures.

Chose Nautilion first and got a 3, landed on Crew 4 for the Mage board. Then I had to give 1 to Phantom letting them take Crew 8 for 1 harpoon or else they took Mercenary.

12th ROUND. 1, 1, 2.

Darkhouse: Play phases 2 through 5 twice with the same dice. The dice may be given to different figures the second time around.

Definitely giving 2 for Phantom first so they skipped that Mercenary, removing Mage B instead. Nautilion got Mage A. For the 2nd time, Nautilion took the 2, skipping a Mercenary for Crew 3. Phantom removed Crew 1 and Reef.

13th ROUND. 1, 3, 4.

Darkhouse: Recover a token from the discard and add it to the path between the Nautilion and the Abyss.

Returned that Crew 1 that the Phantom just removed to between the 2. Now they were 4 spaces away from each other. Either way Collision was about to happen. Gave the Phantom a 4 but they would stop anyway in front of Nautilion. Then I let Nautilion took the 3 to land on Crew 1 after the Collision.

Collision happened. Nautilion had 4 harpoons Phantom had 2 from Crews plus 2 or 3 depending on difficulty so Nautilion still won anyway. As a bonus, I chose Crew 1. Then I spent that Crew 1 to activate one of the Heroic card. The one to take 2 tokens as reserve. After that Nautilion continued moving and got back the other Crew 1.

14th ROUND. 1, 2, 2.

Darkhouse: The Nautilion moves backwards this turn.

The 1 went to Darkhouse. Phantom removed Crew 2 and a reef while Nautilion got Crew 7. 2 more to complete plus 2 to activate the other 2 Heroic cards.

15th ROUND. 1, 2, 3/

Darkhouse: Take the token on which the Phantom ends its movement. The Phantom receives the token on which the Nautilion ends its movement.

I let the Phantom took 3 to give Nautilion Crew 8 while Nautilion gave back Crew 9 with a 1.

16th ROUND. 1, 2, 2.

Darkhouse: Choose 1 Figure. Roll a die and give it to that figure. Then. roll 2 dice and give them to the 2 remaining figures.

Chose Phantom this time and they got a 2. The 1 was for Darkhouse and Nautilion got a Crew 3. Before that, activated the other heroic card by removing the existing Crew 3. This was to move Phantom backwards. As the result, Phantom removed Mage C.

17th ROUND. 1, 2, 3.

Darkhouse: Play phases 2 through 5 twice with the same dice. The dice may be given to different figures the second time around.

Nautilion took the 3 so they got Crew 8 again. Phantom took a 1, removing Crew 2. Instead of taking the Crew 8, spent 2 tokens to switch it with Crew 6 from near the Happy isle.

For the 2nd time, all 3 got the same dice as before. Phantom removed Crew 4 and Nautilion got Crew 1. Before taking that one, removed the existing Crew 1 to activate the last Heroic card for nothing. This just to avoid penalty for giving Phantom a 3 or 4.

18th ROUND. 1, 2, 3.

Darkhouse: Recover a token from the discard and add it to the path between the Nautilion and the Abyss.

3 spaces away from the Abyss but I had to recover a token which I picked Mage B. Nautilion already got everything they needed to defeat the Darkhouse.

The 3 got them to that Mage B. Phantom removed crew 9 and a reef.

19th ROUND. 1, 1, 2.

Darkhouse: The Nautilion moves backwards this turn.

1 for both on the path. Nautilion got Crew 9 as token and Phantom removed Crew 7.

20th ROUND. 2, 3, 3.

Darkhouse: Take the token on which the Phantom ends its movement. The Phantom receives the token on which the Nautilion ends its movement.

Gave the 3 to both figures on the path. Phantom removed Mage A, still 6 spaces away from the Happy isle. Nautilion reached the Abyss and defeated the Darkhouse.

Playing time was about 43 minutes.

Mobile Markets: A Smartphone Inc. Game

More pictures of this Mobile Markets: A Smartphone Inc. Game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Research the market for mobile phones and develop product accordingly to sell the most profitable smartphones in Mobile Markets: A Smartphone Inc. Game.

This was a solo session but against two opponents with 2 sets of Steve Jr. cards. Me as the Yellow player against the Red and the Blue. Started with NFC feature plus a star and I got to take the Cheapest Tech card if I failed to sell 2 or more goods.

1ST ROUND. Event: CREDIBILITY IS UNDER ATTACK.

No bonus for Market Share this round. There were 3 Green customers, 4 blue and 4 Pink.

So, I didn’t need to try to sell the most phones since no benefit at the end. Set my price at 6 with 4 Tech, 2 Marketing and producing 3 extra goods. Red player set their price at 5 and the Blue player at 7 so I was 2nd.

I bought a Tech card that could give me 1 extra Marketing point if my price was 5 or higher for 2 Tech points. The other 2 was to buy Flexible Screen feature with 2 Stars quality.

So my Marketing budget was at 3. Bought Marketing card that gave me 1 Pink Private from the deck for 2 points. I got extra so I took 2nd private which was a Green.

Red went first and they made a phone with Camera, 5G, 3 Star quality set at the price of 5 but profit of 3 per sold phone. They produced 5 this round and they had 1 Pink Private that they could definitely sell their product to.

The other 5 phones were sold to 4 Blue customers. Existing green customers wanted more than just their Camera and 5G.

Next was me, the Yellow. I produced only 4 and the profit was at 3 per sold phone. Added both feature to my phone, the NFC and the Flexible screen with 3-Star Quality. My green private loved both feature while the pink customer loved the quality of my phone. Got 2 more phones and I managed to sell them both to the 2 Green customers.

Then the Blue player, set their price at 7, had NFC and 8K screen feature with 2 Star quality on their phone with profit of 4 per sold phone. There were only 2 customers that were willing to pay for their product. So, they failed to sell the last one.

No bonus market share this round. Current score was Blue at 8, Red at 15 and me the Yellow at 12.

2nd ROUND. Event: To THE STARS AND BEYOND.

3 is the minimum price this round. Adding 3 Green, 5 Blue and 5 Pink customers to the existing 1 green and 2 Pink from previous round.

I still went with the same plan. Set the price at 6 with 4 Tech points, 2 Marketing points, producing extra 3 phones. Red player set their price at 4 while Blue at 5 so I went last this round.

At the end of the buying phases I got 1 Tech card for 1 Tech point that gives me points at the end of the game. Then a Feature card for Camera worth only 1 Tech point. This means I got to keep 2 Progress tokens. The Marketing card that I bought gives me 1 point for every Customer with Star in my sale pile for 1 Marketing point. I still had 2 extra Marketing points plus 1 private pink and I took 2 Green private customers.

Red went first with price at 4. They also had 2 Blue and 1 Pink Customers. They made a phone with no feature but only 1-Star quality, producing 5 phones with profit at 3 per sold phone.

None of the Green customers were interested in their product and neither their Pink private. They managed to sell to their private blues plus 3 more from the Market.

Next was the Blue player. They set the price at 5, producing 6 with net profit at 3 per sold phone. There were 2 Blue private on their side. Their product had 3-Star quality, NFC and 8K Screen feature. Sold 2 phones to them and then 1 to Green, the remaining 2 Blue and 1 Pink customers.

My turn and I had 3 private, 2 Green and 1 Pink. 2 of them wanted 8K but I had no feature for them so they had to wait for next season.

I produced 5, set the price at 6 and with 2 extra features, the net profit was only 3 per sold phone. Got 4-star quality but with Flexible screen and Camera feature. Sold 1 phone to my private green. Then 2 more Green and 1 pink from the Market loved the quality. Another pink just loved the features. So, I sold 5.

Red sold 5, Blue sold 6 and I only 5. Blue got 8 from Market share and both Red and me got 3 each. 18 profit for Blue, 15 for Red and 15 for me. No extra bonus for red. 1 bonus for selling to green for Blue. I got extra 3 for selling to customers that were looking for quality.

Current score: 35 for Blue, 33 for Red, 33 for Yellow.

3rd ROUND. Event: UPRISING TIGER, RENEWED DRAGON.

Place additional 1 Green and 1 Pink customer to the market. Extra 3 green 6 Blue and 5 Pink were added to the market in addition to the existing 4 from previous round.

This time I tried slightly different plan and set the price at 7. Apparently the other 2 also had similar idea but the Red was at 6 while the Blue at 7.

**** Error. I should have gone first before Blue Player since I was lower on score track for the same price. Instead, I went last. Oh, well.

Red went first and got 2 blue Private, 2 pink and 1 Green private customers. Their price was at 6, producing 6 goods with net profit of 3 per sold phone. The product had Flexible screen, 4 Star-quality, 8K screen and 5G feature.

Based on that one Blue and one Green private were not interested but the other 3 bought the phone. From the market they sold to 2 Green and 1 Blue customers.

Blue player had 1 green private customer. They set the price at 7 with net profit of 4 per sold phone, producing 5 phones. Their phone had 5G, NFC, 8K Screen with 3-Star quality. From that, they managed to sell all phones, 2 to Green and 3 to Pink.

Me as the Yellow player, bout another End Game Tech card which gives me 12 if I have 7 stars on all my tech and feature cards for 2 Tech points. Then with 2 more I bought feature cards with Camera and 5G. The Marketing card makes all my private customers to consider having all features in my phone. Got 2 extra points so I took 2 more green private in addition to previous 1 green and 1 Pink plus 1 Pink from another card.

I only added that card with 2 features, Camera and 5G, no Star at all. The 3 Green private customers were not interested. Those 2 pink customers bought it plus 2 more from the market. So, I failed to sell one but my net profit was 5 per sold phone.

Red sold 3, Blue sold 5 and I only got 4. 8 points for red, 4 for Blue and 2 for me. 18 profit for Red, 20 for Blue and 20 for me. No bonus for me since none of my customers this round was looking for quality.
Blue got extra 5, Red got extra 3.

Current score: 64 for Blue, 62 for Red, 55 for Yellow.

4th ROUND. Event: THE END OF ICE TECH AGE.

Place 3 more Tech cards and this round, players can buy 2 Tech card. 4 Green, 6 Blue and 5 Pink were added to the market with 10 left from previous round.

Well, I had to take advantage with buying more Tech cards. Set my price at 5 so I still got extra Marketing with 4 Tech points, 2 Marketing, producing extra 3 goods. Red also set at 5 and Blue at 6 so I went first since I scored lowest.

I still had 3 Green private customers waiting. Got 2 more green and 1 Pink. Bought 2 Tech cards for 4, didn’t buy any feature card. One card was for End game scoring, 14 points for having all 5 kinds of features. Still missing the 8K. The other card allowed me to ignore 2 extra cost from the feature cards if I had Camera on my product.

I produced 7 goods with net profit at 4 per sold phones. The product had Camera, 5G and Flexible Screen with 2-Star quality. 5 of my Green Private were not interested so only 1 Pink bought it. However, I managed to sell the other 6 to 3 Green and 3 Blue.

Red was next with 1 Green, 3 Blue and 3 Pink Private customers. They produced 9, set net profit at 3 and the product only had Flexible screen, Camera with 4-Star quality. From their private only 1 Pink was not impressed, the other 6 bought it. They sold the other 3 to 2 Green and 1 Blue from the market.

Blue had no private customer, producing 7 with net profit of 5. The product had 5G, Flexible Screen, 2-Star quality. They managed to sell all of them, 1 Green and 6 Blue customers.

Red won the majority again with 9 while the other 2 only sold 7. 8 points for red and the other got 3 each. 28 profit for Blue, 27 for Red, 28 for me. Got extra 3 for me, 4 for red, 2 for Blue.

Current score: 97 for Blue, 101 for Red, 89 for Yellow.

5th ROUND. Event: 5G for G7.

Each player takes 1 private Green customer from the deck. 4 Green, 6 Blue and 6 Pink were added to the market in addition to 8 from last round.

Since I still had a lot of private customers, I thought I should produce more with 2 parts getting overlapped, producing extra 4. Set the price at 5, with 4 Tech points, only 1 Marketing point. I had to make sure I got 8K. Both other players set their price to 4 so I went last.

*** I miscalculated the Red score and thought they had the same score as Blue so I let them go first but in reality, Blue should have gone first.

Red was producing 13 with net profit at 3 per goods. They made phone with 3-Star product and only Flexible Screen. There were 6 private customers of theirs. Only 3 of them were interested on their product, all 3 Blue. But they managed to sell the remaining 10 to the market, 7 Blue, 1 Green and 2 Pink.

Blue only had 1 green private. With net profit of 3 per sold phone, they got 5G, Flexible Screen and NFC to their product with 2-Star quality. Producing 11, the Private didn’t like it. Actually only one green liked it. So, they could have secured some Blue had this played in correct turn order. 1 Green, 8 Blue and 2 Pink. Red only sold 4 then.

Either way I still had 5 Green Private, got a new pink and green. Producing only 9 with 4-Star quality, Camera and 8K that I just bought. All my 6 green privates considered my phone to have all features and I got 4 star quality for them. So, sold 6. Then I sold 2 more to the Green with stars and 1 Pink that didn’t care about quality.

With the correct play, Red sold 4, Blue sold 11, and I sold 9. 8 points for Blue, 4 for me and 2 for red. Got extra 8 for having 8 customers who cared about quality. 1 extra for Blue from 1 Green customer and Red only got 1 bonus for just one feature that the customer liked. 16 profit for Red, 33 for Blue and 36 for me.

Current score: 139 for Blue, 120 for Red, 137 for Yellow. I still had 3 End game bonuses. One scored 21, the 2nd one scored 12 and the last one scored 14. So my final score was 184.

I was thinking that maybe these end game bonus cards should be excluded from the game. While I could have lost but only by 2 points. Maybe next time.

Playing time was about 137 minutes.

Walking in Burano

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Develop your housing section of this colorful city with features to impress both Inhabitants and Tourists in Walking in Burano.

This was a solo play. I realized something from this play. Maybe for the first character, I should aim for the Inhabitants. Since tourists likes objects on single house better, maybe it is better to collect cards first before committing to them. Especially if like me, I always go for something specific that works with certain inhabitants. Such as the shop owners.

This can also help determine the overall strategy and focus more on those inhabitants. Hopefully, making it easier to choose which to let go first. By doing so, this also avoids scoring very low for the tourist like what happened in this session.

1st ROUND. As mentioned, I went for different shops because I like it. There were 2 in this first round, Red Tailor on the leftmost and Yellow Ice Cream shop on 3rd column.

I picked the right first since it was going to be discarded first. Unfortunately, the middle card had green with one closed window so I only took 1 card plus 2 coins. Paid 1 to install that card immediately.

For this round, I let go one of the Tourist Girls who loves cats.

2nd ROUND. Then in this 2nd round, the Red tailor was in 3rd column from the left. The middle part had perfect yellow with flowers and the top had pink with chimney and a cat. I thought all of them were perfect so I took a risk and took all 3 cards, getting no coin.

Still had 5 coins left and I installed only one card this time, the 2nd floor of the existing yellow. 2 cards left in my hand.

Then I let go the Tourist Man who loves looking at potted plants.

3rd ROUND. 2 more shops but both had at least one feature that I already had. Either Blue Ice Cream and Red Pizza. Didn’t like anything from the 4th column so I went to the 3rd. This had good pink that I already started collected for the middle. That means I had to pick either the top or the bottom. The bottom had that Blue Ice cream so I went with the Blue roof with flower and cats. But this had no chimney so I probably had to give up on Santa. Got 2 cards and 1 coin.

I had 4 cards total so I at least needed to install one so I chose the middle pink by paying 1 coin. No ground pink yet so I had to use one of the scaffolding card.

This time I let go the Curtain Maker.

4th round. Some good orange cards in the first column so I probably could take them later. This time I just picked one card, the top yellow just to finish the first house.

Like I said, I should have picked the inhabitants and try to build the score more. Instead I chose the Tourist Boy that loves different objects. Only got 6 points plus 2 from him though. Knowing about the result, maybe going with Mayor was a better choice.

Then I let go the Planters.

5th Round. Perfect middle and ground Blue in the first column with Pizza Shop and a lot of Flowers. These worked great with my top Blue. While I could have taken them later but maybe they were not in the same column. Not risking that so I picked both this time plus 1 coin.

I had 5 cards now so I had to play 2 or discard down later. Decided to start building the 2 Blue ground and middle floor for 3 coins. I placed it on the right of the Pink. The Pink had street lamp so I was still expecting to score from the Police.

So, I let go the Santa since this Blue top didn’t have Chimney.

6th Round. No more new shops. I already had 3 colors installed, yellow, pink and blue. Two more and I already started collecting Red so I only needed 1 more color. Currently there was good top orange in 4th column and a matching one for the middle in the 3rd. They both had plants, probably worked best for the Tourist Man.

So, I picked the top first and planning to take the middle one in subsequent turn. Got 2 coins.

This time, I only installed one card for 1 coin, the top blue, completing that color. It had 9 Flowers so I chose the Tourist Woman who loves those flowers.

Letting go the 2nd Tourist Girl as well.

7th Round. As planned before, I tried to pick the Middle Orange but that means I had to pick either the top or bottom as well. Either the Green Tailor shop or top Pink with just a cat. Either way not very useful but I had no choice. Already had the top pink. So, I took 2 cards plus 1 coin.

Then I installed one card, the previous top pink for 1 coin. Still had 4 cards so I let go that other top pink I just took.

Letting go Flower lady this time.

8th Round. To complete everything, I still needed 7 cards. Already had Top and middle orange plus ground red and I had to get ground pink and orange plus middle and top red.

My best option was the 3rd column for 2 cards, ground pink and middle red. No shop but also no closed windows. Picked them both plus 1 coin.

Then I completed the bottom pink and the ground red since I already had 3 cards in hand. Paid 3 coins. Completed the Pink and I attracted the other Tourist Boy. The 2 cats, chimney, streetlamp and the curtain got me 10 plus 2 points.

This time, I let go the other Tourist Woman.

9th Round. The orange coffee shop showed up and the top red with just chimney and cat. I took the orange shop first from 2nd column plus 2 coins.

I had 4 coins and paid 3 to install 2, the middle and ground orange. Placed it on the rightmost column since the middle had streetlamps. At least 9 points from the Police if I chose him.

4 characters left. I initially planning to attract the Tourist Man for the orange but then he only scored 7 plus 2 points while the other 3 inhabitants could give me 9 points or more. So I let him go.

10th round. Time to pick the last card which was the Top red from 2nd column. Luckily, the middle one while had a closed window, also had streetlamp which could get me 15 points impressing the Police. So I picked both plus 1 coin.

Only had 2 coins so I only installed 1, finishing the Orange with the top card. Attracted the Shop Owners for 15 points since I had 4 different shops.

Last one to let go, Mayor or the Police. I could get 15 with the Police and the Mayor only 13. But committing with the Police means I had to lose 1 point since I had closed window. So, it was close but I chose to score with Police, letting go Mayor.

11th round. Well I needed 2 more coins and already had the 2 cards I needed to finish the last building. I still had to pick a card so got only 2 coins which was enough.

Paid all and installed the 2 last card, finishing the last red building on the left. Attracted the Police and this triggered the end of the game since no other character left.

SCORING.

15 points from the Police, 6 + 2 from 1st Tourist Boy, 12 + 2 from the 2nd Tourist Boy, 9 + 2 from Tourist Woman and 15 from Shop Owner. Then the 4 shops got me 9 points and the 4 tokens got me 12. -1 from one closed window.

Final Score was 83. Well, I got lucky or since good cards came out. As mentioned before had I chose the inhabitants first like replacing the 1st Tourist Boy with the Mayor, I could have scored extra 5. While I couldn’t possibly tell that I could score that much but maybe better than 8 was possible. Next time.

Playing time was about 32 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Walking in Burano Review.

Cascadia

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Explore Pacific Northwest to find different wildlife and their habitats in Cascadia.

Continuing with the solo play using achievement scenario, this one used Scenario #3, with card C of each wildlife. Bear can give different score based on their group size from 1 – 3 which is very flexible. Elk is probably the best to keep building up. The bigger the group the higher value each Elk can give. Salmon on the other hand can only give up to size 5 and making it bigger doesn’t give additional score.

Hawk in this one probably requires a bit planning to score better. Instead of just separating them by one space in direct line of sight, you want each of them to create line with multiple other hawks.

Fox in this one is a bit confusing. I just realized that the rulebook has clarification of each card. At first, I thought each fox can score any animal, adjacent to the fox. Apparently, only the most abundance one to score from this. Should be great around the Salmon.

The minimum target score is 80 for this scenario. I started with the Starter tile that has a Bear in Mountain Keystone at the top.

1st Round. There was a Wetlands Keystone for Salmon and a Salmon wildlife so I thought this should be great. Placed it at the bottom of the Starter tile and got my Nature token.

2nd Round. The 2nd pair from the left had a tile with Forest and Mountain which was perfect for my Starter tile. The wildlife was another Salmon. I picked that pair. The tile was placed at the top left, increasing the size of those 2 habitats. The Salmon was placed at the bottom right of Starter Tile. Now the Salmon run had a size of 2.

3rd Round. The Starter tile had a bottom left space that could be occupied by Hawk. Then the rightmost one had Mountain Keystone for Hawk. I thought the tile was perfect at the top right from the Starter Tile so those 2 spaces could work for Hawk. The Wildlife pairing was an Elk which I had a space on the previous tile.

4th Round. There was a Prairie keystone for Salmon and with Salmon pairing. I was planning to place this at the bottom right from the Starter tile but then I realized, I ruined the run by doing so. But I still took it and placed the tile on the right of bottom right starter tile. This way the run size of Salmon still increased even if the habitat didn’t match. I had to connect it later. Got my 2nd Nature token.

5th round. The problem with my previous placement was I almost cut off entirely the River from expanding. I thought I needed one to make sure it could still expand. There were 3 half rivers and 2 of them were paired with Prairie while the other with Wetlands.

Ideally, should be with Mountain but I decided to go with the Wetlands. Well, the wildlife pairing was a Hawk. So, I placed the tile there. Also it worked to grow the size of Bear. Placed the Hawk on the Keystone Mountain and got my 3rd Nature Tiken.

6th Round. All tiles had half prairie. 3 had half rivers and only one with Mountain. Only the river and prairie worked for my existing situation. Unfortunately none of the pairing wildlife worked or not that great. I ended up taking the one with the Fox for that tile itself. Probably should have spent to take a Hawk instead.

Placed the tile on the rightmost, expanding both River and Prairie, to size 3 and size 2. Then the fox occupied that tile.

7th Round. That tile with the hawk and half Prairie and half Mountain was still available. I picked that one. Placed the Hawk on bottom left of Starter tile. Then the Half prairie was just connecting the Prairie from starter tile and the bigger group. The size was now 4.

8th round. Finally a tile for Salmon and a Salmon. This one had a Forest and River that were not close to each other. I took it to expanded the Forest to size 3 to the left of Starter tile and placed the Salmon there. I needed one tile for Salmon, ideally with half Forest and Half Wetlands to finally make the run into size 5.

9th round. There was a Mountain Keystone for Elk paired with Elk. I took it for the Nature token. I placed both at the top left from the existing Elk. Got my 4th Nature token.

Now that I think about it, the spot was probably better for the Hawk as it could have connected with the 2 existing Hawks. So, ideally this should be a bit to the right. I was hoping to get a tile with both Mountain and Forest and this was to connect it later.

10th Round. Finally a Bear came out again. At this point I had not started yet. After previous evaluation, there was a Keystone Mountain for the Hawk and a Hawk on other pair. Didn’t think about them during the game.

I took the Bear and the tile had Mountain and River which was perfect to expand both. Mountain now had a size 5 and river with size 4. The tiles had spaces for a group of 3 bears. I placed the Bear in the middle one.

11th round. So, I also took my previous plan with the Hawk and the Mountain Keystone for it by spending a Nature token since they were in different pairings. I could have just take back and revised my positioning. Instead I had to place this Keystone at the rightmost. Not even expanding the Mountain and it was actually blocking any further pairing of Prairie and River.

All because I wanted to score this Hawk again. And I only got 3 points instead of possible 6 plus 1 more for expanding the Mountain. Oh, well. No wonder I scored very low in this one. Spent my Nature token but got it back.

12th Round. More bears. One of them was paired with half Forest and half Wetlands that I needed. It also worked for Salmon to finally complete the size of 5.

Placed the bear on the Keystone area of my Starter Tile and then the tile to expand the 2 habitats. Size 4 for Forest and 3 for Wetlands. Got more Nature token and the Bear group size became a 2.

13th round. There was a half Forest and half Mountain which was perfect to expand both. It also worked to expand the Elk group. The elk was available in different pairing so I had to spend a token to get both. Forest size became 5 and the Mountain became 6 with the Elk to size 3.

14th round. A keystone Forest for Elk and Elk on other pairing. Spent Nature token again to get both. I placed the tile 2 spaces to the left of my starter tile, expanding the Forest to size 6 and the Elk to size 4. Got the Nature token back.

15th Round. A 3rd bear that I needed to finish that group. The paired tile had half prairie and half forest so only one worked. Somehow I chose to spend a token to get a half prairie and half river. Now that I think about it, I couldn’t have expanded both habitats still. So, it was a waste. Even the wildlife that could occupy that space was not great.

16th round. Well I still needed 1 more Salmon and there was one, paired with half Wetlands and half forest for either Elk or Hawk. I took that one. Completed the size 5 of Salmon Run. The tile itself expanded the Wetlands instead of Forest, or both yet. I could have just settled to expand the Elk Group for 4 points instead of Hawk for just 3. Another bad move.

17th round. Apparently, there was another half forest and half wetlands for hawk, paired with Elk. That means, had I just done what I just mentioned earlier, I could have scored both Hawk and better Elk group while expanding these 2 habitats. Actually no, only single but for the same or better result. Forest size was 8 now, no need to expand it further.

While I still picked the tile but I spent 1 token to get a Fox from somewhere else. There was a space surrounded by 3 Salmon that worked for Fox for 3 points instead of just single bear for 2.

18th Round. I needed 1 more Hawk and I needed one more Mountain to make it size 7 for extra 2 points. Those 2 were available but in different pairings so I had to spend a token. Got 3 points from Hawk and the Mountain size was 7. Ideally 2 more for River and 2 more for Prairie. Not likely to have both.

19th round. No river habitats so I guess my best option was actually to focus on Prairie since I had a chance to make it size 7. I could have taken the one with and for bear and scored 2 points while expanding the prairie.

Instead, I wasted a nature token just to pick a Salmon and something that worked for it but didn’t really expanding anything. I realized now that Salmon was very limiting with this Card C.

20th Round. Last one. Well, with my alternate play, I could have spent one last token to take half prairie and the Hawk and got 3 points while the Prairie size became a 7. But even for that, I had to place the tile before that to make sure that it could still connect this next one and the Hawk was 1 space away from the rightmost one. Very unlikely but I could have scored 5 more points. I need to consider something like that in my next play.

Instead, my actual play, since I had no more token, I had to take one tile with a keystone for River, expanding its size to 6, with Prairie only at 5. Then the wildlife was a Fox, at the bottom left scoring only 2 points.

That was the end of the game.

9 points from Hawk, 8 from Bear, 8 from Fox, 15 from Salmon, 10 from Elk. Then 9 points from Mountain, 10 from Forest, 5 from Prairie, 6 from River and 4 from Wetlands.

Final Score was 84 so I still completed the achievement but this was really poor play. I guess I really underestimated this game. Apparently, some of those cards can really ask you to make a better long term plan instead of being just tactical. Maybe me thinking that the scoring cards are not that different made me assume I can just play like previous session.

Playing time was about 50 minutes.

Fleet

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Win the bid to acquire fishing licenses and launch boats with captain to catch those sea life in Fleet.

This was a solo session using just content from the base game, against the 2 other captains, Captain T.C. and Kirkman. Didn’t use the advanced setup.

1st ROUND. Processing Vessel, Tuna, Shrimp.

Well I immediately paid 5 coins for the Shrimp license so the other Captains just passed. Captain T.C. then took the Tuna and Kirkman took the Processing Vessel.

I launched the Boat for Shrimp and hired a Captain for it. Got 1 fish.

2nd ROUND. Tuna, Cod, Processing Vessel.

I only had 4 coins plus 1 bonus from the Shrimp license. This means I could only afford the Cod license if I wanted to launch anything this round. So, I started the bid with that. T.C. raised the bid, and so did Kirkman. Both did twice until finally T.C. gave up and let Kirkman took it.

Next I started the bid with Tuna at 5. T.C. raised the bid and I had to give up. Decided not to take the last license and took 2 cards.

Launched 2nd Shrimp Boat with a Captain. Got 2 more fishes. The 2 Captains failed to launch anything this turn.

3rd ROUND. Processing Vessel, Shrimp, Lobster.

Started the bid with Processing Vessel at 5. T.C. raised the bid, followed by Kirkman. I gave up and so did T.C., letting Kirkman had it.

Then I chose Lobster license. T.C. raised the bid and I just gave up. Also didn’t take the 2nd Shrimp so I took 2 cards.

Launched 3rd Shrimp Boat with a Captain. 3 more fishes this turn. Both Captains also launched a boat.

I had 5 cards left worth 11 coins.

4th ROUND. Shrimp, Shrimp, Cod.

Started with the Shrimp first at 4. T.C. raised it but Kirkman didn’t. I raised it to 6 and T.C. raised it to 7 so I let him took it.

Next, I went with the 2nd Shrimp, hoping to win so Kirkman was not going to get any license since he already had a Cod license. Started the bid at 4 again. Kirkman raised it and so did I. Kirkman decided to drop it. I got my 2nd Shrimp license.

Launched 4th Shrimp Boat with a Captain. 4 more fishes. Only T.C. launched a boat this time.

I only had 2 cards left worth 4 coins.

5th ROUND. Cod, King Crab, Shrimp.

Started with the Shrimp first since Captains couldn’t afford the Premium one yet. First bid was 4. T.C. was not interested and Kirkman raised the bid. I let him had this.

Even if I backed out from taking the next license, T.C. would just get it. So, I started a bid for Cod at 4. T.C. raised it to 5 and me to 6. I gave up after T.C. raised it to 7.

So, I didn’t get any license and just took 2 cards. Unfortunately, I couldn’t launch anything because no Shrimp boat this time. Both Captains launched one each.

I had 5 cards left worth only 9.

6th ROUND. King Crab, Cod and Fisherman’s Pub.

Since the 2 Captains still couldn’t afford the Premium one, I went with Cod. Started at 4. T.C. was not interested but Kirkman raised it. I raised it to 6 and Kirkman gave up. I got my license.

Then I launched 5th Shrimp Boat with Captain. Got 1 card thanks to that Cod license. Only got 3 fishes since 2 boats were already full. T.C. launched another boat but Kirkman didn’t.

I only had 3 cards left worth 6.

7th ROUND. King Crab, Fisherman’s Pub and Lobster.

I went with the Fisherman’s Pub first and bid with all 10, the most I could make. T.C. didn’t raise it but Kirkman did so he won it. Then I went with the King Crab with also 10. T.C. didn’t raise it so I got my license and the Captain already had the Lobster.

I had no card so no launching boat this time. Both Captains did though.

Only 1 card left in my hand worth 2 coins.

8th ROUND. Lobster, Processing Vessel, Tuna.

I couldn’t afford anything so just took 2 cards. T.C. got Processing vessel license and Kirkman took the Lobster.

Launched my first King Crab Boat with captain. Only got 3 fishes again. T.C. also launched one but Kirkman didn’t.

2 cards left worth 4.

9th ROUND. Tuna, Processing Vessel, Fisherman’s Pub.

Well, I didn’t even try so I just took 2 cards. T.C. took the Fisherman’s Pub while Kirkman went for the Tuna.

Launched 1st Cod boat with Captain. Got 3 fishes. Only T.C. launched one.

10th ROUND. Processing Vessel, Tuna, King Crab.

I went for the Tuna first, with a bid at 5. T.C. was not interested, Kirkman raised it once. Raised again by me but Kirkman dropped it so I got my Tuna License. Well, unfortunately T.C. got another premium and Kirkman didn’t get anything.

Launched my last Shrimp boat. 3 more fishes. Only T.C. launched one again.

That was the end of the game.

I scored 20 from Licenses, only 8 from King Crab, 26 fishes, 11 from boats. Final score was 65.

T.C. got 35 from licenses, 36 from fishes, 15 from boats so he got 86. Kirkman got 30 from licenses, 20 fishes and 10 from boats so only 60. T.C. still won.

Playing time was about 44 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Fleet Card Game Review.

Final Girl: The Haunting of Creech Manor

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Can Selena, the babysitter find Carolyn and get out of the haunted manor as the Final Girl?

Selena was in the Trophy room, 3rd floor looking for Carolyn. Nobody was on the first floor, 3 members of the family were on the 2nd, 1 on the 3rd, 4 on the top floor and the other 2 in the attic.

Selena couldn’t find Carolyn there. She just said to herself “FOCUS, Selena. FOCUS!”. Then she was ready to search Carolyn in other room.

Apparently, somebody was in the Foyer area. They moved towards the staircase and went up to the 2nd floor. There were 2 kids up there. Suddenly, one of them was killed in front of the other. The other kid got panic and ran to their bedroom next to it.

THE GROUND IS SHAKING!

Whoever the killer was, instead of chasing the other kid, they went up to the Trophy room where Selena was. Selena felt something was coming, not from the door but from the floor? She turned around and saw that killer. Selena immediately realized that this was the Poltergeist. Carolyn had been mentioning that she saw this and nobody believed her.

The Poltergeist swung her hand tried to kill Selena. Selena got injured but not fatal. But that was enough to make her scared. She tried to slowly move away from the ghost.

Selena began to improvise, doing anything she could think of in panic, trying to cause a distraction. She got to the door and moved down to the staircase where she found the body of one kid. The near bedroom was closed but the room on the other end had doors open. She saw another kid in that windowed room so she went there. Selena sprinted and got there.

She closed the door and started trying to make a plan. The kid in that room saw her injured and got scared. Selena managed to calm the kid down and convinced the kid to stay with her. After that attack, Selena tried to stay on Guard just in case.

Back to the Trophy room where the Poltergeist was last seen. The ghost moved. They went down, revisiting the 2nd kid they saw that was hiding in the bedroom next to the staircase. The kid was so scared and heard someone was coming and their focus went to the door, expecting someone to open it. But the ghost didn’t need to open it and she was there next to the kid without getting noticed. Eventually, the kid took their attention away from the door and looked the other way. The kid screamed.

Selena heard that and a sound of someone getting stabbed. At this point, the Poltergeist started communicating with Selena trying to scare her more, giving her Eternal Despair.

EVERYTHING WAS FLYING AROUND.

The Poltergeist was not done moving. Apparently she could just teleport. The ghost went to the closest next victim. It was the kid with Selena. Out of nowhere, the ghost showed up behind the kid and Selena had to witness the killing happened in front of her.

Selena tried to get away from there and did any Improvisation she could. She had a choice between going out through the window or back inside the house. Selena chose the latter. Back in the staircase, her intuition told her to go up but not back to the Trophy room. After reaching the 3rd floor, she saw another member of the family on the right room with window there. Not Carolyn again. Selena got there and closed the door behind her.

Selena convinced them to get out of the house using that window. They got out and they had the chance to leave this haunted manor for good. However, Selena cared too much about Carolyn and decided to look again. So, she sent the other member off to get some help. Selena went back to the front door of this Creech Manor. “Focus, Selena!”

The Poltergeist could have followed Selena out from the window but somehow the Ghost stayed inside, following Selena. Nobody else to kill nearby. Then…

SOMETHING UNHOLY HAPPENED IN THE…

Closet Room. The Ghost teleported again. Another kid was there but not Carolyn. Nobody to save the kid. The door to the closet was open. Another member behind that door saw what happened. The Poltergeist noticed and went after them. 5th victim so far.

Back to Selena in the foyer. She started thinking where to look for Carolyn next. There was a Garage room on the first floor, favorite spot for Carolyn to hide when playing hide and seek so maybe she was there.

After a bit of improvising trying to stay brave and make sure the Ghost didn’t notice her, she ran to that Garage room. Selena began searching. Carolyn was not there but she did find something.

It was a hand drawn map of this huge manor. Selena noticed it was Carolyn’s. There was a special sign on the Closet room. Maybe Carolyn hid there.

The Poltergeist continued making more ghostly friends by killing more members of this family. The 6th victim was just next room. The ghost started doing PSYCHIC CONFUSION to prevent Selena from finding Carolyn easily.

Selena started planning to go to the Closet. It was too far, like there were 8 rooms in between at least. She couldn’t possibly reach there right away. Well, she did it anyway and got from 1st to 3rd floor. “FOCUS, Selena!”, said she to herself.

The Poltergeist had a choice between going to the next room on that 4th floor or up to the attic. She chose the latter. There were 2 more members. Both of them saw the ghost but one got murdered. The other got panic and went down the ladder from that Attic.

Selena on the 3rd floor heard that noise. However, she got a company.

CORPOREAL FORM.

A Behemoth appeared in front of Selena. She was not prepared and had nothing to attack it. The Behemoth then attacked Selena. She managed to stay on Guard and avoided any damage. The Behemoth didn’t push to keep attacking her and just disappeared.

Selena was just 2 spaces away from the Closet. After making sure to prepare a bit of improvisation and distraction to get away from the Ghost, she moved and got there. Selena began searching and she found her! She found Carolyn. Well, the Poltergeist noticed that and dropped her minor power. Selena decided to take a breathing first before trying to escape.

The Poltergeist followed the other member from the attic downstair and got their 8th kill.

VOICES… I HEAR VOICES!

The Poltergeist heard some noises on this 4th floor since Selena and Carolyn were there. However, the ghost also heard noise from the opposite direction, thinking, they were already moved to that room. She got it wrong but found her 9th victim.

The Poltergeist started to get stronger. Somehow, the wound she inflicted to Selena earlier got worse. Nobody else in the house except for Selena, Carolyn and the Ghost.

Selena was planning to go downstairs and get out from here with Carolyn. Then she heard the sound of Helicopter coming to the roof of this Manor. Selena then thought maybe she could escape from the Roof by going through the Attic which was much closer, even if it was also closer to the ghost.

After a bit of preparation, both she and Carolyn sprinted and went up to the attic, climbing out to the roof. When they got there, they saw the helicopter and tried to shout and give signs. Well, the pilot didn’t notice them and had trouble landing the chopper. The pilot decided to go away.

Both Selena and Carolyn felt a bit of despair, especially after taking that huge risk. Selena didn’t give up and immediately tell Carolyn to move down back from the attic. They got to the room next to the Closet. Selena realized that they were not fast enough. So, she prepared to deal with any attack from the Ghost. “FOCUS, Selena! FOCUS!”

The Poltergeist was just 2 spaces away from them. She managed to get in the same room and started attacking Selena. The Ghost got much stronger than their previous encounter but Selena was prepared.

Somehow some trespassers started coming to the house. There were 3 entering the Foyer. “We heard that this place is haunted!” After looking around a bit from the Foyer, they noticed something from outside through the window. They saw a lot of corpse hanging on the trees.

THE TREES ARE ALIVE!

They got panic. One ran to the outside, one went to Ballroom and the other towards the Garage.

Back to Selena and Carolyn still right in front of the Poltergeist. Selena knew they were just 3 spaces away from the room with a Window to get outside and run. With a bit of Improvisation and Distraction, Selena picked up Carolyn and started running towards that room.

They got out. When they were about to leave the premise, they noticed one of the trespassers. Selena didn’t care too much about them but Carolyn convinced her to save them as well.

Not long after that arguments between the 2, the Poltergeist managed to catch up with them. Selena was still prepared.

SOMETHING IS COMING THROUGH THE WALL!

The trespasser outside noticed what happened with Selena and Carolyn. While the other 2 still inside the Manor started experiencing weird stuffs happening and got panic. Both of them somehow went back to the Foyer with the Main door open.

Selena, while trying to run away from the Poltergeist, moved to the front door. She noticed the trespassers inside and started telling them to get out. They followed and got away from the premises. This encouraged Selena to follow the other one going to the left Exit and rescued that one as well.

All of them got away from this haunted Manor. The Poltergeist didn’t follow and stayed in the Manor.

Playing time was about 98 minutes.

Roll Camera!: The Filmmaking Board Game

More pictures of this Roll Camera!: The Filmmaking Board Game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Last chance to save your failing production company to make the best movie in Roll Camera!: The Filmmaking Board Game.

This was a solo session with just single role. After playing with all roles from the base game, I came back with the Director role again but this one, for the first time, using a Production Company card. These cards will give you extra requirements in order to win the game.

The card I picked for this one was SEPPUKU FILM, “Where a Great Movie goes to Die” as their tagline. For this one, in order to win, the Quality Marker must be on “So Bad It’s Great” at the end of the game.

There is also additional difficulty setting which is just where your Quality Marker starts on the track. From Easy which is the regular start, Medium at 4 spaces above the Start, Hard from 7 spaces above or the IMPOSSIBLE from the top of the track.

I chose Medium for this and still with the easiest difficulty from the Schedule and Budget starting point. After playing with the Director role, I don’t think starting from the top really makes it harder considering the Director himself can easily trade the Quality for Money or schedule.

Anyway, the starting Script was “BLOODY BLOODY HEARTACHE”. For the top part, 2 quality points for every 2 Red Scene and the bottom part, 2 quality points for every yellow and blue scene together in any order.

From the Storyboard, there were Blue Scene at the top, followed by Yellow and then the Red. So, technically I have to avoid following the script or otherwise I will get some quality by the end of the game, failing to follow the Production company direction.

ROUND 1. 2 Sound, 2 Camera, 2 Actors.

Problem: Each time you shoot a scene, lose 2 Quality. If the Quality Marker is below START, gain 1 quality instead.

Well, I didn’t expect that problem to come out first but I thought maybe letting that one stayed was not a bad idea for this company. Somehow it made it harder for this first round to assign dice since usually I had to spend 2 to resolve it.

2 Sound crews built a set first, paying 1 money. The set piece I chose only had 2 blue in the corner and one of them would turn a die into a wild with the question symbol. The other tile on top had a Quality bonus so I thought I should avoid it.

Maybe I was still following the idea of working with the script so I decided to just shoot the Yellow scene and maybe the blue after that which would have gotten me 2 Quality. That Yellow required 4 crews, 2 Actors, 1 Camera and 1 Lighting and none of them was adjacent to each other so I placed the piece accordingly. Planning to use the wild space for the 2nd actor. Got the camera and the 2 Actors so maybe I should lock them in.

That means I only had 1 crew left. I used it for Production Meeting with the idea to use crew members’ bodies as organic microphones. Apparently the 2nd idea was to Rewrite the Dang Script Yourself. Last idea was to turn a scene as Flashback.

Discarded the last idea, put mine on to do List on the Quality part and executed the 2nd idea. I got to change one half of the script with another of my choice from the other 4 below it. One of them says A PARTY WITH MR. & MRS.”. This was the only script to push down the quality at the end for having each red or blue by 1.

So I kept it and the script now was A PARTY WITH MR. AND MRS HEARTACHE.

14 money and 10 rounds left and with quality +4 from START.

ROUND 2. 1 Art, 1 Lighting, 1 Actor.

Problem: The Builders bolted the sets to the floor for some reason. Set pieces can no longer be moved and/or ortated except by other problems.

Sent out the Light and Art crew to resolve it. The actor then helped the Director do COMPROMISE, trading 3 Quality for 2 rounds.

The other 3 dice were still locked in. Decided to reroll one on the Wild space on next round.

14 money and 11 rounds left and with quality +1 from START.

ROUND 3. 2 Sound, 1 Actor, 1 VFX.

Problem: Turns out that the VFX team was actually just a smoke and mirrors. Cannot assign VFX for any action, including on set.

Assigned the Actor and Sound crew to resolve it, 2nd one. Now, the other Sound and VFX built 2nd set with 2 free spaces, paying 1 money. Now the set pieces were ready for the scene.

13 money and 10 rounds left and with quality +1 from START.

ROUND 4. 3 Art, 1 Actor.

Problem: The Editor is re-cutting the film as an experimental avant-garde art piece! Each time you shoot a scene, shuffle and randomly redistributing all scenes in the editing room.

***** Apparently I didn’t read the bottom part of this card that says I should draw a different one since I have less than 2 scenes.

Well, it didn’t matter since I resolve it right away with my 2 Art crews, 3rd one. So, I only had 2 dice left. The Art crew started production meeting with the idea from me to have everyone takes 2 more showers than usual.

2nd idea was to use cool old fashioned practical effects instead of CGI, and the 3rd one was giving hugs for everyone. I kept the last one on first to do list, discarded the 2nd and executed the 1st one.

Now I had 5 ideas until the next meeting. 2 were about resolving problems, 1 about schedule, 1 about the crew and the other about set piece.

My last die this round was to COMPROMISE again, trading 3 quality for more schedule.

13 money and 11 rounds left and with quality -2 from START.

ROUND 5. VFX, Camera, Sound, Actor.

Problem: The Cinematographer insists on shooting on 120mm film! Every scene now costs 1 more money to shoot.

Assigned the Camera and the Sound to resolve it. Then the Actor was put on scene along with the VFX to replace the lighting. Shot my first scene of that Yellow. Paid 3 money since that was on 2nd storyboard. Got 1 quality bonus but down 2 spaces because of the existing problem.

The Storyboard now had 1 red, 1 blue and then 1 purple from bottom to top.

10 money and 10 rounds left and with quality -3 from START.

ROUND 6. 2 VFX, Camera, Sound, 2 Actor.

Problem: The Night scene now needs to take place during the day! 1 additional Light required for every scene.

I think I accidentally changed one of the die. Anyway, I had to prepare for the new scene so the 2 Actor crews were ready to build or rearrange the piece. Also had an idea to do it for free with just one die unless the other idea was better for now.

Sound and Camera crew resolved the issue first. Then one of the VFX started a meeting with my idea. 2nd idea was to break into crewmate’s trailer and the 3rd idea was to impersonate another member of the crew.

*** Actually the last one was supposed to be for more players and I was supposed to draw a new one. I ended up placing that one on the to do List. Oh, well. Got rid of the 2nd and executed my initial idea to move set pieces.

My plan was to shoot a red scene, 3rd from the Storyboard so I rearranged the set pieces accordingly. It required 5 adjacent blue spaces and the existing 2 were not enough. So, the 2 Actor crews added a new one, paying 1 money. The new piece had a Quality bonus on one of 2 spaces. Tried to avoid getting that bonus.

My last die was a VFX. Locked it in on the set as it was required by the scene. Also that was 5th resolved problem so I got 1 extra round.

9 money and 10 rounds left and with quality -3 from START.

ROUND 7. 1 Light, 2 Sound, 2 Actor.

Problem: The director cannot decide on the shot and wants to shoot with multiple cameras to figure it out later! 1 additional camera required for every scene.

2 Sound crews resolved the issue, 6th one. The 2 Actor and 1 Light were set on scene to shoot. I still needed 1 more Camera. Actually, decided to reroll the other Actor since that space was a Wild.

9 money and 9 rounds left and with quality -3 from START.

ROUND 8. 1 VFX, 1 Light and 1 taken by problem.

Problem: Yesterday’s sushi burrito lunches gave some of the crew food poisoning! When this problem is drawn put 1 crew die on this card. It is unavailable. After resolving the problem you may re-roll the die and assign it.

I ignored the problem for now since the 2 were useful for the scene. Paid 2 money, lose 1 quality, to shoot the red scene. The scene gave me back 1 quality. Since this was already below the START, the first problem gave me back 1 more Quality.

7 money and 8 rounds left and with quality -2 from START.

ROUND 9. 1 VFX, 2 Art, 1 Camera, 1 Sound.

Problem: Deadly wasps built a nest in one of the editing rooms! Put a blocked token on any Editing room space. Scenes cannot be placed there. Place new scenes in the topmost available editing space.

Resolved it immediately with the VFX and Camera. The 2 Art Crews resolved the previous one, getting me back 1 crew.

Whatever that was, I used it with the last die to do REFRAME. This removed the Purple scene from Storyboard. Now the storyboard had a blue, a yellow and blue again from bottom to top.

7 money and 7 rounds left and with quality -2 from START.

ROUND 10. 1 VFX, 3 Art, 1 Camera, 1 Sound.

Problem: The Storyboard artist drew all the storyboards in invisible ink! At the end of each turn, discard all scenes in the storyboard and raw a new scenes to replace them.

1 Sound and 1 Art resolved it, 4th one. The 2 Art crews rearranged the set so it fit the next Blue scene to shoot. It required 5 adjacent spaces with 3 Actors, 1 Camera and 1 Light. The 2 last die, VFX and Camera were ready on set with VFX replacing one of the Actor.

7 money and 6 rounds left and with quality -2 from START.

ROUND 11. 1 Light, 1 Sound, 2 Actor.

Problem: The Lead actor rented themselves a private diamond studded hot tub limousine! At the end of each turn lose 1 money.

Resolved it immediately with 1 Sound and 1 Actor. That means I couldn’t used that actor for my next scene. At least the Light and the other actor was ready.

Also that was 5th problems since the set. Got extra time.

7 money and 6 rounds left and with quality -2 from START.

ROUND 12. 1 Art, Sound.

Problem: Everything is going wrong at once! Whenever you resolve any other Problem, immediately draw a new one.

While I had to bring down the quality, I thought I needed them for money or time. So, with one die, I arranged a meeting with the idea to resolve a problem and get 1 quality. 2nd idea was to hire personal assistants to worry about your problem and 3rd idea was to use a stock footage for that scene.

Discarded 3rd one and put the 2nd one on 1st To do list. Then I executed my initial idea. Resolved that recent issue and got a Quality.

With the last die on space that turned it into a wild, I shot the next Blue scene. Paid 2 money and 1 quality. The scene itself gave back 1 quality. Got 1 quality up again from that very first problem. The storyboard now had red, blue and yellow from top to bottom.

5 money and 5 rounds left and with quality +0 from START.

ROUND 13. 2 Light, 2 Sound, 1 Camera and 1 VFX.

Problem: The Sound person needs complete silence so they can record room tone! At the end of each turn, clear all crew die except for the sound from set.

The 2 Sound crews resolved that issue immediately. While the 2 Light crews rearranged the set for the next blue scene. This one required 5 spaces, with 2 actors, 1 light, 1 sound and 1 camera.

The Camera crew helped the director do more COMPROMISE, trading 3 quality for 2 extra rounds. After that, the VFX crew started a meeting with my idea to give everyone unpaid layoff.

2nd idea was to use cardboard standups instead of actors. 3rd idea was double the caffeine content in the craft services coffee.

That 3rd idea was better to make money than my initial so I discarded the initial idea. The 2nd one was useful for scene that required more dice, ignoring up to 2 actors required so I set it on to do list, first one.

8 money and 5 rounds left and with quality -3 from START.

ROUND 14. 3 actors, 2 sound and 1 art.

Problem: The Director wants to do over 100 takes of the same shot. Each time you shoot a scene, lose 1 schedule.

First the Art crew did one of the to do list to REFRAME without using a die with losing 1 quality. This was cheating actually. Removed the yellow scene from the 3rd Storyboard and the 2 went down and a new red showed up on the deck.

Then the Sound Crew initiated the Production meeting. My idea was to gamble the budget on horse race. 2nd idea was to not use any electricity today and 3rd was just to throw money to resolve problems.

Executed the 2nd idea, discarded the first. Placed the last one on 2nd to do List.

After that one of the Actor crew helped the director do more COMPROMISE, trading 3 money with 2 extra rounds. Last sound crew was set on scene.

7 money and 6 rounds left and with quality -4 from START.

ROUND 15. 2 Actors, 2 VFX, Sound.

Problem: The key to your trailer fell into an open sewer! Put a blocked token on the active player’s player board. All of the actions on it are now unavailable.

Since I had no more quality but I needed to shoot a scene. So, I assigned the 2 Actors to rearrange the set a bit so I could get quality bonus. Then the 2 VFX were to fill in the Light and the Camera. Before shooting, the scene needed 2 more actors. So, I assigned the Sound crew for the first to do list to replace actors with cardboard standees. Paid 1 money for it.

Finally shot the scene, paying 2 and no quality was lost. The scene itself gave me 2 quality back and 1 from the very first problem. Now the storyboard had new purple and 2 red scenes.

4 money and 5 rounds left and with quality -1 from START.

ROUND 16. 2 Actors, 2 Camera, 1 Sound, 1 Light.

Problem: The director and the star have become romantically involved! At the end of each turn, lose 1 quality. If it is already below the Start, gain 1 instead.

The 2 actors rearranged the set to prepare for the last red scene. This required 2 actors, a camera and a light. I thought maybe I could finish it this round. The Camera and Light were set on set.

The Sound crew initiated the production meeting with my idea to replace existing set piece to make extra money. Then 2nd idea was to discard a scene from storyboard to make money or quality. Last one was to reroll used dice and use them again.

Executed 2nd idea for extra money, discarding the purple scene which was replaced by a green. Shooting the last scene means the existing problems would have pushed up the quality by the end of it, unless I resolved them first.

So, the Camera crew executed the to do list to pay 2 money to resolve all current problems. Got extra money back after 5 more resolved issues.

5 money and 4 rounds left and with quality -2 from START.

ROUND 17. 2 Camera, VFX, Art.

Problem: Your studio space was double booked and you have to share it with a kid’s karate tournament. At the end of each turn, move 1 set piece to a far corner of the set area, even if they have dice on them.

No need to care about it just focus on my last scene. I needed 2 more actors. One VFX filled in and the other space could use any die so I chose the Camera. Paid 2 money, lose 1 quality to shoot the scene.

The scene didn’t give any bonus. That was the 5th scene. The complete movie had a yellow, red, blue, blue and then red scene. 2 reds and 2 blues pushed the Quality down 4 spaces and it was already at the bottom.

So, I managed to get what the company wanted.

Seppuku Films proudly presents A PARTY WITH MR. & MRS. HEARTACHE.

So bad it’s Great!

Playing time was about 81 minutes.

The Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game

More pictures of this The Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Build your estate strategically while keeping up against Aaron, your competitor in The Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game.

This was a solo play using the official variant. Aaron started with 1 Mine, 1 Pasture and 1 Building.

ROUND 1. There were 2 Castles, 1 Knowledge, 2 Buildings, 1 ship and 1 pasture.

My first 2 cards were both a 2. So I had to take the Ship from space 2. Then I got a 6. It was a Castle on space 6 so I took it as my 2nd plan.

The next card was a 5. Also a Castle on space 5 so I took it. After that I got a 3 with already full 3 cards in my project. One of the Castle in project could be installed by a 3 so I used it. As bonus, I took the Knowledge from space 4 so my project was full again.

Last die was a 4, still with a 2. I used the 2 first to install the first ship. This allowed me to take a Good, which was the 5/6 type, the same as my starting one.

With the 4, I changed it using my only worker to a 5. This was to install the 2nd Castle. As bonus, I took the CHURCH building from space 3.

That was the end of round 1. Aaron then got 2nd Mine, 2nd and 3rd Pasture and 2nd Building. So he secured the first time bonus for Pasture and his score was 5 points. I had to keep up with that.

ROUND 2. 2 Knowledge, 2 Cloister, 1 Pasture, 1 Castle and 1 Ship.

I started with a 2 and a 5. Played the 5 first to take Cloister to my project. I got a 5 again with a 2. Played that 5 to install the Cloister I just took.

Now I had 2 2s. Took 2 workers from that. The next one was a 1. Spent 1 worker to change the 2 into a 3 to install the Church building. As a bonus I took The Castle from space 3 to my project.

Next, I got a 5 with 1 in my hand. The only way to keep up with Aaron’s score was to finish the Castle triplet for 2 points plus 1 from the first time bonus. Then I sold 2 of the same type of goods for 2 points and 2 Silver.

Spent my last worker to change the 1 into 2 so I could install and finish my Castle. Got my first time bonus, 2 points and 2 goods, type 3/4 both. The bonus from Castle itself allowed me to install the Knowledge and got 2 Workers. Then using the 5 I sold 2 goods for 2 points plus 2 Silver. Got my 5 points to catch up with Aaron.

Aaron got 5 cards. A 3rd building, plus first time bonus, 2 knowledge, a ship and a Cloister. So he had 9 points but I took 1 VP since they got Cloister. Only needed 3 points to catch up.

ROUND 3. 4 Knowledge, 1 Pasture, a Mine and a Building.

Started with a 1 and a 3. Played the 3 to take Knowledge. Replaced by a 6 which I played to take a Building from space 3.

Now I had 2 1s. Used it to take Pasture. Then I got a 6. Played that to install 2nd Building. The bonus got me 3 Silver. 2 more cards left, a 1 and a 6 and I had to finish a triplet.

Played the 1 plus worker to install Knowledge 2, 2nd one. Then I traded 3 Silver for 3 cards and one of them was Knowledge 5. So, I took that one as my project and using my last card plus worker, installed it.

Got my 2nd triplet for 4 points plus 1 from first time for that type. The bonus of the round got me a good, type 3/4, 3rd one. So, I got 11 points.

This time, Aarron actually didn’t complete any Triplet. However they got 7 colors first for 3 points and a lot of sets with 2 cards. So I didn’t need to catch up much but I had to prepare for the next one. Also got 1 VP from them getting a Cloister.

ROUND 4. 2 Buildings, 1 Cloister, 2 Ships, 1 Knowledge and 1 Mine.

Started with a 3 and a 4. Played the 3 to take a Ship from that space. Got a 5 next and I played it to take the Building from that space. I got a 1 with a 4 and full project.

Played the 4 plus worker to install the Building 5 as 3rd card of the triplet. The bonus from it got me 3 Silver and the round bonus were 2 more silver. Completed the triplet for 3 points but got no first time bonus.

I had a 2 and a 1. Played the 2 to take Cloister. Got a 5 with a 1. Changed the 1 with 2 workers to 3 and installed the 2nd Cloister. Spent 3 Silver for 3 cards and one of them was Cloister 4. Then I spent 3 more Silver and got a 4 to install that 3rd Cloister. Got 6 points and 1st time bonus. I think I took 1 Worker and 1 Silver from the round bonus.

The last 5 was to take 3rd Ship card from that space and that was the end of this round. Scored 22.

This time Aaron finished several triplets, a Mine, a Ship, Cloister and 2nd triplet of buildings. They got 2 first time bonuses. Their final score was 31. 1 extra point for me from their 3rd Cloister.

ROUND 5. 2 buildings, 1 Castle, 1 knowledge, 1 Cloister, 1 Mine and 1 Pasture.

Started with a 1 and a 6. Changed the 1 into 2 with worker to install the 2nd Ship. The bonus got me last type of goods. Then I got a 4, used it to take the Mine from that space.

Got a 5 next. Decided to take 2 workers but I got a 5 again with a 6. Sold 3 goods of type 3/4 after changing the 5 into a 4. Got 3 points and 3 Silver. Traded those 3 Silver and one card was a 3 to install the last Ship. Got 4 points and a Worker.

My last one was 6 so I got 2 6s and 3 Silver. Used one of the 6 to take a Pasture. Traded 3 Silver and one of them was a 5 to install a Mine. Got 2 Silver back.

Used the last 6 to sell the last good with type 5/6 for 1 point and 1 silver. Traded the 3 Silver again and one of them was a 2. This was to install a Pasture. Got 2nd different animal and completing the bonus of 7 colors for 2 more points.

My Final score was 33, beating Aaron with just 31.

Playing time was about 45 minutes.

Learn more about the game from The Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game Review.

Friday

More pictures of this Friday game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Help Robinso to survive the island and prepare to fight the Pirates in Friday.

This was with Level 2 difficulty with one Aging card already in the Robinson deck.

GREEN PHASE

1st challenge was to further exploring the island. Robinson was still distracted, got focused and but felt weak. It was a failure but he managed to overcome his 2 weaknesses.

2nd challenge and Robinson still felt weak and went to the wreck with raft. He learned Mimicry.

3rd challenge was to back on exploring the island. Robinson still felt Weak and distracted so it was a failure. He got rid of those, though.

4th challenge and no way he could take the Wild Animal so he tried to explore the island again. He did something STUPID and felt weak. At least he got rid of them.

5th challenge and he started to stick with the challenge to explore the island. This time Robinson was FOCUSED and beat it. He got a WEAPON.

6th challenge and he started to gain more confident and up for more challenge with Exploring the Island again. But he fell back to feeling Weak and Distracted. Got rid of them.

7th challenge was either dealing with Cannibals or stayed exploring the island. Robinson chose the latter. He got FOCUSED after EATING. So he was just hungry. It seems he got some REALIZATION.

8th challenge and he started to get sick of exploring the island. Instead he started challenging the Wild Animal. He thought it was a GENIUS idea until he realized it wasn’t. Then he felt Weak, twice even, and distracted. Gor rid of those 3 at least.

9th challenge. Do you want to challenge the wild animal again, Robinson? No, he went back to the wreck with raft. He felt weak but at least he got there and read BOOKS.

10th challenge was either stay in the wreck or go back to exploring further. Robinson chose the former and got distracted. Hopefully that got rid of it.

Got Aging card at this point.

11th challenge. After enough rest, Robinson was finally up to deal with Cannibals. First he felt Weak but got Focused immediately. He thought he needed to EAT first. Then he got REALIZATION but eventually felt WEAK and SCARED. That realization destroyed that aging card. He kept pushing himself. FOCUSED, FOCUSED until he got WEAPON! Well he also got Mimicry so he ate more to celebrate this success. That got him even stronger weapon.

12th challenge. After beating that Cannibals he was so confident. Instead of just exploring the island he chose to explore further. He knew he was a GENIUS after reading the BOOKS. Not sure how that helped him in this first phase.

Well, he got Aging card again from those 2 encounters.

13th challenge. Robinson felt WEAK and somehow in his mind, he just wanted to go back to Wreck. Maybe to get more food.

14th challenge was either stay in the wreck or back to explore the island. Robinson chose the latter to get more food. He was FOCUSED!

15th challenge and he was up to deal with WILD ANIMAL. Robinson started with some REALIZATION. FOCUSED, Robinson. Mimicry didn’t really help and neither the Books. He kept pushing himself and finally got more REALIZATION to beat the animal. Somehow that was enough.

YELLOW PHASE

16th challenge and his only option was to explore the island. But instead of more food, he tried to learn REPEAT. He felt WEAK first and then he got a GENIUS idea. But it was not enough and one more push and he was FOCUSED.

17th challenge was either go back to wreck or further explore the island. Robinson chose the latter. He did EATING first and somehow got VERY TIRED. After some pushes, he got 2 WEAPONS which were enough for the challenge.

Got more Aging card at this point.

18th challenge and he got the same 2 options. Robinson chose the same one. He started to get better. First he got some FOOD and a GENIUS idea and how to REPEAT it for this challenge.

19th challenge and he got 2nd chance against the Cannibals. He already beat them once. First he was FOCUSED but then WEAK. He then tried to do some MIMICRY and got REALIZATION that he had WEAPON! Well that was not enough. Robinson pushed himself. First with EATING. He got FOCUSED and WEAK again.

Somehow he got VERY TIRED. Luckily, he pushed himself that got him the REALIZATION to beat those Cannibals. He got rid of that Aging and one of the Weak cards.

20th challenge and either facing more Wild Animal or further exploring the island. Robinson chose the former. Well, he got EXPERIENCE, FOOD, BOOKS and he was FOCUSED! But not enough. Somehow the experience reminded him that he was STUPID. Luckily, the food got him the realization to destroy that Aging thought.

Got more Aging card unfortunately.

21st challenge. Back to wreck or explore further? Robinson chose the latter. He got his strongest WEAPON and his EXPERIENCE. No need anything farther.

22nd challenge and Robinson was up to keep exploring further. He got his BOOKS, REALIZATION and FOCUSED! Enough for this challenge.

23rd challenge and this time he decided to go back to wreck. This time for EQUIPMENT. He got his WEAPON and that helped him during this trip back.

24th challenge, after getting the equipment he was ready for more WILD ANIMALS. Robinson got his strongest WEAPON but then he felt WEAK. Then he did EATING and got FOCUSED! He pushed himself and got FOOD and remembered his EXPERIENCE. Robinson beat the challenge.

25th challenge. Instead of going back to wreck he stayed to explore the island more. Well he got his MIMICRY and REPEAT skill but not enough. All he needed was more FOOD.

26th challenge, last one for this phase, more Wild Animal. After all of those foods, he started this one with VERY HUNGRY. But then he remembered his VISION, GENIUS idea and a lot of REALIZATION. Robinson had to push himself a bit but he beat the animal and got rid of that aging card.

Also last card before getting more Aging card.

RED PHASE

27th challenge and the only option was to stay exploring the island. The island was getting tougher. He got FOCUSED and strongest WEAPON but not enough. After 2 pushes he got his FOOD AND VISION. That last one helped him overcome the Aging card.

28th challenge, either go back to the wreck or further explore the island. Robinson chose the latter. He got his 2 WEAPON and a skill to REPEAT. Not enough. He had to push himself twice and got EATING AND FOCUSED to beat the challenge.

29th challenge and he had no other choice but to go back to wreck for more food. He had only 2 life points left. His REALIZATION helped him go through this one.

30th challenge and he went back to explore the island. Robinson got his strongest WEAPON and FOOD. Those were enough for this challenge.

31st challenge, last one. Robinson decided to go back to wreck before facing the Pirates. He got his EXPERIENCE and BOOKS which made this one easier.

PIRATE 1: 40

Robinson had to reach 40, started with 10 chances. He got his REALIZATION, EXPERIENCE and EQUIPMENT. More REALIZATION, 2 STRATEGIES. He felt WEAK but got FOCUSED and his GENIUS IDEA. But he got HUNGRY that he got rid easily.

Thanks to his experience and equipment, he got FOOD, MIMICRY and VISION. Those only made up to 17. With his VISION, he knew the BOOKS was useless so he got rid of it.

After using all of his life points to push farther, his strategy to replace cards and more equipments, he got additional 7 cards. That got him 12 more, still not enough. He still had more to replace them.

At one point he got SCARED that he got rid of instantly. Then finally, he got his 2nd strongest WEAPON, MIMICRY and a skill to REPEAT. Doubled the 4 plus a 3 made it to 40 and beat the Pirate.

PIRATE 2: 52

Started with 10 cards but each fighting card counst +1 fighting point. A couple cards left before the next aging card.

First 10 cards got a total point of 16 plus 10. That was just half of the requirement. One doubled the strongest weapon so another 4 points, 22 left.

Food and experience got him 5 more cards. 8 more points plus 5, and needed 9 more. Another doubled the other strongest card so 5 left. Foods from the new cards got them 2 more, and experience with a value of 3 and more food with a value of 1. That was 6 points and it was enough to beat this last Pirate and still power to draw more. Even got rid of that last DISTRACTED card.

That was the end of the game. Got 46 from the Fighting cards, -5 from one Aging card in the deck, 30 for beating both pirates and -15 for the 5 hazard cards left. Final Score was 56.

Playing time was about 56 minutes.

Mandala

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Craft the sand sculpture and destroy it to make a new one as a symbol of circle of life in Mandala.

Revisiting my solo variant of this game. I think I got too much good luck on this one so it didn’t give any challenge. That got me to change the rule that to win, I also have to let the opponent get their 6th color. Then subtract the score from both for the real score or something like that. Still not sure how I should proceed that design decision. I guess, that’s the reason why I am not a game designer.

Started with a Red, 2 yellow, a purple, a green and orange. The left Mandala had Purple and Yellow while the right Mandala had black and orange. The 2 in my cup were Black and Red.

First I played one of my yellow to the right Mandala, my side. The opponent started on the left with adding 2nd Yellow to the Mountain. Then I played my Green on the right, also my side so this Mandala had 4 colors now. The opponent added 2nd Black to the right Mandala Mountain.

Next I played my Red to the left one, my side, 3rd color to this Mandala. The opponent added a 4th on their side, which was just a single Black.

I had 3 cards left so I played the Yellow on left Mountain and got Yellow, Red and Purple. The opponent added a 5th color to the right, on their side, a Purple.

I added 5th color, orange to the left one, my side. Apparently the opponent added the 6th there, completing the Mandala. Both of us had 2 on each side, and they were the one completing it so I went first and took the Yellow from the Mountain with 3. The opponent got a Purple, just a single one.

The Left Mandala now restarted with a Yellow and a Purple.

I had 4 cards left with 2 Purple. Played one on the left Mountain and got 2 Black and 2nd Red. The opponent added 2nd Purple on the right, their side. After that, I played my Red to the left, 3rd color. The opponent only added 3rd Purple to the Mountain.

Next, I added a red, the 6th color to the right one, my side, completing the Mandala. I had 3 cards while the opponent had 2. So, I picked first and chose the 2 Black, giving the single orange to them. Both were our 2nd color.

The right Mandala restarted with a Green and Orange. That was my turn, and the opponent added 2nd Orange card to that Mountain.

I had 4 cards left with 2 Black. Played one on the left, my side as 4th color. The opponent added a 4th Purple to the Mountain.

Then I played the other Black to the right, my side, as the 3rd color. The opponent added 2nd Green to the mountain. I added 5th purple to the left Mountain to get more cards. Got orange, green and red in addition to my yellow. The opponent couldn’t play a red to the left so they placed it on the right, their side, as 4th color.

Played my only green as 3rd card to the mountain. Got a green, 2nd orange and 2nd red. The opponent added a green to the left, their side as 5th color, just one card.

Then I played a yellow to the right one, my side as 5th color. The opponent played purple on that same one, their side as 6th, completing the Mandala. Both of us got the same number of cards so I got to choose first. I took the Green with 3, giving the 2 orange to them. Got my 3rd color while they still had 2.

The right Mandala restarted with Orange and Red.

I had 2 Orange, played one as 2nd Orange to the right Mountain. Got 3rd Red, 2nd Green and a Yellow. The opponent added 2nd yellow to the left Mountain.

Played 2 Green to the right, my side. The opponent added 2nd Red to that same Mountain. Then I added 3rd Red to that same Mountain and got 2nd and 3rd yellow and 3rd Red. The opponent added 3rd yellow to the left Mountain.

Played a single yellow as 3rd card to my side of the right mountain, 4th color. The opponent added 4th red there. Then I added the 6th color to the left with my Orange, completing the Mandala. I got 3 cards and they only had 1. Chose the purple with 5, giving the Yellow with 3 to them. That was my 4th and their 3rd color.

Left Mandala restarted with 2 Purple. That was my turn and the opponent added a green, 2nd color to that left Mandala.

Played orange as 3rd one to the right Mandala and got Orange and 2 Green. The opponent added 2 more Green on that left Mandala.

I played a Yellow to the left, 3rd color. The opponent played 2 Black on the right, their side, 5th color. With my last Orange, I added 2nd color to the left Mountain, 4th color overall and got 1 Purple and 2 Yellow. The opponent added 3rd Purple to the left Mountain.

I added a Purple to the right Mountain as 6th color there. 3 cards on my side against their 2 so I got to choose 2 colors this time. I picked the Red first with 5 cards as my 5th color. Got it wrong placement I guess.

The opponent took the Orange with 2 cards since it was better than single Purple for them and I got the last card.

Right Mandala restarted with a Green and a Black. That was on my turn and the opponent added a Purple to the right Mandala, their side, 3rd color.

Next, I played 1 yellow to my right, 4th color. The opponent added 2nd Orange to the left Mountain. I added 2nd Green to the right Mountain and got Red, Purple and Black. The opponent played a red on the right mountain their side, 5th color.

Played my only Black to the left, my side. The opponent added 3rd Orange to that same Mountain. Then I played 3rd Green to the right Mountain and got Green and Orange. The opponent played 2 more reds on their side of the right Mandala.

Played 2 Red on my left, 6th color, completing the Mandala. I had 4 cards against their 3. Both purple and orange on the Mountain had the same number of cards. I took the Orange, my 6th color, giving them the Purple, their 1st.

Left Mandala restarted with Orange and Black. The opponent then added a Yellow, 3rd color there to their side.

Next, I played my only orange to the right, my side as the 6th color, completing that Mandala. I only had 2 against their 4. So, they got to choose first, taking the 3 green, giving me a single black.

The Mandala restarted with green and Black and the opponent played a single red on their side.

Played my 1 Purple to my left. The opponent added 2nd Orange to that left Mountain. Then I played a yellow to my right as 4th color. The opponent added 2 more yellow on their side of Left Mandala.

3 cards left for me and I added 2nd Green to the Right Mountain. Got a Yellow, a Green and Red. The opponent added 5th color, the orange on their side of Right Mandala.

I added a Red to the Left Mountain to get Green, Orange and Purple. The opponent did the same. Added 2nd yellow to my right side while the opponent added 4th yellow to their side of the left.

As my final action, I added 2 Green to the left Mandala, my side, completing the Mandala. I only had 3 cards while the opponent had 4. So they got to take 2 colors from the Mountain. Since I was aiming for them to also have 6 colors, I let them take the Red and the Black. Got me the Orange.

That was the end of the game. I scored 86 and the opponent scored 42.

Maybe it’s not a bad idea by making the solo game about balancing. You as the only player have to make sure that the opponent score as good as you. Using the idea of the crew, as additional challenge, none of the player can have 2 more colors than their opponent at any time. I’m going to try that next.

Playing time was about 30 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Mandala Review.

Tranquility

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Fill the sea with islands so the sailing ship can still visit them but reach their destination in the world of Tranquility.

This is a new game to me but this was released for the first time in 2020. From what I heard, the original publisher had financial issue and now Lucky Duck Games took over not just this game but the crowdfunded sequel as well. So, this was a version from the new publisher.

Tranquility is a cooperative game for up to 5 players but there is a solo variant. The goal of the game is to fill the 6 x 6 grid with island cards. Each card has a great art depicting an island and its upside-down reflection. You can always play them in any orientation creating a beautiful scenery of multiple islands at the end of the game.

Each card also has a number from 1 to 80 with each number only has one copy. To win the game you have to fill the grid by placing cards in the grid in ascending order from the bottom left to the top right. There are only 36 spaces so not all 80 cards will be placed.

At the start of the game, you can just place card anywhere but of course, ideally divide the 6 rows for some range of numbers. Each player starts with 5 cards and they may get 8, 23, 54, 55, 79. Once you place them, it stays there.

The challenge is that when you place the card next to previous one, you have to discard a number of cards from your hand. The number is equal to the difference between the 2 adjacent cards. Since you only have 4 left after placing one, you don’t want to have gap bigger than 4.

The trick is that if you have to play a card in between 2 existing cards, you can choose to discard the lower difference. So, if you have a 15 to play between a 5 and a 16, you only need to discard 1 card instead of 10. So, the game is about waiting until you get the next number while expanding from the existing.

Even though you are playing on a grid, each space is considered only adjacent up to 2 other spaces. The start of the next row is still considered adjacent to the last card of the previous row. Only exception from this rule is the bottom left and top right corner.

The grid has only 36 spaces so not 80 cards will be played. Those 44 probably have to be used for discarding purposes. You don’t even need to play 1 or 80. Maybe start with 78 at the top right or 5 at the bottom left. How you expand to the other space is the main challenge.

Are the next lower or higher cards still available or should you play the 2 numbers below or above the existing immediately? Usually, halfway through the game you may start counting the remaining spaces between existing cards. Maybe you will realize, it is not possible because you placed the cards too far.

On player’s turn they can either play a card to the grid and then discard cards from their hand. Or they can choose to not play and just discard 2 cards. After either option, they have to draw back to 5.

In a way it’s like a timer. You can just wait for the perfect card but you may run out of time. In addition to those 80 cards, the whole deck will add 5 Finish cards and up to 5 Start cards, depending on the player count. To win the game, outside the grid, you also need to play one Start card and one Finish card and the rest can become additional timer.

Playing a Start card is a must the moment any player has that in their hand. But you may not play a Finish card since you need to wait until the grid is full first. Maybe you forget and accidentally use all 5 of them to discard cards and without any, you cannot win.

Also playing a Start card will force players to discard a total of 8 cards. They can choose however they want to distribute them among each other. Ideally, they have to do it evenly or one player may run out of cards first.

The thing is that each player also has their own deck to draw from, evenly distributed among players. This is why no one can discard too many cards while the other only discard one or two.

At this point, you may have guessed that in this cooperative game, there is one more restriction, the Limited Communication. Players cannot tell the exact number on their cards. Each player also has their own discard pile that no one can look. According to the rule, the only time players can talk is when deciding how many cards to discard from each player after playing the START card. Even then they can only say the amount of cards they are willing to discard.

That is the main idea of Tranquility. Players have to fill the grid and play the finish card before any of them run out of cards. If they don’t have enough cards to discard as one of the action, everybody loses.

The game also comes with 3 extra modules using additional cards. Kind of like Oniverse games where you can add one module or play with all of them. The rule also comes with a couple of variants, like removing cards to make it harder, different grid form or competitive variant.

My first impression after initial plays.

I accidentally played 2 games with the smaller grid. Instead of 6×6 I played 5×5. Of course, it made the game easier with still 80+ cards but it doesn’t seem to break the game. Only played the base game so maybe it doesn’t work with the expansion modules.

I think one of the reasons I got that wrong is that I kind of don’t like how they use border cards with the same design as the other cards. Didn’t realize that there were other border cards so I thought I got it right.

The 2nd reason is of course, the table space. Luckily, I managed to play fit them on my table. Maybe the border cards are a bit hanging on the edge of the table. I understand why you need to form the grid but it feels waste of space.

Some people mention that Tranquility has similarities with Hanabi, The Mind, the Crew mostly because of the limited communication. Most of them agree that it is closer to THE GAME. I have only played The Crew so I cannot say about the other 3. This reminds me of other game I recently bought this year called LEVEL 10, or previously known as Okey Dokey.

Well, that one has suits or colors with numbers just from 1 to 8 each and you can only play the matching suit on specific row. Not that close though. I guess the similarity is only playing a card in ascending order. In Level 10 or Okey Dokey, every round, each player can only play on one different row so there is coordination there, who plays where. Making sure that everyone has different colors.

While in Tranquility, you are just expanding from different existing cards or just discard. In Level 10, you have to play or lose and you can lose early in the game.

In Tranquility, at least the basic game, as long as you are playing carefully, you probably will not lose early. Losing is determined with the last empty spot. If you still don’t have that card in your hand, then you better hope that you still have one that works in the deck.

In my session, I checked the remaining cards in the deck and I only had 2 chances to fill that last gap, including the card I played. This was playing solo.

At first, you are probably using feeling more. Do you need that card or will you play that number? The gap is still very wide open. Early in the game, it is still safe to discard.

My focus was to close multiple gaps as early as possible. That way, you give yourself more cards that you skip in between those numbers to discard. Near the end, you may find yourself when cards with higher or lower than these numbers are safe to discard.

Technically, you are not allowed to check the discard pile but when you play solo, you are not telling anybody. So, instead of memorizing it, maybe you can just keep track. Well, there is still a chance that you know early that you cannot win.

Unfortunately, that base game and solo probably doesn’t have much replay value so maybe I need to try the modules right away. That solo session is fast, maybe about 20 minutes. There are a lot of times when it is obvious which number to play next, with just the adjacent one. I think the challenge is deciding which card to discard. The longest was when discarding cards after the START card. After that is when deciding cards in between those gaps.

Still have things to explore from this game. The base game is not that great but not an expensive game. Even though the quality of cards doesn’t feel great either. We’ll see.

Playing time was about 36 minutes.

Old Town Road

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Witness the lives of people becoming outlaws in the Wild West as you journey through Old Town Road.

Started with 2 5s, A, 3, 4 and 6, from left to right. The 3, 4 and one of the 5s were Clubs so a good chance to make a Straight Flush.

The 6 on the right end had a range of 1, targeting a club or heart. So, he first eliminated the Sherrif 4 and then the 3. Then came in a 7 and another A. This new Ace of Heart actually could target the 5 of Club from their position so I got the Straight Flush.

The road had a 3, A, 7, 5, A and 6. 4 of them were Diamonds but not possible to make a straight so going with the Flush. Started with the 3 that just came in, targeting anybody with a chip 3 to 5 spaces away. That 6 on the other end had one so the 6 of Diamond got eliminated.

A 4 came in and this could take down that recent 3 so that is what happened. Then a 2 came in from the right and this could eliminated the A of Diamond next to him. So I got the Flush of Diamonds with 6, 3 and A.

I let the A next to 7 went away so the 4 could get closer to 7. Now the road had a 6, 3, 4, 7, 5 and 2. A chance to make a Straight with a 7, 6 and 5. Started with the 4 and a 5 robbed the Saloon 7. Then entered a 4 that could eliminate the 6 next to him and that is what happened. Then the 4 that robbed the Saloon killed the 5, his partner in crime. So, I got the Straight with 7, 6 and 5.

Next, the road had a 6, 3, 4, 3, 4 and 2. Still missing 3 of a kind and a pair. One 4 and 2 3s were already out so I thought not great chance to use them to make 3 of a kind. I settled with Pair of 4. Both the 2 and the 3 on the right of the 2 4s killed the 4s. A 5 and another 7 entered the scene. The 2 on the left continued killing the 3 of Spades and so I got a Pair of 4 plus a 3 as my 4th set.

The road now had a 2, 7, 5, 6, 3, 2. I had a chance not only to flip the 7 but also make a Straight Flush with the other 2 hearts after it. So, the 2 and 5 robbed the 7 first, turning it upside down. Then that same 2 killed the 5, his partner in crime and the brother 6 of hearts. I completed my 5th set with another Straight Flush.

The road now had a 7, 4, 2, 2, 3 and 2. Obviously I had to try making this 3 of a kind with those 2s. Started with that 3 killed the 2 on the left. Another 2 showed up from the right and he killed the leftmost 2. After a 5 entered the scene from the left, that 2 of hearts killed the most recent 2. Got my 3 of a kind with 2s.

Next, the road had A, 5, 7, 4, 3 and 2. First the 5 and 4 robbed the 7. Unfortunately it didn’t become part of any set. The 5 that can target a heart within 1 space had a chance to get a 4, 3 and 2 and all of them were hearts. So, that is what happened. Got another Straight Flush of Hearts with 4, 3 and 2.

Last few cards were Sherrif A, 6, 7, A, 5. I had a chance for another straight with the 7. First the 6 and A robbed the bank, turning it upside down. Then the Sherrif took down the 6 first and then the far 5. Got my Straight set with 7, 6 and 5.

That was the end of the game.

10 points for having all 5 kind of sets. Another 10 points from the first Straight Flush. 6 points from the Flush. 9 points from the first Straight. 5 points from the Pair. 10 points from another Straight Flush. 6 points from 3 of a Kind. Last Straight Flush got me 13 and 9 from the last Straight.

Final Score was 78.

Playing time was about 33 minutes.

Curious Cargo

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Build adjustable conveyor system of your logistic facility for automatic loading and unloading cargos in Curious Cargo.

Finally back to the solo variant of Curious Cargo after several months. Back to playing with just 2 colors and the board #2 and with the easiest difficulty, using 4 countdown cards. Apparently, I have been ignoring a rule about triggering end game, noted below in the 2nd to last round.

ROUND 1. My 3 actions were to draw 3 tiles. Got an Blue S and Red S which I stored on the left in that order and a Red C on the right. Actually, I ended up placing the C on the left but top most. The opponent was still counting down.

Got a Size 2 truck card that I traded for 3 tiles. One was all blue L and then all Red L and main red L with 2 Blue. All of them went to my right storage with the 2 colors at the top. The opponent did nothing yet.

ROUND 2. Started building those conveyors to the bottom docks of my shipping side. First using the S Shape with 2 colors and placed it between the machine, placed horizontally. Then vertically, below that tile, an S Blue on the left and C Red on the right, extending both red and blue line, pointing red to dock 4 and blue to dock 3. No active connection yet.

The opponent was still counting down.

I did nothing with my truck card as they were good. Also didn’t traded tiles for card. Of course, the opponent was still doing nothing.

ROUND 3. Drew 3 tiles and all of them had blue as the main line, a Straight, an L and an S. Only the last one had 2 shorter reds while the other had one red and one shorter blue. Stored them on the left, L first, then the Straight and last one the S.

The opponent was still counting down. Still nothing for both players during truck phase.

ROUND 4. Kept expanding the conveyor. First with Red L, horizontally next to dock 4. This extended the existing red but then pointed down to dock 3. Using the corner red of S Blue, I connected the red to Dock 3, 1st active connection. With that last tile, dock 2 had an S blue ready to be connected with the existing blue already connected to the machine. All I needed was a shorter straight blue which I used from the L Blue from the right storage. Now the 2nd line, a blue one was also active.

The opponent was still counting down, the last one.

Having 2 active connections finally, I played my size 4 truck with empty spot on space 2 and 3. Loaded a Blue and a Red. Got a Gear token from filling the truck completely and a Truck token for those first 2 goods. Last wait for the opponent.

ROUND 5. Drew 3 tiles. I got All Blue Straight, 2 Red Ls, one with shorter straight red and the other with 2 blues. Stored the straight on the left and the 2 on the right. Didn’t use the gear token as I waited for the opponent move first.

The opponent made first connection to their shipping side dock #2 with red.

For the trucking phase, I played the truck token first that allowed me to draw a card. Then I spent 2 AP to play my size 6 on my side still, pushing the previous truck to the front but not leaving yet. The truck had empty space on dock 2 and 4 so I loaded my 2nd blue goods there.

The opponent played size 5 with 3 empty spaces so it went to their shipping side. Unfortunately, for them, the space next to their active dock had a crate so no loading for them.

ROUND 6. Since the opponent was not shipping anything yet, I decided to create connecting to my top part of shipping side, preparing for the existing truck to go there. I had another Size 4 truck card so I thought the empty spot of existing size 6 should stop at dock 8 so I made a connection between there and the left machine. With all 3 Red Ls from my red storage and from the left part of that left machine, I made it, 3rd active connection. Got a gear token as bonus.

I did spend the token to take 2 more tiles. I got a Blue C, all blue and a Blue S with one red. Stored both on the right, the S first.

The opponent made 2nd connection to their shipping side dock 8 and this time for the Blue goods. They had no gear token yet so no additional action for them.

For this trucking phase I played that last truck card, size 4, with just 1 empty space at dock 2. Loaded 3rd blue of mine and got a tile as bonus which was Straight Red with 2 Blue. The previous size 6 truck moved forward and then the empty space was exactly at dock 8 with red line. I loaded my 2nd red there. Got a gear token for completely filled the truck.

The opponent also played a truck, a size 4 with 2 empty spaces so it went to their shipping side. They managed to load their first red on this new truck. The previous size 5 moved forward and an empty space of that truck landed on dock 8 with active blue line so they loaded their first blue.

ROUND 7. I still went first. Preparing to receive a blue. The truck should stop with those goods on my dock 4 of my receiving side. Unless it got pushed forward and moved it to dock 8. I decided to just prepare for the latter.

First I had these 2 straight on my left storage, I just prepared them for dock 7 and 8, red and blue in that order. Now I had access to the Blue L. From my right machine, the right side, played a Blue L pointing down.

Those were 3 actions. Spent a gear token. Played another straight to extend my shipping side dock 7 to existing blue line. One last action was to play the C Blue from the right storage. to finally connect the right machine and receiving dock 8. Got my 4th active connection with a truck card as bonus, which was size 4.

The opponent got their 3rd active connection and it was to their shipping side, dock 9, for a red line. Got 2 gear tokens from that connection. Spent 1 and their next action was just drawing a tile from the bag.

For trucking phase, I played my last truck card, the size 4, on my opponent’s shipping. Space 2 had a crate so no loading for them. Then, they played size 5, all empty on their side, pushing the truck I just played forward. They managed to load their both their 2nd blue and red.

The size 4 from earlier got pushed forward to my receiving side with red goods on dock 2. No connection from me to receive it. But the one at front, got the blue goods on dock 8 which I could receive. Received my first one and got a gear token.

ROUND 8. I still went first but I only had 1 tile in storage. So, I used all 3 actions plus 2 from one gear token to draw 5. Got a Red S, Red L, 2 Blue Ss, and a C Red. Planned to use the last 2 to draw truck cards so I placed them both on right side. The other 3 went to the left, started with L Red, then Blue S, then Red S on top.

The opponent action was to prepare receiving goods based on my lowest shipping connection. I got one shipping for blue on dock 2 so they got 4th connection on receiving dock 2. They finally got first player. The opponent got gear token so their 2nd action was making 5th connection on receiving dock 7. They got a bonus truck card.

I guess I forgot that they should have gone first during this truck phase. They played size 2 on their shipping side. No loading for them. Those that got pushed forward to my shipping side got nothing for me to receive.

As mentioned before I traded the 2 tiles for a card. I got a size 3 completely empty.

ROUND 9. The opponent went first. First they got a shipping connection on their dock 4 for red. With gear token, they got 2nd action which was removing their shipping connection on dock 8 since I got the receiving there.

I began preparing more receiving connection from docks 2 to 4 to my top right machines. Played all 3 tiles from my left storage but no connection yet. So, I spent 1 gear token to draw 2 more tiles and got straight blue and Red L. Both were stored on my left storage.

Trucking Phase and the opponent played size 6. It was all empty so it went to their shipping side. They loaded 2 reds on it. The size 2 from previously that got pushed forward got a 3rd Blue. As bonus, they took a tile. They also got a truck token bonus for loading both 3rd.

The size 5 truck from their shipping moved forward to my receiving, pushing the existing 2 on my receiving side. One left my side with a red. But the one with blue landed right on my dock 8 so I received that 2nd blue with a truck token bonus.

I didn’t do anything this trucking phase.

ROUND 10. The opponent still went first. They got 2 connections this round thanks to that gear token. One was red on their dock 3 receiving side and the other was dock 3 on their shipping.

I played 2 tiles, one on top of the other and finally made a connection to my dock 2 receiving side, ready to take that first red. Used the last action to draw another tile, an S Blue. Also got a truck card bonus for the 5th connection, a size 6.

Trucking Phase. First they unloaded 1st red from dock 2 receiving side. Then they loaded 4th blue from dock 3 shipping. After that, they played a size 2 truck on their side. By doing so, the previous size 6 got filled on 2 more blues and they managed to completely ship all blue goods. For completely filling the truck they got Splitter bonus.

****
I think this should have triggered the end game by shipping 9 goods or more. Didn’t realize that rule until now so I ignored and continued playing the game. I thought one has to get a Star. Apparently, star only determines the winner after triggering the end of the game.

The game should have ended at the end of this Trucking phase so I still had a chance to do something. Then the game should have proceeded with scoring since none of us got a Star yet.

****

Played a truck token to draw a truck card and got another size 6 with only 1 empty space. Now I had to play a truck card which I used the previous size 6 on their side. The good thing was that the empty spaces of this truck were on the dock with blue connection so they loaded nothing. The crates prevented them for loading reds.

2 trucks moved forward from their to my side. A red landed on my red line dock 2 so I received 2nd red Goods. Got a truck token bonus and a Splitter.

****

Had I played correctly, this should have been the end of the game and scoring happened.

I scored 6 from shipping, 18 for the opponent. 14 points from Receiving for me and 8 for the opponent. 2 points for me and 3 for the opponents from the leftover tokens. Then lastly 2 points from the turn order track for the opponent and I got nothing. So, 22 for me and 31 for the opponent.

************

ROUND 11. The opponent first action was making connection on their dock 8 receiving side in response to me having one on the same dock shipping. That was their 9th active connection. Then with 2nd action they actually removed 1, their shipping #2 since I was ready to receive it.

For me, I drew 2 tiles first and got 2 Ls. Both were Blue but mirrored from each other.

After spending a gear token, I played 2 tiles, Blue S and Blue L plus 2nd scaffolding to get a connection from dock 3 receiving, ready to unload that blue. Unfortunately, this removed another active connection to my dock 2.

My last action was to play a Blue S. This switched Blue connection from receiving dock 8 to 7, ready to unload that Blue from size 2 truck. Stored the other L Blue.

Trucking Phase I unloaded the 2 Blue and I received 4 goods of one color and triggered the end of the game. The opponent played size 5 truck on their side. Unlucky for them, they couldn’t unload more red.

No need to do anything and I won. Not really, as noted above in previous round. I won only if I ignored the rule about shipping 9 goods.

So, I guess that is the reason I should push shipping more even if that can help the opponent to receive more.

Playing time was about 73 minutes.

Walking in Provence

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Explore and use Drone to take the best picture that captures all of the elements of Southeastern France in Walking in Provence.

This is another 2-handed session of the week since this has no official solo rule. There were 3 goals that required wheat fields, 2 with Lavenders, 3 with Forest, 2 with Windmill, 3 with shops, 2 with Chapel and 2 with Sunflower. The 2 majority bonuses were having the most Windmill and/or the most sunflowers.

1st round. Red got 2 cards, one had a chapel and the other had a shop and a forest. Since there were more goals that involved shops and better for scoring at the end, Red went with the Shop.

Green got one card with Windmill and the other with Shop, Sunflower and Forest. They should have aimed with the latter but they chose the former, extending the Wheat field and made the vertical Lavender close.

2nd round. Red now got 2 cards both with shop. One only had brown shop while the other was the shop with other special objects from Green player. Now that I think about it, maybe Red should have chosen the latter and slipped the card below the existing, part of it so the Forest was close while the new shop was next to the existing. Maybe I just didn’t think about it.

So, Red went with the new card, placing so the new shop was next to the existing. Even this one was not great as this didn’t expand any existing group.

Green on the other hand got similar Windmill only card and the Chapel only from Red Player. Those 2 cards would have given similar result to green of expanding the wheat group. But Green wanted to win the majority so they chose the Windmill and returned the Chapel one to Red.

3rd round. Red got that Chapel card back and the new one had 3 special objects, the blue shop, sunflower and Forest. At least this one, the position of Forest and shop was perfect to expand the existing. The Lavender part was also perfect so it was no brainer Red took this one. Red just needed a Windmill and a spot to take picture.

Green got that card back with 3 objects and the new one had Blue shop and forest. They picked the new card since the position of objects were perfect to expand the existing wheat and lavender field without overlapping anything. They got a good spot to take pictures using Drone and scored the objective that required size 3 of both Wheat and Lavender field for 6 points.

4th round. Red got the card with 3 objects but the new one had brown shop and Windmill. They didn’t need the shop but that Windmill was probably important. Red should have just focused on the goal by placing the Windmill closer to the 2 Forest and Sunflower. Instead I used the card to expand the Wheat field to size 4 at the bottom end and this made the Windmill so far away. No picture was taken by red this time.

Green got the Chapel card back and the new one had brown shop and sunflower. By placing the brown shop next to the existing blue and cut a bit of the Wheat, Green managed to put size 4 of Wheat and 2 shops in one frame from their starting position. Scored 8 points for being the first.

5th round. Red now got 2 cards with Chapel. The new one had no Wheat but sunflower. Red needed the Wheat which was from the card nobody took. This expanded the Wheat while providing a spot for the Drone to put size 3 of both Wheat and Lavender in one frame. Green already took picture for this earlier so Red only scored 4.

Green also got back that card with 3 special objects. The new one actually had the Purple shop, first one to appear. With the new card, the position was perfect to expand the shop group and good orientation of the sunflower. No picture for the Green this time.

6th round. Another chapel card for red and the card with 3 objects that nobody took. None of these helped Red with the Goal. So, Red settled to get a new set of shop, finally taking that card with 3 special objects. Luckily the sunflower orientation was perfect.

Green got a card with Chapel and sunflower but no Wheat plus new card with only Forest and 2 of each Lavender and Wheat. Green decided to aim for another Drone photo goal that required 2 shops, a Chapel, a Windmill and a Forest within a frame. To do this, the card was placed a bit at the top, covering 2nd Windmill and the sunflower with wrong orientation. It also cut off one part of the big Wheat group. Green moved the Drone one space to that new card and everything required was in frame. Scored 8 for being the first.

7th round. Red finally got a card with purple shop plus a forest and the other card with just a forest. Of course, they chose the new one, completing the first set of shops by eliminating the group of 3 lavender, creating a new group but horizontal.

Green got new card with blue shop and sunflower that they didn’t need. On the other hand, card from Red had Forest and Chapel which was perfect for the last Drone goal, which required size 4 wheat and size 2 forest. There was already a Drone spot between the 2 existing objects. So by just placing the Forest part next to the existing one, Green completed the goal for 7 points, first time.

8th round. Red needed to catch up. While the card from Green with Blue shop was great for their 2nd set but that didn’t help with the objective. The other card had a Chapel which was perfect for the goal with 2 shops, a chapel and 1 sunflower in a frame by photographer. Nobody had done it at this point. But to do this, Red had to cover their only Windmill which didn’t seem to work at all with any goal. There was already a photo spot next to the 2 shops of the 2nd group and sunflower so Red scored 7 points from this.

Green got a new card with Windmill and sunflower. However, Green got a chance to take photo with size 4 Lavender and 2 Forest using the card with only 1 Forest. Green got size 3 Forest now and size 4 Lavender. Their photographer got a good spot next to nearby Chapel to put them in one frame. Green scored 8 points with 2 more goals. Red still had 5 more.

9th round. Red got the Windmill from the Green. This was really perfect for Red. Without overlapping anything, placing the card at the top right, not only helped red with 2 goals but also created new lavender group of 4. Photographer moved next to the 2 Forests and put the 2 forest and 4 Lavender in one frame. Then the Drone moved to where the Photographer was and got 2 shops, 1 Chapel, 1 Windmill and a Forest in one frame. Red scored 6 from each goal. 3 more for Red.

Green also got similar lucky card for their next goal to put 2 shops, a chapel and a sunflower in one frame by photographer without the need to overlap anything. Placed the card at the top left and moved the photographer there and took the shot for 5 points as Red already took it first.

10th round. Last card for both. Unfortunately Green couldn’t complete the last photo goal with the last card. They had Windmill, 2 Forest and a Sunflower close to each other but no photo spot for the photographer.

So, Green just focused on the end game scoring. Now that I think about it, Green could have completed their shop set with this last card for 5 extra points. Instead, they used it to just increase the vertical lavender so the value went up from 4 to 6.

That was exactly what Red did with the last card to increase the value of 2nd shop set from 3 to 7. While at the same time, Red photographer took the picture of 5 Wheat and 2 Forest for 6 points. This was available way before this but maybe I just didn’t realize it. Red could have taken it before Green.

Green failed one goal while Red failed to complete 2. The final score was 78 for Red and 81 for Green so it was still close. Actually with the correct play, Red could have scored 80 while Green got 79. But Green had a chance to score higher by 5 minus 2 with a better position for last card. So, Green still won but the 2 was so close.

Red did a great job focusing on second set of shops. They even lost score with sunflowers.

Playing time was about 68 minutes.

Wingspan Asia

More pictures of this Wingspan Asia game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Explore the Asia continent to attract birds to your wildlife preserves and make sure to claim the best location for them in Wingspan Asia.

This was my 4th play of this Wingspan game and 3rd solo play. The Automa opponent used the RARE SPECIES LISTER bonus card with the Eaglet or Easy variant. Based on the result, I guess I made the right choice going easy this time.

For my bonus card I chose PHOTOGRAPHER that gives bonus for having birds with color on their name. My 5 starting resources were 3 foods, the green, yellow and red plus 2 bird cards, BAYA WEAVER and GREEN BEE-EATER. I drew WHITE HEADED DUCK which could be great with the bonus card but it was a one time action.

The thing was, that White Headed Duck was probably the only bird card that I could play right away with the first set of resources. While the other cards required more than one food of a type which I think a bit wasteful.

I just realized this rule that you can also spend 2 of other foods to pay the right type of food cost. But I only realized this later. So, technically, I probably could have afforded any of them but again, a bit wasteful.

Another mistake that I made during previous plays that I just realized is that I shouldn’t play the end of the round goal about having duet tokens on or not on the edge when playing solo. I even added that one at the start of this game and somehow got lucky to notice that rule and swapped it for the 3rd round. Maybe that helped me win against the Automa previously.

ROUND 1.

My first action was DRAW CARD, just one. The tray had SCALY BREASTED MUNIA which I could play right away since I had all of the food. Automa’s first action was removing food, the Fish one, only 1 die.

My 2nd action was to PLAY CARD that I just got. This bird can either go to blue or yellow row. I chose the Blue one paying 1 yellow and red food.

*** Already made my first error here. So, I claimed the water location from the duet board, 3rd row from above and 4th from the left. Apparently that had a Fish food symbol that I didn’t feed to this bird. Yet, I claimed it for the bird card. Oh, well, I guess I really didn’t deserve a win.

Automa’s 2nd action was taking face down card, removing the 3 on the tray and played a duet token to the right of my first one, the incorrect one.

My 3rd action was to draw cards again. The Munia bird was activated which got me an Orange food while the bird card was EURASIAN TREECREEPER from the tray. Automa’s 3rd was taking 1 Egg.

My 4th action was playing that bird I just got. The only cost was single green or yellow food and it had to be the Green row. I placed the duet token 2nd from the top row, 2nd space from the right where the bird picture had to be facing left. The spot got me a food bonus which I took the Red.

Automa’s 4th action was removing a food, those with green / yellow. There were 2 in the birdfeeder, forcing it to resupply the birdfeeder. Two grays, 1 red, 1 yellow and one green/yellow.

My 5th action was taking a card again. I took AZURE TIT from the tray plus another Yellow food from Munia bird. Automa’s 5th was taking face down card plus removing all cards from the tray. They claimed a spot the 4th row from the top, 3rd space from the left, a water space.

My 6th action was still taking a card with the same bonus. I took ZEBRA DOVE from the tray. Automa got another face down card, removing the 3 on the tray and claimed a spot, 2nd row from the top, rightmost space, a green space.

My 7th action was to take food. Since I already had 1 bird in that row, I got to take 1 die plus 1 if I discard a card. Discarded that Zebra dove so I got 1 green and 1 yellow. The birdfeeder was refreshed with 2 gray, 1 red, 1 yellow and 1 blue. This time, Automa took 1 Egg.

My last action was laying 2 eggs. Automa finally played a face up card, taking SMEW for 4 points. They also claimed top row, 3rd spot from the left.

That was the end of the game. I lost the end game goal since Automa occupied more spaces with Nest type, even if it was just 1.

ROUND 2.

1st action from me was Play Bird card which I played that AZURE TIT to 2nd space of green row. Spent 1 egg, 1 Green and 1 yellow food. I claimed 2nd row from the top, 3rd space from the right of that Duet Board.

Automa got to play a bird. The tray had all 3 cards worth 4 each so they took one and removed the other. This time they occupied the bottom row leftmost space.

2nd action from me was Draw Card again with the same bonus, 1 yellow food. This time the card was WHITE-CRESTED LAUGHINGTHRUST. Automa took 2 eggs this time.

My 3rd action was Gain Food. Azure Tit got me a Green Food and I took 1 gray and 1 blue food from the birdfeeder. Automa took face down card, removing those on the tray. They claimed bottom row again, 3rd space from the left.

4th action from me was PLAY BIRD CARD, with that recent bird. This had to be the green row, 3rd one. Spent 1 egg, 1 green, 1 yellow and 1 red. I claimed 2nd row from the top, 2nd spot from the left with food bonus, that I took a red. Autom took another face down card, placing a token to the right where I just claimed.

5th action from me was LAYING EGGS, just 2 eggs. Automa did the same and got 2 eggs.

Then my 6th action was playing a card again, FIRE FRONTED SERIN on green row, 4th space. Spent 2 eggs, 1 yellow and 1 red food. I claimed leftmost spot of the 2nd row from the top.

Automa also played face up bird card and the tray had 2 5s and 1 6. They were still expanding the bottom area and this time 2nd row from the bottom, 3rd space from the left.

My last action this time was to take Food. I got 2 Green and 1 Gray from the dice and bonus 1 Green and 1 Yellow from the brown power. Apparently Automa did the same and just removed red food, which there were 2.

That was the end of the 2nd round. I had 2 end of the round powers. One got me 3 eggs and the other got me 1 green food that I cached on.

The end of the round goal was to have more duet tokens on Green area and I won.

ROUND 3.

My 1st action was to Draw Cards. I only had 1 bird in that row so I drew 1 but I discarded an egg to draw the 2nd one. The brown power previously got me a Yellow food but this time I tucked a card below it from the deck. Automa’s action was just removing 1 Gray food.

2nd action from me was PLAY A CARD. I played GRACEFUL PRINIA that I just took as 2nd on the water area. Spent 1 egg and 2 green food. Claimed the 3rd row from the top, 3rd space from the left of that Duet board. Automa played face up card again and got Forest Owlet for 4. There was also a 5. They claimed rightmost space of the 4th row from the top.

3rd action from me was DRAW CARDS again. I got 2 cards, Prinia got me a green food after discarding an egg and the Munia got 1 card tucked under it. Automa took 3 eggs.

4th action was to play a card, EURASIAN EAGLE OWL that I just took on yellow row. Spent 2 gray foods, no egg needed. Unfortunately no space on duet board close to my existing group that I could claim. So, I took rightmost spot, 2nd row from the bottom. Automa took 2 more eggs.

5th action was Laying Eggs, 2 plus 1 after discarding a yellow food. Automa played another face up card, worth 4 points. They claimed bottom right space.

6th or last action from me was to Play a card, GREEN BEE-EATER as 2nd to yellow row. I had to spend 1 egg and 3 green foods but with only 2 Green food so I spent a blue and a yellow to make up the last one. Claimed a spot 3rd from the bottom and 3rd from the right. Automa took face down card and claimed top row, 3rd space from the right.

That was the end of this round. I still only had 2 powers. Got 3 eggs and a green food that I kept. The end of the round goal was to have fewer tokens on spaces with bonus. I had 3 and Automa had 2 so I lost.

ROUND 4.

I only had 2 cards left and one food. My first action was DRAW CARDS. I got 2 cards and from the 2 brown powers, I got 1 Green and 1 Yellow food. Automa removed the last die before refreshing the birdfeeder. It now had 2 blue, 1 green, 1 yellow and 1 gray.

2nd action from me was to gain foods. I took 3 dice, 1 gray, 1 yellow and 1 green. That forced the reroll since only 2 blue food left. One brown got me a Red after tucking a card and the other got me a yellow food. Automa took 3 eggs.

My 3rd action was to play a card, the GREEN PHEASANT on yellow row, 3rd one. Spent 1 egg, 1 yellow, 1 green and 1 red food. Claimed the spot, 2nd from the right, 3rd from the bottom that got me an egg. Automa took 3 eggs again.

4th action was to play a card again, the RED JUNGLEFOWL on yellow row, 4th one. Spent 2 eggs, 1 yellow and 1 green food. Claimed the spot 2nd from bottom and 3rd from the right. Automa played a face down card and claimed 3rd row, rightmost space.

5th or last action from me was just to lay eggs. Got 4 eggs and activated 4 brown powers. The Red Junglefowl got me an egg. Green Pheasant also got me an egg but 2 for Automa. Tucked one card below the Green Bee-Eater and tucked the first card below Eurasian Eagle Owl. The 4 eggs were actually better to lay on green row for the end game bonus.

Automa played a card again and this time no one from the tray fit the requirement so they only took face down one. Claimed 3rd row from the bottom, 2nd space from the left.

That was the end of the last round. I still got 3 eggs and cached 2 food from the teal powers.

Automa won the last end of the round goal by placing 13 tokens while I only got 10.

My Final score was 70 but since I took incorrect one last time, I probably lost 4 of them so 66. Automa scored 82, maybe even 83 with 51 from bird cards, 24 from face down, playing easy mode, 27 face up cards.

Playing time was about 133 minutes.

Goblin Vaults

More pictures of this Goblin Vaults game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Win a card game against inmates of Kulbak Prison in Goblin Vaults.

This was my 2nd play of this game and first time playing with the official solo variant. I still used the recommended 3 objective cards with green and red suits plus black and yellow.

Played as Blue faction, I started with yellow 1 and 3, Green 2 and 7, Red 1, 4, 6 and 9 and Black 2. The last card was Green 1 that I picked as my first card of my first vault.

The trump card was Yellow 4 and the 3 blocks were from left to right, Yellow 5, Red 8 and Green 4.

ROUND 1. Glavrun’s first card was Black 7 and they bid on the left block. I wanted to make a sequence of 1, 2 and 3 and I had the Green 2. So, I underbid against their first card, paying 1 Gear using the Green 2. Then Glavrun’s 2nd card was Green 9 for the 3rd card.

So, I got my Green 2 and placed it on 2nd tier of the first vault after Green 1.

ROUND 2. First bid from Glavrun was to the 2nd card with the Gear, the Red 8 using Green 8. I wanted the Green 9 that Glavrun played before from the 3rd block. I bid that with Yellow 4, a trump so better chance to win.

Glavrun’s 2nd bid was on that 3rd block as well but with Black 5. So, they underbid me and I got a Gear, winning that Green 9. Placed the green 9 as my 2nd Vault, 1st tier.

ROUND 3. Glavrun’s first bid was to the middle block again, trying to get what they played earlier with now Yellow 8. I wanted that Green 8 after my Green 9 but no way I could win against that trump suit and value 8.

So, I bid the Yellow 3 that I played in previous round with Red 9, hoping to win. Glavrun’s 2nd bid was also on the same block as me but with Green 6 so I won the bid and got a Gear and that Yellow 3.

I placed the Yellow 3 to my first Vault so now it had Green 1, Green 2 and Yellow 3. Maybe I could have waited for Green 3 but I settled with that for now.

ROUND 4. Glavrun made first bid to my previous Red 9 using Black 6. I played that Red 9 since it worked well with the red objective card but I had to use it for new Vault. So, I outbid Glavrun with my Yellow 1 since it was a trump. Also this had Blue, matching symbol so I could have used it for exchanging card and move cards in vaults but I ignored it since I didn’t find good use for it now.

Apparently Glavrun’s 2nd bid was to the 1st card that had been there for 2 rounds with no one made a bid for it. Using Black 4 they got that card plus 2 Gear tokens.

I got back my Red 9 and placed it on tier 1 vault 3. This time, during the Warden phase, I swapped the yellow 4 trump card with the Black 4 from Glavrun. This way I could win with my Black 2.

ROUND 5. All blocks had yellow cards now. Glavrun bid with Green 3 the Yellow 1 on the right. I wanted the 8 in the middle so I bid with Black 2, a trump suit. Apparently Glavrun’s next bid was for the first card with Green 10 so every bid won.

Got my Yellow 8 and placed it as 2nd tier card for 2nd vault after Green 9. Also got a gear from it. Maybe I should have swapped the Trump card from Black with one of the Green since I still had Green but no more Black. But maybe I needed it to complete a sequence so not necessarily wanted to win using it.

ROUND 6. Glavrun started the bid for my previous Black 2 using Red 2.

I didn’t care for it and not the other 2 cards as well. So, I just bid the first card, Green 10 using my Red 1, expecting to lose anyway. But Glavrun’s 2nd bid was for the Green 3 using Black 10.

I got my Green 10 and placed it as 1st tier of 4th Vault. This time, I did swap the trump from Black to my Red 1.

ROUND 7. Glavrun made a bid on their previous card, Red 2 in the middle using Black 8. I used this chance to underbid to finish the sequence of 9, 8 and 7 by underbidding Glavrun with Green 7.

Glavrun’s 2nd bid was to their previous other card, Black 10 on the right using Yellow 6. I got my Green 7 and completed the 2nd Vault with a sequence and 2 Green.

ROUND 8. Glavrun bid the Black 4 from the left block that had a Gear using Yellow 7. I wanted the 8 that they previously played on the middle block so I played with my Red 4, a trump suit. Glavrun try to outbid me but they played yellow 2. So, I won the card and got a Gear.

Placed the Black 8 to my 3rd vault as 2nd tier after the Red 9.

ROUND 9. Final one and I wanted the Yellow 7 to complete my 3rd Vault. Glavrun luckily bid the right card, Yelow 6 using Black 3. I played my Red 6 to the first card and Glavrun underbid me with Yellow 9.

So, I got the Yellow 7 and a Gear, completing the 3rd Vault with a sequence of 9, 8 and 7 with Red as the highest value.

FINAL SCORE

Glavrun got 18 Gears. 5 cards that match with their Faction so depending on the difficulty level, either 10, 15 or 20 points.

Glavun also got 5 cards with the matching suit to the 2 Goal cards, red and green. So, their Final score was either 30, 35 or 40.

I still had 6 Gears. Only 2 cards that belonged to the 1st tier so 2 points. 1 card that scored and on middle tier so 2 points but no matching card for tier 3. I had only 1 card in the Vault with Blue faction color so I only scored 2.

Now for the Goal cards. Vault 1 got a sequence so 9 points and with 2 Green so 5 points. Then Vault 2 also had a sequence and 2 Green so another 14 points. 3rd Vault had a sequence and a red card as the highest so 9 plus 3 points. Last Vault or chamber only had 1 Green 10 scored nothing.

My final score was 52 points. Hopefully I got it right.

Playing time was about 37 minutes.

Micro City

More pictures of this Micro City (Second Edition) game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Become the best building contractor by supplying and delivering materials to fulfill contracts the fastest in Micro City.

While this is a solo game, I played the competitive variant 2-handed. I used only the standard district cards and no extra modules. Red as the 2nd player chose to start in Wood Factory at the center quarter of top left card with 3 coins. Blue as the first chose to start in Stone Factory, also in middle quarter but part of the bottom right district with 2 coins.

Blue started and rolled a 2 and a 3. So they played card 2 to move 1 space to the top right district to another wood factory that can use a 3 to boost the production. They got 2 Woods from the quarter and 1 coin plus 1 of the goods which they chose 1 Steel.

Red was next and they couldn’t play card 2. Rolled a 2 and a 5. Red chose to play card 3 and moved 2 spaces to the top left quarter. It seems I made a mistake here and forgot to resolve the quarter. The quarter could use a 2 but the card couldn’t use a 5. From that card, Red was supposed to trade 1 coin for any resources. Let’s say a steel. Then with the quarter, they should have traded that steel for 2 other resources plus 1 coin. Maybe I did resolve but as if they didn’t use the dice.

18 turns left. Back to Blue and they rolled 2 and 5, couldn’t play a 3. They spent 1 of 3 Wood to change the 2 into a 1. Played card 5 to move 1 space, back to their starting quarter that could use a 1. From the card itself, they traded 2 coins to get back 2 Wood while removing an Investment marker. From the quarter then they got 2 Stone.

17 turns left. Back to Red with another 2 and a 5 but not card 5. From the top left quarter they could use the 5 in the Stone factory 1 space from there so they played card 2 for the other die. Red got 2 Stone from the quarter and from the card, 1 coin plus 1 Steel.

16 turns left. Blue again now with a 1 and a 4. No nearby quarter that could use a 1 so they were planning to change that 1 into a 6. However, they decided to play card 4 and use the other die there to Upgrade a district. They moved 2 spaces to the quarter at the top right card to a residential quarter and then flipped it. Now the quarter could use a 1.

By upgrading a district, Blue scored 1 point from the Achievement card. Then the 1 for the quarter allowed them to fulfill one contract. They chose card 3, 1st contract and delivered 2 Stones for 2 points.

15 turns left. Back to Red with a 1 and a 4, restricted from using Card 4. Played card 1 with 1 die to remove 2 markers and moved 1 space back to the starting quarter. The quarter was a Wood Factory that could use a 4 so the 4 generated 2 Woods for Red.

14 turns left. Blue again with a 4 and a 5 but not card 1. The cards in their hand were 1, 3 or 6. They decided to play a 6 after changing the die 5 to a 6 by spending 1 of 3 Wood and moved to Wood Factory at the top right district.

The card got them 1 Wood back and returned the played cards back to Blue’s hand. Then with the 4, the quarter gave them 2 Woods so now they had 5 Woods, completing the Achievement for 3 points.

13 turns left. Red rolled a 1 and a 5, restricted from playing card 6. They were aiming for another Achievement to get 1 point for having 9 materials and they already had 6. Decided to play card 5 with that die to trade 2 coins for 2 goods, and removed a marker. With one left, they changed the 1 into a 6. The card moved them 1 space to a Steel factory that could use the 6 to get 2 goods. Red run out of money but got the 9 goods to complete the Achievement.

12 turns left. Blue rolled a 1 and 3 with 5 cards back but not card 6, restricted from playing card 5. Blue decided to play card 1 since they have used 4 markers. This moved them 1 space to commercial quarter of the top right district. The card removed 2 markers and the 3 was changed into a 4 so it could be used for the quarter to trade 1 wood into 1 stone and 1 steel plus gaining 1 coin.

11 turns left. Red rolled a 1 and 3, and only had card 4 and 6. Decided to turn the 1 into a 6 for the card by spending 1 Stone. Moved 1 space, also to commercial quarter that could use the 3. The card returned all played cards while getting one of the goods. I think I forgot to take 1 goods from the card. Still traded 1 goods for other 2 goods plus getting 1 coin from the quarter.

10 turns left. Back to Blue with a 2 and a 4. Played the 4 to move 2 spaces to the bottom right district to a Stone Factory that could use the 2. The card then upgraded the District, removing their single marker there and they got 2 stones from the quarter.

9 turns left. Red again with a 1 and a 3, not being able to play card 6 and 4. They were surrounded by a lot of residential quarters but they couldn’t use any of the die. So, they decided to play a 3 to card 3 to fulfill the contract while changing a 1 into a 2 after spending a wood to get more Steel at the bottom right district.

I think Red forgot to take 2 Steel. But they spent 1 coin to fulfill the contract and the contract was 2 points for 1 stone and 1 steel. No wonder why Red was struggling. Red got 2 points. It seems, Red also forgot to place a Marker.

8 turns left. Blue rolled a 2 and a 5 with either card 2 or card 5 to play. Decided to go with card 2 and the 5 for the other commercial quarter at the bottom right. Blue got 1 coin and 1 Steel from the card and then traded 1 Stone for 1 coin plus 1 Wood and 1 Steel.

7 turns left. Red got a 1 and a 4, could only play card 1, 4 or 5. Decided to play card 1 with the die and the 4 was to play in Residential district at the bottom right to fulfill contract. The card removed 2 markers and then they got 2 points for delivering 2 Woods from the first goal card.

6 turns left. Blue rolled a 4 and a 6, with either card 3 or card 5 to play. Spent a Wood to change the 4 into a 3 and played card 3. This moved them 2 spaces to the bottom left district to a Steel Factory. Played the 3 and paid 1 coin to deliver 1 wood, 1 steel and 1 coin from the 2nd goal card for 3 points. The quarter itself got them back 2 steel. Blue already used all of their marker so they lost 1 point to bring back 1 marker from the top right district. They were at 8 points.

5 turns left. Red rolled a 2 and a 3, either playing card 2, 4 or 5. They were next to commercial quarter that could use a 3 so they played card 2, moving exactly 1 space. The card got them 1 coin and 1 Wood. Then in the commercial quarter they traded 1 wood for 1 steel, 1 stone and 1 coin.

4 turns left. Blue again with a 4 and a 5 and only card 5 left. Lucky for them, there was a residential 1 space away from them that could use the 4. The 5 for the card got them to trade 2 coins for 2 goods and removed 1 marker. They didn’t use the trade but only removed a marker. Instead they fulfill a contract by delivering 2 coins for 1 point from 1st Goal Card. By doing so, they got 2 points from the Achievement by having 1 marker on every goal card.

They had 10 points but unfortunately, they had to lose 1 because they had no marker.

3 turns left. Red rolled a 3 and a 4 with only card 4 and 5. There was an achievement that gives 3 points for having markers on 3 different types of quarters. Red played the 4 but didn’t want to upgrade the district at the bottom right to get this achievement. They got to a Stone Factory and when they already had 1 in residential and 1 in commercial.

The card let them removed a marker and they took it from the forgotten steel factory. Since they didn’t use the die on card they decided not to use it as well on quarter and just got 1 stone. They got 3 points from the Achievement and was at 8 points.

2 turns left. Blue’s last turn but they had no more card in hand. So, they only moved 1 space to Stone factory in the top left district. Didn’t play any die and they got 1 coin.

Last turn. Red rolled a 3 and a 6 with only card 5. Another achievement was to have the Engineer in a Commercial quarter while having a marker on different commercial quarter. They already had a marker on one and was close to a different one. This last card was able to move them there. After moving, they achieved it, getting 2 points. In order not to lose a point, they had to spend 2 coins first to change the 6 to a 5 for the card so the card removed a marker from somewhere.

That was the end of the game. Blue scored 9 while Red scored 10.

Playing time was about 57 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Micro City Review.

Targi

More pictures of this Targi game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Gather resources and trade them into gold and silver to enlarge your tribe in Targi.

This was a 2-handed session. I didn’t realize it took over an hour to play both sides. Probably should have just played the solo mode. White went first.

ROUND 1. White occupied the Caravan first. Blue went to get Salt next to the top left oorner. Then White took a Date from the top edge, aiming for a Rider tribe from the middle. Blue occupied the space next to it with more Salt, trying to claim two resources from the middle.

Last for white was taking a Pepper near Caravan with taking any of one resources from the middle. Blue went to Tribal Expansion while taking also a Rider from the middle.

White got 2 Salt, 2 Pepper and 1 Date. Paid the cost for Rider tribe with 2 Date and 1 Salt. This gave White a bonus of 1 resources for each 2 empty spaces of their tribe space. Since this was first card, they got to take up to 5 but sadly only had room for 2.

Blue got 3 Salt, 1 Date and from the deck got a Tent tribe card plus the Rider from the middle. Blue managed to paid both paying 4 salt, 3 date and 2 Pepper, placing them on different row.

ROUND 2. Blue started with the Caravan first while White took the Salt from top edge. Then Blue occupied the other Salt space while White took the Pepper opposite from the Tribal deck. Last one Blue took the Pepper next to Caravan to claim a Tent tribe card and also another Salt from the middle. White went last to Silversmith to trade a lot of resources while claiming Gold and Pepper from the middle.

Blue got 2 Salt, 1 Pepper and 1 VP. Unfortunately Blue had no Gold to pay the Tent tribe. White got 1 Salt, 2 Pepper, 1 Gold, traded 4 Pepper for 3 VP.

ROUND 3. White took Caravan again while Blue took the Pepper from the right. Then White went back to Silversmith and claimed a Gold from the middle. Blue took the Fata Morgana with Oasis from the middle. White last took Salt from the left with a Targia tribe card from the middle. Blue went with Pepper near Caravan, claiming another Rider from the middle.

White got 1 Date, 1 Salt, 1 Gold and 1 tribe card, traded 4 Date for 3 VP. Paid 1 Pepper and 1 Gold for the Targia and placing it on 2nd row, first card.

Blue got 2 Pepper and 1 tribe card. The Fata morgana allowed them to claim another resource card from the middle which they chose a Date. They had 2 Salt and 1 Pepper to pay for the Oasis and placing the card on 3rd row.

1ST RAID. Both paid with 1 Silver.

ROUND 4. Blue to Caravan as usual. White took a Date from the top edge. Blue then went to NOBLE, claiming also a Pepper from middle. White took the Salt from the left and 2 resources from the middle. Last Blue was to Fata Morgana again with access to Tent tribe card from the middle.

This was a mistake but White took the Date space which was across the Fata Morgana that Blue already occupied, allowing them to take another Rider. Probably not the only mistake.

Blue got 2 Date, 1 Salt plus bonus from Oasis and 1 Pepper. From Noble, they paid 1 Date and 1 Gold to place the 2nd Tent card on row 1. White got 3 Salt, 1 Date and 1 Pepper plus 1 Tribe incorrectly. Well, they could afford that tribe.

ROUND 5. White’s turn to claim Caravan. Blue went to Silversmith. There was Targia card next to Caravan so White took the Pepper nearby. Blue needed Gold so they went to TRADER, claiming also Targia from the middle.

White made another error by claiming a Salt across the Trader. Their only option was probably the Tribal expansion card. Blue took Salt near Trader.

White got 3 Pepper, plus 1 thanks to Rider card and 1 Salt plus 2 tribe cards, incorrectly. They could afford to pay the Targia, so that became 2nd card of 2nd row by paying 1 Date and 1 Pepper plus 1 Gold. But they had to keep the Rider in their hand.

Blue first traded 3 Salt for 1 Gold. They got 2 more Salt, 1 Date and 1 Pepper plus Targia card. They could afford the Targia card and placed it on 2nd row, trying to get a unique set with Rider since both were collected by White player.

ROUND 6. Blue to Caravan again. White to Trader. Blue occupied the Salt near trader for the Tent card in the middle. White then went to Noble and claimed the Gold from the middle. Blue then took the Date next to it with another Targia card from the middle. White took the Pepper from the right.

Blue got total of 4 Salt, 1 Date and 2 tribe cards with same set of cost, 1 date and 1 Gold. They paid for the Tent but kept the Targia in hand for now and that was 3rd of 1st row.

White then traded 3 Salt for 1 Gold, getting 2 Pepper, 1 Gold and a Rider card. Also traded the 2 Pepper for 1 Salt. Paid 1 Salt and 1 Date plus 1 Gold on Noble to place that 3rd Rider card. With the 2nd trade, they managed to pay the 4th Rider card, completing that row with the same type for 4 points.

2nd Raid, both paid 1 VP.

ROUND 7. White to Caravan as usual. Blue went to Trader. White went to the opposite of tribal card for Pepper. Blue occupied the Salt near trader. White took the 2nd Pepper space along with a Date and a Gold. Blue last one to Date space and a Salt from the middle.

White got 3 Pepper, 1 Salt from Caravan, 1 Date and 1 Gold. Blue traded 3 Salt for 1 Gold, got 3 more Salt, a Date and Oasis card. Paid for Oasis with 1 Pepper and 1 Gold and placing it on 2nd row, 3rd card, keeping the different type.

ROUND 8. Blue to Caravan this time. White went with Tribal expansion. Blue went back to Trader. White took the Pepper near Caravan to claim a Targia card. Blue then went to take Salt near Trader and claimed Gold from the middle. 3rd error for White as they went to Salt space across the Trader. Also occupying the Targia in the middle.

Blue traded 3 Salt for 1 Gold. They also got 1 more gold, 2 Pepper and 3 Salt. White got 2 Pepper, the incorrect Salt and Targia card, a correct Targia card and from the deck, a Well card. Apparently, White managed to pay all 3 of them, completing the 2nd row with all Targia and started 3rd row with Well type.

ROUND 9. White’s turn to occupy Caravan and Blue to Tribal expansion. Then White took the Date from top while claiming a Silver from the middle. Blue then went to Fata Morgana with a Targia in the intersection. Last White to take the Salt from the left with another Well tribe from the middle. Blue went to Noble.

White got extra bonus of Date from Targia. They got 1 Salt, 2 Date, 2 Pepper, 1 Silver and Well tribe card. Paid 1 Salt, 1 Date and 1 Gold for that 2nd Well card.

Blue paid only 1 Gold to place the Targia thanks to benefit from Tent card using Noble. Then they got 2 Salt only plus a Tent card from the deck and moving the token from Targia card to a Well card using Fata Morgana. Paid the cost for 4th Tent card and Well card for the 4th of 2nd row. That Targia from the Noble went to 3rd Row, 2nd card. 2 more left.

3rd Raid and both paid with 2 Silver. However, Blue got bonus from Targia to receive back 1 VP.

ROUND 10. Blue went first but the Robber was on Caravan. So, Blue went to Date from the top. White went to Trader. Blue to Fata Morgana and White to Pepper near Caravan with more Pepper from the middle. Blue then went to Date space from the right, claiming 2 tribe cards, a Tent and a Well from the middle. Last white to Pepper from the right, getting Oasis card from the middle.

Blue got 2 Date and 2 Pepper plus 2 tribe cards. They paid for the Tent with 1 pepper and 1 Date plus 1 Gold as 3rd card of last row. Kept the Well card in hand and required a Gold and a Salt.

White traded 3 Pepper for 1 Gold. They also got 3 more Pepper and 2 tribe cards. Paid 1 Date and 1 Gold for the Well card, 3rd of that last row, keeping the same type.

ROUND 11. White started with the Caravan. Blue went to Noble. They should have gone to trader as White went there next. Blue went to Silversmith. Last white went to Salt near Trader for the Well card and more pepper in the middle. Blue took more Pepper from the right and should have taken card from the middle with 2 Date.

White traded 3 Pepper for 1 Gold first. Got 3 more Pepper back with 1 Date and 1 Salt. They got their last Well card and the cost was just 1 Gold and 1 Date. So, they completed the 12 tribe cards with all 3 rows having only one type per row. CHEATINGLY.

Blue traded 4 Salt for 3 VP. Got 2 more Salt and 2 Pepper, plus 2 more Date.

So, I thought the White already won at that time and ended the game. White got 44 points while Blue only got 32. Didn’t realize the 3 errors that White made which clearly helped them for getting 2 Targia cards at least.

That means there is a chance in the last round that Blue managed to complete the last card and with correct play, White probably didn’t finish the Targia row. There was a Rider card that didn’t need a Gold that Blue could use.

Maybe Blue could have scored about 36 while White only got like 38 after losing the 4 points bonus of completing the row and let’s say minus 2 points from 1 Targia card. That made much more sense.

Playing time was about 1.5 hours, running both hands.

Learn more about the game from Targi Review.

Hunted: North Pole

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Beat Jack Frost and his minions to rescue Santa before Christmas is canceled in Hunted: North Pole.

This was my 1st time playing as Clarence instead of Becky. Apparently Clarance has better special power than Becky that allows him to just take any item or weapon for free from the row. Any new player to this should probably start with him.

Even first 3 draws got me Magic Snowglobe, Sword and Ammo. Clarence claimed the Sword. Then Paindeer showed up so Clarence hid, losing 1 time.

After that 4 cards with bells each but no enemy luckily. 2 Path cards, Telescope and the Bomb. Used the 2 items to walk on one of the path. The Event had no benefit for succeed but failing means losing 1 HP and 1 time. Rolled 15 and Cha + 1 from Clarence and it was a success. 14 spaces left.

Two more items. Used both for the other Path. Succeeding in the Event could have given me 1 HP but failing means increasing the minimum skill Check. Luckily, it was using STR, the strongest feat of Clarence. Rolled 18 so it was a success. 13 spaces left.

After that, met with Terry, a path and a Gingerbread monster. Terry helped Clarence proceeded with the path. No benefit for succeeding in the event but losing means facing Toy Soldier. Rolled 13 plus 1 from Clarence’s CHA so it was a win.

Gingerbread was still there and found a path and a Bread. Used the path to get the Bread since not enough the other way around. The path had bell. Similar situation came up next but with Ammo and bell plus Path card. Took the Ammo using the path card.

Kept going and eventually got 2 paths with bells forcing Clarence to fight the Gingerbread. Spent 2 ammos and dealt 7, enough to defeat the monster. 18 time units left.

More monster. First the Gummy Bear and then the Gingerbread. Clarence had to fight the Gummy bear, the stronger one. 2 more Ammos from the Slingshot dealt 6 points, enough to beat the Bear. 17 time units left.

2 Monsters again and this time, the Gummy Bear and then the Snowman. Clarence wanted to beat the Snowman, or more like he had to. 3 ammos from Clarence dealt 9 and Clarence used his ability to add 3 for the rolls and beat the Snowman. 16 time units left.

A Baseball Bat but then a Gingerbread and Toy Soldier. The Toy was the stronger one. 3 more ammos from the Slingshot dealt 7. Using the last special ability rerolled the 1 into a 4 so it was enough to destroy the Toy. 1 ammo and 15 time units left.

A Toy again, a Telescope and Reindeer with a Bell. Clarence decided to hide. 14 time units left.

Another Toy, 2 paths, a Reindeer and a Bell, plus a Christmas Spirit. Used the Reindeer to get the Christmas Spirit. Immediately consumed it to reactivate one power plus getting +2 token. After that, Clarence hid. 13 time units left.

A Gingerbread, a path and 2 items, one bell from one item. Used the other item to take the Christmas Spirit and used it immediately. After that, more item, a Maple Syrup. Used it to walk on the path. Rolled a 14 plus 0 from Clarence’s DEX and it was a success, moving 1 more space forward. 11 spaces left.

Clarence had a Bread and used it. From the 3 cards drawn, got a Reindeer, more Christmas Spirit and WYNONNA! Finally got a companion.

Then Suzie also showed up with a Cookie and a bell plus a Gingerbread. Unfortunately, next one was Gummy Bear and Clarence had to deal with this last one. One shot from Wynonna and 2 from Clarence dealt 6, defeating the bear.

After that, a Bomb, a path and the distracting item. Spent the Bomb to walk on the path. Rolled a 17 for the event plus Clarence’s +2 INT. Got a win s no need to move back 1 space. 10 spaces left.

The distracting item was still there and found a path and a Reindeer. Used the Reindeer to take the item. After that Gingerbread and Gummy Bear showed up. One shot from Wynonna dealt 4 damage and 1 damage from Clarence. With the distracting item, rerolled the 1 into a 4, defeating the bear.

Then a path, ammo, reindeer and paindeer. Used the reindeer and ammo to walk on the path. Skill check minimum went up to 11. Rolled a 20 so an instant win and the bonus was healing 1 health. 9 spaces left.

Paindeer was still around and they found a Path and the Magic Snowglobe again. Used the item to walk on the path. Rolled 20 again and got Christmas Spirit.

Paindeer stayed around until a Telescope and a Toy Soldier showed up. 2 damage from Wynonna and 8 from Clarence to defeat the Toy.

Got an Ammo after that using the path. 2 more quite paths and reindeer plus Suzie! Used the 2 paths to get Suzie to join. More items, a Maple Syrup and Bread, followed by Toy Soldier. The reindeer helped them get the Maple Syrup. Then a path showed up and with the bread, they walked on it. Rolled 20 and got a lot of Ammos. 7 spaces left.

The toy soldier was still around and start attacking while the group tried to avoid Gingerbread. The 3 shot once each, dealing 8. Clarence had to use one of the +2 to beat it.

3 more items and a Gingerbread. Unfortunately the next one was a Bear, removing the other 4. 7 damage from the two ladies to beat this bear.

More Bear and unfortunately, 2 noisy paths. 2 more attacks from the ladies dealing just 4 damage. Clarence had to use the +2 again.

Then Toy Soldier showed up with Magic Snowglobe and the path. The item was enough to walk on the path. Rolled a 16 and the bonus was moving 1 space forward. 6 spaces left.

Got more ammo item while the Soldier was still around. The next reindeer and item triggered too much noise. 2 shots from Ladies and 2 more from Clarence, dealing 11, more than enough for the Soldier.

After that, they had to hide from Paindeer, losing a chance from the noisy path. Wynonna sacrificed herself to help the other got a Bomb.

Two reindeers, Ammo with 2 bells and then a Gingerbread. 2 shots from Clarence dealing 4 points of damage defeated the monster.

After that, a cookie, a path, a reindeer and Terry was back… with a Gummy Bear. Only one bell so far. Reindeer and item was used to take the path. Rolled a 14 to avoid losing 2 time, no other benefit. 4 spaces left, skill check minimum went up to 12.

Another Baseball Bat showed up and Clarance used his skill to take it for free. Terry and Gummy bear were still around but ran away after Paindeer showed up. 3 shots from Clarance with a 4, 3 and 1, enough to beat it.

Next, a Snowman and a path. But another Paindeer showed up and the Snowman started attacking. This time Clarance decided to use the Baseball bat. 2 swings dealing 7 damage, +2 from the token and +3 from special skill finally beat the Snowman. Clarance drank the Christmas Spirit.

3 paths and a cookie with 2 bells. The path with bells was used to take out the item with the other bell. Then 3rd path and gingerbread and a Reindeer with 1 bell. The Reindeer advanced on the path. 3 spaces left. Rolled 19 for it, no benefit but avoiding losing time.

After that Gummy Bear showed up and triggered the fight. 3 shots dealing 7 damage to beat it. Then, a Snowman and a cookie with a bell. The team hid.

Finally a path with a carrot and a Reindeer to move 2 spaces. Rolled an 11 plus 2 from Clarence’s INT to gain 1 extra time.

1 space left before getting to Jack Frost and Santa. A Christmas Spirit, a Reindeer, a Path and Magic Snowball. Got the Spirit and proceeded to the final boss.

Clarance started the fight with his Baseball Bat. 2 Swings plus Maple syrup to roll 15 and +2 token from Spirit. Suzie took the counterattack from Jack Frost. Two more swings with the Bat and dealt 4 damage.

They won and rescued Santa.

Playing time was about 60 minutes.

The White Castle

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Impress the Daimyo and gain influence by sending workers of your clan to every level of life in The White Castle.

Two solo sessions, using the easy mode. I wrote a bit more detail report of the first one since I thought I won and lost in the 2nd. Gpt better score than all my previous plays after successfully built and gained more lantern bonus. Even still I still got some rules wrong.

Here is how it went.

I started with 2 coins, 2 Daimyo Seals, and chose 1 Iron with extra Clan point bonus from the Decree card. The orange Starting Action card was WARRIOR ACTION. Played with the easy solo variant so Tokugawa started with 0 CP, Heron at 2nd position, and started at 0 in the passage of time track.

ROUND 1

RED: 1, 5, 5
BLACK: 4, 5, 6
WHITE: 1, 2, 6

For my first turn, I took the RED 5 from the right so no Lantern bonus and moved the other Red 5 in the middle to the right. Then I placed the die in the 1st level left room with 2 actions with Red die.

I got 2 coins since the space only required a 3. The first red die action was 1 coin plus Well. Well action got me a Seal plus 1 coin and 1 of any resources, choosing an Iron, which was my 3rd.

The 2nd red die action of the room was paying 1 Seal to do Courtier Action. So, I paid the Seal I just got and paid 2 coins to send my first Courtier to the Gate.

4 coins, 2 Seals, 0 food, 3 Iron, 0 Pearl, 0 CP.

Tokugawa’s first turn was taking the BLACK 6 from the right, moving the Black 5 to the right. This was placed in the right room of 1st level. They got 3 coins. Then the right card action was WARRIOR action to Training Yard that requires 1 Iron. The 2nd part of the action was to move up Courtier 2 levels and they had no Courtier yet.

Unfortunately for me, that was the room with 2 actions for Black die that I intended to use.

I wanted to send out Warrior to the training yard with 5 irons. The bonus was 3 Pearl and Garden action. I only had 3 Irons so I had to get more from somewhere. The options was either my personal Domain using Black again only for 1 and that would have triggered the Warrior action again or to the Well also for 1 only but a couple more resources.

I decided to take Black 4 from the left side, giving me Lantern bonus of 1 Food and 1 CP. Then I placed it on the Well action, getting me 1 Seal, 3 + 1 coin and one of any resource and I chose the Iron. Still needed 1 more Iron.

8 coins, 3 Seals, 1 food, 4 Iron, 0 Pearl, 1 CP.

Tokugawa’s 2nd turn was White from the left, a 1, moving the White 2 from the middle to the left. This was supposed to be placed on level 1 left room which I already occupied. So, they went to the Well instead with no coin bonus.

The 1st part of their 2nd card was to send Gardener to one of the Garden card. 2 spaces had 7 CP and one had 5, the White bridge. So, it went there, ready to get bonus at the end of this round.

Luckily for me, I got to take the last Black die, a 5 from the right. Placed it on my personal domain, getting me the 5th iron and the Warrior Action after paying 1 coin.

Spent 5 irons with the Warrior to that training yard with 3 Pearls and Garden action. I only had 1 Food either the Black or the Red Bridge for the same CP at the end. I chose the Red just to get the bonus this round for just 3 coins.

7 coins, 3 Seals, 0 food, 0 Iron, 3 Pearl, 1 CP.

** I accidentally spent 2 Seals to get the 5th Iron before realizing that I could get the 5th from activating my personal domain with Black. Then I forgot to return the 2 Seals back.

Tokugawa’s last turn was Red from the left, a 1 and placed it on Outside the Wall action, the left one. No bonus coin for them.

1st part of their 2nd card allowed them to send a Warrior to the 2nd space that requires 3 Irons. Then luckily the 2nd part was just moving up Courtier which they had sent out none.

Tokugawa earned 1 CP from 8 coins since they were in 2nd place, and 1 more CP from the Gardener next to White bridge with 2 dice left. I got 3 coins for having a Gardener next to Red bridge with a die.

That was the end of the 1st round.

ROUND 2

RED: 1, 3, 5
BLACK: 3, 6, 6
WHITE: 1, 3, 4

For my first turn, I still wanted to collect resources so I picked the Red 1 from the left. Got 1 Food and 1 CP from the Lantern. Then I placed it on the same room with 2 actions for red die, 1st floor left room. Paid 2 coins for that.

Got 1 coin plus Well action or 1 Seal, 1 Coin and 1 of any resource which I picked Food again. The 2nd action was paying 1 Seal to do Courtier action. I had 3 Pearls so I spent 2 to move up the one already at the Gate to the first floor right room. I guess I was hoping to get something better from the 2 actions using Black die.

After taking the card, I chose the 2 Food from one of the action with light background so my Food was at 4. Well both the new card and my domain now had the action for Gardener.

10 coins, 1 (+2) Seals, 4 food, 0 Iron, 1 Pearl, 2 CP.

*******

I just learned why I played poorly. Apparently for every Courtier action, you can do both actions once each, one for sending them up and one to send to gate. That means, I could have sent out another COURTIER by paying 2 this time. I thought you can only do one of them.

Oh, well. Next time!

*******

Tokugawa’s first turn this round was taking White from the left, a 1. They were supposed to occupy the same room I already occupied so they went to the Well again with no bonus.

1st of the 2nd card was sending a Gardener to either Stone or Garden card with the lowest value. 2nd part of the card got them 2 CP and 1 space in passage of time track.

*************

Here is the thing. During the game, I assumed that I just chose the lowest value available and obviously, one of the Stone cards because the CP value was between 1 to 3 while Garden had up to 7. So, during the game I chose the Black bridge Stone card with 1 CP at the end.

However, the rule says that if the card allows them to place in both I have to choose the Garden with lowest value available. So, they could have scored another 6 points then.

**************

For my 2nd turn, I picked BLACK 3 from the left. From Lantern, I got 1 Food, 1 CP and up 1 space in time track so I reclaimed my first player position.

I placed the die on 1st floor right room with 2 actions for black die. One got me 1 Seal and 1 CP, the other allowed me to spend 1 Seal for Gardener Action.

I had 5 food so I spent 4 of them to place the Gardener in the Garden side of Black Bridge which got me access to Warrior action later. Got 7 CP as well at the end.

Tokugawa’s 2nd turn was taking the Black 6 from the right, going to the same room I just did. So, instead they went to well and got 5 coins.

1st part of the 2nd card was sending a Warrior to training yard with 3 irons. I got lucky again since their next part was supposed to move the Courtier up 1 level but they had deployed none.

10 coins, 1 (+2) Seals, 1 food, 0 Iron, 1 Pearl, 4 CP.

As my last turn, I picked the last Black die, the 6 from left. The lantern got me 1 Food, 1 CP and 1 space in the passage of time track.

Then I placed it on my personal domain. Got me 3 Iron before paying 1 Seal to send out another Gardener. I only had 2 Food so I placed it next to White bridge, the Stone part. Got me 2 Seals at the end of this round and 3 CP at the end.

Tokugawa’s last turn was taking Red 5 from the right, placing it at the Outside of the Wall action. No bonus coin. But they sent out Gardener again this time to one with 7 CP on Garden side. Also they got 5 coins.

I was still at first position in player order so 10 coins from Tokugawa became 4 points for them.

Only red and white bridge got dice left. I got 3 coins from red bridge and Tokugawa got 2 CP. White Bridge got me 2 Seals and Tokugawa got 2 CP. That was the end of 2nd round.

13 coins, 2 (+2) Seals, 0 food, 3 Iron, 1 Pearl, 5 CP. Tokugawa got 12 CP.

ROUND 3

RED: 1, 4, 6
BLACK: 2, 3, 5
WHITE: 1, 2, 2

My first turn was taking Red 1 from the left. Lantern got me 1 Food, 1 CP, 1 position in passage of time track. Then I placed it still in that same room with 2 actions. I had to pay 2 coins.

Got 1 coin plus Well action, so 1 more coin, 1 Seal and any of the resources which I chose the Pearl, 2nd one. The 2nd action of that room with red die was paying 1 Seal for Courtier action.

Knowing the rules correctly, I could have paid 2 more coins to send my 3rd courtier to the gate and with 2 Pearl move one of them once. Decided to move the one from 1st floor to the 2nd floor and took the card from the left room. The existing card increased bonus for Lantern by 1 coin and from the new card I got 2 CP and Well Action, so 1 Seal again and 1 coin plus 1 of any resources which I took Iron.

Tokugawa got Red 4 from left and placed it on Outer Wall action for no bonus. They finally sent out 1 Courtier to the Gate and then moved up 2 spaces in Passage of time track and 1 coin.

14 coins, 3 (+2) Seals, 0 food, 4 Iron, 0 Pearl, 7 CP. Tokugawa got 12 CP.

For my 2nd turn, I chose Black 2 from the left. The lantern got me 1 Food, 1 CP, 1 space in time track, and 1 coin. Paid 3 coins to place it on my personal domain. This got me 3 irons and lantern bonus again, plus 2 CP and Well action.

Tokugawa then chose Black 5 from the right and placed it on right room 1st floor. Got 2 coins. Then they sent out 1st Warrior to yard with 5 irons. Also moved up 2 spaces in time track and 1 CP. I had to spend 1 Seal to move up in that passage of time track.

13 coins, 3 (+2) Seals, 2 food, 7 Iron, 1 Pearl, 11 CP. Tokugawa got 13 CP.

As my last turn, I chose Black 3, last black die from the left. Got lantern bonus. I placed it on middle room 1st floor with just 1 action. Paid 1 Seal to do Warrior Action. I had 7 irons so to space with 5 irons. Got me 3 Pearls and Garden action.

So I had 3 Foods after the lantern bonus so I went to the Garden side with 3 CP at the end for 3 Food.

Tokugawa’s last action was to get White 2 from the right and placed it on the other Outer Wall action without bonus coin. Then they placed the Gardener on the last Garden card plus 5 coins.

**** Apparently this invalidated my previous errors. Had I played correctly from last part, they already occupied the 3 Garden cards and this one they lost it. So, if anything, they didn’t get the 1 CP.

That was the end of 3rd round.

Tokugawa had 11 coins and was 2nd position. So 6 CP for them.

14 coins, 3 (+2) Seals, 0 food, 2 Iron, 4 Pearl, 12 CP. Tokugawa got 13 CP.

SCORING

During the game, the final score was 45 for me and 43 for Tokugawa. With that incorrect play from Tokugawa, they should have lost 1 point so they only got 42.

So I somehow lost 2 Seals during the game that I accidentally removed instead of returning it to my supply. I could have used that to get 1 extra food so the Gardener in the last round could have occupied more expensive space with 2 points extra.

Had I also played the Courtier correctly, I could have sent out 2 more Courtier to the gate by spending 4 coins. So, 2 more CP but lost one since I didn’t have enough leftover for 5 coins per 1 CP.

12 CP earned during the game. 2 CP from 5 leftover coins. 1 CP from 3 Irons after spending 2 Seals for the 3rd and another 1 CP from 4 Pearl.

2 CP from Courtiers at the Gate and 6 from one at 2nd Level. 4 CP for having 2 Warriors at Training Yard with 5 irons. 3 CP from the passage of time track. 18 CP from the Gardener.

MY FINAL SCORE: 49 POINTS

Tokugawa earned 13 during the game. 6 CP from 10 coins at the end of 3rd round. 1 CP from Courtier. 0 CP from Warriors since none of the Courtier was inside the Castle. 19 from Gardeners. 3 CP from the Passage of Time Track.

TOKUGAWA’S FINAL SCORE: 42 POINTS.

******

Hopefully last error. I just read the rule again. Apparently if the opponent cannot do any of their action, they will get a number of points equal to the current round per action they cannot take. That means, for the 2 actions of social climbing during the first round they got 2 CP and another 3 CP if they couldn’t place a Gardener during the last round. So, their score was actually 47.

******

Did I win? I think got very lucky. Also, I’ll be honest here. The opponent didn’t take multiple cards that led to more actions since they always got the dice. The reason is I avoided it. After flipping the card if the next card led to drawing more, I shuffled it.

Even after doing so, the score was still very close. That means, they could have scored more and I would have lost anyway.

I got better score than my previous plays. Actually, I played another game after this and scored 50. But the opponent got 54. Oh, well.

Playing time was about 64 minutes for one session.

Beacon Patrol

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Explore the North Sea and check the buoys and lighthouses to ensure its safety in Beacon Patrol.

Another solo session without any extra module. I still don’t know how to write the session for this. At the end, I got only 45 points from only 24 completely surrounded tiles.

I think I discarded 3 tiles just to move the ship and I couldn’t place it anywhere when I had them.

The total size was about 10 in width and 8 in tall. Like my previous play, the starting tile was actually closer to the top right corner, only 1 space away from the top. Even in the first 6 rounds, I already expanded more to the left with the starting lighthouse on the rightmost column.

After that, in the next 6 round, I managed to expand to the right like 3 spaces from the starting lighthouse. I guess it was kind of my fault for leaving a hole on that left area and waiting for the right tile. I was expecting a tile with land on right and bottom side which I got in that 12th turn.

The problem was I also got something that was good for the right side. So, from right in the middle of the current board, I moved to the rightmost side. Then I had to move back to the far left. I managed to fill that hole with that one tile, with a lighthouse even. But that was when I had to discard the other 2 tiles.

That was actually not bad. However, then from the next 3, I got 2 tiles with land space on top side. I could have tried to expand to the top. I don’t know if psychologically I somehow was afraid of keep going up and decided to just stay in that row. So, I expanded to the left a bit and then decided to go down.

I guess at that point, it still was not so bad. In the subsequent round I actually managed to move the ship to the bottom right of the existing form. This was when I realized I probably have made a huge mistake.

From that bottom right corner to the starting tile, I made a huge island, a 3 by 2, incomplete at the bottom right. To complete that, I needed a tile with land on the left and top. The one without any scoring object was already placed so I only had one chance to fill that, assuming I could get that exact tile.

Realizing that, even if I got the tile, I knew I couldn’t have gone and explored up and moved back down just to fill that space. On the other hand, the bottom part had mostly open water so maybe easier movement.

What I didn’t realized was that the next few tiles got me a lot of lands but not that exact tile I was looking for. So, I kept expanding to the bottom right which made me harder to move back.

I finally found that tile in the 6th round after that moment at the bottom right corner. I needed to move 7 spaces before I could place that tile and there were only 5 tiles left in addition to that.

This was when I realized, if I keep track on which tiles that have come out, I might as well just reveal the last 3 tiles. From that I revealed them and made a plan. Then I decided to just keep exploring bottom left. From that effort, I only got to completely surround one tile with a lighthouse. Not saying that maybe I could have scored better by sacrificing a lot and just focused on that one tile but it felt that way.

Scored 45 and I got CAPTAIN achievement. Not bad but I wish I did better. At least, I didn’t feel frustrated in this session like in the previous one. Even if I was aiming for an exact tile, twice.

Playing time was about 47 minutes.

Under Falling Skies

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Fight the invading Aliens coming from the skies from the underground of your city in Under Falling Skies.

This was my 2nd attempt with the Washington DC city variant where they introduce the Robot. I got the rule completely wrong during my first play so I think I got it right this time. Hopefully.

The wrong part was thinking that the Robot can be moved and use just like any Worker dice. Apparently you can only place them in on space and it will stay there until you remove it or the game removes it after it runs out of value. Obviously, it made the game way easier. After playing it with the correct rule, hopefully, I think it still makes the game easier.

For this session, I still played the easier variant of the sky tiles.

1st ROUND.

I got White 1 and 4, Gray 2 and double 6s. Both 6s went to 1st and 3rd column and the White 4 to column 2, rerolling the other 2. Gray 2 became a 5 and White 1 was still a 1.

After those placements, only Red Ship in column 4 was in attack spot, required a value of 4 to be destroyed.

The 6 in column 1 was to move the Excavator the farthest it can get, 1st space of the 2nd row from the unexcavated. Energy went down to 2. In column 2, a 4 generated energy of 3 so it went up again to 4. Dice in column 3 and 5 were placed in AA Gun Room. The 5 in column 4 sent out Jet Fighter, destroying that one red ship with a value of 4.

2nd ROUND.

White 1 and 4 again, with Gray 1, 4 and 6. 6 went to column 2, the ship landed on nothing but almost pushed the Mothership down. Then Gray 4 to column 3 and the Red ship there landed on targeting spot. White 4 to column 4, also moved the ship from Mothership to a targeting spot.

This rerolled the 2 leftover dice and I got 6s, one of each color. 6 in column 1 would have pushed the Mothership down. So, I played the White 6 first in column 5 which landed the red into nothing, rerolling the last die and I got a 3. There were 2 ships there, a white and a red. The former landed on targeting spot and the other to nothing.

First the 4 in column 4 was to progress the excavator, spending 1 energy from 5. Spent 2 Energy again in column 5 to progress the research track 1 space that required a 6. Another energy spent for column 1, one space up in research track.

I was initially planning to make a Robot with column 2 but I decided to just generate energy of 5, instead of spending 2. A 4 in column 3 to send Jet Fighters, destroying 2 ships with a value of 2 each, a white and a red.

Mothership moved down and pushed the excavator back 2 spaces.

3rd ROUND.

Another White 1 and 4, really? With Gray 1, 4 and 5. First the Gray 4 and 5 to column 1 and 5 respectively, moving ships in each to a targeting spot. Then the White 4 to column 2, also moved the ship to a shooting spot, rerolling both 1s and I got a White 6 but the other was still a 1. The 6 went to column 3 moving the ship to empty space and reroll got me a 5. So that filled the last column, moving the ship to also empty space.

First the 5 in column 4 moved the Excavator to 2nd space of 3rd row, spending 1 energy. The 4 and 5 in both ended filled the research rooms, spending total of 3 energy. The 4 moved up 2 spaces and then the 5 plus 1, 3 spaces up.

Then the 4 in column 2 generated 3 energy back while the 6 sent out Jet fighters with a value of 5, destroying 3 red ships from column 1, 3 and 5.

Mothership moved down 1 and prepared to dispatch 3 reds plus 1 white.

4th ROUND.

Got White 3 and 6, Gray 2, 3 and 6. The red ship in column 2 was about to hit so the 2 went there. Played the 3 to column 1 to prevent the ship from advancing the Mothership. However, the white ship in column 2 then switched places to column 3. Well, the 6 in column 5 didn’t land the ship to anything but a good one for me to start using the Robot.

Then the White 6 to column 3, moving the ship to also shooting spot. This also moved the white ship that was from column 2 now moved to column 4. Rerolled the last one and I got a 6 for column 4, moving the ship just about to hit the city.

However, the White ship there finally hit the city, first hit.

For resolving room, first the 6 in column 3 moved the excavator to the last row, spending 1 energy from 5. Spent 1 energy to research room of column 1 to move up the research track 1 space. The 2 in column 2 only generated 1 energy back. 1 Energy for Jet Fighters in column 4 destroyed 3 red ships with a value of 5.

Last die was the 6 in robot room. After the excavator moved to the last row, the Energy room in column 1 was open. I placed the Robot 6 there, spending 1 Energy.

Mothership kept moving down 1 space with 3 reds and 1 white ready to dispatch.

ROUND 5.

Got 2 White 1s and Gray 3, 5 and 5. The 3 went to column 2, 5 to column 3 and the other to column 5. All 3 ships there landed on shooting spot. So I had to use one of White 1, unless I placed it on AA Gun room. Column 1 would have advanced the Mothership so it went to column 4.

Rerolled the last one and got a 5 which went to column 1. The 2 ships there landed on empty space.

Resolving time. Well first with the Robot 6 plus 1 generated 7 Energy and the Robot value went down to 5.

The 1 in column 4 was just to move excavator 1 space. Then the 3 on the left filled the Research room with 3 spaces with total value of 13. By spending 5 energy, these were enough to move the research track up 5 spaces. 5 in column 5 filled a Jet fighter room with a value of 4, destroying all ships but column 1.

Mothership moved down again ready to dispatch 4 reds plus 1 white.

ROUND 6.

Got 2 White 4s, Gray 4, 5 and 6. The 6 was perfect in column 5 so the ship landed on shooting spot. Then the 5 went to column 2 even if the ship was not in shooting spot. The 4 was to column 1 so the red ship closest to the city moved to column 2 while the other 2 whites were not in dangerous space.

Finally played the White 4 in column 3 and the ship was in shooting spot. The reroll got me a 5 and to the column 4, moving the ship there to empty space.

Time to resolve. Robot 5 generated 6 Energy to 9. Spent 2 Energy for research room in column 5. The value was 7 but only managed to move up 1 space with a 5. Then 1 Energy again to another research room in column 1 with a value of 4, moving up 2 spaces in the track. One left with the value of 11.

Spent 2 Energy for Jet Fighter in column 4 with a value of 5 plus 2, destroying 2 reds and 1 white. Generated 4 energy with the 5 in column 2 back to 8. Last die was a 4, I placed it in the Robot room in column 3. Placed the 2nd robot with value of 4 in the triple research room, column 2.

Mothership pushed back the excavator 1 space, ready to dispatch 2 red ships.

ROUND 7.

Got White 2 and 5, Gray 1, 1 and 6. So, I had the chance to win this round. If I could get a value of 11 from Research Room. The triple room already had a 4. All I needed were 2 dice with a total value of 7 in column 1 and 3.

6 to column 3 first, moving the ship there to column 4. So, all I needed was a 1 in column 1 to win the game.

I placed one of the 1 to column 2 so that one ship was in shooting spot and the other moved down the Mothership, preventing the pushback on research track.

White 5 to column 4 even if it moved the ship to empty space. The rerolls got me White 1 and Gray 3. White 1 to column 1 and the reroll still got me a 3 and it went to column 5.

Spent 5 energy and reached the last space of Research track with the value of 11.

Playing time was about 53 minutes.

Peloponnes Card Game

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Develop your civilization to reach the balance between growing glory and population while mitigating catastrophic events in Peloponnes Card Game.

This was the solo session using the official variant and the 3rd difficulty level. In this difficulty, I can only get 2 Power cards in a round once in any Epoch.

I started with MESSENE and ARCADIA with total of 11coin cards, 6 population and producing 5 grains. Got 2 Stone, 5 Wood, 1 Population and 3 Wheat from the cards. I also started with 1 Wheat, 1 Population and 1 Stone cards. The Arcadia civ card also started with 2 mitigation for Tempest.

ROUND 1 (A). Tempest and Earthquake were about to happen.

The conquest row also had 2 more cards with Earthquake symbol. I decided to purchase the one from non Conquest for the 3rd protection against the Tempest. By doing so, I let the opponent took the card from conquest row plus 3 cards. Better than letting them taking the Barrack building for 3 points from the non conquest row.

Paid with 2 coin cards. It was a landscape so no resources needed to build. This increased my production of wood by 1 and stone by 2. As one time bonus, 1 coin card and increased the population by 1. Got a population card from it. With 7 populations, I got 3 cards.

5 points and 7 population for me so far.

ROUND 2 (A). 2nd sign of Tempest was about to happen and Plague for the first time.

No need for more landscape against Tempest for me even though extra production of wood and stone were nice. The other non conquest card was not bad to get more Wheat. I guess I was worried more about the earthquake. So, I decided to conquer another landscape for that Earthquake prevention. The cost was 2 plus 3 but I got 2 cards back one time, increased the population by one and production of stone by 2.

It was a landscape and no need for resources to build anything. From the 2 coins, I got a Wheat and a Stone. My production went to luxury goods of 3.

Population at 8 and 6 points. Got 4 cards during income, one of each card.

ROUND 3 (A). Tempest happened this time. Plague was getting closer. I had complete protection against the Tempest so nothing happened to my civilization.

I guess I made a wrong decision trying to work on preventing the earthquake. The conquest row had nothing against the Plague so I took the one from the other row. Paid just 2 coins to buy that MARKET card. The opponent took PORT plus 3 cards.

With this, I had to provide with 4 Woods to build the Market. My civ production was only 1 so I had to provide the other 3 from my hand. The population went up by 1 and production of wheat by 3.

Current population was 11 and 7 points of glory. I got 4 cards plus 1 luxury goods. Got 4 luxury goods from excessive production of stones with total of 13 cards in hand but no Wood cards.

ROUND 4 (B). 1st sign of both Decline and Drought.

No Supply phase this time. Going to the conquest row would have just given 3 points to the opponent with the Stockade building. This was the time I decided to purchase twice.

I went with the landscape from non conquest row. The cost was just 3. No resources needed to build but it increased the food by 2 and wood production by 1.

Then I bought the Aqueduct from the Conquest row with the total cost of 6. By doing this, I got 2 protections against Decline and complete protection against the Plague. To build the Aqueduct, I had to provide with 3 stones and 2 woods. My civ produced more than that and got 1 luxury item, making the total to 9.

The opponent then took the STOCKADE from non conquest row.

This means my population went up to 15 and 11 points from buildings. Got 4 cards plus 2 luxury items.

ROUND 5 (B). 2nd sign of Decline and Plague happened but not to me. So, I made the right decision. Still no Supply phase.

The conquest row had one card with a protection against Decline and complete protection from Drought. I went with that so I didn’t need to worry after having 3 for decline. The total cost was 6, got 3 points while the opponent took GRANARY with just 2 points.

To build my TEMPLE OF APOLLO, I had to provide with 5 Stones. My civ production was only 4 so I had to pay with 1 card. This increased my production of coin by 1 and wheat by 1. Population also went up by 2.

Current population was 17 and 14 points. I had maximum luxury items and only 6 cards left.

ROUND 6 (B). 2nd sign of Drought and Tempest that already happened. Time for Supply phase.

17 population and producing only 13 wheat. So, I had to discard the 2 wheat cards plus 2 more from Luxury items.

The conquest row actually had that card with Supply phase that could be 2nd protection against earthquake and increasing the wheat production by 5. However the total cost was 7, even though I could have just spent from my luxury items for the bid.

On the other hand, I thought I still needed more building points and saving up for possibly another Supply phase next round. So I just paid 1 Luxury item to buy that LEONIDAION building from non conquest row.

I had enough production to build it. Got 3 points, 2 luxury items back and 1 extra population. The opponent got 1 point, 3 cards and 1 population from that supply phase card.

I had 18 population and 17 building points, 9 cards and luxury items at max.

ROUND 7 (C). 3rd and 4th signs of decline. It did nothing to my civ since I had 3. As expected, another Supply phase.

18 population but only producing food for 13 so I had to pay with 5 from luxury items. I needed more wheat but the good ones were in the Conquest row. So, I picked the TIRYNS FORTRESS from non conquest row since it had one more Wheat and extra wood production.

The cost was 5 and I paid with all luxury items, 7 left. After paying for the building cost, I had 2 excess from stone production so Luxury item went back up to 9.

Still with 18 population and 21 building points. Got 4 cards plus 4 luxury items.

ROUND 8 (C). Drought happened but nothing to me and 2nd sign of Earthquake. Still needed more wheat and probably more building points.

I thought my best option was to get ARICULTURE for 5 wheat and 3 points. The opponent also got 3 points from WORKSHOP OF PHIDIAS.

Psid 6 with all luxury items. To build it I needed to provide 5 woods and my production was only 3. So I had to pay with 2 wood cards.

Still with 18 population and 24 building points. Got 15 cards left with 6 of them being 3 wheat and 3 population. Also with 15 luxury items.

That was the end of the game.

Last Supply phase. 18 population and producing 20 wheats. This means I got to keep extra 2 as luxury items, 5 population cards and the 3 wheat cards became coins.

23 populations plus 2 from Luxury card or 24 points from buildings, 4 points from leftover resources plus 2 from luxury items. So, my score was only 25, the lower one. I guess I should have added more population. The opponent only got 14 or 20.

Playing time was about 66 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Peloponnes Card Game Review.

Tiny Epic Dungeons

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Explore the dungeon, find loots and spells, fight Goblins and Minions and defeat the Boss in Tiny Epic Dungeons.

This was my 2nd play of Tiny Epic Dungeons, solo with just 2 characters. Last time got a lot of rules wrong and while I did better this time, I think I still misunderstood a couple of things. For example, I didn’t realize that during the Skill Check, you only use 1 dice unless it was a plus 1 or plus 2. I thought it was the same as during fighting where you use all of them.

In this one, I still have to constantly check the Appendix. Instead of trying to figure out what those symbols means, it is easier to just read the Appendix. Sometimes a couple of times for the same card which led to a lot of downtime. I probably should print it so I don’t need to keep checking my laptop.

There are probably some more errors, not exactly because I misunderstood things. Like I forgot to place a dungeon tile next to explored room to the right while I was so busy to the left side. This means I could have reached the Minions sooner or maybe even in a different configuration. A solution for that was to take a card from the Deck C but not the Lair.

I guess I also cheated with where to place the room. Since in this game it’s important that the placement of the Lair is close to one or 2 altars, I eventually had to peek. Almost changed the Minion tile location but decided not to.

However, I did take back from exploring to one direction after realizing that I have reached the maximum 3 spaces away from the Stair. I ended up creating a corridor around the edge without a possibility to go inwards. I guess realizing the 7 x 7 size is important when revealing a room with just 2 points of access. You have to make sure some access just not going inward to revealed room but also to those leftover spaces.

The Lair ended up close to the Stair but not from either Minion. Luckily, I picked the Boss that requires just one Altar.

As for the session itself, I added contents from the Stories expansion and they probably came out in this session.

The 2 characters I played with were Clotho, from that expansion and Sir Lanon from the base game. This pair is recommended in one of the discussion thread. The reason is that one is strong in Strength or red and the other with Intellect. Ideally a 3rd one in Agility but for 2, this is a good pair.

Clotho also has the Psychic Blast special ability that allows you to easily defeat Goblins without getting in the same space. Sir Lanon, as a Paladin can heal himself or other hero by spending focus. His special ability is also to increase his Melee attack.

So, Clotho went first and did the Torch Free Action. This is one of the recommended tips from the forum. Using this action, you lose time to reveal all 4 adjacent rooms. By doing so, you are avoiding getting hurt by Goblin random spawning for entering that room and losing movements.

I think it is also intended. By doing so, you move the Torch down and it should have triggered the enemy’s action. However, you move it down first before revealing the 4 rooms. So, even if you reveal goblins, they are not going to move. While if you go with the usual route, just exploring and then get a Goblin, not only you get damage from the Goblin, the next round that same Goblin activates.

After that, Clotho continued by using her Psychic Blast attack to kill the 2 Goblins in 2 revealed adjacent rooms. I also let her use her RESEARCH to get a spell, the Tempest of Arrows, and of course she kept it.

Clotho was not done. She could still move and choose the next room. Maybe even do another Free Torch, ideally to a room with 3 instead of just 1 or 2. You might want to wait for the right time to lose that one round.

I guess this is where I made a mistake by doing her 2nd Heroic Action to disable a trap that got her a Crossbow. Maybe I need a reminder whether I have done a Heroic action or not. Well, that probably already invalidates my not really a win. Oh, well.

I just realized another error during writing this. I should have gotten a reward for defeating every Goblin!!!

Most of them could have gotten me spells, loots, heal, or even focus! I made it harder I guess. That means Sir Lanon could have gotten a loot or spell since he did a lot of Goblin slaying. The Pokey Goblin even allows you to reveal a dungeon card.

Well, I’m going to blame the poor graphic design. I thought any icons on those Goblin cards are just for Goblins, actions and reaction that they do. They could have put it at the bottom or using a different background like the one that activates the Goblin. Well, at least, now I know.

So, Sir Lanon first turn killed that Goblin and should have gotten a loot. Then he moved 3 spaces, to what appears to be a Kitchen and then the Phoenix room.

Back to Clotho. I guess I did a lot of multiple Heroic actions for her. This time, she killed that Pokey Goblin and then moved to a room with Witch Cauldron and did another action to get a spell. That was supposed to end her movement and yet I moved her again to the next room. She skipped a trap and then finally ended in the next room where she found the first Minion, DIRE SERPENT.

Shooty Goblin showed up and this one could have gotten me 5 focus for defeating it. Sir Lanon next. He approached that Minion from a different direction, entering a Fire Vortex. He didn’t disable the trap and immediately enter the room with Minion.

Dire Serpent only has 6 health and Defense of 5. Rolled a 6, a 2 and a 2 plus the bonus 2 from Divine Might so that was enough to one shot the Minion. Actually the Serpent’s defense went up against that Melee but that was still enough to beat it. At least, really no bonus for defeating Minion that I ignored like Goblins. Sir Lanon last action was to heal Clotho.

Clotho moved to the Fire Vortex again and this was where I got it wrong with the Skill Check. I rolled a 4, 3 and 3. I should have only used the 4 then I had to change one of the 3 into 2. She didn’t disable the trap but used the Dungeon Scry spell to reveal one of the room which was, after peeking, the 2nd Minion room.

As bonus for doing that action, I got to kill the Goblin next door. The Pokey that could have gotten me a loot or 5 Focus. I guess I could just assumed I took the Focus. The 2nd Minion was the OOZE. Last action for Clotho was to do research, getting HOLY ABUNDANCE. I discarded this since I thought I needed the 2 I already got more. Apparently I misunderstood the Icon of Blue spell. I thought that was just to discover new spell. This means Clotho could have used this ability to take spell from the discard pile. Instead I forced myself during Boss Fight to get to a room to just pick up spell.

Back to Sir Lanon. This time, he just disabled the trap of that Fire Vortex. He got Ruby Figurine which didn’t work for him but better for Clotho.

Stabby Goblin showed up. Clotho killed it with the crossbow since the goblin was 3 spaces away. She could have taken that Ruby Figurine. Then she moved to a room where the Ooze couldn’t reach her. However, I didn’t realize that the Ooze had ranged attack so Clotho should have stayed in the Phoenix room while still being able to cast a spell to Ooze. Last action, she discovered CLOUD OF DEATH spell.

Back to Sir Lanon and the Ooze moved this time, dealing 1 damage to Clotho in the next room. Oh, Clotho had to discard her crossbow. Sir Lanon moved to where Ooze was. Rolled a 5, 2 and 3 plus 2 from his Divine Might. Ooze only had 8 health plus defense of 4. So that was enough to beat this 2nd Minion.

Back to Clotho. She moved 4 spaces to, after peeking, where the Lair was but had to stop right before it. It was also a room with Shelby’s Web. After disabling it, she got ROBES OF THE PHOENIX. Now, during this writing I understand what those icons at the bottom means. I think I assumed that you get bonus based on the number of players. That is not the case.

Back to Sir Lanon and Boomy Golbin appeared. He killed it after moving to the Stair and he could have gotten more Loot or Spell. Clotho again and she finally found and opened the Lair. Of course after that, she moved back 3 spaces to the Stair instead of entering the Lair. Actually, she used the Robe to teleport to a room 3 spaces away from the Stair.

Next round, the Gorgon, the Boss shouldn’t have moved unless I did some Taunting. So I got it wrong by moving it 2 spaces and then used the Taunt action. The Gorgon got to the Stair and the Altar immediately made her vulnerable. Sir Lanon only did 2 damage and then healed. After that he moved to the room with portal.

Back to Clotho and the Boss followed Sir Lanon to room with Portal. Clotho used the Cauldron room to discover Fireball and get more Focus. Then she teleported to where she could use the Tempest to hit both the incoming Goblin and the Boss.

Back to sir Lanon after Boomy Goblin appeared. He moved back to Stair and decided to rest since he run out of Focus.

Then Boomy and Boss did a lot of damage to both heroes. Clotho used her Tempest to kill that Boomy and dealt 2 damage to the boss. She teleported to the Kitchen room and healed to max. Almost run out of Focus. This was what I was struggling with. Don’t know where to get more Focus other than taking rest.

There is a chance I moved the timer twice. Sir Lanon got attacked by Boss and almost died. He moved to the Portal and had to take rest again.

Another Boomy Goblin. Since Clotho run out of Focus she had to move back to Cauldron, through a trap room first. In the Cauldron, she got a spell and some focuses. Then she teleported again using her Robe to Phoenix room.

Next round, Boss and Boomy knocked out Sir Lanon but it was his turn. He took a rest then moved closer to the Phoenix room, after dealing with a trap.

Back to Clotho, using Tempest, she killed the Boomy and dealt 2 damage to Gorgon. The Boss followed the Heroes. Sir Lanon dealt 6 damage to Gorgon, 4 health left. Almost got knocked out again. Healed back to max in the Kitchen.

Next round Clotho got knocked out after trying to get more Focus in the Cauldron again. Well that didn’t matter since that was her last turn. Last turn for Sir Lanon and the heroes overall. Cheatingly I just assumed that Sir Lanon, rolled double 5 and a 2 plus 2 from Divine Might. That was more than enough to beat Gorgon.

Playing time was about 104 minutes. Still a lot of errors, that work both ways, making it easier and harder. I’m happy that I know the game better by doing this process. Next time!

Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write

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Build your Dinosaur theme park by hiring specialists to make sure the safety and excitement of your visitors in Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write.

This was another solo session. The 3 buildings were T-Rex Jet Ski Park, Prehistoric Garden and Casino. While the 3 Specialists were Rent-A-Cop, Union Boss and Small Carnivore Trainer.

Based on those, I chose the 3 solo objectives. One to score 4 by having 3 paddocks of all Small Carnivores, another to score 5 by having 2 of each Attraction type, and 3 points for having 4 restaurants.

ROUND 1, DEVELOPMENT PHASE 1. Duplicate and Extra DNA spaces were occupied. Got a Green DNA at least.

No Money from the other 4 dice. 3 of them had a threat of 1 while the last one had 2. I picked the one that gave me a RIDE attraction and I placed it to the right from HQ, next to the first exit and just 1 space from HQ. I thought maybe I needed more DNA to make more dinosaurs since at least 3 specialists were ready to give extra securities. So, I picked 1 Green and 1 Red from 1 die and a single Orange. The Security or orange was for the threat.

I used one die to get 2 money which I used to start hiring Security Chief but not enough. 2nd die was to build the first Restaurant which I placed at the top right corner of the park.

ROUND 2, DEVELOPMENT PHASE 2. Make Dinos and Raise Funds were occupied this time.

The good thing was that the dice on Make Dino space had no threat so I could just go there. No Money still. I could double things but either DNA or got 4 securities which were not necessary.

Well, there was one with free Restaurant so I built my 2nd restaurant right next to my other restaurant, just 1 space and next to 2nd exit to the right from HQ. Now I just needed 3 roads to connect from HQ with the 3 buildings to that 2nd exit.

Chose the one die with 2 DNA but 1 threat for the threat. Picked the other 2 dice for single Blue and 2 Security. Then I placed one to get 3 roads as planned. The other die was to make 4 Dinos. While I had 8 DNAs I ended up making just 3. One Velociraptor and one Dilophosaurus, both were the Small Carnivores. Last one was Triceratops, a herbivore and left me with a red and a green.

The paddock for Velociraptor was placed at the top left corner, but not exactly at the top edge. This was just to be one space away from the Triceratops paddock that I placed adjacent, 1 space away to HQ. Then the Dilophosaurus paddock was surrounded by the first 3 buildings. Not exactly sure at this point as how I would have connect them. Placement was mostly because it seemed efficient to place it that way.

From these 3 dinosaurs, I generated 5 excitement levels and 2 threats. 2 of them were unsecured.

ROUND 1, RUN PARK PHASE.

Got 1 excitement level from the Ride attraction. The 2 money was to hire the Security chief and partially paid the Tour Guide. I think I got 1 money too much. Security Chief got me 3 security so all threats were secured.

Then I run the tour and generated 3 more excitement levels by passing through the 3 buildings, ended at the 2nd exit. From the excitement track, I got 2 money which was correctly enough to hire the Tour Guide which got me 3 more excitement levels. Got 2 more securities and the 2 basic DNA. No unsecured threat so far.

ROUND 2, DEVELOPMENT PHASE 1. Make Dinos and Build Action space were occupied.

Still no money from the dice. But there were 2 attractions, one for Ride and one for Merch Store and I picked those. Placed it so that the 2 were adjacent to each other, just 1 space away and also to the Dilophosaurus paddock. The Merch store was actually connected to the 3rd exit to the right.

From the other 2 dice, one had 2 threats and one had 1. I had enough securities but I chose the less dangerous one and got a Blue DNA and a road. The road was used to connect HQ and the Velociraptor paddock at the top left.

The one that gave me a road and Blue DNA was doubled. The 2 roads connected the 2 new attractions and the Dilophosaurus building. While the other die was to raise funds. I got it wrong with the money. During the game at this point I already hired the Jr. Scientist but in reality I needed one more. Didn’t matter much I guess.

ROUND 2, DEVELOPMENT PHASE 2. Make Dinos and Duplicate space were occupied.

Finally, 2 dice with 1 coin each. And there was a dice that gave me a Restaurant. By picking those 3, that left me with one threat of the last die. This 3rd restaurant of mine was placed between the paddock for Triceratops and the Dilophosaurus so the 2 paddocks and this new one was just 1 space from each other. 3 roads and I created a completely new tour route from HQ to 3rd exit to the right.

The other 2 dice got me 2 coins and 1 road. So, I expected the 2 roads from the Tour Guide during Run Park Phase. One money was to finally hire the Jr. Scientist and got me 2 Advanced DNA. The other money was to start hiring the Trainer.

From dice placement, one die to raise fund, more payment for the Trainer. Then the other die with 1 money and 1 road was doubled even if I had to suffer 3 threats from existing die. So I got 2 more money, one was to completely hire the Trainer which got me 2 excitement levels. The other was to start hiring the Union Boss.

Since I already got the 2 roads, I completed the new Dino Tour.

ROUND 2, RUN PARK PHASE.

From attractions, I got 1 money and 1 red DNA from Merch Store. Plus 3 from restaurants. This means, I finally got to completely hire the Union Boss and started payment for Rent-A-Cop. The Union Boss got me 1 extra attraction which I chose the Merch Store. This was placed at the bottom right corner so it was adjacent to existing Merch store. I knew I was about to make the 3rd paddock for Small Carnivore which I was planning to place next to South Exit. So, the Merch store was at least 1 space away.

From the Specialists, I got 1 extra security and then 2 roads which I used to connect with the new Merch Store with the new route. With the help from Jr. Scientist, I made 2 Dinos, the Pteranodon, the 3rd Small Carnivore which I placed next to South Exit and I created a longer route from HQ.

For the 2nd Dino and available DNA, I decided to make the Large Carnivore, the Spinosaurus. The size of 4 x 4 was perfect to fit in the remaining space in the middle right. Got total of 5 excitement levels and 3 threats.

Union Boss got me 3 more securities and 3 excitement levels from Trainer. I still had 1 unsecured threat.

Then the Tour happened, going through 8 new buildings to the South Exit. From Excitement bonus, I got total of 4 money, 4 securities, 2 Basic and 2 Advanced DNA. The 3 money were to completely hire the Rent A Cop which got me 2 roads that I kept it since I was not sure.

Started accumulating money to build Casino. Maybe I should have made the T-Rex Jetski Park first. Luckily I had enough space for this huge building at the bottom left corner with the Casino close to the top. Not enough room for the Prehistoric Garden. But still enough for the 4th Restaurant.

ROUND 3, DEVELOPMENT PHASE 1. Raise funds and Extract DNA space were occupied.

No money again. The 4 dice got me either 1 or 2 threats. I picked for threat first, from the die that gave me either one purple or 2 Blue. This means, from the 3, I got 3 red, 1 orange, 1 red and 1 green.

Doubled the 1 green and 1 red. Used the other die to make the Restaurant.

ROUND 3, DEVELOPMENT PHASE 2. Raise Funds and Build space were occupied.

Finally a die with 2 coins. One die with Ride attraction without any threat was for the threat. From the 3, I got 2 coins, 1 orange, 1 green and 1 yellow.

Of course I doubled the 2 coins. Completed the Casino. I should have gotten a Merch Store but I decided to not build it. Was it mandatory? Either way, I could have just build the Jet ski park first before the Casino and got the similar result.

So, I already had a plan to place all of the remaining buildings but I needed 7 roads to connect them all and to an exit. Apparently I could build the biggest one, only after the last Dino Tour. So, I had to use 6 just to connect the 3 and to exit at the top left. 3 of them was by placing a die in the Build action. 2 from previous that I kept and I was expecting 2 more from the Tour Guide later.

Got no unsecured threats.

ROUND 3, RUN PARK PHASE.

Luckily got 2 coins and 2 DNA from the Merch Store. Plus 4 money from the Restaurant but that was not enough to build that Jet Ski Park. 2 Excitement levels from the 2 Rides.

From specialists, I got 10 securities, 2 roads, 3 excitement levels plus 2 Dinos. Both dinos were 2nd and 3rd Spinosaurus. Got 6 more excitement levels and 4 threats which I had more security for them.

Then the Tour happened, connecting the existing route to a new one passing through just 3 new buildings to the top left exit. Got me 3 excitement levels.

From the Excitement Bonus, I got 6 more securities,6 more money, 2 Basic and 2 Advanced DNAs. The money was finally enough to build that last building at the bottom left corner. Got 3 extra threats and 7 excitement Levels which got me 2 more coins.

At the end, I got 10 extra securities.

SCORING

2 points from Herbivore, 9 from Small Carnivore and 15 from Large Carnivore. 18 points from Specialists, 31 from the 2 Buildings, 19 from 3 exits. 24 points from the last row of Excitement track and 13 from the leftover DNAs. Maybe just 12. Completed the 3 objectives and I got 12 points.

TOTAL SCORE: 142 if I got it correctly. Even if I didn’t get a lot of money, especially in the beginning, I managed to score very high. This was the first time I used the Make Dino before the first Run Park Phase.

Playing time was about 93 minutes.

Sensu

More pictures of this Sensu game session on TikTok or Instagram.

Craft 3 Japanese folding Fans in limited time in Sensu.

This was a new game to me, released in 2023. I was actually looking for other games. Somehow this one caught my eye. I guess I just like anything with Japanese theme. Unfortunately, there is not much information about this game on BGG, not a single video at the time of this writing.

Apparently, there is a solo mode and there is a rule file on the BGG page so this was one of the rare times that I really had to read rules first to know the game.

My initial impression from reading the rule is that this has mechanism similar to Fantasy Realms. You want to create a combination of cards in your hand but with a couple of extra steps. Unlike Fantasy Realms, the cards here are just numbers and colors. Nowadays, I look for more lighter games with easier and faster to setup and play. Since the game is small and just 110 cards, I went for it.

Then the game came. A bit more about production, specifically the box. Apparently, this game comes with a tuck box, not the 2-piece thicker box. But it comes with a plastic insert, that you can easily draw out from this tuck box.

Somehow, I feel like you want to use sleeve and the box clearly has more room but only if you use the 60 microns. That is already tight fit. Without the sleeve, those cards will be a mess in that box. From the gameplay perspective, you will shuffle these cards a lot, at least 90 cards, lower if you only play less than 4.

So, how does it play?

I’ve only played the solo variant which is slightly different from multiplayer one. In this game, you are trying to craft up to 3 Japanese Folding Fans, one of 3 colors. Each folding fan is considered finish or complete if they have EXACTLY 10 sticks. In multiplayer game, it is a race game to be the first to finish 2 out of 3.

The way to do that is by collecting cards first in your hand. Each card will have one of 3 colors, depict a number of sticks for the fan, between 1 to 4 sticks and a value between 1 to 9.

In order to use these cards to build the folding fan, you first need to play a combination of cards with a total value of EXACTLY 20, regardless of the colors. You can play up to all 5 cards in your hand. So, the combination can be 9 – 9 – 2 or 2 – 3 – 4 – 2 – 9.

After playing that combination you get to take or redeem one card from that combination with the highest number of sticks and use it to build the fan.

Cards with a value of 1 have 4 sticks, a value of 2, 3 and 4 have 3 sticks and a value of 7, 8 or 9 have 1 stick. There are also wild cards with just 1 stick but the value can be either 1/2/3, 4/5/6 or 7/8/9 in a single card.

So, you can easily reach the combination with higher value cards but that means you are progressing just 1 stick. By including the lower one, you get the chance to progress faster. This is a race.

You can also redeem up to 2 additional cards per combination played. In order to do so, you need to either include cards with the same number or 3 of the same colors. For this additional card to redeem, you get to pick the card with the lowest number of sticks.

For example, if you play a 9 – 9 – 2, you get to pick 2 cards. One from the value of 2 since it has 3 sticks (highest) and then you also get to pick one of the 9 (lowest). Using example from the rulebook, if you play Blue 2 (3 sticks), Red 3 (3 sticks), Red 6 (2 sticks), Red 9 (1 stick), you get to redeem the Blue 2 since it has the highest and the 9 since you play 3 cards of one color and the 9 has the lowest number of stick. You can also hit both bonuses in a combination and take 2 extra cards.

So, that is how you build fan, to win the game. How do you get cards?

Each player starts with 5 cards in hand. On their turn, they can either draw a card or play a combination to redeem the card. When taking a card, if you have more than 5, you have to discard back to 5 to your discard pile. The cards in any player’s discard pile becomes accessible for other players to take. They can take from any of them, face up or the top of the deck face down.

This means, you want to be a bit more careful when discarding a card. The card may not be useful for you but good for your opponent. You also discard cards that you didn’t redeem after playing a combination. Only the card you put on the top of discard pile can be taken. You can even take back cards from your own discard pile and use it for multiple combinations.

Also, if the deck ever runs out of cards before the game ends, you shuffle all cards from all discard pile to form a deck.

That is the basic idea of this Sensu game. The game also comes with 2 modules you can add but it seems only for multiplayer variant. One variant will force you to finish one color first while working on the other two.

The other module introduces special power for each fan color. Players gain access to these powers if their built Folding Fan has 2 special symbols in one color. Symbol only appear as a single one in cards with a value of 4, 5 or 6, not the wild one.

Red power allows you to draw 3 cards instead of 1. Green Power allows you to redeem a card directly from any discard pile to build the folding fan. No need to wait to play in combination.

Blue power allows you to remove the last card from every other player’s unfinished fan and put it in their discard pile. This is very mean and powers are mandatory when possible.

The Solo Mode

In the solo mode of Sensu, you play only with a deck of 27 cards, 1 to 9 of the 3 colors. You still try to reach the value combination of 20 and build 3 fans each with 10 sticks. It is a BYOS where you score based on the number of sticks you have built. If you can finish all 3 before the deck runs out, then you get to add the remaining cards as you score.

In the rulebook there is a scoring chart with 6 levels of achievements and the highest possible score is over 40.

The difference from multiplayer variant is that since there is no other players and their discard pile, you make 4 columns. On your turn, you can either make a combination or take a card from the top of the deck. After taking a card, you can place them in one of 4 columns or your discard pile.

You don’t have cards in your hand. Instead, you play a combination using cards from the top of discard pile and/or the last card from up to 4 columns.

For cards in the 4 columns, the game tells you to reveal the previous cards. So, even if you only play with the last card of the column, you can still make plans with the next card. Technically, you can do the same to discard pile but since you put cards to discard pile after playing a combination, it is less likely to get access the card at the bottom of the discard pile. While with 4 columns, any column can be empty. I guess it is more like managing 4 hands of cards.

Some notes after playing solo variants for the first time.

My very, very first play I got the rule wrong about reaching the value of 20. I thought, I needed to use the same color for all cards. That is not the case. You just want 3 of them to have the same colors when making a combo to redeem extra card. I share this, maybe because I feel people may have the same problem since the cards is used in 2 different ways.

The game is very fast. I finished the game within less than 20 minutes and I already had 4 plays. You can assume from that I like it. It is very easy and fast to reset. Just shuffle those 27 cards back and you get to go again.

This is definitely more on lighter side, maybe even more a relaxing game. At first, you might think it is too easy. Just get 20 which is not hard and add cards to the fan. I think the challenge is when you are about to hit the exact 10 sticks.

Let’s say you already have 7 sticks for green, 8 for Blue and 9 for red. You get the value 20 from these 5 cards but you must take the card with highest stick and turns out it is Blue with 3. If you want 2 sticks for Blue, then you need to have either Blue 6 and maybe 2 7s. Or Blue 4, then 2 5s, and a 6.

I think in my 2nd and 3rd play, I scored around 30, completing 2 Fans. The first one doesn’t count since I got the rule wrong about the bonus. While the last one I scored poorly with just 24. In that last one I actually tried to get more bonus.

Let’s say you manage to get a value of 20 with 3 cards. You take one to build a fan and then the other 2 goes to discard pile. One of them is still accessible for the next combination.

On the other hand, if you use 5 cards to get that 20, you redeem one or maybe 2, then the other 3 go to discard with only 1 accessible. Unless you get some bonus, playing more doesn’t seem to be a good strategy.

When I say it is relaxing, I think I meant it is possible to play that way and have fun. Does it mean, there is no deeper gameplay here? Maybe if you can do better then you probably can plan ahead a couple of steps with these 4 columns. Well, I guess I need more play to figure that out.

The first 5 turns in solo play, you probably just distributing cards to those columns and discard pile. Then you probably want to start focusing on something, usually the color. There are 3 reds and 2 Blues and the next card is green. So, maybe you decide to just let go of the blue and cover one of them. Well, it turns out, the next card is another blue, a perfect value even to reach 20 but you already covered that previous one. That’s another experience you may get from this game.

Maybe this is still better with more players, especially with those extra modules. Well, at least for me, I got another relaxing solo game that is fast to setup, play and reset.

Playing time was about 15 to 20 minutes per solo session.

Final Words

So, those are all of the games I played. Hope that entertains or helps to give some idea what kind of tabletop games we can find on the market.

Some are new and some are older games. The complete list of the older games and my reviews about them can be found from this list and this one for the more recent games and if you are interested in previous reports of each game.

I keep saying that these tabletop games can be a good way to spend some time without looking at the screen of our gadget. If we do have someone close, that we can play with, there are other games where we can play cooperatively or competitively but with a lot of player interaction.

The game can be very fast or like a filler type or it can take hours to play. Some games can also be played in solitaire mode and they are still more engaging than other entertainment activity. Some may say, it’s like a workout for the gray matter of our brain.

Thanks for reading.

 

Mark M.

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