This weekend has been a bit massive with boardgaming. A friend of mine who has a podcast in swedish about board- and roleplaying, came over with a couple of more friends and even more friends came over and we played a whoöe bunch of games! We played Underwater cities (we only had time for one era…), Sheriff of Nottingham, Decrypto, Just One, Time’s Up and Wingspan.
All but Just One was new to me. It is a quick cooperative word guessing game where everybody but one person knows the word and need to write down one word to help the last person to guess the right word. But if two or more people write the same clue, it will get erased. So everybody writes something down that is helping them, kind of. Because if it’s too easy, someone else probably will also write it down. Which makes this game really fun! For example, if we had the word pipe. One person writes Popeye, because he has a pipe. Another person writes down tobacco and a third one writes down sewer. Those three words are not coherent for one kind of pipe. So you have to use your imagination and try to think like the person who DON’T know the word. Makes for some interesting wordchoices. Really fun party game!
Decrypto is more complicated. You divide everyone into two teams. Each team gets a “decryptor” and 4 cards that only your team can see. These cards all have one word written on them. And under the card, on the deceyptor, there is a number. One person gives clues to the words on the cards that both teams hear and will try and guess the numbers the word is attached too. Each round a person draws a card that says three numbers so you give clues to a different combination of the words. (3-2-4, next time 4-1-2 for example) makes for a really interesting game. Giving a clue that your team can understand seeing the words, yet cryptic enough that the other team can not get them together. I really liked that game. Oh, if your team can’t guess the right combination twice you lose. If the other team guesses the right combination twice they win. It might seem hard to grasp without seeing it, but it was really interesting playing!
Sheriff of Nottingham is a bluffing game where you try to get the most coins by getting wares by the sheriff. There are many legal goods that give you points but the contraband gives so way more coins, so it’s hard to resist. Apples give you two points each but a single contraband can give you fifteen. If the sheriff looks in a bag where there is no contraband he has to give money to that player, but if there is contraband the player has to pay a fine to the sheriff. Players can try to bribe the sheriff to not look in the bag. But then again, other players can bribe the sheriff to look in another players bag too! After every turn the sheriff role goes to the next player and everybody gets to be the sheriff twice. In the end you get points (money) based on every good you have, if you have the most or second to most of a single ware. Most money win. It’s a stupidly easy and fumny game that takes minutes to learn and I think you can pull out with almost anybody! It might make it to my shelves to, soonish.
Time’s Up is basically a quiz game on time. With a really interesting twist. You get to use the same cards 3 times. The first time you get to describe the words as much as you like, without saying the actual words on the card. The second round, same cards, one word, you get to pass if you like and make as much gestures and sounds as you like. Third round. NO words. Only sound and gestures. Oh, and you only get 30 seconds on every turn! A very interesting game with a lot of laughter and trying to figure out peoples references and everything else. We had the advantage in our team with two people who have an interest in film. We took most of the film cards. But oh man… there were some weird references. Someone humming Black Sabbaths “iron man” to get “sgt Peppers lonely heart club band” in the last round. It was beautiful!
Underwater cities we only played one era of because there was no time for more. That game I really want to play more. Some really interesting tactics that can be used in that! Three actions per turn to get what you need and almost never get. I have bo idea who was actually winning because everybody played it for the first time and everybody used different tactics. The game basically wants you to build the best… well underwater network of cities. By placing cities, structures and corridors. I really like city builders so this was a new twist for me that actually themewise stuck.
While we are on theme… Wingspan… Man do I get the hype! There is a reakly good game there. But man the theme just brings it over the top. It works perfectly. I got dead last but still really enjoyed it. The beauty of the game, the mechanics, the quality of the components even the rulebook is enjoyable! This will definitely be played many more times. Who knew birds could get this interesting! Maybe Elizabeth Hargrave. Getting food to place the birds in the right habitat, laying eggs, and drawing new birds to try and get out. That is basically it. But this is damn good. And so good everything. Just beautiful all around. Look it up if you can.
And play more games!!!
Boardgames and such 