That is some hilariously mangled Engrish.
That game sounds fascinating. I’ve never heard of it, but I think I need a copy right away.
Pretty sure I’ve found my next candidate for Tom’s monthly Patreon review.
https://www.amazon.com/Down-Canal-Game-Birth-Know/dp/B00FSRCNRS
…and I’ve found my Secret Santa gift for my brother in law. Thank you sir.
Ah yes. Those were the good days.
Has anyone played Unearth? This is a silly reason to be interested in it, but the art style from the box just reminds me of the Monument Valley iOS games which I really really like.
And my copy of Clank! In! Space! has arrived. I don’t know if it will have enough to distinguish itself from the original, but I was willing to take a chance on it.
I picked up New Angeles. Only played half a trial game so far, but it is promising. A lot of interaction and deal-making, always several things to keep in mind about what you should do and what will be most profitable. Before I bought it it seemed like a combination of the best elements of Battlestar Galactica and Archipelago, and so far it seems to live up to the expectations.
Starting Pandemic Legacy season 2 tomorrow. So excited! It’s like my favorite tv show coming back.
I can’t remember if we’ve talked about Five Minute Dungeon, but it’s a surprisingly fun five minute game we played for hours, has a pretty humorous countdown app and very easy to pick up. It’s basically a symbol matching game with speed, with a few action cards you can throw down to mix things up and a ability each character has that helps too. It gets pretty chaotic fast and well it was a lot of fun for us.
Only real downside is I am not happy with the components. the storage for the cards is fine, but the cards and the box showed some notable use after only one night of playing. And because the box is shaped weird, right in the middle is where it’s starting to peel. They were probably better off just funding a square that fit.
I bought Whitehall Mystery last week.
It’s a 2-4 players hidden movement game. It’s also a streamlined sequel to Letters from Whitechapel.
Unfortunately, I only had time for a single game last week. It was a tense 60-70 minutes chase where we caught the killer at the end of the very last turn (just as he was about to declare victory). I played it with my kids who have never played Letters or Fury of Dracula. The rules made this game type really approachable and immediately enjoyable for them.
As a bonus, even though the game is nominally about a killer planting body parts in 4 London locations, nothing in the art is grisly or bloody. This means that my daughter who hates murder and gore could join in. For her, we were trying to catch a master thief depositting trophies all over London. The game can accommodate various audiences.
For those who own Letters from Whitechapel, the game can even make use of some of the rules and tokens of that game if you want to merge the gameplay styles a bit.
As mentioned above, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome. I think our game was around 70’. It’s simpler than its well known alternatives. But I think that’s what’s going to make it a hit with my wife and kids. I’m looking forward to playing it more.
This reviews contrasts Mystery and Letters if you’d like a comparison:
And thanks to @Lykurgos and the gang currently having fun at Essen, I can look forward to getting a copy of Meeple Circus and Dark Moon: Shadow Corporation. The former will be a birthday present for my daughter that will drive the whole family crazy (in a fun way) if the video below is any indication. The latter is an expansion for the rethemed version of Battlestar Galactica Express. I really enjoy that game and its Alien-like art style. It hits the table once in a while. So I’m looking forward to seeing what this adds.
Looks like 2017 keeps delivering on boardgaming experiences.
Wendelius
I shared a flat with Elaine from NoPun Included for 2 years at university.
Small world.
And I’m slightly jealous I’m not at Essen. It’s great fun, if a bit…overwhelming at times.
You knew her before she was famous. :) Was she into boardgames back then too? I enjoy both SU&SD and NPI. Both great shows that make me want to buy way too many boardgames.
I’d love to go to Essen too. But that’s a commitment to boardgaming madness I can’t quite make with work and family life as they currently are. Must be a lot of fun though.
I don’t remember any of us being much into boardgames then.
We’re talking 2004-5, 2006-7
Yup, lots of new games incoming back from Essen, basically 4 suitcases full =)
Curiously @Wendelius I was talking to one of the designers of the very new hidden movement game Hunt for the Ring when you made your last post and he was comparing his game to Whitechapel right then and there. He literally referenced Whitechapel within 1 minute of you posting. Is there something I should know? Spooky! :-)
4 suitcases? Not bad! Have you applied to build an expansion to store them yet? :)
Looking forward to trying the non legacy ones. I love the idea of legacy games, but they don’t do well with infrequent attendees.
Seems to me that your sample of 2 suggests all people with Italian surnames think a lot about hidden movement. What that says about us is left as an exercise to the reader. :)
That game sounds interesting too. Though losing the brevity means it will likely be better suited to our gaming group than chez Wendelius.
Survived another Essen trip. My feelings going in weren’t great; compared to the previous couple of years, I could again do a reasonable bit of preparation rather than just rely on my friends doing the work. (Read about 30 rules; some friends read similar amounts). And even with all this preparation, there didn’t seem to be a ton of interesting new games around.
But in retrospect, this feels like a very strong year. Things I played, in three tiers and roughly sorted by how much I enjoyed them:
Liked it (want to play again)
Sidereal Confluence
Calimala
Whistle Stop
John Company
Clans of Caledonia
Heaven & Ale
Dragon Castle
Rob’n’Run (with some reservations; we might have gotten an abnormally enjoyable first game)
It’s ok (could play again, if someone else insists)
3 Secrets
Secret Weapons of the Third Reich
Frutti di Mare
Azul
Photosynthesis
Reworld (this is also right on the bubble; it’s a fun game, but seems to have a degenerate strategy that both trivializes the gameplay and has a very high chance of winning)
Hated it (won’t play again)
Tulip Bubble
Who Should we Eat?
Transatlantic
Empires
Sweet Honey Bee Mine
Altiplano
If anyone is particularly curious about some game above, I’d be happy to give some more detailed thoughts.
@jsnell, I have seen some coverage, but Heaven and Ale piqued my interest the most. What did you like about it?
Glad you enjoyed it and came away with more good news for board gaming!
I’m interested to hear about Dragon Castle. Based on your posts I’ve assumed you only like pretty complicated and heavy games, but that one looks really simple!
Also surprised to see you hated Transatlantic. Do you like other Mac Gerdts games? How does it compare?
Happy to see another person enjoying Sidereal Confluence. That game is not getting the buzz it deserves.
I liked the action selection mechanism; the closest analogue would probably be Glen More from years ago. There’s basically a large rondel of actions (most with associated tiles). You can move forward on the rondel for as far as a you like for free, but never backward. And once somebody gets to the end of the rondel, they get to do nothing more until everyone else catches up. So there’s this constant tension of figuring out what pieces other players are looking for, and whether you need to move quickly or have time to take some less important tiles.
The solitaire optimization puzzle of placing tiles on your private hex map (and then activating parts of that map for production) is also very well done. In particular, nobody in our group figured out how to do it well. Usually it’s clear halfway through the first game where the points actually are. If nothing else, it’s clear at the end of the first game. But I still have no idea of how to actually play that part well. That’s intriguing.
So a really well done medium-weight euro. (Though Calimala is better).
That’s not fair at all. I only like good games :-P
Yes, it’s an abstract game that takes half an hour to play. I rarely go for that kind of thing. But this looks really nice, and the tactile feel of the miniature bakelite Mahjong is great. The play on the central board is very meaningful and rather mean (in 3p you’re almost always competing for the same tile with another player; the goal is to figure out a way to force them to give it to you).
This was on my list of games to convince a friend to buy just so I could try out their copy back at the hotel. That sales job succeeded, but I kind of ended up regretting not getting a copy myself. This would be absolutely perfect when I have non-gamers over for dinner and some kind of a simple board game.
(Azul had a lot of buzz at the show, and fits into almost the same slot. Bakelite tiles, abstract, plays in half an hour. But Dragon Castle is just obviously the sister that’s prettier and more fun).
It’s the card play from Concordia but without the map. The problem is that much of the appeal of Concordia (which I really liked) came from people running into conflicts on the shared map. In Transatlantic the different oceans are mostly meaningless, but still incredibly fiddly as ships have to be moved around. In practice the interaction between players felt so weak that it might as well have been solitaire.
I see no reason to play this instead of Concordia. Guess the theme is more appealing?
I’m not much into pure negotiation/trading games, but that game is just something else. With five players it was two hours of pure madness, as even people who normally don’t really talk much during games were drawn into constant trading. The way the game is designed to give players a ton of possibilities for mutually beneficial deals is just really clever.