Tabletop Game Play Session Reports #12

This article is the compilation of my play session reports #12. Starting with this one, this is no longer a weekly or monthly entry. I’m just going to enjoy playing the game more and less about writing this report.

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 41, Week 42, Last One.

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)
#11 2024 Week 37 to Week 40 (September)

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

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

More pictures of this Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Continuing my Jaws of the Lion campaign with Hatchet and Red Guard after over one year. This time was with scenario 15, “Tainted Blood”.

The mission started with a room on the left with just a single Zealot. Next to that enemy was an objective with the size of 2 hexes in the form of an alchemy table.

Apparently this table can create Black Imp at the start of every round but they won’t move right away. If you fail to kill that and the Zealot is in 3 spaces away from it, the Zealot will turn it into Blood Imp, and elite one. The Zealot will then become stunned while the table will keep producing more Imp, unless you destroy it.

So, the objective is, in addition to kill every enemy, to destroy all 8 tables. Not every table will add more Imp, depending on player count.

Round 1

Red Guard went first. He was initially aiming for the Zealot but after realizing that wouldn’t stop generating the Imp, he aimed for the table. But his Flaming sickle was a ranged attack so he got disadvantage. Luckily still dealt 3 damage to that table.

Hatchet was next. He jumped right to space between the Imp, Zealot and the table. Using Close Cuts, he dealt 3 damage to the table, destroying it and 5 damage to the Imp, killing it.

Zealot then went last with Hex Whip, targeting Hatchet. Only 1 damage but put a curse on Hatchet.

Round 2

Well, this was a weird situation. There was only one enemy left in this first room while the next one was a huge room with 3 tables and 2 of them would be generating Imp. Dividing the attack to this first Zealot and barging in to the room would have been very inefficient.

Decided to just barge in altogether hoping to destroy the closest table at least, while ignoring this first Zealot and dragged him inside.

Red Guard still led the charge by moving into the next room. There were 3 Zealot along with 3 tables. He went to the Zealot on the right. Using his Blade Dance he managed to deal double damage with 4, not enough to put the Zealot down.

His dance was not done. Red Guard continued moving closer to the table and dealt 2 damage after consuming the yellow element. Not enough to destroy the table.

Hatchet followed next to that same hall and healed. Using his Ricochet, dealt 2 more damage to the table. Still not quite enough. There was 2nd part of the attack, targeting the Zealot that Red Guard managed to injured earlier. 3 damage and the Zealot was killed.

Next was Zealot’s turn with Hasty Assault. First one from the previous room followed Hatchet and attacked him. Thanks to Hatchet’s Studded leather, no damage. However, the Zealot in that room then dealt 2 damage to Hatchet.

Last Zealot was very far but moved closer.

ROUND 3

2 Black Imps were generated by the 2 tables. Hatchet moved first this time, passed the 2nd Zealot. With his Repeat Shot, he dealt 4 damage to the closest Imp. Hatchet also ignited the Wind element.

Red Guard was next, moving to space between the first table and that Imp. Using his Twirling Stabs, he destroyed both the table and that Imp.

The Zealots didn’t move this time but those who could attacked with Boil Blood. The first Zealot from the left was out of range but the 2nd attacked Hatchet next to them. Even with the disadvantage, they dealt 3 damage and caused Muddle to Hatchet.

That attack focused on 2 targets so the 2nd one was within range with Red Guard. Good thing was that 2nd ability of Red Guard put disadvantage to the enemy attack, which made that attack a miss.

Then the last Zealot finally dealt 3 damage and put a Muddle to Red Guard. That last Zealot was also within range of the Black imp, turning it into Blood Imp and Zealot got stunned.

ROUND 4

Red Guard went first again and decided to move to the right corner of the room, trying to attack the 3rd table and the Black Imp that just came in. With his Radiant Sickle, he dealt exactly 6 damage to the table, instantly destroying it. While at the same time, injured the Imp.

Hatchet was next. Using his Eagle eye goggle to counter that muddle effect. After moving closer to the 2nd table, his Stopping Power dealt 6 damage to the Blood Imp, almost killed it.

That Blood Imp ignored Hatchet and focused on Red Guard. With the Calculated Strike dealt about 3 damage but thanks to Studded Leather, Red Guard only suffered 2.

Zealots still didn’t move but they used Unholy Flame. 1st one was out of range still. 2nd one attacked Hatchet with 3 damage while igniting Fire. The last one was still stunned.

ROUND 5

Red Guard went first again. He jumped the space of that destroyed table and started using his Shield of Desert. Thanks to the Fire ignited by the Zealot, he managed to deal damage to both Blood Imp and the Zealot. The Imp was killed, not the Zealot, suffered just 5 damage.

Hatched already suffered enough damage so he had to drink his Healing Potion that he brought. He decided not to move but used his healing ability. Using the Center Mass, he attacked the Black Imp and killed it.

Zealots did NOTHING SPECIAL, literally. First one just came closer to Hatchet. 2nd one managed to be in range and dealt 3. Hatchet used his shield to reduce the damage. The last Zealot came for Red Guard and also using Shield, Red Guard only suffered 1 damage.

ROUND 6

With the current situation both of the Lions decided to just take short rest. Hatchet moved first and it was too dangerous for him to be among 2 enemies. So, he moved away to behind 2nd table, after inflicting Wound to the adjacent Zealot. Then using the Stopping Power and the Strengthen effect, dealt 4 damage to that same Zealot. He picked up the coin.

Red Guard, next to the enemy, used the Twirling Stabs to finished the Zealot. Then he moved away to the right end to pick a coin while healing Hatchet. The remaining 2 Zealots was not able to reach any of the Lions.

ROUND 7

Red Guard started the attack again. Moving closer to one of the Zealot, the injured one. Killed it using the Flaming Sickle while igniting Fire and Light.

The last Zealot moved fast with Hex Whip, targeting Red Guard and igniting Wind. 2 damage to Red Guard and got a Curse.

Since the Zealot was also next to Hatchet, Hatchet attacked first before moving away, dealing 4 damage. With Ricochet, dealt 2 more but not enough to kill the Zealot.

ROUND 8

While Red Guard knew he could finish this last Zealot, they needed to think their next move. There were 4 closed doors connected to this big hall. Inside each door seemed to have at least an alchemy table. In order to open them, they needed to destroy the last table in this hall. Both of the Lions planned to get closer to one door before destroying the last table.

Red Guard killed the last Zealot with the Shield of Desert then moved to the top right room. Hatchet moved closer to the bottom left door while starting to destroy that middle table.

ROUND 9

No enemy and they decided to use this chance to take Long Rest. Both healed 2 and prepared their equipment ready to use.

ROUND 10

Red Guard had his Blade Dance to not just destroy the table but move inside the room. There was a table and a Zealot. The Blade Dance continued. While being disadvantage, still dealt 1 damage to the table. Red still had 2nd attack and that dealt 4 damage, still not enough to destroy the table.

Hatchet didn’t want to waste time so instead of going into that bottom left room, he decided to use Power Pitch. 6 damage and destroyed it. 3 tables left.

The Zealot in the same room as Red failed to deal any damage with their Hasty Assault. There was another Zealot from bottom right room came out and approached Red.

ROUND 11

Red Guard was still first and using Strangling Chain, dealt 4 damage to the Zealot. While the 2nd attack even just dealing 1 damage, destroyed the table. Nothing to loot but ignited a Fire.

Hatchet, moving close to the top left room, decided to heal again with his Care Package. Since there was no close enemy, he prepared his Favorite.

Both Zealot managed to corner Red. With their Vile Scourge, 1 damage and Poison from the first. Another 2 from the 2nd.

ROUND 12

Hatchet got first turn and decided to help Red Guard. He moved first so he was within range with the closer Zealot. Then using Repeat Shot plus Favorite and double damage, killed that Zealot. He had to use the Goggles to make sure.

Red Guard with Goggles and Shield of Desert, dealt 4 damage, enough to kill the 2nd Zealot. Only needed to destroy the last 2 tables.

ROUND 13

Red went to the bottom right room in one turn. Destroyed the table with the Shocking Advance. Hatchet went to the top right but only dealt 2 damage to the last table.

ROUND 14

While waiting for Hatche to finish the job, Red took time to get the last coin he could take. Hatchet had to use two attacks to finally finish the last alchemy table.

CONCLUSION

Both earned 10 Gold each and item #21 to 26 were available in the shop. Next mission was Mixed Result, #16. Red Guard also gained 2 coins total and 5 EXP while Hatchet got 3 coins and 7 EXP.

Back to the City, the event was #12. Both got 10 Collective Gold.

Playing time was about 3 hours.

Trailblazers

More pictures of this Trailblazers game on TikTok and on Instagram.

Pave the trails for hiking, biking and kayaking from and to their campsites as Trailblazers.

Continuing with the solo challenge using just one objective. This time the challenge was TRAIL HUGS. To win, I have to create 2 trails of different types encircle another camp. So far, this is probably the hardest for me. It forces you to visualize two loops of different types while you start with just one camp. I ended up using that exact picture from the objective card as a guide as what those 2 loops would look like.

The way I did it was to use this first camp and imagine it getting encircle by loop of another from the right. At the same time, tried to create a loop for this first camp trying to encircle the 3rd one on the left. In this case, my first one was the Brown or Hiking camp, getting encircle by the Red or bike camp.

ROUND 1.

It’s not like I could imagine the red loop was way bigger than the brown camp itself. So, I just took 2 L-shape Red with short brown trying to make a red loop next to this brown camp on the top side. So from the brown camp itself, I had 2 entries from the top side pointing north.

Then from the next 6, there was an Brown L as the main line with shorter red that could continue the red loop on the right side of the brown camp. That brown main line itself was pointing to the north so the 2 shorter existing brown would have created two loops.

No other good red and brown combo but there was one for brown and blue. It had straight brown and two straight shorter blue. I could use it to prepare for make a brown loop encircling the blue camp. So, from the top side of brown camp, a straight brown vertically with two horizontal blue. Blue camp was ready to be placed to these 2 blue.

So, the best pair of 2 colors from my current situation were either blue and brown or brown and red. Unfortunately, these next 4 didn’t have any of them. 3 blue and red and one of each color. Nevertheless, I had to make do with these.

With the C Red and a brown, I had to imagine a simple loop in and out from the top of red campsite later. Hoping that the small brown at the top left corner could be another brown loop. Then using the L shape blue with a small straight red, I extended that C from the right down. I imagined that this red campsite was right below this blue L.

ROUND 2.

After drawing those 8 cards, I got more red and brown lines. While I had more confident as where to place the Blue but I had to finish the Red encircling loop first with these. So, I placed the red camp instead, as I had planned.

I remember that I spent a good amount of time trying those 8. Eventually I ended up placing 2 cards horizontally on the left side of the brown camp. The first one on top had straight brown going to the left, preparing for brown loop that enclosed the blue. This also had shorter straight red, extending that other encircling red loop.

Then the 2nd card at the left, bottom part had brown L also a shorter red to keep extending that loop. I was hoping to make another brown loop from this left bottom to any entry from the bottom brown camp.

Then with the next 6, still had to juggle between the 3 camps while having only two. First, I took the Brown L to extend the right entry from the top side of brown going to the right. This one also had smaller blue at the corner that extended the two shorter blue. Just one small blue corner and the camp so I got a complete blue already.

As for the 2nd card, I ended up taking a straight red with 2 brown which i placed horizontally next to the bottom side of the brown camp. This created a weird size 3 gap between the brown and red camp. I had to overlap something later.

The next 4 had mostly brown and red. I didn’t get efficient result to complete the objective but I managed to extend the brown line from left bottom while connecting the previous straight red with the overall encircling red loop.

ROUND 3.

I placed the Blue camp. Not like I had any other choice. Still no good brown and blue but a couple of red and brown.

I ended up taking an L Brown with not good placement for blue to close the 2nd loop from the top of brown camp. This way I didn’t need to worry about it later. 7 points.

After that one, I was still considering having 3rd brown loop at the bottom right corner. But that could screw up connecting the red big loop.

So, I decided to give up that idea. Instead, for the weird size 3 empty spaces between brown and red camp, I did overlap this time. I picked Red L that could connect the big loop from the right of the brown camp to what I initially planned for another loop for red. By doing so, I managed to connect one end of the big loop with the red camp. This way I was only 2 spaces away from closing that big loop.

With the next 6, I was starting to get a good brown and blue combo. Not much faith in making big loop for blue so I created a small one at the bottom just size 2. It already had one half C from the bottom right. I picked a Brown S, to extend the line from left side of brown camp, top part so it could get to the left of blue camp. This had a small blue at the corner to finish that small blue loop. 2 points.

Then for the 2nd one, I picked Brown L that could extend that same line to the left of that blue camp. This 2nd encircling big loop had just 5 spaces away from being closed.

8 cards left and efficiently, I probably needed 7 more. First, no good L Red to finish the big loop. But there was an S Red that could do the job, even if it created a whole between camps again. 16 points.

Luckily there was Brown L that could extended the big loop. I placed it at the top left corner of blue camp. Still missing 3 spaces for that big loop.

ROUND 4.

Got another Brown L, the opposite form of previous one so I could placed it at the top right of Blue camp. Now this giant camp had one space missing and I needed just a small straight brown. There was none from the other 7. I decided to just close a 2nd blue loop that required just one corner blue. There was exactly one card for this. 4 points.

From the next 6, I could have closed that 2nd big loop with one of 2 smaller straight brown. But both of them were part of same L brown that could finish 3rd brown loop at the bottom left. 10 points for doing so.

Last 4 cards. There was one, luckily a small brown line. I finished the big loop for 13 points. From the other 3 cards, there was one C Red so it could be its own loop for 2 points.

That was the end of the game.

Got 18 points from 2 Reds, 6 points from 2 Blue, 30 points from 3 Brown. Final score was 54 points so I completed the challenge.

Playing time was about 53 minutes.

Obsession

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

Host social events to get more connections with other Victorian gentry in Obsession.

Finally got my 2nd solo play of this. I think I got the rule already, most of them at least, but I still needed some clarifications. Looking for those clarification from the rulebook really hurts my experience with this.

It seems I am not alone having trouble with the rulebook and there are already a couple of people making short summary for it, just one page or two. I have to remind myself to open this before playing the game next time. The game is really that simple but the rulebook makes it seems more complicated. Again, the thematic explanation is nice but it gets in the way of learning.

Well, this time I finally did a lot more special action. I think I got the number wrong though like I should have spent 2 prestige for 100 pounds instead of just 1, or something like that. Played as the ASQUITH family and their unique setup is that they have one extra card in hand.

The 2 Starter guests were Miss Penelope that could get me a casual guest and Zachary that could get me 100 pounds. I cannot really read their name with that artistic font so I apologize for typing it incorrectly or not using the name at all.

Still facing against the lowest difficulty solo opponent. The Simpson family with 78 base score. Their focus are mainly the red, purple and green. 2 of my starting Objective cards are about Estate or red, two other are about guests and one about Gentleman’s Group.

Another one that I got it wrong was about discarding any of these during Courtship.

So here is how the session went. Let’s see how incorrect I played.

ROUND 1. I started with no money so hosted Bowling event, inviting two gentry using one Footman. Invited Daniel from the family and Zachary. Got 300 from the event itself, 100 from Zachary and 200 from Daniel.

So, I bought FLOWER ROOM (Red) for 500 from the position 2. The opponent this time rolled 20, refreshing the market. This was my first time refreshing the market and I didn’t know exactly where it was explain in the rulebook. Apparently it is under Special Actions, page 12 of main rulebook. I tried looking for REFRESH MARKET from the glossary and couldn’t find it.

ROUND 2. I had 100, lowest prestige rating with the Footman only in Servant’s quarters and 5 active gentry cards in hand.

I tried to take advantage of the Village Fair in the next round so I played that PRIVATE STUDY with my Blue Butler. Invited the 2 Family members, Charles and the Dowager of the family. Got 1 prestige from the Dowager and total of 200 from both.

Then from the Builder’s Market, I bought another green, RIDING STABLES from position 2 but with discount price of 200.So, I only had to pay 200. Either that or I couldn’t afford anything. The opponent rolled a 3 (-5) and removed BUTLER’S PANTRY.

ROUND 3, Village Fair. Got 300 and 2 Prestige points.

I should have 400 at this point and 3rd space of Prestige 1. Maybe I forgot to take the favor from Dowager earlier. Footman was ready and only the Butler was not available.

Played the purple, FRONT PARLOUR with the Housekeeper, inviting 2 ladies. Got Lady Eleanor and Miss Penelope. The latter required a Maid. Got 3 Prestige from the Event itself, increasing the level to Level 2.

The 2 got me 1 Casual guest each, Sir Richard who loves music and Mr. Thomas Handle.

With 400 I could have bought either Smoking Room for 300 or Green Room for 400. Decided to buy the cheaper one for more Prestige. The opponent rolled 18 so purchased nothing.

ROUND 4, COURTSHIP: PRESTIGE.

If I understand correctly, this is the time to compare score of that theme, right? I had 2 purple, one scored 1 and the other that I just used scored 2. Unfortunately, the Simpson Family scored 7 so they won and got a VP card. Hopefully I played it right.

Also, I am supposed to discard an objective card? Didn’t do that during the game so another error. I probably could have discarded the GROUP BONUS card for 17 VP. But this was after knowing the result.

ROUND 5. There was Servant’s Hall so I moved it to the Reserve.

I had Prestige Level 2, 100 pound left and 3 gentry cards left. Played the RIDING STABLES, the Green with Footman, inviting a Gentleman and a Lady. Got Patricia and Sir Richard that needed a Valet.

200 from the event and another 200 from the Gentleman while Patricia suggested 2 Casual guests to pick one from, either Thomas MacMilian or Miss Katherine. I thought I already had more Gentleman so I picked the Lady.

Then I bought GREEN ROOM (Essential / Brown) because it could be flip into Purple or Prestige from Position 1 in the market for 300. I had to invite 4 Ladies though. Either that or I couldn’t afford anything.

The opponent rolled a 2 so removing tile from Position 1 which was Essential tile, NORTH LIBRARY.

ROUND 6, OBJECTIVE CARDS.

Drew 2 objective cards. One could get me 6 VP but I needed 3 Valets. The other was 7 VP for having maximum Prestige. Knowing the result, none of these mattered.

I still had 2 gentry cards left. Blue, red and purple were available. Prestige Level 2 with 200 pounds left.

Hosted the RIDING STABLES again. But the Footman was not available yet. So, I had to spend 3 Prestige to make the Footman available. So, back to Level 1 Prestige. Invited the last 2 gentry, Mrs. Penelope and Thomas Handle. The former had the Maid to serve her but the latter required a Valet which was not available. So, I spent 3 prestige more to make it so.

I guess this was an error. Apparently, I didn’t actually had enough to make both available. But that was after I forgot to get 1 prestige from Dowager earlier. So, it was possible but then again it should have put the Prestige level at the lowest.

Mrs. Penelope got me 1 prestige and 100. While Thomas brought in 2 casual guests, Sir Richard and Colonel Stephen. Well, the Colonel had some issue and requires a Footman.

Got 300 from the event so I had 600. Since I had to Pass next round anyway, I bought the SERVANT’S QUARTER for 400. The opponent rolled a 9, removing tile from position 3, the GABLED OBSERVATORY.

ROUND 7.

I did nothing and just PASS. Got all cards back and all servants were ready. No event and no Monument yet. Took 200 instead of refreshing the market.

I bought DRAWING ROOM, a purple for 400, got me 2 VP. The opponent rolled a 12, removing tile from position 4, ENGLISH GARDED (RED).

So, there were 2 Drawing Room tiles when I bought that I stacked. I assumed that I let the other stayed on the market even if I couldn’t buy duplicate.

ROUND 8, 2nd COURTSHIP: ESTATE.

So, I had 2 Red tiles and hadn’t used any of them. One scored -2 and the other was 0. With the opponent had 2 for Red, I lost this Courtship as well. They got 2nd VP card.

I was supposed to discard an Objective card and had I played correctly, I probably would have discarded the one with maximum Prestige.

ROUND 9, VILLAGE FAIR.

Got 300 and 2 Prestige points, still at Level 1. Finally hosted an event with that starting Red, MAIN GAZEBO with Footman. Invited 2 Gentry, Miss Katherine and Sir Richard. Both required a servant. Got 1 Prestige and 100 from the Lady and just 200 from the Gentleman.

The Afternoon Tea Event got me a Prestige guest, MAJOR ANTHONY COLE. Well, I needed to increase Prestige level to 3 first.

I bought from the reserve another Red tile, FENCED PADDOCK for 300 – 100. Another -2 points so my red was still 0. The opponent rolled an 11 and removed DRAWING ROOM that I already got.

ROUND 10.

Only Blue and Red servant was available. Hosted CASSINO event at Front Parlour, a purple, using a Housekeeper, inviting 3 ladies. I had Lady Eleanor but I wanted her to be accompanied by Gentleman. So, I invited the Dowager, Patricia and Miss Penelope. The last one required a maid but not available. Thankfully, I had that Servant’s Quarter to push her.

The Event got me 2 Prestige points. Another 1 prestige plus 100 from the Dowager. Patricia dismissed the Colonel since he had issue. Miss Penelope brought in another lady friend, Lady Elizabeth Seaforth.

I bought South Lawn (Green) for Archery with 500, all of my money. There was already a Monument in position 4 and the opponent rolled 14, removing WEST TERRACE.

ROUND 11, BUILDER’S HOLIDAY.

Hosted Cigar and Port event at SMOKING ROOM using Butler, inviting 2 Gentlemen. Both Daniel and Zachary came, didn’t need any additional servant. Both got me 300 total and the event increased the Prestige by 3, now at Level 3.

I had 300 and the cheapest was Billiard Room for 400. So I had to spend 2 Prestige for the missing 100. This is where I got it wrong, as I only spent 1 prestige.

The opponent with Monument available, rolled an 8, removing Cricket Field.

ROUND 12, COURTSHIP: ESSENTIAL.

I had 2 brown tiles one with 0 VP and the other with 3 VP. The opponent had all 0 for this color so I won. I invited Miss Elizabeth Fairchild and a VP card. The VP card was either 4 VP or 300 pounds. Since I had no money, I picked that option.

I was supposed to discard an Objective card and had I played correctly, I probably would have discarded the one that required 3 Valets. It was possible to actually achieve but this was after knowing the result.

ROUND 13.

Hosted Morning Ride using Footman, inviting a Gentleman and a Lady. Lady Eleanor was accompanied by Sir Richard Brannaugh. Got 3 Prestige so the Level went up to 3. 300 from the event. The Lady suggested Count Hoyos, and the Gentleman brought in Miss Beatrice, both were casual guests.

I had 600 so I could afford the Garden Maze Monument from position 1 for 500. There was another Monument and the opponent rolled a 10, removing BREAKFAST ROOM from position 1.

ROUND 14, NATIONAL HOLIDAY.

Hosted an Event in DRAWING ROOM with Butler, inviting 3 Gentry. Major Anthony Cole came in, served by Footman and Valet. Charles from the family was there. Finally Miss Elizabeth Fairchild also came, and I had the Maid for her. Got 3 Prestige points from the event, another 3 from the Major and 2 from the Fairchild. Prestige level went up to 5. Got just 100 from the family. Miss Fairchild also suggested Margaret from Brisbane, a Prestige guest.

So, here is another error. I only had 200 and I bought a red tile from position two, the FRENCH GARDEN so I needed 600. That means I had to spend 8 prestige points to make 400. Playing correctly then my prestige level was supposed to be at 3.4 instead of 4.3 but I counted like paying only 1 prestige for every 100.

The opponent finally got a Monument, the Imported Marble Floor for 8 points.

ROUND 15.

Hosted an event to ADMIRE THE HORSES at Fenced Paddock with a Footman. The footman was not available after serving Major Cole earlier but I got my Servant’s Quarter. Invited Miss Beatrice Bonham and Lady Elizabeth Seaforth. Got Housekeeper ready for the latter but I had to lose 3 prestige points for making the Maid available again.

Got 2 prestige points from Miss Bonham and a Prestige guest from Lady Seaforth. She had access to Peter, Viscount Townshend. So I was supposed to get a casual guest because of the event that I forgot. However, the tile itself allowed me to dismiss a guest so I just assumed that is what happened.

Well, I had no money and during the game I bought a purple tile for 400. So, I should have lost another 8 prestige points for it. That means from 4.3 I went down to 2.5. Maybe even lower.

There was another Monument and the opponent rolled a 15, removing a tile from Position 6.

ROUND 16, LAST COURTSHIP: SPORTING.

I had to discard an Objective card. It seems the lowest one was 1 VP per Prestige Guest with just 4 VP.

The 4 themes were Essential, Sporting, Prestige and Estate. For those 4, the opponent scored 31. I got 5 VP from 4 Green, 14 VP from 4 Purple, 15 VP from 5 Red. So I won this Courtship and got the Fairchild stayed with me.

78 points from Simpson Family plus 7 from 2 VP cards plus 8 from the Monument. Total Score: 93 points.

I got 38 from all Improvement tiles, 31 from 18 gentry cards including the Fairchild. Then 11 VP from having Flower room and French Garden. 5 VP for 5 Estate tiles, and 4 points from 13 guests, 1 VP per 3. 5 VP from the last VP card.

No money left. 10 VP from 5 servants. I lost track with the Prestige. Either Level 2 or 3. Let’s say, Level 2 so I got 3 VP.

TOTAL SCORE: 107 POINTS. So, I won but probably cheating in some ways.

Playing time was about 118 minutes.

Point City

More pictures of this Point City game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Grab resources and construct buildings to get and grow permanent supply to create the best city in Point City.

This is a new game for me, first released in 2023. From the same designers / developers as Point Salad and obviously, people easily compared the two. It seems this got mixed reviews. I personally have not played Point Salad so I cannot say to like one more than the others. One of the reasons I chose this over Point Salad is because this one has solo mode.

There is another game that a lot of people mentioned that seems to be similar to the added aspect in Point City. The game is Splendor. Well, I have not played that one but I did play once Splendor Duel. After playing Point City once, I can see the similarity.

Thematically, this is a city building game but only as a theme. This is still just a set collection game like that Point Salad. Instead of collecting vegetables for a set of salad you collect a set of resources required to build certain buildings. There is no spatial aspect that translate that idea city building to the gameplay. In other heavier city building games, you can expect something like where you place or build certain building to give more benefit. In this one you are just doing set collection.

So, how do you collect resources and build buildings?

For both, you need to draft from a 4×4 grid filled with cards. At the start all cards are showing the resources. Like in Point Salad, these cards have two sides, one for resources and the other for the scoring or in this case the building. After the card is taken from the grid, it will be refilled by a card using the opposite side. So if it showed resource, it will be refilled by a building.

Every turn you need to draw 2 cards. You can choose to draw 2 cards showing both resources from the top of the deck or 2 cards from the grid. If they are from the grid, both have to be adjacent orthogonally to each other. You can take resources for free and place it on the table in front of you. However, if you take the building, you need to pay for the requirement. If you cannot afford to pay the requirement for the building then you cannot take that pair. But if you can afford two buildings, you can take both.

When you build a building, the building can give you one or more benefits. It can be score, printed on the card or a single permanent resource. By having one or more permanent resources, you can get one time discount per turn of your next build in subsequent turns. Cannot be used again in 2nd build of the same turn / draft. So, this is the similarity to engine building element that you can find in Splendor.

Besides points and/or permanent resource, there is a 3rd benefit of having a building. Some allow you to take one of the CIVIC TOKENS. Civic Tokens are basically the scoring conditions. For example, one token can give you 2 or 3 points for each permanent resource pair of Red and Yellow. Another example is 2 points for every Wild Resource card.

This means, you don’t get immediate score but you can build them and get even higher score. There are 2 tokens that will give you just one time point like 5 or 7 points which is huge compared to the other.

Every game you only play with 10 to 14 out of 22 Civic tokens, depending on player count. If you build any building that gives you Civic tokens, you can take any available tokens left. So, this becomes another point of interaction between players.

That’s the entire game. Every player will get exactly 17 turns of drafting 2 cards and the game ends when the deck runs out of cards.

The game comes with 165 building/resources cards in 3 different tiers. You play through cards from tier 1 first and then tier 2 and 3 from that single deck.

The main difference from these 3 tiers is that the cost to build the building is higher but the value of points you can get are not necessarily increasing. That’s the building side.

For the resource side, tier 1 cards will only give you one of resource with no wild resources. Tier 2 has at least 2 of each resource on each card or a few of single Wild resource. While Tier 3 is similar to Tier 2 but it has more wild resource but still a single per card.

My Initial Impression.

I have only played once so far and playing 2-handed. The game is simple enough that playing both sides is very easy. It took almost an hour because there were a couple of AP moments. Especially in the last turn where you have different options and try to score the best trying to spend the last remaining resources.

Well, I definitely got some misunderstanding the rules a bit. I thought I would score with any Wild resource I got left. Turns out I have to take the Civic token for it so I could have spent them right away, especially after that Civic token was taken. That means, if it is not part of the game, then it is obvious to just play that starting card immediately.

But here is the thing. This game is almost open information. You don’t keep cards in your hand. Other players can tell whether you can afford to build a building or not. By having one or more wild resources, you create a bit of uncertainty.

I have to say, usually it is hard for me to keep checking my opponent’s resources or progression. So, even if the game encourages you to do so, only in rare times I actually do it. In this one, it seems I can do it easily. So, maybe I don’t need to worry that my opponent will take something. Again, this is based on 2 players. Maybe with more, my decision is irrelevant for 3rd and 4th player from me.

The part that I didn’t give enough attention was actually the card from the top of the deck. In my 2-handed session, I only did twice per player, probably, drawing cards from the deck and that was went the grid was not that good for the player to take.

Another thing about Civic token that I got it wrong was that token that gives one time value. I thought that was a value per Civic token. Didn’t realize that before. Now I know after understanding the scope of score of this game.

This game can also a bit mean to your opponent. Especially related to the building you know that your opponent wants. You may not take that card but you can prevent them by taking the only resources adjacent to that card. There is a chance now that the opponent cannot take both buildings. Or maybe they can but the other card is not helpful for them and you force them to spend their resources.

On the other hand, this can also backfire at you. You draw that resource card and somehow your opponent can easily afford the new one. Or even maybe the next resources are good for your opponent. I don’t know if this is because I didn’t pay enough attention to that deck.

In that one play, there was also a moment where you feel like got left behind. You see your opponent taking 2 building cards while you are stuck with just taking 2 resources. But then later, you feel like you are catching up. Now you get 2 buildings and they are stuck with just resources.

While it may sound like you built a good engine, apparently that doesn’t mean your score are close. I didn’t realize this until I checked all of the cards, after playing the game. As mentioned above, maybe the value or points from buildings is decreasing as you go through the next tier.

At first, you can just pay 2 resources and get 4 points or pay 2 for 1 permanent resource. While later at tier 3, you have to pay 5 resources to get 5 points or 7 for 7.

The good thing is that even tier 1 card can stay if nobody takes it so you can get good value later. But I doubt nobody really cares for it.

In my first play, one player scored over 43 while the other scored only 21. The losing player had 10 permanent resources and 3 civic tokens while the winning got 7 permanent resources and 4 tokens.

Half of the score from the winning player was from buildings, printed on the cards, with 12 points from 3 4-pointer cards. From their 7 permanent resources, only one of them didn’t give extra score. The losing player had 10 but only 3 that gave score.

I guess that means, do not just build any buildings with low value. While it is very common in other engine building games where you cannot just focus on building the engine but you need to find a way how to convert resources into points.

It feels like with that decreasing value, the main competition actually happens at the start of the game or first tier. Or getting just more score is much better. I could be wrong here since only 1 play so far.

With the civic tokens, it sounds like they want you to take it first and start to build up. However, in my play, one player took a civic token that scores purple permanent resource and until the end, there is only one purple permanent resource showed up. I’m pretty sure there are other cards included in the deck that has that color but there is a good chance it became just resource.

So, there is no guarantee then? Does it mean you just need to build first and hopefully you can secure civic tokens later? The opponent then can easily prevent it.

I don’t know if that is an intended feature and not just a bug. Well, I did enjoy the game even though that score surprised me and not exactly in positive way. Let’s see if more plays will change my opinion on it and I should try the solo variant.

Unfortunately, I heard that the official solo variant is not good or just too easy even in hardest difficulty. I should have checked the forum before making that purchase. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem like that difficult to make better solo variants from it. So, we’ll see.

Playing time was about 56 minutes.

Quests of Valeria

More pictures of this Quests of Valeria game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Recruit Citizens to complete different quests and become the best Guild Master in Quests of Valeria.

This was a solo session, playing as Lady Amina, the Brave. Her guild is known for completing quests with Battle or Commerce type. The 4 starting quests already had 3 commerce and one subterfuge type. The Lady had to start working on hiring people with money.

First, she hired a Peasant just because he was desperate but had money. He was willing to join for free. He even brought her some resources. Next thing that the Lady did was to gather more resource.

More commerce type quest showed up. Then the Lady hired a Merchant for free. The Merchant even helped her to recruit his friend, the Necromancer right beside him. However, the Lady had to pay for his drink and she didn’t mind. The Lady just gathered more.

No more new quest that the Lady was interested in. The first commerce type was about to go out of order. This required 3 money and 3 magic involving a Worker and a Holy clan. First, the Lady hired a Baker for free. She also brought in a Shaman, from Holy Clan but the Lady had to pay 2 of her resources. Since they could be helpful for the quest, the Lady agreed to pay.

Then, the Lady sent out, Baker, Shaman and the Necromancer to complete the first quest, “RESTORE THE PALACE’S MAGICAL WARDS”. As a result, the Guild got 4 points and 2 extra resources back.

New day and a new quest with Battle type showed up. Another commerce type was about to go out of order. This required worker and soldier with 3 money and 2 fighting points. The Lady first hired a Miner for free. She got a resource back from the Miner. The Lady thought there was not enough time so she decided to just Reserve the quest for now.

No new quest for her guild so the Lady could focus on the reserved one. The Lady hired another Merchant and paid a resource for it. This merchant brought another friend, also a Necromancer who had been in the tavern earlier and started to be desperate for a job. Next, she hired a ROGUE but she had to pay 2 resources from outside the Tavern. She knew the Rogue’s fighting point was useful for this next quest so she agreed.

New day and no new good quest for the guild. But another Commerce type was about to get out of order. The Lady still needed more fighting points so she hired a Knight for free. Got a resource even.

Now, the Guild had enough to complete the reserved quest. They got the Knight, the Rogue and the Peasant, from both soldier and worker type with 3 money and 2 attack. The Guild completed the quest, “THE LOGISTIC OF WARFARE”. Got 2 points and 2 resources. They also got the privilege to reserve another quest. So, the Lady took that one that was about to get out of order.

No new good quest for the guild and another Commerce type about to get out of order. The Lady decided to just let it go since it was too easy and prepared for the upcoming Battle type quest. The Lady hired a 3rd Merchant, paying 1 resource and the Merchant brought in a Wizard for free. Then the Lady just gathered the resource back.

Another Battle type quest showed up. The Lady this time hired a Blacksmith for free, got bonus resource. Now the Guild had everything to complete the next quest in reserve, “BRIBE THE AMARYNTH NOBLES” which required 1 Worker and 1 Shadow clan with 6 Money. The Guild sent out a Miner, Merchant, Necromancer and the Blacksmith. Got 3 points, 2 resources and hired a new one back. The Lady chose to pay for Alchemist.

3rd Battle type quest came in. The closest one was about to get out of order. This required more attack that the Guild didn’t have yet and Soldier type citizen. First, the Lady hired a Bard. Apparently the Bard can turned one resource into 2. Then the Lady decided to just reserve the quest.

Nothing new from the quest for the Guild. The Lady hired an Archer for free from the Tavern. Then they sent out Bard and Archer with 2 Money and 2 Attack points to complete the next quest in reserve, “BE OUR VILLAGE CHAMPION”. Got 2 points, a resource and hiring chance. After getting a lot of resources, the Lady didn’t mind paying more to hire a Paladin.

Still no good new quest. The next Battle type one was still 3 rounds away. The Lady hired a Sorceress because she was free. Then from outside the Tavern by paying 2 resources, a Priestess from Holy clan which was necessary for the next battle quest.

Still no good quest. The Lady started the day with dispatching citizens to complete the next quest, “DEFEND THE SACRED GROVE”. This required 2 Holy Clan and a Soldier, with 5 Magic and 3 Attack. They sent out Paladin, Priestess, Wizard and a Sorceress. A bit overpowered to be honest. The Guild got 6 points plus 2 resources bonus. This was actually an Adventure type quest but very valuable. Next, Lady Amina just recruited another Sorceress.

Finally, another Commerce. But the next Battle type was about to go out of order. This required a lot. Lady Amina decided to hire another Knight which allowed her to reserve this next quest while gaining a resource. The Lady knew access outside the Tavern to hire a Captain so she paid 2 resources to let him join.

More battle type quest came in but the guild had to focus on the next one. The Guild sent out Knight, Captain, Alchemist and Merchant for the next battle quest, “RESCUE OUR BOY FROM THE GOBLIN KING”. This required a Shadow clan, with 2 money and 3 attack points. Got 3 points from it. After that, the Lady hired a Monk just because it was free and got 2 resources.

No new quest for now and the next commerce was 4 rounds away. Lady Amina hired a Baker first from outside the Tavern by paying 2. The Baker then invited the Rogue from the Tavern to join for free. Lady Amina then gathered another resource from different source.

Another Commerce type showed up. Same as previous day. Hired a Knight for free plus gained a resource. Took another resource.

More Battle type. The Lady hired a Summoner from outside the Tavern by paying 2. That was the 7th member. The Summoner then invited another Sorceress from tavern for free. Next thing was just taking more resource.

No new good quest and time to complete the closest one. This Commerce one, “PLEASE BLESS OUR TOWN WELL” required a holy clan with 3 money and 2 attack since there was a monster inside the well. Sent out the Monk, Merchant, Rogue and Knight to complete the quest. Got 3 points, a resource and chance to hire. The Lady then hired another Rogue but had to pay 1 resource. She also took in a Blacksmith for free and gained another resource from him.

The next battle type was to get out of order but it was only for 2 points. Lady Amina decided to focus on the reserved one first. From the Tavern, she hired a Warlord first which also brought in a Paladin. They agreed to join but the Lady had to pay 2. After that, she hired a Bogatyr who was eager to complete the reserve quest.

Along with Warlord, Paladin, the Bogatyr went to complete “SLAY THE SPIDER QUEEN”. This required 2 Soldier and 1 Holy clan with 3 Magic and 4 Attack. Got 6 points from it.

A very valuable commerce type just showed up. The Lady focused on the closest one first. She hired another Warlord by paying 1 and he brought along the Bard for free. Then she paid 2 to hire a Cleric from outside the tavern and the Cleric got her a resource back.

No good new quest for the guild. The Lady started by hiring another Bogatyr that gave her access to quest. Apparently she did aim for the high value commerce quest, “HOST ISABELLA’S BANQUET”, which required 3 Workers, 6 Money and 2 Magic. The Guild sent out a Baker, Cleric, Bard and Blacksmith. Got 6 points from it. After that, the Lady just paid 1 to hire a Priestess.

Possibly the last quest which was a battle type, “STAND AGAINST THE EMERALD CORSAIRS”. This required a Soldier and Shadow clan with 6 attacks. The Guild sent out Warlord, Rogue, Priestess and Summoner to do the job. Got 4 points but no more resources available. After that, the Lady hired a Mercenary for free from the almost empty tavern.

Apparently, another Battle type and the Guild could afford to complete it. “DESTROY THE GARGAN CULTISTS” which required a Soldier and Holy Clan with 1 Money, 2 Magic and 3 Attack. The Guild had Bogatyr, Mercenary and a Paladin for it. Actually they had to hire the Paladin first. Completed the quest and got 4 points plus hiring the last guy in the tavern for nothing.

That was the end of the game.

Completed 11 quests worth 43 points, plus 10 for quests that matched the Guild’s preference. Lady Amina became the Minister of Quest.

Playing time was about 68 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Quests of Valeria Review.

Let’s Make a Bus Route: The Dice Game

More pictures of this Let’s Make a Bus Route: The Dice Game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Pick up passengers for your bus line while expanding the route to meet their needs in Let’s Make a Bus Route: The Dice Game.

This was a 2-handed session using the Mars Map. Pink was the starting player with the Bus Line A and a Circle type Parent. They picked leftmost, 3rd row from the bottom. Blue as the 2nd player got Bus Line B started with a Star type Parent. They picked 3rd from the right, 4th row.

ROUND 1 PINK, 4 Purple, Grey, Yellow.

Pink took the 2 Purple and the Grey. Blue chose the Yellow die to move straight and a turn. From their starting position, they moved to the right to the first Point B and then moved down to reach the first School. First traffic jam for Blue.

ROUND 1 BLUE, 2 Purple, 2 Blue, 1 Grey, 1 Yellow.

Blue player took the 2 Blue dice and 1 Purple. Pink then chose Purple for movement, moving straight 3 spaces. From their starting position, they just moved to the right 3 spaces. Got to the first school and ended on a traffic light. So, they got extra movement and moved down to take the Star type parent, first one.

ROUND 2 PINK, Purple, Grey, 3 Yellow, Red.

Pink took Purple, 3rd of their first row, and then a grey, 2nd one and the first of yellow. Blue took yellow again, 2nd time for movement. From that right school, they moved to the right, picking up Triangle type parent and then moved down to a traffic light. Used the extra movement to extend the line to the left.

ROUND 2 BLUE, Purple, Grey, Green, Yellow, 2 Red.

Blue player took the Purple, 2nd of their first row, first grey, and filled their first Star type green. Pink got either yellow or red. They chose the yellow. First they moved to the left to get Point A at the bottom left and then moved down to the Tourist Spot, dropping 3 Purple for 9 points.

ROUND 3 PINK, Purple, Blue, Grey, Green, 2 Yellow.

Pink player took the first purple of their 2nd row, first ever Blue and filled the first Star Parent. Blue had either Yellow or Grey. They already used both yellow so their only option was grey, moving straight 2 spaces. From below the school on the right, they moved to the left to pick up Green Parent and then moved to the Tourist shop on the left. Dropping only 2 passengers and scored 5 points.

ROUND 3 BLUE, 2 Blue, 2 Green, Yellow, Red.

Blue player took the 3rd Blue of their first row and filled 2 green, first triangle and first circle. Pink then chose the Blue movement, 3 spaces, turning twice. From the tourist at the bottom left, they move to the left first, picking up a triangle and then moved up and left again to a traffic light. They had no other option to stop at the Warp space.

ROUND 4 PINK, Purple, Blue, Grey, Yellow, 2 Red.

Pink player took 2nd blue, 2nd of 2nd row for purple and 3rd grey. Blue then had to choose Red. From that tourist at the bottom right, just 1 space to the left for nothing.

ROUND 4 BLUE, Grey, 2 Green, 2 Yellow, Red.

Blue player couldn’t take any green. So, they took first yellow and then the grey and red to start activating the special power. Either way Pink got movement 2 spaces but they chose yellow. From that Warp point at the bottom left, to the warp point at the bottom right. First they went to the left, picking up Star Parent, 2nd one. Then they moved up, trying to reach the school.

ROUND 5 PINK, Purple, Blue, 2 Grey, Green, Red.

Pink player took 3rd purple of 2nd row and 3rd blue. Then they filled 2nd Star Green. Blue player got to choose grey for moving straight 2 spaces and from that middle column, they moved up to the 2nd School. Got their 2nd traffic jam.

ROUND 5 BLUE, Purple, Blue, 2 Green, Yellow, Red.

Blue player took 1st purple of their 2nd row. Then the Blue and the red for activating special ability. They managed to access the Black die. Pink player couldn’t use Yellow again so they went with Green. From that bottom right corner, below the school, they just moved up two spaces, got to the 2nd school. Pink just got 1 traffic jam by passing a red road and the blue was already there.

ROUND 6 PINK, 2 Purple, 2 Blue, Green, Grey.

Pink took 4th purple of their 2nd row, probably bad idea. Filled 1st triangle green and 4th Grey. Blue had to move to the top right and luckily got access to either purple or blue for 3 movements. They picked the blue. From the school at the middle, to the right first and up. They made the change direction first time ever to take the Circle green. Could have gotten the same result using purple.

ROUND 6 BLUE, 2 Purple, Blue, Grey, Green, Yellow.

Blue player took 2nd and 3rd Purple of their 2nd row and filled the 2nd Circle green. Pink then chose Blue. From Point B on the right, moved up first to the Station, dropping 3 and scored 8. They got extra purple but they could have used it for the special ability.

Then they moved to the left, to 2nd Point A and then went up to a Tourist Spot, dropping 4. Scored 14 for that.

ROUND 7 PINK, 2 Purple, 1 Blue, Grey, Yellow, Red.

After clearing those blue and purple, they got 1st and 2nd Purple of their 3rd row and 1st blue of 2nd row. Blue had no choice but to use Red. From that circle parent at the top right, they moved up to a traffic light. This pushed extra to the right and they got 2nd Star Parent.

ROUND 7 BLUE, Purple, Blue, Grey, 2 Green, Red.

Blue player got the 4th purple of 2nd row, filled the 2nd Star Green, and took 2nd Grey. Pink had to choose either green or red since they have used blue twice for movement. From the tourist spot at the top right, they moved up once using green and picked up 3rd Star. Then they moved to the right.

ROUND 8 PINK, 2 Blue, 2 Grey, Green, Yellow.

Pink got 2nd and 3rd Blue for the 2nd row, filled 3rd Star Green. Blue already used both Grey and yellow twice so they got first penalty. They moved down twice, first to the tourist spot at the top right, scoring 14. Then continued to the Point A. Got 2 traffic jams for it, 3rd and 4th time.

ROUND 8 BLUE, 2 Purple, Blue, 2 Green, Red.

First and 2nd purple of Blue player’s 3rd row and the red to activate 2nd ability. Pink had no choice to take penalty, 1st one since they have used both blue and green twice. From to the left of top right warp point, they moved down using green to pick up 2nd triangle and to the right, ending their movement on traffic light. This pushed them to the Warp point.

ROUND 9 PINK, 2 Grey, Green, Yellow, 2 Red.

5th and 6th grey for Pink and filled 2nd Triangle green. Blue suffered 2nd penalty but they took yellow. From the Point A at the top right to the station, scoring 8 and got 3rd purple of 3rd row. Then they moved up to get 2nd triangle.

ROUND 9 BLUE, 1 Blue, 2 Grey, 3 Green.

Blue player had one unfilled green but decided to give those greens to Pink. They got 1st Blue of 2nd row and 3rd and 4th grey. Pink suffered 2nd penalty. From the Warp point, they started at the top left, going to the right twice, picking up 4th Star Parent.

ROUND 10 PINK, Purple, Blue, 2 Grey, Yellow.

3rd purple of 3rd row, 7th grey and the Blue was to activate special power. Blue suffered 4th penalty and took yellow. They got to the Warp point at the top right but got their 6th traffic jam.

ROUND 10 BLUE, Purple, 2 Green, Yellow, 2 Red.

Blue player got last purple of 3rd row, filled that 2nd triangle green and activated the 2nd ability. Pink still could use Red so they moved just one space to the station at the top left, dropping 3 for 8 points. Got extra purple, 4th of last row.

ROUND 11 PINK, 2 Grey, Green, 3 Yellow.

Filled the 4th star green, got 8th grey and 2nd yellow. 5th penalty for blue but they took grey. From Warp point, starting at the top left, moving down 2 spaces to pick up 3rd circle parent.

ROUND 11 BLUE, 2 Purple, Blue, 2 Green, Grey.

2nd blue of 2nd row, 5th grey and they filled that 3rd Circle parent. Another Red for pink but no penalty. From the station at the top left, they moved down to a traffic light and then to the left. Got their 3rd Point A.

ROUND 12 PINK, Purple, Grey, 2 Green, 2 Yellow.

Pink filled 1st Circle green, and got 3rd and 4th yellow. Blue finally didn’t take any penalty and took the purple for moving 3 spaces. From the circle at the top left, moved to the right to get their 2nd Point B. Then moved down, 2nd time changing direction, 2 spaces to get to their 3rd school.

ROUND 12 BLUE, 2 Purple, 2 Grey, 2 Yellow.

Blue took the 6th and 7th grey and 2nd yellow. Pink got to move using Purple for 3 spaces. From that Point A at the top left, they had 2 options. Either going for the Tourist spot nearby to score 14 or to get to the 3rd School for extra 8 with only 7 for the 3rd row purple. With the former, they had to suffer one more penalty for changing direction. So, they went with the 3rd school.

That was the end of the game.

Pink scored 10 points for 3 Point A, 30 points from Tourists, 16 from Commuters, 24 from Students, 23 from Parents, 6 from elderly and none from the special abilities. Suffered 4 points for not using available movement, 1 from changing direction once and 2 from traffic jam.

Pink’s Final score: 102.

Blue scored 5 points from just 2 Point B, 26 from Tourists, 10 from Commuters, 21 from Students, 22 from Parents, 2 from Elderly and 8 from Special Abilities. Got -12 from not using available movements, -3 from changing direction and -4 from traffic jam.

Blue’s Final score: 75.

Playing time was about 84 minutes.

Level 10

More pictures of this Level 10 game session here on TikTok and on Instagram.

Help Izzy to beat all 10 levels of 5 different video game worlds in Level 10.

I got 3 sessions. First one was solo variant but this time using just 7 hand of cards without any pause. I managed to beat it. Hopefully not just because of luck.

Then I tried 2-handed, 7 cards each, 2 sessions. Lost both and in both times, I ended up playing 2 reset cards in the same column. It seems that when the deck is about to run out, it is crucial to win for 2 players. You need to carefully calculate the next couple of turns for both players, making sure that not one player has to play too many cards in one round. That is the only exchange point.

Since those remaining cards at the bottom of the deck are probably exchanged cards themselves, and both players should know what they have and what they don’t, maybe they should just reveal the cards. Or at least, as part of learning how to beat it.

I didn’t include any pause card but at that point, in both sessions, I guess I could have won even if with just 1 card. But it is still tricky as who should have that. Those pause cards are important when one player has too many cards to play in a round and the other player has to balance that using those pause cards. Maybe having 2 and let one of them keep them is safer.

With 2 players, 7 cards each, the deck would be out of cards around 7th column. You need to make decision before the reset in that column whether both players can keep taking turns.

The rulebook mentions that you want to avoid playing 8 in the same column or you will lose. I noticed that but I think the real problem is not about the 8 necessarily but having to play the reset at the same time. This is determined by the highest available value of that row in any given time. It could be a blue 7 and yellow 5, not just 8.

In my 2nd session, I realized that I have failed in the 9th column, about 5 cards left. Didn’t even realize that I just placed 2nd reset card in that 9th one, until I looked for the 10th one. Since I took turn by turn pictures, I thought I could fix that reevaluating which world to reset first or so. Apparently, not likely.

Compared to the solo mode, all you need to do since you are alone is just to focus on the next card for each row during the reset. There is more challenge in multiplayer game. And a bit tough since it had to be that one crucial point. I usually don’t like games with this idea. It sucks when you thought you played so well in the first half of the game only to realize you failed because of one moment.

Anyway, I will still try the 2-player variant again, thoroughly evaluating during the last exchange of cards. Maybe include Pause cards if I keep losing. Just enjoy the scoring.

Playing time was about 20 minutes per player, playing both hands.

Tiny Epic Defenders: The Dark War

More pictures of this Tiny Epic Defenders game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Defend Edenmoore, rescue villagers from nearby regions and win the Great Battle of Tiny Epic Defenders: The Dark War.

Not a new game but a new expansion for me. Tiny Epic Defenders: the Dark War expansion was released in 2018 along with the 2nd edition. A year after that, I entered this hobby and the base game was one of my first few games that I purchased.

At that time I still didn’t have as many games as now so I thought I should buy more different games instead of investing in expansion. As time went by, I got to a conclusion that maybe I didn’t want to get more of this game. Actually, maybe because of this series with small box and some unclear rules. I thought I should avoid more Tiny Epic games and look somewhere else.

Then last year, in 2023, the solo community voted that Tiny Epic Dungeons as one of the best solo games. While it is still early but my initial impression is that I’m impressed with what I got from that box. It has some issues but I feel like I got a good value. That made me reconsider to revisit this series, even buying the expansion for my first and for so long only game from this series, the Tiny Epic Defenders.

Honestly, maybe a bit of FOMO made the decision to buy this expansion. The thing is, it is very rare to see a game and its expansion coming back to my local store. The base game might be but not exactly with those expansions. This expansion copy was probably the last available one from the major local store in my country.

I’m going to start this entry with why I’m disappointed with this as a product.

So, I already did research about the content of this expansion back in 2020 and decided not to buy it. Then the moment I decided to buy, I knew about the content I was expecting but I forgot about something. They ask you to CONTRUCT CARDBOARD PIECES!

First of all, there is also no instruction as how to construct them. I think a publisher made a video and most people didn’t realize that the video existed before they constructed those pieces. Well, the nonexistent instruction is not the issue for me it is just a poor cardboard design.

There is a good chance that you will bend them and making it harder to fit them to each other. Maybe even ruin the other pieces. Some are easier than others.

And that is not the only issue. The fact that this series comes with small boxes, now you have another challenge of putting those constructs back to the box. I checked some discussions. Some say they don’t need to deconstruct anything but some say they do. So, I thought maybe I should remove them. The issue, or one of them is that the harder construct means harder to put them back again. If you already damage the pieces in the first place, you will more likely to destroy it.

Here is the worst part. After I disassembled them, then I realized I had enough room using those 2 boxes even without the need to disassemble them, just by distributing all of the components differently.

Some people even decided not to construct at all and just play them as 2D pieces since none of them really affect the gameplay in 3D way. It’s just cooler but AS A TOY FACTOR! I really forgot that this is one of the reasons I avoided the series. They ask me to pay for something that I ended up ruining myself.

What a great way to destroy gamers’ enthusiasm of the game even without playing it.

I saw some people complaint about that and the publisher seems to be willing to replace it. That’s nice but there are others that got ignored as well. I don’t know if I want to get those same stupid cardboards again, assuming they are willing to replace it at all. One reported that they got the construct assembled not just another sheet replacements.

I guess this is the case that maybe getting miniatures or wooden tokens is better, like they did in Tiny Epic Dungeons. So, I just assume that the publisher learned their lessons of not offering this stupid stuff again. Well, good for them but I still don’t like this one, especially if I have to keep looking at it everytime I play. And it is already more expensive than Tiny Epic Dungeon.

I would like to point out that they are expecting us to mount the meeple from the base game into two of those constructs, the Tree and the Manticore. For Toy Factor, not for gameplay purposes.

End of the Rant about production.

Now, what does this expansion introduce to the base game?

Well, you get more characters to play, more Epic Foes, more Dire Enemies and more Artifacts for the features that are already in the base game. Beside all of the toys, the new features they introduced are XP, Skill cards, General (Mini Boss) cards, and alternative location cards that uses a couple extra components like dice, cards, tokens, and those cardboards.

The expansion also introduces new game modes using new features. Either the Great Battle single session mode or Campaigns that is basically playing 3 regular sessions but the things you get from earlier sessions get added to the next.

Let’s start with the ALTERNATE LOCATIONS first. You are not getting new outer regions but you will replace two of them with the alternate one for the same regions. Let’s say, this session you use the new Mountain card and the new Coast location. That means the ability of the original cards are not available.

Each alternate location cards has 2 sides. One is called FRIENDLY and the other HOSTILE. During setup, you replace one of original location card with the alternate version but Friendly side and the other location with the Hostile one.

Hostile sides of these cards don’t have any ability you can use but it can trigger something that makes the game harder like preventing you from securing or defending a location at all. Some of them are automatically triggered like by accessing the location and some happen after reaching certain threat level.

The Friendly sides are actually similar to original counterparts in which you have to kind of spend something in order to use those abilities. They are more complicated as they involve using other components. Some people may find them more interesting.

Next is the GENERAL CARDS. As I said earlier they are like Mini Boss. The idea is that in the campaign, in the first 2 sessions, instead of fighting an Epic Foe, you are fighting against one of these Generals. They all have 7 health, nothing to trigger in one spaces like against Epic Foe.

You get 6 from this box, one for each outer region. None of them has movement like Epic Foe. Most of their abilities are permanent one and will make the game harder. Like they will hit the Defenders harder or increase the threat more or make either regular or Dire enemies hit stronger. Technically, you can use Generals as replacement of Epic Foe for a single session game.

Now, with the main feature, the XP and SKILL CARDS. With this new feature every character can kind of Level up. Everytime you can accumulate 8 XP, you can choose to level up. By doing so, you get extra Skill card and heal back to full health. You start with just 1 Skill card and you have to replace them if you get a new one and that is the only progression for your character. No additional health or so.

The 3 ways to get XP are either DEFENDING for 1 XP, ESCORTING CARAVAN TO CAPITAL CITY for 2 XP or DEFEATING A GENERAL for 3 XP per character. If you play only the standalone session, the last one is a bit useless. You can also spend 1 AP to gain 1 XP so no AP should be wasted.

The XP itself is like resources that you can spend mostly to activate skills or to escort Caravan from moving between locations. Let’s talk about CARAVAN first. Each round, you will add one of 6 Caravan to one of the Outer Region, as depicted at the bottom of the Caravan itself. You cannot defeat either Epic Foe or General until you have escorted all 6 to the Capital City first. They will stay with 1 health until you have escorted the last caravan to Capital City.

The Caravan will not get attacked or destroyed or moved somewhere. They will only follow the character that spends 1 XP and 1 AP. So, they are just extra objectives to win.

As for Skill cards, you get 15 cards. As mentioned before, most of them can be activated by spending 1 up to 5 XP. Some have to be on the owner’s turn and some can happen anytime or happens passively.

My initial impression. Only 1 Standalone battle so far.

I want to share another disappointment now, regarding these new features. These modules are not exactly easy to plug and play however you want. They assume you will play with most if not all, mainly the XP system.

This includes when using contents of the features already in the base game. New characters have 2 special abilities now. One of them is about using XP. Same goes with Dire enemies that I have encountered. Their ability is related to how you spend XP.

So, you have to play with the XP cards and skill even if you want just more variety of the existing features. You might be asking, why not play with them?

In my session I still played with the 2 characters, elves from the base game and I still play as if just the base game. Got a lot of XP of course but I don’t remember actually used the Skill cards at all. Especially when one of the new Dire enemy says that their ability will increase the cost of any XP related Skills to twice. Even though I got something that can heal me or do those regular action.

In that game, I only spent XP to escort those caravans. The one that delivered the most to Capital City got understandably more XP and level up once. Well, the other got level up but very close to the end, after the Epic Foe.

The XP seems to really encourage player to do more Defending and not just Securing. You still need to secure unless you already have ability to heal. Now every character can heal if they get that skill card. This makes every character more versatile. I feel like from the base game, not every character is as powerful, especially in how to use the limited AP.

With the XP system, now even if the region got destroyed, you can get something by taking damage. You also get XP from defending against Dire enemy so not just getting artifact.

As mentioned before, this XP also solves the issue of wasted AP. In the base game sometimes, you have nothing to do since the enemy has not showed up yet. So, you cannot move to secure. Or you can move but not enough to get back. With this, you can just accumulate XP by spending the remaining AP.

It feels like the expansion adds a lot but at the sometimes they just make it more complicated and with no extra fun. Like that location. I got one with Friendly side. That got destroyed before I got to use it. Even in the base game, it already hard to find a good timing to spend AP to activate location’s ability. The same happens here and it affects the Skill cards as well.

You are still limited to 3 or 4 AP most of the time that you need to move to certain location using them. Unless you are in the right spot, the skill is kind of useless. More options per turn? Sure. But how many of them actually matters? I like this game when you can make fast decision. It seems I need to slow down a bit and start evaluating every option.

Well, this is based on one play and using probably the 2 most versatile characters that may not need these extra features to win. I kind of get it why these additional things can help the other characters to make them more useful.

Let’s see if playing the game with expansions more can change my opinion on it. Maybe now playing with 4 is not as bad as before.

As for now, my initial impression for this expansion is: Not a great value for the production, improved some things from the base game by forcing you to play with additional complication.

Playing time was about 57 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Tiny Epic Defenders Review.

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs

More pictures of this Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Bruiser’s journey to go back to his original size continues with scenario 4 of Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs.

Before I go with how the session went, I noticed I made an error during the game. I moved one enemy to a space that doesn’t have a complete hex, next to a wall. The blue enemy starts in the hex behind a trap and to get closer to the character they are supposed to go from the right. Instead I chose the closer one but invalid. Unfortunately, that also affected my decision and probably made the game a bit easier.

Oh, well, in the scenario specifically for this character even. I don’t really plan on repeating the same character though. Maybe after that, assuming I’m still up to keep playing this game.

So, the story is that the Collector suggested to avoid facing the King Button directly. For characters other than Bruiser, they would have proceeded to Scenario 3. Bruiser instead chose Scenario 4: BARGING IN, angrily.

There were 4 enemies guarding the room, 2 Bandit Guards and 2 Bandit Archer. In this one, Bruiser’s level also went up to 2 with 13 health now and he is allowed to upgrade one card. I chose to switch Spare Dagger with Hook and Chain because the new card had the ability of ranged attack and pull the enemy which could work well in this scenario to pull them to trap. Bruiser also had Button’s Shield, Rosethorn Knife and Bottle Cap Helm.

1st ROUND.

As mentioned, I tried to use this new card ability for the ranged attack and hoping to pull the enemy closer to the trap in front of them. That could work for either the Blue or the Red. I chose the Red. To do so, I had to move 3 spaces and possibly jumped over some roots from the ground. So I played the Leaving Cleave for its bottom part as the 2nd card. My initiative was either 42 or 54.

The archers went with 31 while the Guard went with 70. So, either way, Bruiser went after the archers.

Bruiser was within range from the Green Archer so they didn’t need to move and attack. It got minus so only 1 damage. Then the Blue archer was not in range so they had to move. This is the error that I mentioned earlier. I just continued with how it went. By moving to that invalid space, Bruiser was in range and rolled an O, 2 damage, no additional hit.

Bruiser’s turn next. He jumped and moved 3 spaces to the right so he was within 3 spaces from the Red Bandit. Rolled an O so 4 damage minus 1 from their Shield. Then the Red Bandit got pulled 2 spaces so they got into the trap with 1 additional damage. The bandit also suffered immobilize. 4 health left.

Then the 2 Guards’ turn. The purple moved to adjacent space from the Bruiser and rolled an O which was a -1 thanks to the helmet. Bruiser used his helmet and shield, probably could have avoided the attack from archers. No damage from this purple guard.

After that, the Red, which was already next to Bruiser got a miss. No damage and still got 10 health left.

2nd ROUND.

Bruiser used the B side of Hook and Chain immediately to move 3 spaces. For the top part, the Warding Strength, a melee with the ability to push back the enemy. The initiative was either 32 or 57 but both types of enemies went slow with 64 for Archer and 70 for Guards.

Bruiser first attacked the Purple Guard next to him. Rolled an O so no damage but got Pierce 1 so their shield became useless. Dealt 3 damage to that Purple guard and Bruiser also pushed him back which got them to trap again. 1 additional damage and Immobilize effect.

Then Bruiser moved 1 space back closer to the Green Archer so they got disadvantage when attacking Bruiser and this was to get away from the Blue Archer.

The Archers didn’t move. Only the Green was able to attack but got disadvantage. 3 damage but minus 1. 8 health left for Bruiser. Then the Purple guard couldn’t move. The red one got closer and dealt 3 damage to Bruiser, 5 left.

3rd ROUND.

This time I used the SHIELD BASH and the B side of that previous Warding Strength which was Unstoppable Charge. The former for the attack and shield effect and the other to get away from that location. The initiative was either 15 or 86. Archers went with 16 and the Guard went with 70. Decided to go with 15 so Bruiser went first.

The B side from the Leaping Cleave, which was Eye for an Eye had a Green element that could be consumed with the Rosethorn Knife to get Pierce 1. 3 damage for the Red Bandit Guard, ignoring their Shield 1, and extra 1 point from the roll. That was enough to beat the Red Bandit.

Then Bruiser went away 3 spaces to space adjacent to Blue Archer, the invalid location. Apparently, the error didn’t change the outcome much. The Blue archer still went away without getting any attack to gain some advantage for their ranged attack. 2 damage but minus 1 from roll and Bruiser still got Shield 1 so no damage.

After that the Green Archer went closer. Actually this one went first but they were 3 spaces away from the target so no attack.

Well, apparently I still made error with the Purple Bandit movement. They got to move 2 spaces and to avoid the trap at the top right, they went to invalid hexes along the right wall. They should have moved to the left even if neither of them did any attack.

4th ROUND.

Bruiser decided to heal and not move using the B side of that Shield Bash. The top one was using Skewer with initiative either 18 or 35. 31 for Archer and 50 for Bandit.

I let the Archer went first to let them get closer. Green Bandit first and after moving 1 space, they got a miss. Actually, they didn’t need to move at all. Then 2 damage from the Blue Archer. 3 health left for Bruiser.

Bruiser was next and he healed 2 first then attacked the Green using Skewer. Rolled an O so only 3 damage to the Green and they still had 4 left.

Bandit guard only moved 1 space and still 3 spaces away from Bruiser.

5th ROUND.

Bruiser had to take long rest. He got all the equipment ready and decided to get rid of Shield Bash card, the only one with healing ability. Archer went with 16 and Guard with 50.

Neither Green or Blue Archer dealt any damage. Purple guard still had not reach Bruiser after moving just 1 space. Apparently, even though I got their movement wrong, the result was the same.

Bruiser healed 2 and got to 7.

6th ROUND.

Leaping Cleave for the attack and the Shield from Warding Strength. Initiative was either 32 or 54. Archer went with 31 while Guard with 50. Let the Archers went first.

Green attacked and dealt 1 damage. Blue got 0. Bruiser didn’t use the shield part but the move 2 spaces. Or I just cheated. I had to anyway. Moved 1 space so he was adjacent to purple and green and used the Leaping Cleave to attack both.

I think this part I got the cube position wrong. Anyway, I attacked the Guard first and it was double damage. They got 4 health left plus shield 1 and suffered 6. 2nd attack to the green got 3 damage plus 1 and that was enough to beat the Green as well.

7th ROUND.

Oh I still got my healing card. I got it wrong, it was not the Shield Bash Card. Played that for the healing while using the Hook and Chain for the ranged attack. Either 18 or 42 but Archer went with 64.

Healed 2. Then rolled O so 4 damage to the Archer. They still had 3. Then the Bruiser pulled the Archer to the trap again so they lost 1 more damage. 2 left, immobilized.

The Archer got disadvantage but dealt 3 minus 1 damage to Bruiser.

8th ROUND.

Last 2 cards had no fast initiative. The Archer went first and managed to move away 1 space. Dealt 2 more damage.

Bruiser moved up to 3 spaces to near the Archer. Dealt 4 damage with the Unstoppable Charge, still plus 1 from the roll. Bruiser defeated all enemies.

Apparently, Bruiser made too much noise for Barging in. The King Button heard that and ordered his minions to capture Bruiser and dragged him to the Button’s Arena.

Playing time was about 60 minutes.

Bruxelles 1897

More pictures of this Bruxelles 1897 game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Become the World’s best proponent of Art Nouveau movement for artistic industry in Bruxelles 1897.

This was a 2-handed session between the Red as the first and Blue as the 2nd player.

1st ROUND.

3 Nobles, 1 Artwork, 2 Materials, 2 Buildings, 1 Money and 1 Expo were available. Red player started by taking the only Artwork since there was an Expo. This was from 2nd column, 3rd row. Sent out Architect value 1, paying 1 coin.

The Blue player started by visiting Paul Hankar at the top left. Sending out Architect 2 to compete against the Green 2 in the same column. Got a Material card with 2 Woods.

Red’s 2nd turn was taking one of the 2 Material cards from the grid. This had 2 stones, from the 3rd column and 2nd row. They sent Architect 1 for it, nobody was competing against them yet.

Blue then took the first building from the 2nd row, 2nd column. Sending out Architect 1, matching the bid against the Red’s in that column. Got 1 VP since it only used one type of material.

Red had to take the other only building from that 3rd column, 1st row. Using their Architect 1 and one Material card with just 1 type. Got 1 point, had a value of 2 total in that column with nobody competing.

Blue decided to visit the Brussel Area for the Stock Exchange to get 5 BEF. They sent out Architect 1 and the only one so far in Brussels area so very likely to be sent to jail.

Red decided to match it by visiting City Hall to gain benefit from Georges Brugmann to get 4 BEF. Now both Architect 1 were about to send to jail.

Blue went back to the grid to visit Prince Albert to increase their Nobility. Sent out the last Architect 1. The column was full with only Blue cards there, winning the majority. Blue kept his relation with the Noble.

Red’s last turn this round was visiting Victor Horta to increase their value in Architectural track first to level 2. This was from the grid, 1st column, 2nd row. Sending out Architect 2, matching the majority to both Blue and Green.

Blue decided to take the Expo even if they didn’t have any Artwork just to be first player next round. This was also to win the majority against the Red with value 2 using Architect 3. Red got 2 points for exhibiting their Red Artwork.

That was the end of the round with Blue passing first and took 3 BEF while Red took 1. Both players won the Architecture column. Red went to 3rd level, Blue to 2nd. Blue then got to release one of their Architect and won the Prestige majority, increasing their level to level 2.

From the Coat of Arms Majority, Blue won 2 and tied for 1 while Red won 1 and tied for 2. Both had to send 1 Architect to the jail.

Current score: 6 for Red, 4 for Blue.

2nd ROUND.

3 buildings, 1 Artwork, 2 Nobles, 3 Materials, 1 Money in the grid. Blue player had the Expo earlier.

Their first turn was actually to visit Prince Albert again at the top left even though they already had the Noble on their payroll. Got the benefit but got rid of that 2nd one right away. Sending out Architect 2 to compete with the Green 2.

Red decided to start taking more material to make buildings. They sent out Architect 1 to the 2nd row, 3rd column with a Stone and a Steel.

With the Level 3 in Nobility, Blue went to the City Hall and activated their 3 Nobles. Their Nobility went to 4, gained 4 from Brugmann and a Material card with Wood and Steel from Paul Hankar. Blue sent out Architect 1 there, first one in Brussels Area.

Red had to make money so they went to Stock Exchange, sending Architect 1 to get 5 BEF. Now both architects were about to send to jail.

Blue decided to secure the building from the 1st column since the other 2 were the same variant that they already had. Discarded the card with 2 different Material for 2 VP and sent out Architect 1, winning the Majority for that column.

Then Red took the other Building from 3rd column 1st row, almost winning the majority of that column. Got 2 points for discarding 2 types of materials, sending out Architect 1. Blue still had a chance to win that column.

Well, apparently I got the order of turns wrong. I played red again before the blue but the result was the same. Blue took the Material cards with 2 types from column 2 row 1. Sending out Architect 2.

Then Red took the other 1 from the same column but row 2 also with Architect 2. Blue’s last turn was taking the only Artwork the green one from 2nd column, using Architect 1, winning the majority there.

Red passed first and got 3 BEF while Blue got 1. That was the end of this round.

Blue won the Majority for Architecture and Nobility track while Red won the Prestige. Both architecture level were at 3. Blue had Nobility at 5 while Red at 1. Both had Prestige at 2.

Each sent out their architect to jail. Blue won 2 Coat of Arms Majority bonuses and Red only won 1.

Current Score: 9 for Red, 8 for Blue.

3rd ROUND.

Expo, 2 buildings, 3 Materials, 2 Artwork, 1 Noble and one Money were in the new grid. Blue was still the starting player.

They first took the Blue Artwork, letting the red to take the Green they already had. Sending out Architect 1 to column 3 row 3.

Red then went to the Noble, Emile Vandervelde to help them release one Architect from jail. Sending out Architect 1 to column 2 row 3.

Blue then went to City Hall again just for 2 Nobles since Prince Albert was no longer useful for them. They got 4 BEF from Brugmann and a Material card with 2 types from Paul Hankar. Sending out Architect 1 to the Brussels Area.

Red then took the Green Artwork from row 2 column 2. Sending out Architect 1, currently winning the majority of that column.

Blue finally took the expo, securing their first player card from the top left corner using their Architect 2. During Expo, Blue exhibited their green first followed by red’s red and then the Blue’s blue. 4 points for Blue and only 2 for red.

Red then took the Material card with one type from row 2 column 2. Sending their Architect 2, winning the majority against Blue for that column.

Blue didn’t let that happen and sent out another Architect 2 also from that column to build their 3rd unique building. Spent the 2 cards with 3 types and got 3 points.

Red then went to the building in column 1 using Architect 2, matching the bid with the 2 other players. This was also their 3 buildings and they spent 2 cards with 3 types, gaining 3 VP.

Blue ended their turn first and took 3 BEF while Red followed with just 1. That was the end of this round.

Both won the Nobility but Blue was already at 5 while Red went up to 2. Red won the Prestige to level 3, starting to get 2 VP per Coat of Arms. Blue then got to release one Architect from jail. This time only Blue had to send one back to jail.

There were only 2 completed Coat of Arms won both by Red. 4 VP for them.

Current score: 15 for both.

4th ROUND.

Last expo was available with 2 Nobles, 2 Artworks, 2 Materials and 2 Buildings and 1 Money.

Blue was still the starting player and went to City Hall again. 4 BEF from Brugmann and a material card of 1 type from Paul Hankar. They used Architect 1. Red took the Yellow Artwork from column 3 row 3 using Architect 1.

Blue then occupied the top left corner which this time had material of 2 types. They sent out Architect 2, matching the bid from Green. Red finally took the Expo this time with Architect 2 at row 1 column 2.

Red exhibited Green Artwork first so Blue only got their Blue. Then Red continued with their Red and Yellow Artwork. 6 VP for Red and only 2 for Blue.

Blue then built their 4 by occupying the top right corner. Sending their Architect 2 to match Green while discarding 2 cards with only 2 types, 2 VP for them. Red sent Architect 1 to Stock Exchange for 5 BEF since they needed to pay at least 4 for Nobles.

Since Blue had 4 buildings, they visited Victor Horta from column 2 row 2, sending their last Architect 2 to match the Red’s bid. Their level went up to 4.

Last turn for Red. They just went to column 1 row 2 with Architect 2 just to win the majority there, removing the building. Blue got 3 BEF for passing first and Red got 1.

Red won Prestige, now at level 4. Blue got to release 1 Architect. Both won the Noble but Blue already at 5 while Red went up to 3. They also won the Architectural track, so Blue went up to 5 while Red to 4.

There was only 1 complete Coat of Arms and both player tied. 4 points for Red and only 2 for Blue. Both had to send 1 Architect of their to jail.

So both got exactly 6 money left and had to pay 4 for 2 extra nobles. For the end game column bonus, both won the unique Architecture. 6 points for red and 8 for Blue. Red also got 12 while Blue got 20.

Nobody had unused Material card. Red won 2 VP for having Expo card. They were also the only one to win Noble end game bonus so got 6 VP. Blue was the only one to win the end game bonus based on leftover money. 2 coins for 3 VP.

For the end game unique Artworks, both won. Red got 6 VP for 3 and Blue got 4.

Final Score: both were tied at 55.

According to the rule, the first tie breaker was the one having less Architect in jail wins. Red had 4 while Blue had 3. So Blue player won. That last release helped them. Blue still had a chance to win with the 2nd tie breaker by having higher value on the 3 tracks.

Playing time was about 85 minutes for running both hands.

Sky Team

More pictures of this Sky Team game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Stop talking and start preparing to land the airplane in Sky Team.

A new game of this week. Sky Team is one of the games that got mentioned in Reviewers’ Top Lists of 2023, at number 2. Currently, it is already in top 100 BGG overall ranking while Earth, number 1 and The White Castle, number 3 are still outside top 100.

After about a year since this was originally released, it finally become available again in my local store. I think I saw a stock back when I bought The White Castle a couple of months earlier. I chose that one first and then this went out of stock. Both have similarity in that they both have dice placement mechanism.

Sky Team is actually designed to be played specifically just for 2 players. There is no official solo mode which is why I chose the White Castle first. Even if this is a 2-player only game, a lot of people say that they like playing this using or even trying their own the fan made solo variants. Somebody already made a prediction that this will enter the People’s Choice Top Solo Games of 2024.

Sky Team is a cooperative game where the 2 players take the role of Pilot and Co-Pilot on an airplane trying to land it in various airport. As the plane descends to the ground level, they need to use radio to clear out the path from other planes for their landing. Then the 2 can decide whether to increase or maintain their speed while keeping the plane in its axis while on the air.

Before they can land, the 2 crews have their own task that they have to accomplish on their own. The Pilot has to deploy the landing gear while the Co-Pilot has to deploy flaps.

Finally, when the plane is ready to land, hopefully reaches the Airport, the pilot has to prepare the Brakes. This part can help reduce the speed so the plane doesn’t crash the airport.

In gameplay, the way the 2 players do all of that is with dice placement mechanism with limited communication. Each player will get 4 d6 of their own color, blue for Pilot and Orange for Co-Pilot.

Each round, both players start with rolling all 4 dice in secret and then they take turns placing one on the game board that looks like a Dashboard of an airplane. In just the basic module, there are 20 spots to place the dice.

However, each spot will have a color that indicates which color of dice can only be placed there. This means only one player or role has access to it. 9 spots for Blue or Pilot, 8 for Co-pilot or orange and 3 that can take any color to generate coffee tokens.

Each spot may have a number on them that indicates only dice with those values can be placed there. While the dice values are kept secret to each player, every player can see all of the requirements for the spots so that can help them to make decision.

With 4 dice each color, there are 2 spots for each color that players have to use every round: the Axis and the Engine. So, each player will have 2 more they can use to progress on their own tasks.

The 3 for coffee tokens can take any value of dice and any color. They just generate 1 token per dice. The tokens can be used by both players to change the value by 1 per token, with the number 1 doesn’t wrap around to 6 or vice versa. At most they can have up to 3 tokens ready but as long as they have dice, they can keep generating more when the coffee is empty. So, there is a mitigation but remember, there is a time limit to keep progressing.

In addition to that, there are also 2 chances of rerolling by spending a reroll token that you get after certain number of rounds. Players can decide when to use them and both get a chance to reroll the remaining unused dice.

The Radio spots can take any value as well. However, the value determines which spots on the path to clear out from other airplanes. Value 1 means clearing 1 plane from the closest space. Depending on the airport, the path can have different length with various number of spaces and number of planes in each space.

Pilot has one Radio action while Co-Pilot has 2. They might use a 6 very early to clear out the space that is still far away. The challenge is, as the plane gets closer, the higher value becomes very useless. You can only use lower value and the options becomes very limited.

The Mandatory Axis and Engine spaces are action that can take any dice value as well. However, each of them requires 1 dice per color and the value of both determine the outcome. Only after the 2nd dice is placed then the outcome happens.

For the Axis, the plane will tilt to the higher value direction, equal to the difference of the 2 values. So, if the values are equal, then nothing happens to the plane. If the plane tilts 3 spaces to either side from the center, then the plane is going to a spin and both players lose the game. You can make the plane tilt 2 spaces to the right and then tilt 4 spaces to the left.

For the Engine, the total value of 2 dice will determine the Speed. However, how far the plane will advance is also determine by the Aerodynamic markers in the Speed Gauge. The 2 markers indicate the 3 ranges of speed. If the total speed is lower than minimum, then the plane doesn’t advance. The plane advances 1 space for having speed in the middle of 2 markers and 2 spaces for having total speed above the markers.

Ideally, you want to reach the Airport before you reach the ground level, the final round. If you get there early, then you can hold the speed so the plane doesn’t advance. Failing to get there before the final round and you lose the game.

The challenge is to clear out the path from other planes so you can easily advance the plane 2 spaces. However, sometimes you just don’t have the dice to clear the path for that specific space. Maybe you want to move the plane a bit closer first, moving 1 space before you can use the other die to remove that plane.

Towards the end of the game, you don’t really need higher speed. Maybe not advancing at all is actually good for that moment.

The two players can change the Aerodynamic markers by progressing on their own task. Pilot can deploy 3 landing gears which will move the marker 3 spaces up. So more chances to not moving at all. On the other hand, the Co-Pilot can deploy the 4 Flaps. By doing so, it will move up the maximum threshold on aerodynamic marker up to 4 spaces. So it is less likely to get speed above the upper threshold that advances the plane 2 spaces.

The thing is that both players don’t necessarily have to use them. Maybe they just roll good dice value. However, deploying everything is necessary to win the game.

While the Pilot can deploy any landing gear in any order, the Co-Pilot has to deploy the 4 flaps in ascending order. Since you can only deploy up to 2 per round, you kind of have to do it early.

However, the Pilot has additional task of deploying brakes, up to 3 of them. Similar to Co-Pilot doing their flaps, this has to be done in ascending order. Aside from deploying the first one, no need to deploy all 3 to win. However, it will increase the chance to win.

The idea is that in the final round, you still need to place 2 dice where the total value determines the speed. But you want to make the plane stop so you have these breaks. If the total value of speed is lower than the breaks then the plane stop and you win the game. The question is, can you actually have a roll of 1 + 1 each during that last round? Even with full breaks, you can only have speed of 6 at maximum in order to stop the plane.

And that is the game of Sky Team with the introductory and basic module. As mentioned earlier, the game comes with different airport paths, each with different length and number of planes on it. While you are still playing with 7 rounds, the challenge is different.

The game also comes with a couple of extra modules, involving new dice space and additional black dice. I have not tried any of the extra modules so I don’t know how they work exactly.

My Initial Impression

First off, the game comes not in shrink wrap. They only put 2 stickers on the side between the lid and the box. Apparently, this is not the first game to do so but first time for me. I don’t hate it, as long as the box is not damage. But then my local store loves placing a sticker for price that can ruin it.

Apparently you also need to do a bit of assembling the double layer game board. The board is printed on single layer but you can punch some spots to make holes for the dice and then fold them and it becomes double layer board. They also give you a couple of double tape or double sided sticker to hold the two layers permanently. I was worried when I first saw those tapes but apparently, not a big deal. You just need to make sure that you punch everything out before using those tapes.

The game also comes with a paper insert that hides the components for extra modules separated from just the base game. They give you separate books, one for just learning the basic game and the other for extra modules.

So, I have played this twice so far. Solo but 2-handed, taking turns, trying to make decision without looking at the dice of the other players. Obviously, even if I am not good in memorizing them everytime, I did eventually remember some. I guess you can say it is not how the game is intended to be played.

Sometimes, I ended up taking back the dice. Not because I know what’s coming from the other player but maybe I should have just focused on one.

From what I understand, maybe there is a mind reading aspect. You have to guess what the other dice that the 2nd player has based on the first one they just placed. Like why did they place 1 there not the other spot. Is that the only value 1 or do they have all low values?

On the other hand, you also probably need to think more as why you pick that die and place it in that specific spot to help your teammate that can possibly give some clues for them.

The game is fast but that mind reading part can make the game a bit slower, early in every round. Since I mostly play solo games, I don’t have a chance to have that kind of conversation with other players. During my play, I didn’t even know how to do it. It feels like there is an obvious way but I just didn’t.

I think the Axis is probably the first one since you have to place one there anyway. If the plane is already tilting towards you then as starting player, maybe you can place the lowest one there. And if they are towards the other player, then maybe you can play your highest. Assuming there is no other space that can use that specific value.

So, I guess you don’t really need to keep the plane at the center. If anything it gives you more chance to give that clue by making it on extreme end. If then the other player cannot counterbalance your first die, then you probably can think some clues they are trying to give.

Not saying that is the correct way or only correct way to play. I have to figure out more. I can see how it can be stressful for some people with that hidden information. Especially there are a lot of ways to instantly lose in this game. But most of them are about engine, axis and radio probably. Since you can make the plane not advancing, that makes them lower priorities then the axis.

In my first play, I didn’t know that you need to be in the last space of the runway in order to keep playing. I thought you can try moving 2 spaces. Well, that is not the case, and the thematic reasoning makes sense and translate well to the gameplay. The game switch from you comparing speed to the Speed gauge to comparing speed to brakes. It’s just maybe other people may experience that as well for their first game.

Well, I think even if you don’t play with the hidden information and just know the dice roll, there is still a nice puzzle. Sometimes there is an obvious placement but other times, you might want to wait. Like you have to generate coffee first or finally use the reroll. There are moments where you have every roll high or low that you don’t need.

Like I said, the game is fast to play and even to reset and go again if you think it is too random. The rule is easy, at least from that basic module. Even though I misunderstood the axis a bit.

Well, I definitely need to try the recommended fan made solo variant. From what I read so far, it doesn’t change the game much. Playing with solo, I suspect this is like Under Falling Skies but less about crunching numbers.

Playing time was about 30 minutes per session.

Keep the Heroes Out!

More pictures of this Keep the Heroes Out! game session below.
on TikTok Part 1 and Part 2, or on Instagram.

Defend your dungeon from invading heroes while dealing with other Monster friends in Keep the Heroes Out!

Continuing with the Scenario 5 this time, playing with Lizardfolk from the Crowd Control and the Ratkin from Defender type. Lizardfolk seems to need more movement and attack while the Ratkin requires more equipment for the swarm actions.

This was my first time playing with the Scenario. The Bookworm has Librarian character that when drawn, you need to have books in the library for them to put those books back in the shelf. As additional setup rule, you place all 5 books in the vault.

Also, the Library and Study room actions are not available until all books have been removed by the Librarian. So, you need to drag all of them first, 3 rooms away from the Vault to that Library. Ideally before the first Librarian card shows up. Until then, you cannot make any Scroll to make more portals which makes this very tough. Unless, you play with the Witch.

I noticed that this scenario has two types of rooms where both have their rooms adjacent to each other, the Hat type and the Sword type. It is very likely that summoning any heroes there will trigger the Inspire. Getting 2 heroes in the same type of rooms during hero phase and they probably manage to reach the Vault if not instantly defeat you.

So, I was not clear how to resolve these 2 of the same heroes in adjacent rooms. I thought there is a possibility that the 2nd hero in the room closer to the vault, after getting inspired by the 1st one would do another inspire action.

Luckily, that is not the case. Technically, the 2nd one also triggers the action but combined when the 1st one with possibly other heroes come to that same room. So, no retriggering even if each still do showoff. The problem doesn’t come out until Scenario 4 with rooms of the same type adjacent to each other.

Anyway, I have to say, this session is probably not as good as the others. Mainly because of the Scenario. Not only you have extra task to move those books first to the library before you can start making any Portal, you kind of have to wait until the event card shows up. If both of them comes out at the end of the Phase, that sucks.

The question is, what happens if you end up throwing both Librarian to the jail? You still cannot use those books. There is even a rule where the Warrior cannot remove the book.

Also, because of those adjacent rooms of the same types, it feels like I ended up not doing much but either removing heroes or getting removed by heroes and setting up back some defense.

Sure, the Ratkin is very useful. They can summon a lot of their kins in the same room and then using swarm action, move books. But since I have to do it as early as possible so I got the Librarian removed them altogether, I spent most of the earlier rounds just for that.

First Librarian card showed up as 2nd Guild card of 2nd player’s 2nd turn. The 2nd card got thrown to jail.

At the end of 2nd turn of first player, 3 heroes managed to enter the Vault already. 3rd turn of 1st player, the Lizardfolk got 1st Loot, a Beast Pet. 4th turn of Lizardfolk, they managed to get an Equipment. 2nd player’s turn after that, the Ratkin, after getting almost completely, spent their turns just spawning their kins and moved them to the Vault just to setup defense.

5th turn and Lizardfolk got 2nd Beast Pet. Afterwards, the Ratkin finally got a Scroll. Ratkin did use it once but only to move 3 spaces instead of making portal at all.

Technically, I lost the game. There was one time I had to draw Mage to appear in Hat rooms. The Rats were not there to defend, leaving 2 archers from previous round. So, all of them got inspired and managed to get into the Vault.

Maybe I just need to figure out how to use the Rats better. Are they not great to work with Lizardfolks? I’m going to match them with other clans. Maybe the Witch, especially in this scenario. Both have swarm actions, somehow a bit of waste. It is possible that I ended up waiting to get multiple meeples in a room to get the most of that swarm actions.

Lizardfolks also use a lot of defend cards. Maybe Lizardfolk should have stayed together, 2 or 3, waited to get attack and then used the defense card to move everything. Lack of movement for these 2.

So, I just continued the play by reshuffling the remaining Guild card deck hoping for a result that didn’t end the game immediately. I guess that is the nice thing about this game. A bit random in that regard but it is easy to just use house rule to continue, no need to reset.

Well, I guess I really didn’t have the chance to win since I let the Prison full of heroes, 4 at one time. I’ll try again next time with different pair. Or just get better with those 2.

Playing time was about 144 minutes.

Yin Yang

More pictures of this Yin Yang game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Travel across the 7 Kingdoms of Ancient China by interpreting and following the divination from Gods in Yin Yang.

This was a solo session so the goal is to build 7 temples in order and complete the 4 sets of improvement areas. The first one was the Northeast Kingdom so I started from there. With the 2nd one being in the southwest Kingdom, I placed the figure and the templet in the leftmost city of that northeast Kingdom.

1st ROUND.

The shortest path from that Northeast kingdom to the Southwest was by going Northwest first. It took 3 spaces all via road. Unfortunately, the Lower Divination action for Carriage was not available.

I got 4 White and 2 Black. Used the 3 White to take Carriage action token and the rest for lower divination were for increasing the Yin Yang track by 3 spaces, just one of them. Either way the gift was the same, red and yellow.

The starting city itself had Green resource so I used one white and 1 black to take it. Then using the Carriage token moved 1 space to the west, entering the Northwest Kingdom. That next city also had a Green so I used 1 White and 1 Black again to take that 2nd Green. Last 2 were 2 White for another Carriage action, continuing the journey to the West.

2nd ROUND.

This time one of the space to take more carriage action was blocked and the action to increase either yin or yang 3 spaces I used earlier was not available.

Got 3 Black and 3 White so my Black was at 8 and white at 7. Spent the Black to take the Gift for 1 Red and 1 Yellow. For the Lower divination, I used it to do carriage action with 1 White and 2 Black. So, the 2 White and 1 Black was to take a Boat token.

From my position at the top left space in that Northwest Kingdom, I moved south one space with that lower divination entering the Southwest. Then I built the 2nd Temple using Black and then White. The next kingdom was the Middle South Kingdom, just 2 spaces from my current position.

2 White, 2 Black, 1 Carriage and 1 Boat left. So, I could go there right away and build the Temple but that left me with just 1 White and 1 Black with no use other than building temple again.

Instead, I went South, still in that Southwest Kingdom to a city with Red resources using Carriage. Spent 1 White and 1 Black to take the goods. Then I moved east via Boat using the token to another City with Red. Spent the last white and Black coins to take the goods.

6 more goods and 5 temples.

3rd ROUND.

This round one of the space to get Temple token was blocked and no immediate Temple action in the lower divination.

Got 4 Blacks and 2 White. The Black was empty from previous round but the White was at 8 so I traded them for gift to get another set of red and yellow. Bought a Temple token from using 2 Black and 1 White coins. The other 2 blacks and 1 white was for immediate carriage action. This moved the figure north to a city connected to the two Middle Kingdoms.

So, I used the Boat token first to reach the Middle North Kingdom first. There was a Blue resource there and I used 1 White and 1 Black to take it. Continuing to the Capital City via Boat using 2 Black, before reaching a city in Middle South Kingdom via road with Carriage token. Built 3rd temple using the token. That left me with 1 White and 1 Black with no use. I took the 5th Black in the track.

4th ROUND.

Next Kingdom to build temple was the East or brown one. The shortest paths both required 3 spaces with 2 Roads and 1 Boat.

Taking one of the Temple token was blocked and No action to change position of scoring tile.

Got 3 White and 3 Black again. Black now was at 8 and White at 3. Traded the Black for the gifts and got 1 Green and 1 Yellow. I only needed 2 more, both were Blue.

Bought 2nd carriage token, assuming no need to use Goods token at all. From Lower Divination, got immediate boat action. Still in that Middle South Kingdom, moved east to a city with Yellow.

No need to take that resource. Used both carriage tokens to move north, passing Middle North. Then using Boat token moved to east, entering the East Kingdom. More boat actions but using 2 Black to a city with Blue. Then in that city, built temple using token and took the Blue goods using 2 coins.

Last 2 coins were 2 white for carriage action to move back to Northwest Kingdom. This was the next Kingdom to build the temple. 3 more with Southeast and then the Middle north in that order afterwards.

5th ROUND.

Temple action token was blocked, along with Goods action. That prevented me from taking the Blue goods in that Northwest Kingdom.

Got 4 white and 2 Black. White was at 7, just 1 more to get to 8 and got 2 more Blue goods. So, no need to take anything from the board then. Bought another temple token and immediately built a Temple in that Northwest Kingdom. 2 more.

First, I used the 2 Carriage and 1 boat tokens to enter the Southeast, passing through the Middle North kingdom. Then with the Temple token, built that 6th Temple. One more.

Then spent 2 Black coins to get back via Boat, entering the Middle North kingdom. Using the 2nd Temple token, built the 7th. I had 4 more white and not enough to reach any city with Blue and took the goods. So, I forfeited 2 actions just to increase my White track to 8 and traded for 2 Blue gifts.

This way, I managed to build temple in each Kingdom in the right order and completed 4 Development lines.

Playing time was about 49 minutes.

Riverside

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

Invite tourists to join various excursions in villages of winter land along the river while keeping them warm in Riverside.

Another solo session with the extended variant.

1st ROUND. Started with median temperature at 2. The cruise moved slowly just 2 spaces. Within 2 spaces there were white, blue and brown excursion. So, I chose the White 2 plus another 2 who were looking to see Northern Lights. Put those 4 in the first boat so the last one was left on the 3rd. 2 more were interested to join but boat 3 was not full yet.

Excursion happened to the closest village. Scored 9 just from 1 ticket of white excursion.

2nd ROUND. Median temperature was at 3. The cruise got to right at the 2nd village and 3 other within 3 spaces. Picked the Yellow 3 plus 1 who was interested in Northern Lights and put them all in 2nd yellow boat. It was full so one ticket.

There was only one yellow excursion in the adjacent village from where the cruise was. Scored 8 points, first time for yellow.

3rd ROUND. Median temperature was at 5 this time. The cruise moved pass through 2 villages. There were 3 other villages within 3 spaces from where the Cruise stopped.

More people were interested in Ice Fishing with 5. So, they were accommodated. Another 3 who were looking for Northern Lights. 5 of them were placed on boat 4. From that 2 were interested in seeing Polar Bear and reserved a seat in the 3rd boat for white excursion. That boat was full and from there, 2 were interested back to Fishing. Now, 3 more plus this 2 filled 3rd boat for Blue. So, I got 2 tickets.

Instead of going to the nearby village, excursion happened at village 5 spaces from the cruise, spending 2 extra speed. Scored 14, first time for blue.

4th ROUND. Median was 4. The cruise moved pass through 2 villages and now it was just 2 spaces from the Chapel. There were 4 people interested in 3 different excursions plus 1 just looking for Northern Lights. Chose the Reindeer group and filled the 3rd boat to full for one ticket.

From that boat, 2 were interested in Local Brewery, reserving the last 2 seats of 3rd pink boat. Instead of sending them to villages, the Tour Guide managed to invite them to the Chapel instead. All 7 tickets scoring 14.

5th ROUND. Median was 4 again with the cruise passed the Chapel and almost reach the village with Ice Fishing only. Picked the 4 interested in Reindeer plus 1 for Northern Lights. Filled them on 2 boats for browns for 2 extra tickets. Instead of those excursion, invited them back to the Chapel again. Scored 18 for this 2nd time.

6th ROUND. Median went down to 2 this time. The cruise was between a Pink and Blue excursion. Only 1 more village within 3 spaces, the one with 3.

Picked the yellow 2 plus 1 for Northern Light. The yellow filled the 4th boat, 2nd ticket while that extra one reserved first seat of 3rd.

Decided to go with the 2nd excursion for Ice Fishing to the highest value village. Scored 18 for 2 tickets.

7th ROUND. Median went up again to 5. Somehow passing only 1 village. There were still only 3 villages within 3 spaces but all colors were available.

Picked the pink 4 plus another 4 for Northern Lights. These managed to fill 2 boats. Decided to go excursion to the brown and pink village since no score for both yet. 2 pink tickets and scored 18 and 3 brown tickets for 15.

8th ROUND. Median went down a bit to 4. Last 3 villages before the exit and this was before the last intersection. Picked the Yellow 2 plus 5 for the Northern Lights. All Fire was spent but the Blue ability was available. These 7 filled the last 2 yellow boats.

Excursion happened to the village with brown and white. 2 tickets for white got me 14 as 2nd time scoring and the 3 Brown got me 24, also 2nd time scoring.

9th ROUND. Median was 4 and the cruise went to the last chapel, 2 spaces before the exit. So this might be the last round.

Got a White 4 to fill 2nd boat. From that 2 were interested in Brown and there were 2 last seats for them. Also used the Yellow ability to add 3 more to fill the 4th white boat. The last one seat was from the Brown. That one wanted to see Bear again.

So I got to do 2 excursions with the White ability. First one was 6 spaces away from the current position using the extra speed from pink ability. It was a village with yellow 6 and blue 7. Scored 24 as 2nd yellow with 4 tickets and 21 from 3 blue tickets as the 3rd scoring.

2nd excursion happened at the nearby village with Yellow 9 and White 10. Scored 36 as 3rd yellow. 4 tickets from White plus one using Brown ability got me 50 as the White 3rd score.

Then the median was 4 so the cruise exited the area. That was the end of the game.

Scored 95 from White, 88 from Yellow, 61 from Brown, 70 from Blue and only 33 for Pink which was the lowest. 32 points from Captain and plus the lowest I managed to get over 50 so I got 15 extra bonus.

Final Score was 427.

Playing time was about 38 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Riverside Review.

Witchdom

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

Recruit Witches to help you gain resources for brewing potions in Witchdom.

Witchdom is another new board game for me and it is from this year, 2024. There are a lot of games about Witch this and last year. I guess I was looking for Witchcraft! but ended up getting this one. Maybe the art drew me in and as you can see, it looks like children’s game. Well, maybe this is more like family weight game.

Before I get to the gameplay, I want to mention that this is an amazing production value. Especially for what you get. Great art, almost perfect insert, wooden tokens, cards with unique names and almost all unique arts. Plus for having a good solo mode.

So, how do you play Witchdom?

In general, Witchdom has a hand management, hand building and action retrieval mechanism. Something like Spirit Island or Obsession but much lighter game. You can play any card in your hand and gain more cards. Eventually you have to retrieve them back by spending an entire turn. Like in Spirit Island or Obsession, you can also lose some cards. In Witchdom, you lose your card for scoring.

You start the game with 2 apprentice Witch cards. Every Witch card will tell you how many items you can take from the market of 3 rows. Each row will have 1 potion card, 1 witch card and a couple of resources. Maybe the Witch can get 3 items total, one from each row. So, by playing that card, maybe you want to take the witch from row 1, potion from row 2 and resources from row 3. It can be any combination as long as it doesn’t exceed the number stated by the witch card for each row.

Maybe another Witch allows you to take 2 from one row but nothing from the other. Everytime you take something, you immediately replenish the market so you can take 2 Witch cards from one row if the card allows you to take 2 from that row.

Playing a Witch card to take items is just the first part of your action. If at the end of your turn, you have the potion card that matches with the type of witch to brew along with the required ingredients and tools, you get to score both the potion and the Witch. You then place both cards on the left side of your player board/card. This means, that Witch is no longer accessible for you.

Some Witch cards score differently, even if they are from the same type. Usually the one that scores higher allows you to get less item during the first part of your action. Some witch can also brew a secondary type of potion. So, you might want to wait when to actually get something and when to score and with which witch.

The thing is that the game is a bit of race between players. Everytime you play, there will be a number of objectives, based on player counts. Players keep playing until only one objective left and that triggers the one of the game. They continue with the next last round. The objective is usually about who gets to score a number of witch or potion of specific type. Maybe 2 green potions, 1 blue witch or 3 potions of different types, etc.

The game comes with 15 Objective tiles. Some of them are considered as Hard and some as Easy and you will be playing a mix of both depending on player count.

Well, with the racing element, you might want to pay attention a bit to your opponent, especially if you are aiming for the same objective. You can use your turn to prevent them from getting certain requirement to score like the resource required by potion.

How do you get tools? There are 5 types of tools in the game. Every potion card will have one on the back. So you might not need that potion card necessarily but you can take that card, flip it, and use it as your tool.

There is also a permanent upgrade with the tools, something like Splendor. After you score the potion that requires that specific tool, you score the tool as well and the tool is available for future use. Well, it’s not like you need more than one of the tools. The tool scores based on variety and the more unique tools you have, the higher your score.

So, that potion card has multiuse. Witch card also works similarly but instead of getting tools, you get to take animals. Each witch card will show one of 5 types of animals on the back. In order to score them, you need to tame them first by feeding them the corresponding resource. You can tame them only if you don’t brew potion this turn.

Animals score like tools, based on variety. This is actually an optional module you can ignore if you think it is too much. Unlike tools, there is no further use of having animals. The game is meant for family after all. But maybe for non casual gamers, you want to include them because it gives you more options to draft. You might not need that specific Witch but maybe you can score the animal. Some of the objectives are related to this Animal module.

Some of the Witch cards also have REFRESH icon. When playing this, you may refresh one column of the market. Well, for resources column, just one row. This has to be resolved before the collecting items. Maybe you don’t like those witch or potion being left out in the market after your turn, so you can refresh them. Or maybe the market doesn’t have anything that you need so you can push your luck a bit. I guess it can be a mean action towards your opponents.

Even if you don’t have the exact resources or tools, you can also pay by spending 2 of the same type of resources to cover it. That means for tools, you don’t have the permanent upgrade.

That is it with Witchdom, the multiplayer. Players keep taking turns until there is only one objective left, finish the current round and play the last round before going to scoring. The other end game trigger is when one of the decks runs out of cards.

You then score from your SCORED tools, witch cards, potion, objective tokens and Animals. The highest score wins. I don’t know how likely you get tied score but the rulebook doesn’t say anything about tie breaker.

Solo Mode and My First Impression

I’ve only played Witchdom once so far and it was using the solo mode. For the solo mode, the game comes with Ostara character as the only opponent. Instead of deck of cards to determine her action, you get 9 tokens. The opponent is always the first player and you flip one token and resolve the action. Each token will say type of items Ostara is collecting this time.

Most of the time, she will take the corresponding requirements of what she has been doing like matching potion for witch or vice versa. If she has to take any of the cards, the token will say the priority to take.

The solo player does almost the same as in the multiplayer mode. However, with the solo mode, you only play 15 rounds. Every 5 rounds you randomize the solo tokens again.

Ostara doesn’t take tools because she starts the game with all tools available for her. If she has all of the resources required by the potion and the Witch, she will score that turn.

This solo mode comes with 3 difficulty modes and the difference between each is how Ostara score the objectives. In the easy mode, Ostara doesn’t score any objective at all but she will still trying to get the resources that you can use to complete that objective.

With the normal mode, Ostara still doesn’t score but you have to play with all 5 hard objectives. For the hard mode, any objective you failed to score, will be the score for Ostara.

Playing time for the solo first time plus learning took about an hour. I think it can be faster for multiplayer. Maybe I am still learning how to resolve those solo tokens. On the other hand, with multiplayer mode, if none of the players try to score objective then the game can keep going. You have to wait for one of the decks to run out. Maybe not an issue with higher player count.

You can also choose not to include the Animal module. The associated solo tokens should be removed as well.

While there is a chance I got the rule wrong but I played the hard mode right away. There is a chance that Ostara will beat you in hard mode only if you play completely mindlessly. I got over 70 points while Ostara was almost 70. She also got 2 of the objectives. So, it was very close.

In general, I like the game. There are still a lot to think about when choosing anything. Nice enough challenge for lighter solo games. Unfortunately, for solo, I wish this comes with more variety. The randomized setup will change the situation but you still play with the same approach. It is not like you have different player power and have different strategy. A good solo mode, not great for mainly a multiplayer game.

Somehow I still don’t like the part about taking resources from that bag. This also happens to Cascadia. Sometimes, you just keep drawing the same thing. Especially when you are supposed to return resources right away to the bag after spending them.

Maybe you can play the solo mode with 2 Ostara characters? As if you play with 3 players? With just 2 players, you are less likely to run out of cards from those decks. I don’t know how much this affects the variety of tools and animals you can get.

In theory, you can probably just refresh the market. From my one play, if I remember correctly, I think I didn’t do at all. I wanted to but then either I already played the only few cards with that refresh or no cards available for me to do.

Well, I think I also only retrieve cards once the whole game. Not something you want to do too often when you have limited turns. That happened in the 3rd from last turn.

Maybe this is an issue with the solo mode. In theory, you probably want to choose which Witch to score. But then if it involves retrieving the cards or at least waiting for another turn before scoring, then it is less likely to happen. I certainly did not think about that during my play. Just score as fast as you can and using the new Witch card you just collected recently.

Well, overall, Witchdom is a good game. Maybe perfect for the target audience, which I think is for family weight. Did I mention amazing production value?

Long Shot: The Dice Game

More pictures of this Long Shot: The Dice Game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Bet on the best horses to win in Long Shot: The Dice Game.

Long Shot the Dice Game is a game from 2022 (somehow I remember it being 2021 game)so it is not a new game but new to me at this point. This version itself is a dice version of board game with the same title and from the same designer back in 2009.

I knew that this one was and is very popular but at the time I tried to avoid the hype. Now it has been two years and my local shops were about to run out of stock. So, I thought maybe I should get one. The theme itself is unique to me as I didn’t have anything like it.

Maybe I also avoided because of the betting aspect? Usually betting games tend to be better with more players while I mostly play solo. Then a couple of people put this game in their top 20 solo games so I thought maybe I should give it a try.

At this point, I have only played the game once and 2-handed instead of the official solo mode just to learn the game. So, maybe I got some rules wrong.

I don’t know much about horse racing as well. In Long Shot: The Dice Game, every race will have 8 horses, numbered 1 to 8. Every player with their dry erase board will start with $12. You can spend the money to bet on horses or to buy the horses. However, you can only do that to the horse determine by the roll of a d8 die.

Every round, the active player will roll 1 d6 and 1 d8. The d8 will tell you which horse to move while the d6 will tell you how far they move. The movement is always between 1 or 3 spaces and the horses, represented with colorful wooden pieces will move on the racing board. The one to cross the finish line after moving about 15 spaces wins.

Only 3 horses will win. The owner of those 3 horses will get a huge sum of money at the end. The other players can also win some money by betting on those even if they don’t own the horse.

After each roll, that one horse is not the only one to move. In every play of this game, each of 8 horses will have a card that describes their name, price, special power of owning it and how each can influence the movement of the other horses.

For example, one card for horse #2 has a name of MAKE IT RAIN with the price of 10 to buy. Everytime it moves, horse #5 also moves. In this case, the other horses only move 1 space. Players can choose to add influence by marking on the active horse card. So, there is a chance one horse can eventually influence all other horses.

This means, even if the roll favors certain horses, it doesn’t mean the other cannot take benefit from it. The other can even win by getting multiple influence.

After moving 12 spaces, the horses will get to the Red Line. This is the line where by default, the players can no longer make additional bet on that horse. There is a way to activate it though. Of course, no one can bet after they reach the finish line. However, the race continues until there are 3 winners.

That’s the general idea of the horse racing part. There are other parts about the betting and where players take actions in the game.

So, how does player take action?

After each roll, starting with the first player, player can do one action of 5 possible actions related to the active horse. I already mention 2 of them, Bet on the horse and Buy that horse. This means only when you actually roll that d8 for the horse, you can make bet or buy that horse.

Making a bet can be done by any player as long as they have the money. However, there is only one owner for each horse so the active player has the first chance to do so, assuming they have the money. That may sound unfair but that also means more likely than not the owner will try to make it win and so you as the other player can make it beneficial for you.

If then the horse is already bought by previous players or in previous round, the subsequent player in turn order have to take the other 4, including making a bet.

From the other 3, first action you can do is the JERSEY action. By marking the jersey spot of that active horse, you have a chance to mark on the active horse card for which horse to influence the movement. Maybe the active is red or #1 and you want it to influence #4.

The thing is, in earlier rounds, you probably still don’t know which other horse that you think can win. And there is no guarantee that when you are the active player, you will roll the right horse to be active.

Well, in this game, you have mitigation using Wild Numbers, starting with 3 chances. By crossing any of this, it’s like the active horse for you is another number of your choice. So, even if you blindly invested on other horses, there is a way for you to pick specific horse. This doesn’t change which horse to move, only the action associated with the horse.

While there are only 3 chances, you can also spend a turn getting that one chance of wild back if you really cannot use the number for any action.

The 4th action you can do is to mark the Helmet. By doing so, you get a chance to make additional bet even if that horse already crosses the No Bet Line. Maybe this is a better way to use first action if you are in the last in turn order.

You assume the owner of that horse will push the horse to win then you just open the possibility for you to make more bet on it later. While marking the helmet can be done even after the horse is already in the no bet zone, ideally it still has to be done before it. The horse will move first before players can take any action. That means if the horse then already cross the finish line, you cannot make a bet even after marking the helmet. You need to plan a couple of steps ahead for this specific action or it’s too late.

The last action you can do is to mark one of the Concession Grid. On the player sheet, there is a 4 x 4 grid with number associated to the horse. If you can mark the entire column or row or both for twice, you get one of the Concession bonuses.

Some bonuses just give you extra action. One gives you money and free bet. The other 4 bonuses allow you to manipulate the position of any horses. Like moving one horse 3 steps ahead or 3 steps back. The other like move 2 horses 2 steps ahead / back, 2 spaces. This way any player can suddenly make some horses win.

That’s how you play. After 3 horses have won the racing, finish the round and proceed to scoring. You get points for owning the winning horse. If you bet on horses within the no bet zone, you still get something. Then you get points for betting the winning horses. Some horses that are less likely to win have higher multiplier so you can score higher. Some horses also give you additional point at the end if you own them. Count also the leftover money and if you mark both helmet and jersey of one horse, you get 5 for each horse. Highest score wins.

My first impression?

Well, after playing the game or at least after a couple of turns, I finally got how simple the game is. However, that is not the case at the start. It is not exactly easy to wrap my head around it immediately. I definitely had a hard time deciding what to do first.

Even if this is a racing game, you don’t necessarily want specific horse to win right away. You need to buy it first, or you need to at least make a bet. Then when it becomes valuable for you, only then, you try to do everything you want to help the horse win.

This game can be played up to 8 players at a time. I only played with 2 and it seems with more players, you have less chance to own more than one horse. The money you can get for betting is limited, just 21 + initial 12 and additional 3 from the free bet.

Even then it is dictated by the die roll as how you can access the extra 21 from the concession bonuses. I think there were a couple of moments where “I should have done that thing first in previous round.”. On the other hand it is not like you actually get access because it is based on the d8 roll or active horse. Maybe you are supposed to use wild right away but still effectively.

I played 2-handed and the winner used all Wilds and even spent a turn refreshing one while the loser didn’t even use one. Not saying you should use them to win. It feels like you really need to control things by doing so or else you are just waiting for the roll and being dictated by the randomness.

I guess buying a horse right away is essential? There is no guarantee that the horse would win but the sooner you do, the sooner you can work on it. Or more like you can start working on something else.

For example, you spend money to buy horse, so you have to work on Concession to get money before you can start making bets or buying again. When you still have money, and try to play safe, it feels like you will end up waiting. This is not a game about efficiency.

Yes, there is a chance that one horse will get left behind and has no chance to win at all. Somehow in my one play it was not number 7 or 8 but it was number 6. It was 2 spaces from the start even when some horses were already in the no bet zone. 7 actually won while 8 managed to catch up after being 2nd to last.

By buying immediately, you can also utilize the power right away. I’m still not sure but maybe you can influence the other player by investing on the horse right away. They will try to make money with the bets, right? Even if they don’t own the horse. From my one play both players actually scored the same from bets. It was just the winner owned all the winning horses.

I just checked that apparently, regardless of the horse card you use, the starting influence is always the same. So, #1 will always influence #6 right away. It is funny because that means during my play, I rolled less of #1 so #6 was stuck but #1 won the game thanks to the influence of other horses.

I have a feeling that this is not ideal with 2. Either that or you probably need to be careful when betting on your opponent’s horse. You might end up helping them without getting the favor back. This is not the case with 3 or more.

The funny thing happened during my one play. In that game, the losing player actually had a horse that almost won the race. Somehow it got pushed back and ended up not finishing the race at all. I guess that losing player was trying to get more points by making bets and ended up stalling the horse. Or just my bad play for it. Securing the win is much better than trying to score as high as possible.

It seems like you also need to save the bonus to push the horse forwards until that kind of situation. You may not even roll the d8 to push it. Having wild and one empty space from either column or row is a good idea probably.

It seems like you are encouraged to pay attention to your opponent’s ability to make bet on no bet zone. Is it really possible to see such small icons on other player’s sheet across the table? Or the ability to push back? Maybe not a big deal for 2 players but not sure if with 4 or 8 players.

Some of the horse powers are also not as easy to make a plan right away compared to the others. Even if the power is just extra scoring at the end, you should probably make a plan before that. Or it is just me having issue with language dependent game.

Well, it sounds like I just gave bad review of this game. I actually like Long Shot: the Dice Game. At least after that first play. It’s just, like I said, a bit not straightforward as how you do well. Also not easy to adapt for me, at least.

Maybe I just need to play it more and get better. We’ll see. Playing time was about 75 minutes for 2-handed.

The LOOP

More pictures of this The LOOP game session on TikTok or on Instagram.

Stop the evil Dr. Faux as the temporal agents from messing with the timeline in The LOOP.

The LOOP is a game from 2020 so it is not a new one but new to me at this point. Some people rated highly at the time it was released but I wasn’t sure as I don’t like the designer’s previous game, the Big Book of Madness that much.

Apparently this is voted as one of the best solo games by the community. In the recent voting of 2024, it was at 106 with increasing number of voters in the last 3 years. The interesting part is that one of the comments said that for that person, this game replaced Spirit Island for game with similar genre. Spirit Island is considered the best solo game based on the votes in the last couple of years. A couple of people also mentioned that this has an interesting solo mode.

Well, after reading something like that and somehow found probably the last copy available in my local stores, I thought maybe I should give it a try. After playing the solo mode twice, I have mixed feelings about this.

So, in a way, the LOOP is a cooperative tower defense style game. Something like Pandemic or yes, Spirit Island where you will mostly try to maintain the situation of a number of spaces from some threats. While doing so, you need to achieve certain numbers of objectives before running out of time. Well, at least in the game mode that I played. You have a deck of enemy cards, and you go through that deck 3 times. If you have not finished all of the objective before going through the 3rd time, you lose.

I think, instead of Spirit Island, the better comparison would be Marvel United. Marvel United has 6 locations you need to move from one to another to maintain and beat the boss while the LOOP has 7. The voters did say this is a lighter game compared to Spirit Island but I didn’t expect to be that far.

Compared to Marvel United, the LOOP is slightly heavier with the element of deck building. The complexity is actually between Marvel United and Keep the Heroes Out! game. With the LOOP having a simpler deck building system by just taking card while in Keep the Heroes Out! you have to generate resources first and drag it to the room specifically to buy cards. Also in Keep the Heroes Out!, the board or map has different layout from scenario to scenario, not just like Marvel United where it is modular locations while in the LOOP the board stays always the same.

It may sound like the replay value, at least the board is lower. However, each of 7 locations in the LOOP has its own objective. Working on the objective can be done from any location. However, once you have finished the requirement, you need to move one character and end their turn in that specific location in order to complete the task.

Completing the task will open the next one. There is a chance that the location might get overwhelmed, something like overflown in Marvel United. When that happens, the objective is destroyed and you cannot access it again. Sometimes you want to allow one location to be destroyed after you have completed the objective.

One negative about this objective system is that you start with just 2. In my first play, apparently I played with one that is considered the most difficult objective according to the forum. So, I was stuck and obviously didn’t win. Didn’t know at the time that you should just destroy it so the new one will open in the next location.

The theme is about Dr. Faux messing up with the timeline, duplicating himself to increase the threats. Each of 3 phases, Dr. Faux will visit one of the 7 timelines that I earlier called location. So, as the game progresses, you know which timeline he has not visited yet and try to focus there.

While targeting specific timeline, Dr. Faux may also mess with the other 2 adjacent to it. Where he will hit next and how much is determine by dropping a number of cubes in the cube tower in the middle of the board. The drop will then send at least 2 cubes to those 3 randomly. You will increase the number of cubes dropped based on how many duplicates of Dr. Faux is in that timeline.

Every timeline can deal with up to 3 red cubes which is served like threat level. When it goes to 4, they destroy the objective but start over the threat level. If that same timeline ever gets overwhelmed twice, you lose the game immediately.

Before you drop the cube, Dr. Faux will send the duplicate first. Depending on which phases, he may send 1 up to 3 duplicates. The duplicates are circular tokens that you draw randomly from the bag. On the back of the token, it will tell you where the duplicate will spawn. Then you place them on the board with the other side facing up. This will show the Dr. Faux face and which timeline he is originally from.

In order to remove these duplicates, you mainly need to send them back to their original timeline. Similar to Spirit Island, you can push, pull, destroy or carry these duplicates from one space to another using the action from the cards.

Other than dealing with red cubes and these duplicates, and moving around, you also generate Energy for that timeline, represented by green cubes. You can then spend the energy for Moving and doing what they call THE LOOP action.

All of those are done by card play. This is a hand management game. Every turn, each player starts with hand of 3 cards. Each card will show the type of action icons whether it is related to red cube, green cube, duplicates or the movement. Play just once for each card in any order.

Every card at the top left can also have one of 3 types of dimensions or blank. The dimension is for doing the LOOP. What it does is if you have green cube or energy where your character is in, you can spend the energy to resolve the cards again. If you have multiple cards with the same dimension, you can trigger all of them with the cost of 1 energy.

You can also do multiple LOOPs during your turn. However, the subsequent LOOP requires more energy. You have to remember that those energy can be useful for something else and for someone else later instead of just wasting it now.

Every character starts with 6 cards in their deck. At the start of every player’s turn, one new card is added to the board in specific timeline. Players can choose to take it and add the card to the top of their deck by ending their turn at the same space where the card was.

Your character board will tell you the distribution of cards with each type of dimension. Letting one character to keep getting more cards of the same dimension allows them to have more action on their turn. These cards will stay available until one character takes it or if the space is destroyed. Once destroyed, no more cards will be added to that space in subsequent rounds.

Each character also has 1 unique ability and the game comes with 5. Some are more complex than the others to play well.

Solo Mode and first impression

Actually the solo mode works similar to the official solo mode of Marvel United where you play multiple characters and combine all of their cards into one deck. It seems this one do better with the drafting aspect.

At the start of every turn, you draw a card and assign them to the character. Starting cards of every character has to be assign for them but the cards you get during the game can be for anybody. When one character has 3 cards, they become the active character. If you play with 3, maybe the 2nd has 1 while the 3rd has 2 or 0.

Then during the start of next turn, you do the drafting again, continuing the previous state. So, maybe this time, the 3rd character got their 3rd card first. It is possible that the character becomes actives twice or more in a row because you keep assigning cards to them.

This is actually great for 2 reasons. One is that you don’t really worry which character to take certain cards. It will be added to this combine deck anyway. The downside is that maybe the deck becomes very big and you might want to remove them a bit to do better action. Certain cards have the ability to remove or discard the other cards in hand.

Maybe removing your starting cards is better, especially with just one card for specific dimension. It seems in multiplayer mode, you really have to discuss which player to take some cards and you probably need to cull your cards on your own.

The other reason is for doing the LOOP. You have a better chance to have one character gets all cards with the same dimension type. Sometimes you can still get all 3 different types.

Well, the main complaint about this game is just the randomness of the cubes. Sometimes you just drop them and all of them get to one space. Even if that space is currently secured and empty, you suddenly get 4 and the space is destroyed. Sure, there is a bit of planning you can do by reading the leftover enemy cards. Regardless, I ended up just redo the dropping, a lot.

Another thing is the randomness of the cards. I don’t know how powerful each card is. You play with 79 cards and over the course of 7 x 3 turns you reveal 21 of them. If then the starting objective requires you to do one type of action and you don’t get them until much later, then it is kind of sucks. More reasons for me to curate which objective to start other than the earlier I mentioned.

I guess I also don’t like much about token and the bag. You remove them and they go straight to the bag. Then in next turn, you can probably draw them again.

Other than those, I think the gameplay is interesting enough. Some people who recommended this game did mention that the game is a bit hard to win. So far, my impression is that it is doable but some randomness including setup can screw you right away.

The solo mode allows you to play at least 2 characters. I did with 3 since some people recommended it. This game also comes with a couple of modes but I have not tried them all.

Played this twice. 2nd play took about 84 minutes.

Coral

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

Grow 4 different species of Coral Reef next to each other while making sure each of them get enough exposure to the sun in a game of Coral.

Another game from 2022 that I just learned right now. I was already interested with the 3d spatial nature of it but apparently the distribution of this game is not as wide as I hoped. Turns out I found a copy from a local shop that I don’t usually visit and it was rather at cheap price.

I did research before buying but there were not many reviewers that I know cover this game. Luckily, Mr. Morten, the man behind Automa Factory gave a good rating for the solo mode so I thought maybe it is worth to try.

Then I played this twice with the solo mode. It seems that the multiplayer mode is a bit different. Some say it has very high interaction among players to the point it can be very mean. While the solo mode is just a puzzle to score as high as possible using scoring cards, one for each type of corals.

So, I cannot speak anything about the multiplayer and just focus on the solo mode for this entry.

Thematically, you are growing 4 coral reefs using 3D pieces. Each piece is an L-shape of 3 cubes with a total of 24 pieces, 6 for each type. Each type of Coral also comes with 1 pawn.

I don’t know the thematic explanation but in this game, in order to grow the Coral species, the grow is dictated by where the associated piece is on. However, these pieces cannot move onto its own Coral reef but can move freely on the other. So, at the start of the game in multiplayer mode, each player, playing one type of species will place their pawn on the starting cube that doesn’t match with the cubes they are playing.

So, if you play with red Corals your focus is to keep adding red 3d pieces to the common structure. Your red pawn cannot be placed on any of your red 3d pieces nor it can move through it. When placing for the new 3d piece as a GROW action, 1 cube part of the new piece has to be adjacent to a cube where your pawn is on.

In the solo mode, at the start of your turn, you can choose one of 3 available 3D pieces which can be one up to 3 types, drawn randomly from the bag. Before you place the chosen on, you may move the corresponding pawn first, hopefully so you can place the new piece in a desired position.

When moving the pawn, while being on 3D structure, you can move the pawn as if it is a flat structure. Only what is visible from the top matters. However, from that top view, if that piece is surrounded by its own Coral pieces, then it is stuck. The pawn also cannot move pass another pawn.

With all of these restrictions for pawn movement and where to grow your structure, ideally, you have to think a couple of steps ahead. Even that can lead you to, without realizing it, blocking one pawn by the other.

On top of that, you also need to manage the 3 available pieces. You have to make sure that you have different colors, instead of being stuck with 2 or even 1.

The solo mode comes with 6 setup cards for your starting structure, along with 12 scoring cards, 3 for each type of Corals, something like Cascadia that you can mix and match. The 3 scoring cards of one type also have different difficulty to score. So you can play like Red and beige Level 1, White level 3, yellow level 2.

As an example maybe in one game, you score more from red by not having any red visible from the top. Yellow may have the opposite of that scoring. For the white, maybe it the higher the position of the white coral, the higher the score. And the beige coral may score for having exposed on one side.

So, some of the scoring may encourage you to play certain colors first as foundation for the other color to reach higher position. But the random color you draw from the bag may force you to do other first.

You have 20 turns to play all of the 3d pieces to score as high as possible. The rule has a chart with 20 points being the highest possible score.

I definitely got confused when trying to place the next piece. Sometimes I got mixed up between placing next to the cube with the pawn or next to the pawn itself. As solo experience then there is only you to tell whether you did it correctly or not. I definitely didn’t and had to take back a couple of turns. Evaluate every turn and ask myself “is this correct?”.

Because of that, maybe you need to use extra reminder as where the pawn was previously. Something like small cubes but ideally something taller that you can place it standing. Sometimes you can surround that pawn by the 3d structure you add and making it hard to pick up without messing it. Luckily for me, I take pictures of my play every turn.

Same as in other games, drawing from the bag is not my favorite thing. Somehow I kept drawing that color but not the other. It seems in the bag, those painted wooden 3d pieces may end up scratching the other color. Well, if you kind of shuffling them hard in the bag.

Overall, I always like 3d Spatial puzzle like this, even if it hurts my brain. This one is in the same genre as Grove or Forage but more in 3D. While it takes bigger box because of the 3d pieces, it is still considered as small box. I was expecting it to have standard TTR box. Slightly bigger than the standard 2-player only line from Kosmos or Lookout.

Maybe it has less replay value with just 3 cards for each type? Then again, even with just one it already hurts my brain. The good thing is it doesn’t take long to play, setup or even reset and play again.

Playing time was about 17 minutes per session.

Photograph

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

Make a good sequence of pictures using the half frame camera in Photograph.

This is probably the oldest game on this entry. It was originally called WIND THE FILM!, published by the designer himself, Saashi and Saashi in 2016. Recently the game got wider distribution by Matagot with a new title called Photograph.

I assume the rule is the same. It’s just maybe a couple of mistranslation, probably.

Well, I learned something about this theme of using analog camera. The half frame camera is a camera that takes pictures only using half frame of the film at a time. While the film itself is intended to be develop as a picture in full frame so it seems you need to wind the film manually to use the other half of the frame. Hence the original title. This theme of using a frame in half also translate during scoring later.

I guess the idea of this game is about utilizing this type of camera characteristic to make a good shot. Good shot means using 2 frames for sequence of 4 pictures about a subject. Good sequence means making cards in ascending or descending order, not just collecting them adjacent to each other.

The thing is, the camera film still have more spaces so while waiting to fill the next one of one subject, you can work on the other by skipping a couple of frames. This translates to color types of cards. Eventually you’ll find some good moments to fill the gap and creates a good sequence.

Not sure how accurate but that is how I interpret the theme. So, how does the game play?

Every player starts with a hand of 5 cards in their hand that they cannot change the position as they wish. They draw a card one at a time and the next card is placed to the right of the previous one until they get to 5.

Each card represents the half frame picture. Basically just a number, between 1 to 12 and a color. No duplicates for each card.

In general, every turn you will add more cards to your hand between 1 to 3 cards while still following the order. You draft these cards from the market.

After adding the card, you then have to move exactly one card forward, or to the right of other cards. It can even become the last card in your hand or in the rightmost.

As the last thing to do on your turn is to score a number of cards equal to how many you just added. Basically you remove for scoring until you have 5 again. Cards that you remove are cards on the backmost or the leftmost in your hand.

You then place these cards you removed on the table to create a sequence for each type. As mentioned earlier, you want to create either ascending order or descending order.

So, maybe you take 3 cards and add them to your hand. You then have to score 3 cards from the back. Maybe grey 12, yellow 1, Green 5 to 3 separate rows on your table. Ideally, you want to get Grey 11, yellow 2 to score next. For the green 5, you can either go up with green 6 or down green 4.

But instead of those exact cards, maybe you already have in your hand another card of the same color. Maybe Gray 7 or Yellow 8 and on the market you know there is a card in between that you can add, instead of jumping to that big of gap. At that point, the mandatory action to move a card forward is your only chance to manipulate the order in your hand.

Remember, You must only move 1 card per turn. Beside that, you can still control your tempo. You just take 1 card from the market so you only score 1 as well, slowing down. This way maybe you have another chance to move a card forward.

On the other hand, maybe you’ll see on the market that you could have taken 2 cards which works well later. Even worse is that maybe you know that the next player can actually take that card before it comes back to your turn again. So, this is where the tough choice has to be made.

Eventually you’ll get to a point where have no choice but to score incorrectly. In that case, you place the card face down as a reminder for the -2 penalty. This is called you are out of focus with the sequence.

Apparently, I already missed one rule. In addition to make ascending or descending sequence, you can only score the next card if it is 3 numbers away or below from the previous one. So, if you have played number 1 and then you somehow have to score number 5, that number 5 will become penalty.

Even after getting out of focus card, you can still continue the sequence and get higher score for longer sequence.

As mentioned, there is no duplicate for each card and every player is going for the same cards. While you may not know all cards in your opponent’s hand but you can still see some cards in their scoring rows or the face up cards that they took previously. A bit of memory element I guess.

Also, when a player has to score card as penalty, they have to reveal it to the other players first before placing it face down. This way, players can be aware that that same card is no longer in the deck.

Let’s talk a bit about the market where you draw more cards from. Depending on player count, you have either 3 or 4 rows of cards with 4 columns. In the 1st and 4th column, the cards will be faced up but the other 2 columns, the cards will be faced down.

You can draw between 1 to 3 cards. The way to draw has to be done from the outer sides. This means from column 1 or 4 first to access the middle. Something similar to Walking in Burano card game.

While the cards in 2nd and 3rd columns are face down, you still have some kind of information. You can see the color or type and you can see the range, either 1 to 6 or 7 to 12. So, it is not completely random but as the game progresses, and a bit of using memory, you can probably figure out which card that is.

Sometimes it is more important to avoid scoring certain cards instead of securing the unknown. Combine that with the mandatory action of moving 1 card forward, that should give you the best decision to make, like how many to draw and score this time.

Another thing about the market is that in 2-player game, not every card will be taken. When there is 3 or less cards in the market, the remaining will be removed and players have to replenish the market with new set of cards. With higher player counts, all remaining cards will still be available. So more things to consider whether to take it now or wait while assuming you still have chance later.

For every type of color you score, whoever creates a sequence of 3 or 4 first, depending on player count, gets to take GOOD SHOT card of that type. Only one player will get this for each type and they are basically additional 5 points.

Another tough choice to make. Do you want to score as fast as possible for additional 5? Or do you want to wait so you can make longer sequence for higher score per scored card. If you score using cards near the other end too fast, then the subsequent scored cards for that type will be negative points. Well, at least maybe not letting the other player take that extra 5 even if you end up only scoring 1 after penalties.

Well, you cannot spend too much time taking pictures, waiting for the perfect moment. Eventually the Sun will set and signify the end of the game. A Sunset card will be revealed from the deck, like about 7 to 12 cards from the bottom. In 2-player game, it means you have maybe 1 or 2 full market left after that one.

When this Sunset card happens, all players will have to score the 2 cards, leaving just 3 cards left in their hand. This can either increase the correct sequence or start adding penalties to your scored set. This is the part that I have not figured out yet as how to keep track of timing.

In 2-player, when you already refresh the market 4 times then you have to prepare for the sunset and prepare some cards to be scored later. Not that hard, right? Maybe I was just enjoying the flow too much to care about that. This is a very smooth game, until that point. But not a big deal. Just more thematic thing I guess.

However, this may lead to some more rough edges in rules. The Sunset thing happens for every player simultaneously. That means, there is a chance that multiple players score a good shot card at the same time. Unfortunately, none of the player will get that if that happens during Sunset moment. If anything, that player will completely lose the chance to get the Good Shot bonus for that row or type. Even if, after the Sunset, they manage to make even longer sequence.

This is the reason why I haven’t figured it out how to play well. Either you care a lot for that moment or you just forget and go with the flow.

The game ends immediately if you cannot refresh the market completely because there is not enough cards in the deck. Players will have to score 2 more cards from their hand at this point before going for scoring, leaving just 1 card left in your hand.

You score for each sequence, Good Shot card and Penalty card. Scoring no cards at all of one type will also give you penalty. Highest score wins.

That’s the game. It seems there is an advanced and more punishing variant but I have not tried it yet.

Well, I definitely like this one and I already played 3 times 2-handed. With that one missed rule, though. Got better with the subsequent play.

It reminds me of Level 10 a bit from the same publisher but different designer but that one is a cooperative game. While that one has official solo mode, I like this one better. No official solo rule but a couple of people already have some fan made variants. Maybe I should give them a try.

Even when playing 2-handed it takes like 20 to 25 minutes. Fast to play but I guess you need to shuffle a bit to reset since this is a set collection game. Even if you don’t shuffle, I think if you follow how you setup the market and your starting hand, it will randomize the cards enough.

From my 3 plays, I haven’t done drawing and scoring 3 cards in one turn. Even with drawing just 2, sometimes I found myself regretting that 2nd card. Taking 3 cards means, 2 of them have to be face down cards, right? You can be sure that you will like one but I haven’t seen a situation where I like both. Of course, it still can happen.

Another limiting factor of not taking more cards is because you have to score as many cards you just took. Unless you get lucky draw for starting hand, not sure how likely to use that. What I did, most of the time, you just draw 1.

Even if I manage to have 3 cards ready to score right away, I thought playing slowly will give you more turns to rearrange the next cards. Also preparing for the Sunset and end game.

Maybe the memory part is not my thing. Not sure how beneficial to keep track with anything though. I did start to keep track of cards but mostly when you already a couple of rounds as you can see cards in your scoring rows, your opponents and your hands.

Here is the thing, I haven’t actually pay attention to my opponent’s hand of cards. The back of each card should be enough to give you information on what they have. Or at least to add the info of the apparent ones.

While I love Saashi’s design but like most of his games, it doesn’t come with a lot of different plays. In this one, other than randomized setup, you will aim for the same thing. Maybe just like variable scoring like bonus for red for sequence of 5 instead of every color with 4.

A good filler game to play from time to time. Like any filler, maybe you play a couple of sessions in a row and then wait for a while before playing again.

Burgle Bros.

More pictures of this Burgle Bros. game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Assemble your heist crews to distract the building’s guards while you find and open the safe in Burgle Bros. game.

This is definitely not a new game but new to me. Burgle Bros. was originally released in 2015, almost 10 years ago at this point. There was already a sequel, the Casino Caper and recently the publisher run crowdfunding for the 3rd game of this series, called Future Flip.

One of the reasons I finally gave this one a try is because it is voted as one of the top 200 Solo games by the community. Even though in the last year voting, it went down on the ranking and a little chance it stays in top 200. Those who love it, seems to really love and possibly will keep this as one of their favorites.

I recently started looking for specific theme in games and I don’t have anything like this one and I like that Ocean’s 11 movie. While the sequel has closer theme to the movie, unfortunately it didn’t get good reception.

I also don’t want to pay higher price for that stupid box. After hearing that they will reprint the sequel in the same box as the first game, I decided to go with the first.

So what is this game about?

As mentioned Burgle Bros. is a game about heist. Players cooperatively sneak into a highly secured building to find more than 1 safes and crack them.

Depending on the variant or difficulty that you are playing you can either sneak into building with either 2 floors or 3 floors. Each floor will have its own safe and you need to open all of them. So taller buildings take longer to finish.

Each floor is a grid, mainly 4 x 4 with each space represent different rooms. All of the rooms start as face down tile. On their turn, players can use up to 4 Action Points to either move into that room, blindly or peek first just to reveal the room before entering.

Some room can trigger alarm or make you fall to lower floor so going blindly has some risks. Players can only move to adjacent rooms, sometimes between floors if the room is staircase to upper floor. Between some rooms in this grid there are always 8 walls, represented by a wooden stick. Players need to move around to get to the room of the other side of the wall. Some characters and items may have unique abilities to bypass that rule.

As mentioned, you want to find a safe on each floor. When you find one, you also need to find the combination of that safe. To do so, you need to reveal all rooms in the same column and row with that safe. At the bottom right of each room tile, there is a number, a value between 1 to 6.

Once you have revealed everything, then you can try to open the safe by being in the room and use dice. Actually you don’t need to reveal all rooms to start opening the safe but it is more efficient.

You first need to spend 2 AP to add a d6 to that room, up to 6 per safe. Then another AP for rolling them all. If any die matches a number on that room tiles, you cover all rooms with that number using the green token. Even if you get that number from 1 die, it works for multiple room.

Because the room tiles are randomized, you probably need less than 6 different numbers. No need to wait for exactly 6 dice. You just spend more AP for extra attempt with less dice. Also, you don’t need to get all numbers in a single roll.

Once you have opened the safe, you get 2 things, a Loot and a Tool. Most of the time, having Tools can help you do more things easier but it can also trigger alarm.

Having a loot though, it actually increases the difficulty by giving extra penalty or rule. Thematically, they are precious so you need to move around to the exit along with them without breaking them.

Players can exchange tools and loots when they are in the same space as free action. This can help one player to be more flexible while the other one stays, usually to crack the safe.

So you do all of those, find safe location, crack them on each of 3 floors then move your characters to the roof of the building to win the game. Without getting caught.

So, here is the challenge. Each floor has a Guard that you have to resolve at the end of the character’s turn on the same floor. What they do is just moving to specific location of that card in certain speed (number of space movement per turn). If the Guard enters the same room as your character, or vice versa, your character loses 1 Stealth Token.

Each character starts with 3 tokens. You lose the game when you have to discard a token but have none. There are other ways to lose these tokens like from Events.

Guards will stay on their own floor and will not move to other floors. Their speed increases when there is an active alarm, temporarily or permanently when you have opened the safe of that floor and the floor above them.

Each Guard also has their Patrol deck. You flip one to determines where the Guard starts and then flip another one to determine their destination, a room of that grid. Once they have reached their destination, you flip another card for the new one.

Guards move the same number of spaces equal to their speed and they keep moving until they have spent all of them in a turn. If you trigger an alarm on that floor, the guard changes their destination to the room with that alarm. So, players can take advantage of this to create distractions, changing their destination by intentionally trigger an alarm and predict the Guard’s movement.

Every play, you remove certain number of Patrol cards from each deck. So, Guards probably will not visit certain position of a floor and you also have to take advantage of that information for hiding and ending your movement.

Sometimes losing a stealth token by entering the room with a Guard is a good idea. This is the case when you have to end your movement very close to them anyway. The rulebook also says that you don’t trigger an alarm if the Guard is in the same room.

Most of the time you probably want to use all 4 Action Points. But depending on the situation, you probably have to choose less. If you only use 2 or fewer, you have to draw an Event card which can be good or bad. This is the push your luck aspect and can change the movement of the Guard. Maybe not a bad idea if you are going to lose a Stealth token anyway.

Well, that is all about Burgle Bros. game. The rulebook has a couple of variants to make it harder or easier and there is also a mini expansion. Players can also access a website to randomize the placement of walls for one or more floors to get more varieties.

My initial impression.

Let me start this with a rant a bit about the production. The rulebook was a bit pressed at the corner. I think because the inner side of the lid is not glued properly. It didn’t damage the book but a bit hard to make it stay open, a bit annoying probably just for your learning game.

Some of the Wall sticks come like glued together. I was worried that I would break them just to separate them. Luckily, that was not the case.

Well, the rulebook doesn’t have a list of components but they do have a card for that list but just mentioning the numbers. This is not a problem until I accidentally include that mini expansion card and the cards for the Fort Knox variant as part of the 3rd Floor Patrol deck, Didn’t know during the game that they were part of extra modules so I didn’t even think about checking those parts in the rulebook. Even the card that mentions the list of components combine them all as PATROL CARDS.

Well, another issue is the stickers for the characters’ meeples. They expect you to put stickers on those wooden figures so you can see the art not just the shape and color. First, they are smaller than I was expecting. The arts on stickers are even smaller with the white off set. At this point, I decided not to use stickers at all and just play with colors. Although, keeping that sticker sheets in the box worries me.

So they gave you two stickers or variants for each character. One with their normal side and the other with the look during their heist job or so. There is a forum thread discussing which side to use and some people chose to use both, one for each side.

Well, I thought the problem was just about preferences. Apparently there is also a gameplay aspect. Each character card has 2 sides, one for each look. However, each of them has different abilities with one side, the heist mode, is considered the more advanced variant for expert player. Maybe it doesn’t matter which side of sticker to use as long as you remember which side of your character is in play. But that convinced me not to use sticker at all.

I also wish that the Guard to have a full body figure instead of just half a body. Even though what you get here makes them contrast to the player’s meeple. On the other hand, their official miniatures seems to make it work by having a full body.

I could be wrong but I feel like the box is not as sturdy as box of other games. All of these square cards and tiles look great and great quality. Even though I kind of wish that they have more text explaining things so I don’t need to keep checking that pressed rulebook. The book seems to explain everything well.

Enough rant with the production. How about the gameplay?

I got a weird experience from this one play. Early in the game I was charmed by it. Then the experience went bad in the last or 3rd floor. Played with 2, the Rook and the Hawk.

I think what kind of ruins that experience was when I dealt with the 3rd floor with 2 characters on the same floor. The Guard managed to get double move. So, one character managed to avoid it but then it got to the other character. I technically already lost the game but I decided to just randomize the Patrol card to keep playing.

While I understand the idea to let 1 character works on one floor individually so the Guard only moves once. But at this point, it feels essential to do so. I thought it was just different ways or strategies to win the game. From that one experience, clearly it felt way worse than working on the first 2 floors individually. Combined with the error of including that mini expansion cards on 3rd floor Patrol.

Maybe I should have sticked with the idea of playing the Office Job first, with only 2 floors but somehow decided to play with the Bank Job.

Well, I also got very lucky in the first 2 floors to find the safe very fast. Actually, the first room of 2nd floor was exactly the Safe, which is kind of weird, architecturally. First of the 3rd floor was something that triggered the alarm by having any item.

Yes, my first error was not knowing you can choose to peek from the room below it. I guess, since you know at least the walls before entering the next floor, that kind of important to know whether the next one is safe or not to go. It seems the game also encourages you to keep track with which room already appeared in the lower floors since you still use all tiles in every game. Well, at least with the Bank Job.

On one hand, I kind of like that the game doesn’t have specific time pressure. You can really just take time to explore and figure out more information. Of course, that can lead to longer time to play. Other may find it boring, especially if you are the one to just stalling time and keep distracting the guard. Even though that is what the heist is about. Sometimes one of them has to stay ready in position wasting time while the other are still working to find the next clue.

In my game, that last loot was the Persian Cat and while thematically it is interesting but the extra rules at the end is a bit much. Especially after that bad experience the entire floor.

So, unfortunately, my first session didn’t end with a good experience. Some errors with the rules obviously. I think the main reason is because I was not prepared with a good plan or strategy. Well, still learning and after reading the rules again a bit strategy on the forum, maybe I have things I want to try in my next play.

Someone or maybe a couple pointed out that some characters are more powerful or versatile than others. Especially the one that can trigger the alarm not just relying on the tile has a lot of flexibility to distract.

Not sure of this is true but I guess I should try picking better set of characters instead of assuming every matchup is good. Maybe not a problem for expert. We’ll see.

Playing time was about 109 minutes.

Tiny Epic Dungeons

More pictures of this Tiny Epic Dungeons session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Explore the dungeon, beat the minions and finally beat the boss in Tiny Epic Dungeons.

This was my 3rd play, still using 2 characters and playing with Sir Lanon and Clotho. I got some rules wrong before and maybe I still did with this one. The one that I didn’t realize after the game is that you actually gain more time everytime you beat the Minions. That makes it easier than and not as racing as a lot of people think.

So, here is a question that I was not sure. If I beat an enemy, goblins but from ranged attack, do I get the loot right away? It seems I should have taken them but I ended up playing as if they fall to the discard pile so any characters can pick them up later.

I guess I cheated a bit in this one since my focus was to learning the game first. Some with the dice roll and others with which loot or spell to get. So, here is how it went.

Clotho went first and immediately used Free Action. One to research the Spell and she got Eagle Swiftness. I thought this was good for her but apparently this was for those with ranged attack, not Clotho with her dagger.

Then with Free action, revealed the first 4 rooms next to the entrance. 3 traps and one with Goblin. Then using the Heroic action, did Psychic Blast to that Goblin. The item was Hook Shot, probably worked well with that spell but as I said, I dropped them to discard since it was from another room.

Clotho continued moving to the right. Avoided the trap. Before moving again, did Research and got Elemental Charge. She moved again down, avoided the trap. Her 3rd movement, she went down again and finally got to the first Minion, which was FIRE ELEMENTAL. She suffered 2 damage and had to end their movement.

Timer went down and before Sir Lanon’s turn, a Goblin showed up in the entrance. A Boomy goblin. I assumed the Goblin is not going to hurt Sir Lanon while being in the same room? Either way, on his first turn, Sir Lanon attack, heroic action and defeat the Goblin. As reward he got a Loot, the Long Sword of Lion. Since this is better than his hammer, he started using the Sword right away.

Sir Lanon then decided to catch up with Clotho since she and the Minion was 3 spaces away. After avoiding the 2 trap rooms, he got there. As last action, he used Healing to Clotho.

Fire Elemental, already being in the same room as the 2 characters, immediately dealt 2 damage to each.

Clotho then run away from that room to the left. Luckily not a trap but it led to 2 rooms. After doing research again and found Holy Abundance, she used Torch action to reveal those 2 rooms. Both had Goblins. She then used the Psychic Blast. Dealing 1 damage to Minion and defeating the Mighty and Stabby Goblin. She healead and got 2 Loots, one to increase green dice and one for purple. The latter was not useful for her but maybe for Sir Lanon and the former was good to let her got 3rd Green.

Sir Lanon’s turn again and another Goblin appeared at the entrance, another Stabby one. With his Divine Might and the Sword, he managed to deal 14 damage minus 4 from the Fire Elemental Shield so that was more than enough. Well, I should have gotten either a Loot or Spell plus 6 extra times. Sir Lanon then followed Clotho to the left direction and eventually got to a new room which was another Minion Room. This time, it was the Skeleton. Got 2 damage from that minion. Still had 2 Focus so he healed himself.

Time for enemies to do action. The Stabby Goblin moved 4 spaces and almost reached where Clotho was. Skeleton didn’t need to move but dealt 2 damage to Sir Lanon and could have stolen the focus from him.

Clotho did Psychic Blast again, 1 damage to the Skeleton next room and defeated the Stabby. She didn’t need to heal but she got an item, the Sun Hammer. Probably best for Sir Lanon actually. I guess I was not consistent with my rule as I took this one even if the Goblin was in a different room.

Since Clotho already did the Heroic then her only options were free or move. Knowing that the Lair door was close, she decided to move back to the previous Altar room and explore those area. After moving 4 spaces, she found it. Did one more research and found Fireball spell.

Back to Sir Lanon. Without any Focus, he just did Melee attack with the Sword. Got total of 14 damage to the Skeleton and their defense of 4 did not help them survive. 2nd Minion was defeated and the Lair Door was opened.

It was the GOBLIN KING. Sir Lanon continued to move to where Clotho and the Lair was.

Clotho started her turn by casting Fireball from Lair Door to the Goblin King. The King retaliated and dealt 3 damage. After that spell, she run out of Focus so she tried to move as far as possible. Through a couple of trap rooms to gain more. She almost reached the entrance.
Even then, she had to use her Focus to taunt the King. The King took the bait and finally reached the first Altar Room where Sir Lanon was.

Goblin King summoned a Goblin at the entrance, a Shooty one and healed. Sir Lanon’s turn and he immediately dealt 8 damage. The King countered with 6 minus 5 from Sir Lanon’s defense. He didn’t move but healed himself with the remaining Focus.

Another Goblin showed up at the entrance, a Boomy one. Clotho, while being 1 space from the entrance, did Psychic Blast again, defeating both Goblins at the entrance. She gained 5 Focus and the War Horn of the Bear. Clotho used that loot immediately to take the Goblin King’s attention, bringing him to the same room.

The King called Pokey to the entrance and healed. Sir Lanon then moved 2 rooms while trying to avoid traps and gain focuses finally reached where the King was. Using Divine Might and the Long Sword again, dealt total of 15 damage, minus 6 from the King’s defense. That was more than enough to beat the boss.

Playing time was about 2 hours.

For Northwood! A Solo Trick-Taking Game

More pictures of this For Northwood! game session on Instagram.

Unify the kingdom of Northwood by having dialogues with all 8 fief rulers in For Northwood! A Solo Trick-Taking Game.

Played with Standard game not the scenario campaign. Started with Baron of Eyes, Baron of Leaves, King of Flowers and Lady of Claws.

ROUND 1.

Got 8 Black, 3 Red and 1 Blue with no Yellow with 5 strong cards. I went for Lady of Leaves and I just needed to win once.

The Lady opened with Black 5 and I lost with Black 4. Followed by Red 8 which I lost again with Red 6. Then the Lady went with Yellow 7 which I played my Black 7.

Blue 6 next from the Lady and I played my Blue 4. Finally a Red 3 from the Lady and I won my first with Red 5. Before continuing, King of Flowers discarded my Black 1 and 8 so I had Red 4 left.

The Lady ended with Black 6 which I lost again with my Red 4. She agreed to join the Northwood Kingdom.

ROUND 2.

Got 5 Yellow, 2 Blue and a Red, with 6 of them, strong cards. So, I went to visit Jack of Leaves which I needed to win exactly 6.

Jack opened with Red 5. Got my first win with Red 7. Next was Black 6 and I won using Yellow 8, 2nd time. Jack played their Yellow 1 and 3rd win for me with Yellow 6. He continued with Blue 2 and I won 4th time with Blue 5.

Before next dialogue, the King of Flower took away my Yellow 2 and Blue 7 so I had 2 cards left. 5th win with my Yellow 3 against their Blue 8 and 6th win with Yellow 5 against their Black 5.

So I got exactly 6 wins and convinced Jack to join Northwood.

ROUND 3.

Got 1 yellow, 3 Blue, 3 Red and 2 Black. I guess I got it wrong. Visited Baron of Claws which demanded 5 wins from me.

Baron opened with Black 2 and I got first win with Black 7. Next was Black 6 and I lost with Black 3. Red 3 next and I won with Red 7, 2nd one. MY Blue 7 won against their Blue 6, 3rd time. Blue 3 from them and I got Blue 2.

4th win for me with Yellow 6 against their Yellow 4. Blue 5 wins my 4th one against their Blue 4. 2 cards left with Red 4 and 1. Baron of Eyes helped me by discarding the 4 if I played my 1.

The Baron played Red 8 so I lost and discarded the last card. Exactly 5 wins so the Baron agreed to join Northwood.

ROUND 4.

2 yellow, 3 black and 3 red. No Blue and only 4 strong cards so maybe this was a good time to visit King of Eyes for no win.

The King started with Blue 4. Lost with my Black 8. Blue 3 from him and lost again with my Red 4. Before continuing, my King of Flower friend removed my Black 4 and Black 5. 4 cards left with 2 strong.

Blue 6 was in play and lost again with Yellow 6. Baron of Eyes now helped me discard cards if I played an odd card next. Black 3 from the King and I played my Red, allowing me to discard my Yellow 3. I lost with my Red 2, the final card to Black 2.

Zero win so The King agreed to join Northwood.

ROUND 5.

3 yellow, 1 Blue, 2 Black and 2 Red with 4 strong cards. Decided to visit Lady of Flowers for 2 exact wins.

The Lady opened with Blue 3. First win for me with Blue 4. Black 8 from her next and I lost with my Black 5. Blue 5 afterwards, lost with my Yellow 5. King of Flowers in play again to remove my Yellow 6 and 3 so I had 3 cards left.

Yellow 7 from the Lady and I lost with my Black 4. 2 cards left with 7 and 2 and I still needed 1 more win. Baron of Eyes helped me to remove the 2 if I played 7. It was Yellow 1 so I did as planned.

2 exact wins so the Lady joined the Northwood.

ROUND 6.

3 Blue, 2 Yellow, 2 Black and 1 Red with 3 strong cards. Visited Jack of Claws and I had to win 4.

Jack opened with Black 6 and I lost with Black 3. Red 3 was next and I had no choice but to win, 1st one with Red 7. Yellow 8 from Jack and I lost with yellow 1.

Red 6 from Jack and I had no red so I lost with Blue 1. After that Red 1 came and lost again with yellow 3. Yellow 5 from Jack and no more Yellow for me so I won 2nd time with Black 7. Got 2 Blue left and I had to win twice now.

With the help from Lady of Claws, I discarded Blue 4 and drew 4 cards which I got Blue 2 and 7, Red and Black 5. Jack continued with Blue 5 and I got 3rd win with Blue 6.

King of Flowers removed my Blue 7 and 2 so I had Black and Red 5 left. Red 8 from Jack and I lost my Red 5. Yellow 6 from Jack allowing me to win my 4th with Black 5.

4 exact wins so Jack joined the Kingdom of Northwood.

ROUND 7.

4 Black, 2 Blue, 1 Red and 1 Yellow with 3 strong cards. Visited Prince of Eyes and I had to win 3.

The Prince opened with Yellow 1. Got my first win with Yellow 3. The King of Flowers immediately removed my Black 6 and Blue 3.

Blue 4 from the Prince and I lost with Blue 2. After that, Blue 1 and I lost again with Black 1. Red 3 was next and I won with Red 7, 2nd time. 2 cards left.

Red 8 was next and I lost with Black 7. Lady of Claws finally had a chance to help me. Discarded the Black 3 and got Black 2, Red 4 and 6 in return.

Yellow 6 from the Prince and I lost again with Red 4. 2 cards left but not sure I could win unless got the exact suit. Baron of Eyes helped me got more cards this time since both were even cards.

Yellow 7 from the Prince and I played my Red 6. Drew Blue 7 in return. Red 5 from the Prince and I lost with Black 2. Blue 5, the last card and I won 3rd time with Blue 7.

Got exactly 3 wins so The Prince agreed to join Northwood.

ROUND 8.

Got 4 Blue, 2 Black and 1 Red without Yellow while the last ruler was Baron of Flowers for 7 wins. I brought in 2 substitutes, the Baron of Claws and King of Eyes to help me get more Red.

With Red 8, Baron of Claws got me the other 3 8s. Baron of Flowers started the dialogue with Black 1. 1st win for me with Black 3.

Black 7 after that and got my 2nd win with Black 8. Red 4 next and I lost with my Red 3. Then the Baron played Red 6 and got my 3rd win with Red 8.

Black 2 next and got my 4th with Black 6. Blue 7 from the Baron and 5th win since I got Blue 8. King of Eyes came to help me getting rid if all 4 plus 1 Blue cards. So I had 2 cards left, Yellow 8 and 6.

Yellow 7 was next and I won with Yellow 8, 6th one. Last one turned out to be Yellow 3 which was lucky for me since I won with Yellow 6 as the 7th one. There were still about 11 cards left in the deck, 4 possible reds, 4 yellow, 1 blue and 2 Black.

Got exactly 7 wins. So I managed to convince all 8 rulers to join Northwood.

Playing time was about 58 minutes.

IKI

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

Run a business by hiring various street vendors to support the townspeople’s lives as the Edo Artisan in IKI.

This was a solo session with the fan made variant. I started as the 2nd player. Both had first hired character that produces rice. I placed mine in the Red while the opponent in the Yellow.

ROUND 1.

The opponent started with hiring Ukiyoe Artist then visited the Sandal Shop. Well, I hired the Sandal Maker that increased my Fire Fighting power and I placed him behind the Tobacco shop. After that, I moved to the Watchtower to increase my Fire Fighting Power again and got a Rice.

At this point I somehow forgot to give neutral character for the opponent. They should have taken the Purple Yamabushi.

ROUND 2.

I went first this time and I was going to visit Pawn Shop by moving 2 spaces. Hired a Book Lender and placed him right at that shop so I could spend the Sandal to get money. But the 2 space movement was blocked so I picked the 1. The opponent had to choose the 3 and both of us got to the Tobacco shop.

I went first so I had the chance to buy a pouch and a pipe for the cheaper one. The opponent hired a Carpenter then bought the remaining Pouch and Pipe. I picked Kite Maker for neutral and placed him in the Middle Purple block.

ROUND 3.

Both of us wanted to visit the Pawn Shop. I got to choose first so I picked the 1 movement while the opponent couldn’t hire this time. Well I got the Yamabushi that was supposed to be a neutral previously. Got 5 money for getting and selling Sandal. The opponent did nothing this time at Pawn Shop other than helping my character. Probably should have gone for the neutral character there.

PAYDAY

I got a couple of money and points as income. A bit of harmony bonus as well. Well both were at 2 points. I only had 2 food so I had to let go the Book Lender anyway.

ROUND 4.

The opponent already had 4 workers out. Both of us wanted to visit the Fish Shop. I occupy the 2 spaces first so they had to go first without hiring anyway. I hired the Eel stand and placed him right in front of the fish shop.

Well I guess I couldn’t have afforded the fish if the opponent got the cheaper first. Bought 2 rice anyway from my Eel Stand.

ROUND 5.

Both of us wanted to visit the Sandal Shop again, leveling up all workers. I bought a rice from the neutral and 2 sandals from the shop. Well, I guess the opponent could have removed it before I did?

I also hired an Umbrella maker to increase my Fire Power. Placing him at the outer Purple block.

FIRE happened and hit the Yellow Block, taking down the first worker of the opponent’s.

ROUND 6.

I still needed more rice so I went with 2 to the Fire Tower. More rice and more fire power. No hiring as no more worker. The opponent went with 3 and bought a pair of cheap tobacco pouch and pipe. They also hired Fireworks Maker and placed him at where the last fire happened. My time to pick neutral and I chose Fire Fighter and placed it next to that Firework Maker. All stands were full.

PAYDAY

2nd income and I was at 10 points while the opponent was at 5. I think I managed to feed all of my workers.

ROUND 7.

I wanted to visit the tobacco shop which was just 1 space away. This blocked the opponent from taking that movement so they went first to the Pawn shop. None of us could hire anybody anyway.

The opponent removed the Lantern Maker. I went to tobacco shop and bought a pair of the cheaper set. Also paid the Seamstress there to upgrade my worker, the Salt Peddler so I had extra food during income.

The opponent picked Construction Worker and placed it right where they removed the neutral one. Now all stands were full again.

ROUND 8.

I wanted to visit the Pawn shop, letting the opponent to take the Fish Shop first. Sold 1 Sandal for 4 coins and I increased my Fighting Power thanks to the neutral Construction Worker. Replaced that stand with a Printer.

FIRE happened again and this time to the Blue block. My worker was there but my fire fighting power was enough to block it.

ROUND 9.

Time for me to visit the Fish shop and the opponent got to move first back to Sandal shop. Bought the expensive fish and 2 Rice.

PAYDAY

It seems I failed to feed one worker so I had to let go the Umbrella Maker. Score was 18 for me and 14 for the opponent.

ROUND 10.

I was going to visit Rice shop but the 3-space movement was blocked. So, I chose 2 plus sandal. The opponent went first to the tobacco shop and bought the cheaper set again. I bought 2 rice and got points from Fireworks Maker, helping the opponent a bit. They also helped my Sandal maker retired. First one ever in this session.

I put Trumpet Candy peddler in the middle of tobacco and Fire Tower as neutral worker.

ROUND 11.

I knew the opponent would go first to Pawn shop and removed the neutral there. So, I also aimed to go there and hired Sumo Wrestler to fill that spot. Visited there to sell Sandal again and got total of 3 Fire Power, maximizing my position.

FIRE happened again for the last time and took down the Trumpet Candy Peddler in the red Zone.

It seems I forgot to give neutral worker for the opponent. They could have went to the Red Zone which was completely empty. Maybe the Karuta Maker.

ROUND 12.

Both of us aimed for the Fish Shop again but I knew that the opponent would have gotten there first. Unfortunately I couldn’t afford the expensive one.

Well, I was the one to hire the Karuta Maker since I had no red worker yet. So, instead of ending my turn in the fish shop, I used Sandal to just get 2 more coins.

PAYDAY

I only needed to feed 3. My score was already at 34 while opponent had 21.

NEW YEAR

For the last action I just traded my remaining coins at Exchange Shop. 6 for 1 Gold or 3 points and 3 for Incense Shop to get 5 points. While the opponent bought last pair of tobacco.

SCORING

During the play my score was 79 while the opponent got 54. I think I cheated with the fish a bit so I probably should have lost 3 points while the opponent got 4. Maybe I should have lost a couple more but I still had over 70 while the opponent was about 60.

Somehow I still forgot about the opponent using Sandals instead of just straight to the 1-4 space.

Playing time was about 92 minutes.

One Deck Galaxy

More pictures of this One Deck Galaxy game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Expand your civilization by exploring the outer space, colonizing new locations, Studying the Encounters before finally defeating the Adversary in One Deck Galaxy.

Still playing with PlumPlim, the Botanist from homeworld Brumigum. This time back against the Neeble Woober Colony Fleet as the Adversary. Also played with the Supernova Boost of 6 fleets, 2 Probes, a die of each color and a Black 6 right from the start.

ROUND 1.

I guess I got the rule wrong a bit. The Adversary was supposed to hoard right from the start by rolling 3 dice one of each color. However, I could just assume that none of them got hoarded by them.

Since the Adversary could be hit using 5 Fleets plus 2 Yellow 5s, I enough from the first roll. Then 1 influence to RYSTWEN location and 3 to TWENSO using 6 dice. I still had enough to generate 5 more Fleets.

Two dice left and I used the Cubic Farming from Botanist ability to store the Black 4, turning it into a 5 for next round with red 2 remaining. From the 2 Probes boosts, I had enough to immediately upgrade the Starbase to Level 2.

ROUND 2.

The Adversary managed to hoard 1 Blue. Last round after the Adversary phase, an Encounter finally showed up, the Terra Infirma. So this time this got first influence.

I tried to claim Twenso. It already had 3 influence but I needed 4 to colonize it. So, I used the Floral Ingenuity to move one influence from Rystwen and it got to 4. Added 1 influence back to that Rystwen and another one to Solwert.

Using the remaining dice I generated 5 fleets again. The other 2 leftover dice were to Study the Soliwert for 3 Research points. I still got one blue 5 which I stored and turned it into a 6.

ROUND 3.

No hoarding this time by the Adversary but they got one Colony which would start taking 2 Tech tokens per hoard. 2nd influence to the Encounter.

Added 3 more influence to the Rystwen location. I had to spend 1 fleet. Also traded 2 Blue for one Black 6 for this location.

Two Chillonis locations for the same result so I focused on one. Added 3 influence there by spending 4 fleets and 2 blue dice. Another Fleet had to be spent to change one of the die.

Two dice for generating two fleets. While the other 3 went for Probes.

ROUND 4.

The Adversary got first influence and hoarded Yellow. Encounter got their 3rd influence so it escalated and hoarded a Red. Maybe I should have added 2 more disc.

Added 5th and 6th influence to Rystwen which was finally enough to colonize it. 4 more Fleets were sent for 2 more influence to one of the Chillonis. Got both as additional colonies to my Civ. Starting next round, got 3 discs and one die for each color.

The other Chillonis took 3 dice for 2 influence. Solwert got 1st influence with 2 Yellow. 4 dice left. One was Blue 5, stored it. The other were for 3 Fleets.

At this point the deck run out of cards first time. Also, I upgraded the Starbase to Level 3.

ROUND 5.

Adversary event allowed them to hoard 3 Black and got extra red to hoard during Escalation. They still escalated this time and hoarded 2nd Yellow and another red plus 2 more Tech disc. I had to level up my Civ or getting Overwhelmed next round, losing my first adversary disc.

I needed more dice and currently the only colony to give me two more dice was Solwert. Required 6 influence and I only had 1. I had a chance to add 3 more this time so using PlumPlim ability, move 2 Influence from Chillonis so I could colonize Solwert this round. Had to spend 1 fleet for it.

Two new locations were both GERN. Added 2 influence each using total of 8 dice. Plus the Black 3 from the only Tech, I still had 2 more dice. Stored the Blue 4 into 5 for next round and I generated 2 Fleets.

ROUND 6.

Adversary got their 3rd Influence and traded with 1 Colony. No hoarding this time and no Encounter. Lost my Adversary disc since they had 3rd colony.

I started with 6 Red and the other 2 were hoarded. So I leveled up. Well, I had to start hitting the Adversary again. Using the other side from last time, I needed Yellow and Blue 6 plus Blue 20. Got the Blue 6 already and I had to trade 2 Red 6 for Black 6. Also had to trade one red and one yellow for Black 4. Using the tech for Black 4, I got enough Blue to deal 2nd damage to Adversary.

I still had 6 dice, 3 reds and 3 yellows. One influence added to the new location, VOH and 3rd influence to one of the GERN. Also moved the 2 influence from 2nd GERN to VOH so I got to colonize it as well. Added one Tech and one Colony to my Civ.

Dealt 2nd damage to the Adversary.

ROUND 7.

Adversary got 1st influence and hoarded 3rd yellow. No encounter. Since I started getting 5 yellows per turn, no more yellow in the supply so I leveled up again.

And I had a chance to hit the Adversary right away. Using the same side of the Adversary card, I needed Yellow and Blue 6 plus Blue 28. With Artisinal Ultratech and Matter Duplication and traded some Reds, I got enough for Blue 28.

I still had 9 dice. Spent 3 for 2 influence on YuvGotMail Co location. Then 3 research points and 2 Fleets for 2 influence for Hexfinity, another new location. The rest 6 were to generate 6 more fleets.

3rd damage to the Adversary. One more but I needed to get more Blue dice.

ROUND 8.

2nd Influence to Adversary but beside the disc, they didn’t hoard additional dice. No Encounter.

The Hexfinity location allowed me to have a tech to generate a 6 from each color. But it required 9 influence. I already had 2. Using the tech, I moved there 2 from the other location. 2 Blue for 1 influence to GERN. Blue and Red 6 for 2 more influence to Hexfinity and 3 dice for 2 influence to Yuvgotmail co.

Generated 11 fleets with 8 dice, thinking about using the other side of Adversary card. 2 last dice were to do Probe.

ROUND 9.

Event happened but it was just adding colony to Adversary. This was also 3rd influence for them so they got another Colony but no Hoarding.

Since I wanted to level up by taking every Blue from the supply, I stored at least 2 of them there. One other was Black.

Moved influence again from GERN to Hexfinity. Added two more with 2 dice on GERN. Hexfinity had 7 for the required 9. Blue and Red 6 for the last 2. Got another tech from it. 3 dice for 2 influence, 3rd and 4th of YUVGOTMAIL Co.

I still had 5 dice. 3 for Fleets and 2 for Probes.

ROUND 10.

1st influence of Adversary. Hoarded new Red and Blue and 2 discs. Still no Encounter. Actually 2 Encounters showed up after that phase.

As predicted, no more BLue in supply and I still got 5 in my Pool so I leveled up. My last hit required Yellow 28 and Blue 35.

Already got Blue 33 from just the roll. Spent 2 Fleets for it. Yellow only got 16 from the roll. Traded 2 Red 6 so it got to 22. Spent 6 Fleets for the rest. Still had a couple of Fleets.

Dealt the last damage to Adversary and won the game. Without that many fleets, I probably had to spend one more turn just to negotiate and take the discs back.

Playing time was about 102 minutes.

Rolling Realms Redux

More pictures of this Rolling Realms Redux game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Explore different realms of board game multiverse in Rolling Realms Redux.

Rolling Realms itself is not a new game but this Redux version is a standalone game from this year. I knew about Rolling Realms when it was played and developed as a print and play game during Covid. Jamey Stegmaier as the lead designer played this remotely with his audience. It seems it got a good reception and generated huge demand among their fanbase so they released the retail version of Rolling Realms back in 2021.

So, here is a bit of story between me and this Rolling Realms game. The original idea is to convert the gameplay mechanism of established games from Stonemaier Games into a roll and write form. Especially during Covid, this was a huge value when people cannot meet up and play together. A lot of publishers even started to release roll and write version of their games.

I always love that idea as I cannot buy everything. Having a smaller version, faster to setup and play, smaller box and footprint with accessible price is a good offer for me.

However, with Rolling Realms, I’m not convinced. At that point, I have only played one of their games, Wingspan and only once. Not exactly interested with their other games, even if they are mostly because of the price. Also, it seems this is just mini game while the other publishers try to really make a big game from their previous designs.

So, I thought, why should I pick Rolling Realms but not the other games. Especially we have a lot of choices for this genre. Because of that, I skipped the original Rolling Realms.

However, as the time went by, it seems I started to lose my love for Roll and Write games or something in that genre. One of the reasons is that these publishers seem to love selling single use sheets over using dry erase board.

The thing is, those publishers may have stock on their website or storage for new set of sheets but it doesn’t work for me who lives not in the main market of board games. It is very unlikely for any of my local stores to even sell just the sheets. If anything, they end up having unsold copies of base game which indicates, not enough demand to just have those sheets.

So if I like the game enough and use all of those sheets, it’s like I have to import new sheets. I might as well just buy a new copy which is a waste for the other components.

I could be wrong here but it seems those sheets can end up increasing the price because it makes the box heavier. This is the reason I haven’t tried Hadrian’s Wall. Here, I have to pay more expensive price for that game than the other Garphill Games from the same store.

You might say, just buy a copy and laminate or scan the sheets or whatever. Well, I don’t have printer and not really handy to laminate. If I have to go to printshop that means, there is a chance I actually spreading those files, which is basically defeat the idea of the publisher trying to sell more sheets.

Either way, it’s like I have to do something even after purchasing the game. So, I thought, why not just buy other games, especially for the same price? Without extra effort. But then I still want to play roll and writes, considering how fast they can be.

That’s how I got back to Rolling Realms. I didn’t realize back then that Jamey Stegmaier had an idea to expand his game and open it for other publishers as well. I thought he was going to just cover games from his publishing company.

At this point, the game has become like an LCG or CCG. I even consider this as probably the best BUSINESS IDEA in board game industry. Not that I know anything about business.

So, if the other publishers are deliberately trying to make it harder for me to play their roll and write games, maybe I should just stick with Rolling Realms.

With the announcement of the Redux standalone game, I thought I should go for it.

Why Redux and not the original game? Well, back to my idea of exploring more games, I thought Redux offers a lot more, not just from games from Stonemaier.

Here is what I didn’t realize and could have changed my decision to go with the other. Basically, with the Redux, I’m buying a big empty box. This is meant to be a storage for collectors who probably have bought a couple of promo packs outside the original game.

The content you get from this version takes just 1 sixth of the entire box. This is even worse if you mostly play solo since you probably only use like 1 fifth. I mean, I probably will buy a couple of promo packs but not everything.

If you play only solo, you can just use the travel box for a lot of promo packs. All 98 cards from this Redux can fit in that box and has extra room so even if you have everything and just take 1 card from each realm up to this Redux, you still have enough storage. IN THAT TRAVEL BOX.

Well, the funny thing about the Travel box is that it is meant just for the cards. Definitely not for those 2 big D6, even if you can fit in if you only bring cards for one player. If the box is taller, then you can even fit the marker. So, this is really a weird idea for me.

If you don’t care about the realms, playing solo and not a collector, maybe it’s better to just go with the original box and buy promo packs.

Oh, well. Sorry for the rant about me and roll and writes.

So, how does the game play?

You play 3 rounds and each round consists of 9 turns. Each turn you roll 2 d6 and have to use both on two of the realms. Every round you pick 3 realms and every player will use the same realms. The goal is to get as many STARS, mostly up to 6 per realm plus leftover resources.

You do that same thing with 2 more rounds, using 2 sets of 3 other realms you have not played without carrying over the resources. After 3 rounds, you tally the score and the highest score wins.

That is the general idea of game. What you do in one round doesn’t really affect your play of the other rounds. While I am aware that these are collection of mini games, I was expecting there is a connecting part between each part and each set of realms to create a big experience.

No, that’s not the case here. They stay as just mini games. You can easily just play a single round with 3 realms. This Redux version comes with 12 realms. Since you play a total of 9 per game, even with just single game, you already see most of them. The different experience you can get is from each set of 3 realms per round.

I just got my first play and played the standard game, not the special solo mode. The game itself is completely multiplayer solitaire, no player interaction. Well, that’s not uncommon in this genre, especially since this one was intended to be played remotely.

Somehow, my first play took about 90 minutes, with 3 rounds. The breakdown is that, my 2nd round took only about 13 minutes and 3rd round probably 15. First round took exactly 30.

These are just the playing time not the learning at the start and between each round. I guess you will experience this everytime you play a new realm.

The first 3 realms were Atiwa, Meadow and Spaceshipped. I already knew about Meadow but I got confused a bit. Spaceshipped is rather simple. Atiwa was a bit confusing and even now I’m not sure I understand it correctly. I guess that is why it took that long.

2nd one were Dog Park, Flamecraft and Wonderland’s War. Maybe after better understanding about the game after the first round, these 3 were not that difficult to grasp. From these 3 Flamecraft is the one a bit tricky to understand while the other 2 are simpler.

Then in my 3rd round, I played with Planet Unknown, Legacy if Yu and Rock Paper Scissor. It felt easier when you get to this 3rd round. Definitely like the Planet Unknown and the Rock Paper Scissor. Didn’t do much with the Legacy of Yu.

On the other hand, I didn’t feel I got enough Resources from these 3 compared to the other 2. Maybe I still got things wrong.

The score was 11, 14.1, 12.8 with the total score of 37.9.

In this game, you have 3 different resources, a pumpkin, heart and coin that you can gain and spend afterwards. Spending them allows you to manipulate the dice result just for you. Most of them requires 2 to spend. You can change the value by 1. Maybe get a 3rd die to fill the 3rd realm. Another allows you to activate the same realms twice per turn.

Some realms seem to be better with high value rolls while others treat values equally or the high rolls for special action. Since you start with no resource to manipulate, understanding which realms need what first can be helpful to play well.

For some realms, getting Star or VP is easy, like it can happen in first turn. Even though it still takes a while before getting all 6 VP. While with other realms, you don’t score until the end. Some you score immediately while others you probably need to progress a bit before getting the next higher score.

The compendium book definitely helps explaining things further, considering you cannot put all text on those cards. But not ideal. I wish they can put an example of how to take one turn instead of just showing the card for each realm. I’m sure it will make the book even bigger.

Here is the thing with the design of the cards. If there is no hidden information, why not use the back of each card for explanation instead of just Rolling Realms logo?

In that compendium book, you can also find who actually design the realm, gameplay wise. At first, I thought every designer of the original game is involved in the process. It seems that is not the case and publisher can just give rights to use the art. Only few realms, other than Jamey’s game are designed by the original designer. Even the Wingspan one was designed by Jamey and not Elizabeth Hargrave.

I was expecting that if it was done by the designer themselves, maybe you can get better idea of their games. From the 12 realms included in this Redux box, only Spaceshipped was done by the game’s designer. I thought Legacy of Yu was also since Shem Phillips did the Architects but that was not the case.

Most of them were done by Karel Titeca, co designer of this Rolling Realms who also did a lot of the Promo Packs. So anybody can design the realm of their favorite game? Like Alex Radcliffe from Boardgame co. He is mainly a Content creator but designed the realm for Terraforming Mars.

Well, that’s cool but I was expecting some involvements of the original designer. That is kind of misleading. I mean, there are a lot of people who blindly by games just by knowing it is designed by their favorite designers. But here, you get a title of your favorite but not exactly is designed by them.

Not saying that the any creator of the realm cannot do better than the original. Just some of my expectations.

Nonetheless, the Compendium Book is also a good resource for purchasing some older promo packs. Some of them include notes when to play with certain solo mode or Risky Reward realms.

A bit about the production. The cards are meant to be written using dry erase markers. Usually I used my own markers with different colors when playing games like this.

Somehow after just one play, the color already stained the cards. This happened to the scoring and resources cards, the two that you have to clean up between rounds. Instead of white cards, it looks purple now. Maybe I should be more careful and clean properly or use sleeve for those 2.

Overall, I do like the game. Didn’t quite reach my expectation. Maybe I’ll eventually buy more packs after trying the special solo variant, the Tournament or the other solo variant.

Dale of Merchants

More pictures of this Dale of Merchants game session on Instagram.

Recently, there was an announcement about the official solo mode for Dale of Merchants as part of the 10-year anniversary for this game. You can read about it here[thread=3412500][/thread].

In that, there is a link that leads to dropbox with PnP file and the draft rulebook. The PnP file means you need extra components outside content from the box. However, they are just a single card for each faction or animalfolks that you include for the opponent.

If you use card sleeves, you can just put a note on a piece of paper inside the sleeve of unused card to give it a try. These cards will determine the actions for the solo opponent called MONO.

I’m sure I still got some of the rules wrong but here is the general idea. You as the single player will play the same game as in multiplayer mode. Buy cards to deck build, activate its ability and eventually build 8 stacks of stall before your opponent.

Then after your turn, you resolve the opponent. They will have their own deck, buy cards and also build stall but not the same way as human player. On Mono’s turn, you have 5 face down cards. You flip them all and if you find one of these SPECIAL cards, you activate the first one to show up.

Every faction will have unique Mono’s special action. Since you play with 3 factions like in 2-player game, you will play with 3. The actions seems to represent the unique faction power.

For example, Squirrels allow the opponent to include Junk cards as part of the Stack. Panda will take the highest value card on the market. I think Racoons have a chance to steal something from you. Like I said, depends on the Animalfolk but you can get some interactions.

After you resolve that one card, if the card has plus sign, then the opponent will try to build the stall. If failed, they will then use remaining cards in their hand to purchase cards they can afford from the left and add that card to their hand.

At the end of Mono’s turn, you discard all Junk cards from their hand, flip the remaining card and then add back to 5 cards from their deck.

How they build the stack of stall is also different. They can mix and match any animalfolk in a single stack. Not only that, they can also exceed the target value for each stack. It sounds like they can be not very efficient since they can use a 5 for 2nd stack or so, right?

Special cards will not be part of any stacks but they have value for purchasing. Even if you play with faction to steal their cards, you have to return them.

Other than those, you play like in normal game.

Well, after 4 attempts, here is my first impression: I regret even trying this. I went from very excited to try this into regretting it.

The opponent is too strong. Yes, the draft rulebook even mention that it is meant to be tough opponent and some combinations of decks will be even tougher.

I picked Squirrels, Panda and Macaw for those 4 sessions. While I don’t mind tough opponent as long as you can keep up. But in this case, they manage to get to 8th stack of stall while I was still at most 3rd.

Either I got major error that I don’t know where I got it wrong or I have to assume this is not close to an ideal rule.

Maybe those 3 are indeed one of the toughest match up. The Squirrels can just use all Junk cards to build the first few stacks. I got one play where the 4th stack of theirs were all Junk cards.

This then led them to thinning or culling the deck so fast to the point that they don’t even have a deck. They just have 3 cards, all of their Special cards. Eventually, they got to Panda card that allowed them to purchase the highest value. And guess what? There is always a 4 or a 5.

So, they take it to their hand. On their next turn, even if it is not enough for the next stack, they can easily purchase any card even without the Panda again. Of course, in their next turn, since they can combine any animalfolk cards, they easily build that stack. There is no way to slow them down.

You can tell me that it is just the poor pairing. But then is it really necessary to give them the advantage of combining any animalfolk cards for stack and let them exceed any value requirement. In one of my play, they even manage to get exactly a 3 and a 5 for their 8th stall, from the same animalfolk. For me, that is the one that makes them overpowered.

That doesn’t really simulate how you play in normal game. Of course you can say that they are trying to offer different experience with this solo mode. But I don’t think it is a good one.

Because their deck is so thin, it feels like the whole game, me as the only player end up wasting time to just shuffle their deck. And it feels unnecessary. They draw 5 cards and let’s say get a lot of junk. So, they discard them at the end and cycle the deck faster so you shuffle more while for your own play you just take 1 new card. Different experience from normal game? Sure. Not really a good one.

Too bad. Again, I don’t deny that maybe I got some rules wrong. Unfortunately, at this point, they have not released any video related to this. If on the other hand, I got the rules right and this is close to the final rule, then I’m very disappointed.

I’m still interested to play correctly but not to look for more information myself. So, if anybody read this and know how to play the official solo variant correctly, and can tell how I got it wrong based on what I wrote here, please tell me. Otherwise, I guess Dale of Merchants stays as just game for multiplayers.

Playing time per session was about 30 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Dale of Merchants Review.

Chocobo’s Dungeon: The Board Game

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

Help Chocobo find spells and foods, beat enemies, avoid traps until finally beat the Behemoth in Chocobo’s Dungeon: The Board Game.

This was my 2nd play and finally gave the official solo variants a try. Compared to the multiplayer mode, there is no hidden information since there is one hand of cards. But there is a limit for hand size with just 12 cards while you can have as many cards in the multiplayer game.

Well, the thing about that part is, it is very unlikely you have the luxury to just get more cards. If anything in this specific session, I almost lost the game because I didn’t have enough.

According to the rulebook, this solo variant is considered as NORMAL difficulty and there is no official way to play the easier one. With that said, I’m just going to start by mentioning that I lost. Badly. Or more like I cheated in order to keep going.

I probably have lost the game on 3rd Floor before even reaching the Boss. Everything started out very nicely until near the end of 2nd floor. I have to advance further down after seeing more enemies in a single turn.

Then it got worse on 3rd floor where you see 2 Elite enemies every turn and got hit 2 damage per enemy. It’s like you need to hoard some strong cards so that with just 1 attack action, so you can reduce the damage at the end at least. After 2nd round of that 3rd floor Chocobo’s health was stuck with just 1 or two.

At that point, I probably should have just reset the game and start over. However, it already took almost an hour to get to that point. Well, another hour before beating the game, cheatingly.

Initially I was worried about the randomness with the action wheel where you have to play 1 card first, draw 2 and then play 2 more. It is not as bad as I thought. But that is assuming you have a good variety of cards.

After reading the rule again, I think I noticed 2 rules errors that I made. One was about attacking enemies. You cannot attack multiple enemies in a single action, even if the value is enough to take them both. Well, I caught this during the game and I think it matters mostly with the regular enemies.

The 2nd one could actually make the boss stage easier. Apparently you only need to resolve Reaper action at the end. So, if in one round the Reaper moves twice, you only need to resolve the last space and it is done at the end of the round not when moving. I did twice which made it impossible for Chocobo to gain health back at all.

This also means moving the Reaper because Chocobo triggered it, doesn’t necessarily hurt you. And it is different with how you resolve Chocobo space. You can still lose the game instantly if the Reaper is ever adjacent to Chocobo during that Boss mode.

Well, it doesn’t really matter if I cannot survive long enough to reach the boss stage.

I think I misinterpret another rule related to Spell Books by thinking that you can only use all those 15 once per game. In the rulebook there is a sentence saying that after using the spell you need to set it aside as it cannot be used again.

It doesn’t say about returning them to the supply or pool and you can get it back again later which is how I interpreted at first. If that is the case, it feels so limiting, especially you can only hold 3 at a time. They could have just said after using it once, discard it, if you are meant to get it back again.

It doesn’t say like for the cards where you need to use all cards before eventually shuffle the discard pile to create a new deck. Does it mean I also need to use all spells first before going to use the same one again?

From my previous play, I thought maybe I should spend more time on the upper floor. Mostly because of my interpretation of the Spell books but also preparing to get more cards and vegetables. Maybe I should just go straight to the end of the floor, especially the 3rd one.

I had the idea to going back and forth between two spaces that give you some resources to keep retriggering using different move actions. During that one play, I got one chance for it and decided to just keep moving since the Reaper was about to reach the end. I guess not really a viable one.

Well, I still want to try this official solo variant again, hopefully with the correct rule. If it is still too hard, maybe just go back playing multi hands. I heard it is easier with more players since you have more cards in hand.

Or maybe I should try starting with 12 cards and 3 Spell Books as the Easy Solo Variant. Another idea that I can try is to treat it like a video game where you have save point. Maybe just restart the game from after entering the next floor. With the same starting resources just to go farther.

This way, you can just play the boss fight right away. Maybe I should try that with the next play. Start with the Boss Fight right away. If it is too easy, then go with one floor above.

Aerion

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

Build a fleet of various airships to travel the skies of the Oniverse in Aerion.

Finally got the chance to play this game again. This was a solo session using all of the modules. Used all of the factory cards and the harder variant of stone clouds and hammer birds.

1st ROUND. Rolled only a pair and almost a straight. There was a factory card from the first deck that allows you to hold as many books so I aimed for that. Discarded the only Hourglass card to reroll and actually got 2 pairs different from the initial. So I took the Factory card.

2nd ROUND. Somehow I got almost the same roll, just 1 pair and almost a straight. The first deck had the Hourglass so I aimed for that. Discarded the Material card from 4th deck got 2 pairs. Got 1 of 6 Hourglass.

3rd ROUND. This time I got a straight, 1 to 6. The card from that deck was the Egg card so I had to take it to let it cycle faster.

4th ROUND. Got 3 of a kind and other random 3. The card from that deck was a Crew so no use for now. Discarded that card to reroll the other 3 and one of them got the 4th of the same kind. The card from that deck as a Blueprint so I took it. Hellkite was preventing materials.

5th ROUND. Got 2 Pairs and the card there was Material, a cocoon. I took it for the Flagship card since the Blueprint that I already got didn’t need that.

6th ROUND. Got another 2 Pairs and the same cocoon card again. Hellkite was preventing crews. The last deck had worker and I tried to use it to reroll 3 times. I ended up rerolling once and got 3 pairs. That deck had an Egg so I took it.

7th ROUND. Rolled 2 pairs and Hellkite was guarding Blueprints. There was only 1 Blueprint and I already took it. Discarded the card and got lucky roll with 3 pairs. That deck had an Hourglass so I took that, 2 out of 6.

8th ROUND. Hellkite was guarding Books and I was back to roll a pair with almost a straight. I discarded the Cocoon card from deck 1 and the rerolled got me 3 pairs. Super lucky. That deck had a blueprint so I took it for my 2nd workshop. There was also an hourglass so it went to discard. I guess I was actually aiming for that hourglass.

9th ROUND. Got an exact straight from 2 to 6 plus a 4. The deck had factory card so Hellkite was not guarding it. This allowed me to take any crew before the other 2 types.

10th ROUND. Got only a single Pair with Hellkite blocking materials. Not sure what I aimed but I discarded the Hammer Bird from 4th deck and got a 3 of a kind from rerolling the other 4. So I got a full house and the deck had Books.

11th ROUND. Lucky roll and got exact 3 pairs of 4, 5, 6. The deck had a Crew, yellow crew and since I had the factory I could take it. Hellkite was on for Books. Placed it for the Flagship.

12th ROUND. Got 2 pairs of 4 and 6, plus a 5 and 1 so I got total of 26 to pay the Worker.

13th ROUND. Hellkite was on blueprints and I rolled 3 of a kind. The deck had cocoon which worked for my 2nd Workshop.

14th ROUND. Rolled 2 pairs again and the Hellkite was on Books. After discarding the Factory from 4th deck and a blueprint from 3rd, the rerolled got me 3rd of 4s. That deck had an Hourglass, 3rd of 6.

15th ROUND. Hellkite was on crews and I only rolled a Pair. There was a Worker so I took him. The rerolls got me the 3rd for 3 of a kind. Got to take more egg cards.

16th ROUND. Got a Full House and the deck had a Nuts Material. Unfortunately, Hellkite prevented it. After discarding the other nuts from 4th deck and the factory card from 2nd, I got to make 5 of a kind to build the first PIER.

17th ROUND. Got 2 pairs and Hellkite on Books. I didn’t want to take the blueprint from that deck 1 so I discarded it to reroll the non pairs. Got 4 of a kind instead and the deck had Blue material. I took it for the Flagship.

18th ROUND. Another 2 pairs and that deck had Crew. But Hellkite prevented it. Discarded that crew to reroll the other non pairs and now I got 2 sets of 3 of a kind. That 4th deck had a Book so I took it.

19th ROUND. 2 pairs again and Hellkite on Blueprints. Deck 1 had Hourglass that I already had. Discarded that one to reroll one of the pair and got a 3rd for the other. That deck had an Egg so I took it.

20th ROUND. 2 Pairs of 4 and 5 plus a 3 and a 6 with Hellkite on Books. The total value was 27. I discarded hourglass from deck 1 and rerolled the 3 and got a 6. Now the total from just dice was 30. Decided to remove one of the Stone Cloud for the airship that was almost done.

21st ROUND. Rolled 3 pairs and that deck had crews and the Hellkite prevented it. The total value was 28 so I used them to pay the Worker.

22nd ROUND. So I got 2 pairs of 2 and 4 plus a 3 and 1 with Hellkite on materials. It was close to hit Hellkite. Discarded the material from deck 3 and rerolled a 4 into a 3. So I got 15 and first hit to the Hellkite.

23rd ROUND. Single pair with almost a Straight. Hellkite on Crew. There was an egg on deck 5 so I used the book hoping to get either 4 of a kind or 5 of a kind. I got only 4 so I took the Egg.

24th ROUND. Single pair, almost a Straight. The total value was 18, close to hit Hellkite again. I tried to reroll the 5 and 6. Had to discard the 2 yellow crews from deck 4 and 5. I got 14 so 2nd hit to Hellkite.

25th ROUND. Rolled a full house but the total value was 11. 3rd hit to Hellkite.

26th ROUND. Rolled a Full House and the deck had a Book that Hellkite was on. So I spent just a single egg and exchange the card from that same deck and got a crew. I completed my first ship from that 4th deck with blue Crew and Cocoon.

27th ROUND. Single pair almost straight again with total value of 18. I just need to change the 6 into at least a 3 and another hit to Hellkite. Discarded the Worker from deck 3. Rerolled the 6 and got a 2 so the total was 14, 4th hit to the Hellkite.

28th ROUND. Single pair again almost the same situation as previous round. Maybe I aimed for something but I ended up discarding 4 cards from the grid for rerolling. The result was 5th hit to Hellkite with total value of 13. It was actually a Full House but I already got rid of the card.

29th ROUND. Not sure what I rolled initially. The deck 5 had an Hourglass that I didn’t have yet. Discarded the other hourglass and I got 4 of a kind to take that Hourglass. Finally that most powerful Factory card showed up.

30th ROUND. Rolled 2 pairs and Hellkite was on books, preventing me from getting them from either deck 1 or 2. Maybe I aimed for that factory card and discarded the crew from last deck. Got 3 pairs instead and I had to take an Egg.

31st ROUND. Rolled 2 pairs again and I got to take the Book.

32nd ROUND. Rolled 3 pairs this time and another Book.

33rd ROUND. Got a Full House but the deck was showing a Hammer Bird. So I used it for the 3 of a kind, more books.

34th ROUND. So I got single pair with total value of 20. Hitting the Hellkite would get me a Crew, the blue from Deck 1. I ended up discarding 2 cards, hourglass from deck 2 and blueprint from deck 4. Got 14 so I hit Hellkite and got that Crew. I think I placed it for Flagship.

35th ROUND. Got 3 of a kind with total value of 20. Discarded the Hourglass that I already had the rerolled the 5 and 6, turning them into a 1 and 4 so the total was 14. Another hit for Hellkite. 5 more and Hellkite was done. No more blocking.

36th ROUND. Rolled 3 of a kind and I wanted that Factory to flip the die. Spent my first Fairy to get a 4 of a kind. Discarded the Factory card 6 so I could no longer take crew first.

37th ROUND. Got a Full House but that deck had a Hammer Bird. So I took a Worker to reroll 3 times. Got 4 of a kind so I took the Egg card from deck 5.

38th ROUND. Not sure what I rolled but after discarding one worker card I got 5 of a kind so I built my 2nd PIER.

39th ROUND. Finally there were 3 Hammer Bird cards for 100 points. I also rolled 24 so I got to destroy 4 Stone clouds. 1 more.

40th ROUND. So I got a straight. The deck had a Book so I decided to spend 3 Egg cards to get a new one which was a blueprint.

41st ROUND. Rolled a Full House and took more books.

42nd ROUND. I got 2 pairs with a 1 and a 6. With the flipping ability, I could easily got 3 pairs. But the deck had no more card. So I spent a Book to return 2 cards, which I chose the 2 Materials. Discarded the Worker from deck 2 for the flip and got the Material. This was for the Flagship and now it had all 5 required cards. still 5 more airships.

43rd ROUND. Rolled almost 3 pairs but no chance to flip like before. Instead I spent my 2nd Fairy to change one into 3rd pair. Got more Nuts for my 1st Workshop.

44th ROUND. Rolled 2 2s and 2 4s with a 1 and a 5. Flipped the 4 and got a Straight. Discarded the blueprint from the deck 2 and got Material from deck 6 for my Workshop 2.

45th ROUND. Got 3 of a kind but not sure what I got from that deck. I spent 2 egg cards for a better result and found a Crew. This completed the airship in my Workshop 1. 4 more.

46th ROUND. Got a full House and more Nuts to my workshop 1.

47th ROUND. 2 Pairs and that 3rd deck had 2 of last hourglass. I spent my last fairy to make that Full House. 1 more.

48th ROUND. Rolled 4 of a kind and the deck had a crew that I couldn’t use. So I stored it using my Books.

49th ROUND. Rolled a Full House and the deck had Blueprint with me having no empty workshop. Stored again with Books.

50th ROUND. 2 Pairs and got Book again.

51st ROUND. Got a Full House and took a Crew. This completed the Airship in Workshop 2. 3 more.

52nd ROUND. Full House again with 3 3s and 2 6s plus a 4. Discarded Hourglass from that deck 3 to turn a 4 into 4 3s. Got more Books.

53th ROUND. Rolled 2 pairs with the total value of exactly 15. Hitting the Hellkite got me a Blueprint. I had to spend an Egg for that deck 1 to get the blueprint. 4 more for Hellkite.

54th ROUND. Got 3 of a kind. I took Worker from deck 1 hoping to get 4 of a kind or 5. Only got Full House instead to get more Egg.

55th ROUND. A straight from 2 to 6 plus a 2. Took Blue material from deck 6 for my workshop 2.

56th ROUND. 2 hammer birds so those 2 alone were enough to destroy the last Stone Cloud.

57th ROUND. 2 Pairs. Discarded a Hammer Bird from deck 1 to reroll got me a Full House. Another Egg.

58th ROUND. A straight plus a 6. Got more book from deck 6.

59th ROUND. Got Full House but used it for 3 of a kind to take Cocoon. Stored it using Books.

60th ROUND. So I got Full House with total value of 19. Hitting the Hellkite would get me a Crew. Spent a Book to return 2 Crews on deck 4. Then I discarded the Blueprint from deck 6 to reroll the 2 5s and got 2 3s with total value of 15. 3 more hits for Hellkite. This completed the airship from workshop 2 and the 3 cards stored using books were also completed. One last ship and I already had the Material.

61st ROUND. Got 3 of a kind and took Book from deck 2.

62nd ROUND. Got a Pair, almost straight. Decided to take Workers and after rerolls got 5 5s. Completed the last PIER.

63rd ROUND. 4 3s, a 2 and a 6. Discarded the hourglass from deck 2 to flip the 6 into 1 so the total value was 15. Hit the Hellkite and got a Book from deck 5. 2 more for Hellkite.

64th ROUND. 2 2s and 2 4s with a 1 and a 5. Discarded hammer bird from deck 2 to flip the 5 into a 2 so the total was 15. Hit Hellkite and no effect unfortunately. One more.

65th ROUND. Rolled 2 pairs and the total value was 21. Discarded hourglass from deck 2 to reroll the 2s and got a 4 and a 6. That was enough to pay 1 of 3 last worker.

66th ROUND. Finally, the last Blueprint from deck 2. Hellkite was on the last card to get me that Blueprint. The total value of the roll was 21. Discarded factory card 3 to reroll the 2 5s and 2 4s. Got 2 1s, a 6 and a 3 so the total was 14. Last hit to the Hellkite.

67th ROUND. Last objectives were last crew, 2 workers and last hourglass from deck 6. Rolled almost straight and the total value was 25. Discarded the worker from deck 6 to turn the 2 into 5 and I got more than 26 to pay 2nd to last worker.

68th ROUND. Another almost straight and the last hourglass showed up. Spent one book and the rerolled got me that last Hourglass.

69th ROUND. Got 3 of a kind. Spent book again and the rerolls of 3 other dice got me 3 pairs. Got that last crew and finished the last airship.

70th ROUND. Last roll got me 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 6. That was exactly 26 to pay my last worker. I completed everything.

6 cards left in deck 6, 4 from deck 1, 2 from deck 2. Still had 2 eggs and 2 Books.

Playing time was about 99 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Aerion Review.

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.