I should
just say this right up front, so far my determination to slow down my game
purchases has failed spectacularly, and February has joined January in being a month of many
new games entering my collection. This month I made a larger game order (of 6
games) from my newest board gaming resource, intending on it to be the sole
games purchase for the month – only to make several individual game purchases
shortly after. I also engaged in my first successful math trade this month, and
no fewer than three Kickstarter games showed up in the mail within only a few
days between them.
It’s still my goal to slow down my purchases, so I have a new strategy to help me do it. I am only allowing myself to open one new game each week (with the exception of expansions and the few Kickstarter games coming in), essentially making the top of my shelf into a 'shelf of shame' (though I prefer to see it as my 'shelf of the future'), and I hope seeing that constant reminder of my unopened, unplayed games will help me put off game purchases for a while. It certainly makes me look forward to Mondays, when I can finally tear the shrink-wrap off another game.
New on the Shelf
Being a
huge fan of Stefan Feld’s designs, this game has been on my radar for a while.
This game is essentially the reason I made the larger game purchase, as the
price difference between buying it in Norway UK
This is
another game that I’ve had on my radar for a while, and this month felt like
the month to take the plunge. In the game you are rice farmers working to grow
the most rice, while gaining help from the spirits of the land. The thing that
intrigues me about the game is especially the card drafting element, and how
the cards are supposed to be really powerful, almost game breaking. I really
love it when games give me ways to be significantly different from my fellow
players, and the impression I have is that I’m likely to be just as envious of
my fellow players’ special abilities as they are going to be with mine. I
really look forward to getting the game to the table and see if it lives up to
what it promises.
I’m a fan
of city building games, and I'm intrigued with the idea behind this one, as you have to co-operate with your fellow players
while you’re still competing with them. As a player you have a city to your
left and a city to your right, and every turn you have to draft two tiles, and
place one in each of the two cities, trying your best to work with your
neighbouring players. You want to try and build them up to be equally well,
because your final score is whichever of your two cities that has the lowest
score. The cities are built on a really limited grid, so placement is just as
important as which tiles you choose. It’s another game still in shrink, but I
look forward to get it to the table in the future, when I allow myself to open
it.
For anyone
who knows me, this purchase will come as a big surprise, because I actually
don’t like deckbuilding as a mechanism. However, I have played this game as an
app and found that building up a deck of letters is actually very interesting
to me, because it still requires skill to do well. It’s not enough to gain a
lot of high scoring letters if you cannot string them together to make words that
will score well. This has made the deckbuilding aspect of the game more
interesting, as it isn’t just up to what you draw (like in Dominion or
Thunderstone), but whether you can put those things together to earn enough to
buy what you need. The actual physical copy of the game introduces some
elements that I haven’t been able to try yet in the app, like player abilities,
bounty tokens and different game modes to try out. I haven’t yet gotten the
physical copy to the table, but I don’t think I will have much problem doing
so.
This game
initially attracted me to it because of the high production value. In the game you
are travelling across the land to gather a troupe of actors, in order to go to
the Capital to put on a show for the King. The King’s mood tends to change back
and forth, and there is no knowing for sure whether the King will be in the
mood for a comedy or a tragedy, so players need to try both influencing the
King’s mood while at the same time gathering the right actors to put on the
show that will please him the most. Everything in this game is gorgeous and
kind of overproduced. The game contains a stage you need to put together, where
you flip the back to indicate if the King wants a comedy or a tragedy, and a
dial to indicate to where on the scale the King’s mood is. The tokens you use
to indicate where you and fellow players have travelled are gorgeous plastic
pieces, and the artwork in the game is equally gorgeous. I definitely think I will
enjoy the game, and all the bling is just icing on the cake for me.
This game
intrigued me because of the dice mechanism. One of the things I love in the
game My Village is its use of dice drafting from a common pool. The same core
mechanism is at work here, only as an added bonus you can choose whether to
combine the dice or activate them separately. You are working to gather a herd
of cows in order to earn the most money. You use your dice to claim cows, to
set up special actions for future turns, like putting more cows out on the field and claiming them, stealing a cow from an opponent (the opponent will get paid the value of the cow stolen, however), and so on. I really look forward to getting this game to the table
eventually and to see whether the dice mechanism here will be just as enjoyable
as I find it to be in My Village.
This was a
Kickstarter initially meant to be shipped out in September, but it suffered a
pretty big delay and only arrived this month. The second game in the Valeria
series, this game has you building up a village in the land of Valeria
The third
game in the Valeria series, this game ended up actually arriving a few days
before its predecessor, very much on time. In this game, you are at a pub in
the capital of Valeria, trying to gather adventurers to send out on quests.
This is definitely the meaner game in the series, as quite a few characters
have abilities that attack other players. I do enjoy it, but not as much as the
previous two – still, it’s definitely a keeper. I just have to make sure to
play it with more than two players.
The third
Kickstarter game to arrive, this game is also the smallest and cheapest game I
have backed on the site. Coming in a mint tin, this game works as a fast
introduction to worker placement, where your workers are mint tokens. You work
to produce more mints, grab building plans and construct buildings to earn
enough points to end and win the game. It’s incredibly fast and a really neat
little filler. Very happy with it, and it fits perfectly in my pocket.
This is
another game that I played as an app before I purchased it. I decided to get
the physical copy as I think the puzzle aspect of the game will make it
appealing to several family members, who I hope to engage in more games. You
are buying swatches of Tetris-shaped fabric and adding them to your quilt, both
to fill up the most space on your board, and also to earn buttons (the
currency) as you move along the time track. I have really enjoyed playing this
on the app, and I look forward to playing it in person.
I have
played and enjoy Coal Baron the board game, though maybe not enough to consider
adding it to my collection (also my game group already has it), but the
runthrough for the card game has me really intrigued. I like the use of
levelled worker cards. It’s both different and similar to the use of workers in
the board game, only here the workers have to be placed in strict numerical order, so if no one places a level 1 worker on a space, then a level 2 worker cannot be placed there - so sometimes you might actually want an opponent to go to a space so that you
yourself can go there later on. There’s also an interesting search mechanism,
where you can place workers in order to dig into another deck in hope to find
what you need. It’s definitely intriguing, and I look forward to trying it out.
I actually
got rid of my copy of 7 Wonders last year, because it never hit the table and I
was more interested in playing other drafting games. So, it is maybe an odd
choice to then go and get the 2 player game instead, however I find the duel
aspect intriguing and I think a 2-player game will have a bigger chance to hit
the table at my place. Drafting has become a mechanism I’ve grown more and more
fond of, and the way it’s done here is different to the other games I have that
does drafting.
I hadn’t
specifically looked into what this expansion brings to the game when I ordered it, but I knew I
wanted to get it regardless. I’ve started getting the game to the table at
home, and while I haven’t yet introduced the previous expansion to it, I have a
feeling I will soon. This game can only benefit from having more ways of
amassing gems, I think.
Finally,
the game I knew the least about before getting it. This is the game I got as a
result of the math trade I entered. I’m intrigued about the Key series, and I
decided to take a chance at adding it to my want list. It has been sorted, but
not yet played. It definitely seems interesting, and I’ll have to see how long
it will take before it hits the table. It does have a lot of new games to
compete with.
Games culled from my
collection
These were
the games I decided to trade away in the math trade (together
since I had combined them all into one box, already). They haven’t physically
left my place yet, but will in the coming month. I was really disappointed when
I tried this game out, as the game ended up taking forever due to how the powers of
the chosen factions worked. It became a really dull affair for me and my fellow
players. Seems that I liked the idea of this game far more than what it actually turned out to be. I don't mind games being random, and I think having a lot and varied factions is only a positive, but it just took too long and gave me the dragged out experience. If someone can take the core idea and give me some more engaging mechanisms to play with, then I'm all ears.
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