Why am I doing this?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like being a merchant in a fantastical world with magical crystals and volcano islands? This game is somewhat that…

When you place the map in the beginning of the game you all have everything identical. There are 3 goal cards beside the board, 5 cards that will come out every round, a pile of treasures you might find along the way and then there is a pile of special cards. The first 3 rounds you will look at 2 and add 1 to your playerboard and in the fourth round you will have one of these cards, of your choice, one more time.

Each time you fill a land type area you may build a tiny town in an empty place and that will be another place to start from instead of the starting city each round. There are towers in 4 places of the map, trading posts, terrain you can’t pass and ruins. That is about it. It is a flip and place cube game.

You know just about everything that will happen in a round. Just not in what order. First round you

When you buy this game you get a pad with 100 sheets for playing. I will soon need to buy a new one…

Welcome to… is a game with a mechanic called “flip and write”. You flip cards to get a few options to take a thing from and write down on your sheet of paper. A small box, pretty cheap and alot of fun gameplay.

On your sheet of paper there is a picture of a neighborhood and a pointcounting system on the lower side. There are three rows of houses on your paper. The upper row has 10 houses, mid row 11 houses and the bottom row has 12 houses. Every turn you flip three cards and chose what house to use.

The cards are double sided. On one side there is a number between 1 and 15 on the orher side there is one of 6 symbols. You take the result from one of these piles and write that down on your neighborhood. After a while you might not be able to put it down, then you have to check a box. When anybody has checked three of these boxes the game ends.

Bis, up the value of blocks, park, pool, +- 2 numbers and build a fence are the actions associated with the numbers. You chose 1 of the 2 columns and you are off to the races!

During the game you can also build accirding to 3 different cards with varying diffuculty to get more points. The first one to do this gets a certain number of points but all thenothermpeople who does it after this still get points, but half of the original. The can be anything from a combination of block sizes, fill all parks in a row or fill a row of houses and so on.

A really fun game that now has alot of different versions. I have only played the original version and there are even campaign versions now! All with a different little flair.

If you like roll/flip and writes this is a good start.

Play more games!!!

I actually really miss writing here. But time is a precious commodity. Since I last wrote I’ve moved, gotten married, become a father and studied. But the board games have always been there.

The library of games have steadily grown, some have been culled, some have gotten expansions. I bought some games not just for the ease if getting them to the table, but still smaller and faster games that are a little bit easier. Just to get a fix sometimes. I also got boxes that are 10-15 kg with intricate components and rules that take hours to read. I still love learning new rules and see how everything fits together into a new game. Some mechanics that I have not seen matched with some oldies.

Board games have a, not always, good structure and often thematic reason for their rules. For me it’s almost like building lego. You follow the instructions to get to the finished product. Sometimes, but not often, you build something different, or house rule. But it is mainly understanding how and why that makes me love board games. Solving the puzzle in a Exit game, beating the enemy in a coop game or even making a better farm than your opponents.

And lets not forget the social part of it! I do love to sit down with Leaving Earth and try and sove the puzzle of going to mars and getting a sample  by myself. But sitting down with my wife or friends is also someof the best times I’ve had. Or sitting with total strangers at a convention and getting 4 points in Wavelength. There is something special in that. Or rolling dice to see if you can defeat the final enemy, all people at the table standing up in excitement.

There is a lot to love about board games and I love that is a more inviting place than ever. People of all walks of life and circumstances can sit down together and have a good time.

So even if I haven’t been active here. I have played alot of new games and found more players in my area. I have been to conventions and played with total strangers and had a blast. I have invited strangers into my home just to play board games and met new friends. I have experienced the best things about board games to me. Of course not all games or all people are for me… But I always try to be invinting and have fun. But as all hobbies, if it’s not fun, why do it?

With this post I really hope I’ll be back and write more and continue to write.

And as always…

Play more games!!!

This i the game that made me get rid of Space Base. In Valeria Card Kingdoms you basically roll 2 dice, look at the cards on the table in front of you, use the numbers on the dice to get bonuses, to buy new cards or kill monsters. So simple ans so much fun!

Each turn you start by rolling the dice and then do the harvest phase, where you basically just use the card effects of the cards in front of you. and every time you roll, everybody is engaged because they get an effect too! Then after that, you use what you have off the different meters on your player board: Gold (to buy stuff), Attack (to… attack stuff?) and Magic (that can be used as both). And then you also have the experience bar there but that is just points. Who cares about points!?
Now in the activation phase you can either buy a new card (either a character or a domain, which have different effects) or you can fight a monster! the monster gives you points and some bonuses for killing them, and each stack has 5 monsters and they get stronger the deeper you go throught the stack, and when you have defeated the last monster in the stack, if you are like me and hate yourself, you get to add another thing! either a monster even or an event card. These are each different but just make it a little bit more difficult. Then you rinse and repeat until all the monsters are dead or you have depleted enough piles of cards.

In the solo game though, here i t gets interesting. each time you roll the dice, that pile of monsters erase 1 card from that column. and you roll 2 dice every turn. so you better be wuick getting through each pile of monsters before they get rid of all the characters, and after that domain cards, because if they do… It’s game over man! Game over! Alsoyou have a Duke card that gives you bonuses on different combinations of cards. And in the solo mode they “AI” get an evil duke to! This time… He was not very good… Not very good at all. For the AI. I on the other hande competely destroyd him and left him in tears and running home to Mama Duke.
I did not know which duke I was against but he did not get many points at all… I think I got more than twice as much… And my wife usually destroys me at this game. But still it’s a wonderfulgame and I have expansion for it, even the campaign expansion that I have not yet looked at. Because I want to play it with my wife.
Just try out the game where you can. Beuatiful art as always by Mihajlo Dimitrievski, who may or might not be my favorite…

Have you tried out any of the Valeria games? What did you think?

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Back with another solo playthrough! This time with Tiny Epic Galaxies with the expansion Beyond the Black.

Tiny Epic Galaxies is just what the title says. Tiny, Epic and… Galaxies…? In the “regular” game you roll dice to get to go to different planets and getting points by using different “strategies”, politics or economy, two different sides of the dice, to convert the planets to your side. you can also upgrade your galaxy by getting more dice and ships to expand quicker. and in the Expansion you actually get to go to other galaxies.

I actually have played this one before and got absolutely demolished by the AI. This time the dice where more on my side and I actually kind of destroyd it… If I did it correctly…? Anyway, this is a game that I actually thinnk should be in most collections. Simple to teach and fun to play. Not to much to think about when you are playing with friends but maybe not the game I would pick to play solo again. It is way to Swingy with the dice. They get to use one symbol of the dice on all of the ships when converting planets. Which can be devasting really quickly. And they get all their ships at once, which can be horrible if the planets that are out are all the same and they get to move on all of them at the same time. If all of their ships is one their home base, and you roll energy or culture, the first turn? They get to upgrade immediately and so on.

A little to much luck for my taste. But I have bought a few more Tiny Epic games (and sold TE Western…) So I shall see what they bring.

What is your favorite Tiny Epic Game? And What is your favorite Space game?

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This was not a good week for my stats against my Wife…
We played 4 of the games we need to go throuogh this week. So we are working through them little by… more some weeks.

First we played Mystic Vale because I am very interested in that system but in another game namely Edge of Darkness. This is because I really like the card crafting system, but the theme is really taking me out of it in Mystic Vale. In Mystic Vale you are druids who are trying to take back the land that is dying or something? By crafting more powerful cards. You start with a set of cards and you do not gain or trash any cards during the game. BUT you do upgrade them. Each card has 3 spots where you can upgrade them. Some of the cards are blank, some have a magic dot that you use for buying new upgrades and some have decay. These decay cards are what makes the game hard. If you have 2 of them in your field and you pull out another one, you either stay or try to push your luck (this will be a theme for todays post). Push your luck mechanic is a really fun mechanic to me unless the luck decided to go away for the day.

My wife won by a landslide. I knew that even before we started counting the points. She got alot more turns with more cards and steadil worked her way forward. I on the other hand got a great hand, three to four bad ones and them a great one again. That is not the way to win. She won 43-19. It was a trainwreck.

Next came Call to Adventure. More of a storytelling game. You try to tell a story by solving cards and getting a story. At the start of the game you get to chose 3 cards that is who you are and who you are becoming these cards all give bonuses of some sort and points at the end of the game. This time I got really bitter… I am not proud of it. Again I had no chance. You get new runes by defeating the cards in front of you so you get new symbols and get stronger.
The runes I had where not the runes that I needed in the end. Fine. I get them during the game. No. There was one card during the entire game that was no all of the symbols I did not have or just the symbols I had. So it was really hard getting points. I got a real good story, but not much else.
My wife won 48-26 My lowest point by far in that game.

On to something with a teeny tiny bit of more control. Deep Sea Adventure.
In Deep Sea Adventure you are trying to go deep enough to get points, but still have enough air to get up to the submarine and get the points. This game is pure luck with the dice, but still you can play the odds a little bit. I got up to the submarine twice as my wife did not. At all. This was her time to get frustrated, but she honestly handled it better than me… this ended 27-0 in my favor.

The last game we played frustrated me beyond belief. The Quacks of Quedlinburg. This is a really fun push your luck game… If your luck was not on vacation. The game is simple enough. White is bad. You don’t want to draw white chits out of your bag. Fill it with other chits. I did. The first time my pot exploded there was a a 1 in 13 chance that it would explode. POOF! The second time it happened 1 in 13 again. exactly the same as last time. The third time it was 1 in 16. This is when I drew the line… No more push your luck games for a few weeks… I still really like the game. But when 3 out of 8 rounds end on those terms it was kind of hard to not get a little sour on it. My wife won again 44-33.

This leaves the total of 8 – 7 in favor of my wife.

One of these games might not stay in the library. Which one do you think it is?

Play more games!!!

I was thinking about playing games solo and write about it. I want to play more than my wife. and I am home on the weekdays before she is, so there is some time where I can play something just to get the plays in.

The first game I played was It’s a Wonderful World. Just doing the “basic” solo missions from the rulebook, just to try it out. I have the heritage box, so if my wife decides not to play it I still have alot of material to go through alone in those expanion missions.

It’s a Wonderful World is a drafting game at it’s core (and engine building to your hearts content), which is kind of hard to play solo. But there is as I said before solo missions in the rulebook.

In the regular game you play by getting a hand of cards, choosing one and then giving that hand away to the next player and getting another players hand of cards, choosing one and so on. When that is done you choose what to do with those cards. Do you want to build them for your engine or do you want to trash them for a single cube to use for your other buildings? That is entirely up to you! After the draft ofcourse. Are the cards you want still there or did the card that gave you a green cube gone?

It is a simple yet entertaining game (I love engine building) where the draft really can make our brake it for you. The solo mode is easier in that regard.
In the solomode you get 8 piles of 5 cards each that you get to go through during the game. Of them you can do basically what you like. Even discard them for other cards and hope to whatever you believe in, they are better.
The thing with the solo game is that you get around 4 cards that you have to build before the 8th round (which is pretty easy), but then you also get ranked on the points you get. I was 5 points away from gold once and the other time I barely got bronze. So it’s highly dependent on the cards you get. Which I often like. Tactics over strategy.

Would you like to read more about my solo playing? And if so, what would would you like to read more about? Deeper cuts of the game or just the basics? Going through a complete campaign or just play and go away?

What is your favorite solo game?

Play more games!!!

So last week went by, and then time just continued for some reason. Fever, headache and no Corona. Who would have thunk there was still other illnesses?

We only got to play one game last week… But boy was it a doozy! We played Mansions of Madness! I got most of the expansions, but we only played one scenario, they take a while you see… And we did not make it. As soon as there were a mob, we knew we were doomed.

We have all played it before and we intend to keep it, and maybe buy the last two expansions just to make it complete.

We all got insane and got an ending that was not to our liking, but we still hade fun. I think it’s a game that should be played more often than once every 5-24 months. 😛
I don’t want to spoil too much but it was a fun game and one day I hope we will have played through all the scenarios, atleast once, just to have done it.
The game is so atmospheric and you just get sucked in into the game and there is just enough to keep you going forward,or in oour case, stepping sideways.

Of what I have seen there is something missing in it for me. I don’t know if there is, but I hope there are insane cards that are just “discard all your face down fear” and nothing else. Just so the players are more paranoid, but maybe for no reason. Mine was that I should stand next to another player with a knife and then I would win. I was the only one without a knife, but still think that would kind of ruin the game, for the other players. The mechanic for me would be better with things that are more indirect and less “win if you kill them”. Maybe start fires? Get claustrophobic? waste actions, stepping forwards and backwards (not every action ofcourse) and more. Maybe they are there? I haven’t looked through them all, because I like to be surprised by stuff like that while playing.
We had one last time where one player could not speak to us anymore during the game. It was weird, but still pretty fun.

Sadly I did not take any pictures this time. I was way into reading with my not very Bostonian accent. Just feels better with british…

All in all we are keeping the game and the expanisions, maybe even getting some more. My wife is a completionist.

What do you think about games that use an app to steer you in the right (or wrong) direction? Do you fear the game will “die” and be unplayable?

Play more games!!!

Week 3 was not as I planned. We only got to play one game. But oh what a game!

Maracaibo. We have played it previously and very much enjoyed it. But this time it was a a battle! This game will not be leaving any time soon. It was an incredibly tight game and I saw the gears turning in my wifes head. The final score was 194-189 and we kept jumping over each other on every new scoring segment. I really like the tightness of the game and the variability in both cards and boardspaces. Even though we played a “non story” game it still brings you in. I wish there were more quests out on the board each round, but I also completely understand why there are so few.

For now, I am in the lead with 6-5 wins so far in the games. So it is pretty darn close and there are a whole lot of games between now and when we are done

What is your favorite sailing around game?

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Week 2 of going through the games of our collection went a lot slower. Only down to the 2 games we “need” to play. But oh what games they were!

Clank! In space! Just a simple deckbuilder that we both love and decided to keep. Building up your deck with all the little nods to different sci-fi movies and series to steal and escape (only one of us made it) from Lord Eradikus, with his captains chair being the bounty of all boounties. We have both this and the Acquisitions Incorporated Legacy game that we get to play again and decide if we keep or get rid of. Honestly we have not played the Legacy varaint for a long while now, but still brings back good memories just looking at the box.

The other game we played was SpaceCorp 2025-2300AD with the Ventures expansion. A really good game, but it felt like my corp really had the upper hand on hers this time around. I would like to see how well the different corps go together and play best.
Still a wonderfully easy yet engaging game. I think that the exploration really comes through in this one, even though I don’t think it’s perfect. It looks some more daunting than it really is.

I think I have been pretty clear about keeping these games in our library. But just to be clear. They are staying.

This week I have planned for us to play 3 games. 3 games that I am not sure about keeping in the library, because they would not be played at all. More about that next week since we haven’t played any one of them yet. I think that the week after that should be a round of quicker easier games again just get some room to play the heavier with a little more time and not feel so stressed about it.