Tag Archives: Meadow

5th August 2025 (Report)

Following on from Little Lime’s visit last time, this week we had special visits from Mister Mint (aka Vermillion), Little Mint (aka Sable), and Little Ivory (aka Tangerine). While everyone else got their collective acts together, Family Mint ordered their supper and got down to a quick couple of rounds of Panda Panda, a set collecting game with cute panda artwork. In this game, players take it in turns to discard a card onto their personal discard pile or take a card from the draw pile from someone elses discard pile; when a player discards an “A” card, everyone passes a card to the left. The winner is the first player to start their turn with a set. Sable tried to win without discarding cards, but the victor of both rounds was Mint.

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One of Family Mint’s current favourites is Wombat Rescue, where players are taking the role of mummy wombat trying to find their lost babies. Enticed by the animals in the game, Pine joined Vermillion, Sable, Ivory and Tangerine, to play a game that seemed to be based almost entirely on the fact that the most fundamental Euro-game piece is the wooden cube and wombats are the only known animals who’s poo is cube-shaped (due to a slow digestive tract and intestines that contract in a specific way to shape their feces over time). The theory is that because wombats have extremely poor vision but an excellent sense of smell, they use their poop cubes as “smell markers” and cube-shaped poop it is less likely to roll away or be moved.

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The premise of the game is that a dingo has stormed the burrow and chased away four of each player’s baby wombats or joeys. As mummy wombat, players have to eat and digest food in order to produce poop cubes, that they can use to build smell areas to navigate the board. With a network of poop cubes, they can then find their baby wombats, and bring them home. Thus, the player who best plans their smell areas and moves most efficiently will be the first to find all their joeys, and win the game. Unfortunately, with five, the game took rather longer than the suggested sixty minutes, but they had a great time, so that didn’t really matter.

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There was much amusement as cries of, “Stop sniffing my poo!”, “Are you going to use your smell corridor now?” and “There’s poo EVERYWHERE!” carried to the neighbouring tables along with odd words and phrases like “smell radius”, and the slightly odd request, “Can I sniff your baby please?”. The eventual winner was Vermillion and there was quite a bit of chat as players packed up. Although it had out-stayed its welcome a little, it wasn’t in the same league as that other Austrlian game, Echidna Shuffle, which on one notable occasion took hours because nobdy wanted to be the person who gifted someone the game, even though, everyone desperately wanted it to end!

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The main beneficiaries of the poop-laden comments were Mint, Blue and Lime on the next table. They were playing the “Feature Game“, which was Cubed. This is a very simple, sort of 3D, hexagonal/trioominoes domino game. Players started with a hand of twenty of the delightfully tactile hexagonal pieces and then take it in turns to play a piece, adding it to the central grouping. Pieces must join two edges, matching colour and slope direction: each piece has a dip in the middle and the vertices alternate high and low. Although this is simple, it is more difficult than it looks at first glance. Additionally, some of the pieces have black edges, which are blocking pieces and nothing can be added to these sides.

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If a player can’t place a piece, instead they draw a random tile from the face-down pool. The winner is the first player to get rid of all their pieces and they score zero. Everyone else scores for the pieces they have left, with one point for those with three different colours, two for any with two colours, three for monochrome pieces and five for any blocking pieces. Blue started, which turned out not to be the advantage initially thought as later players have more options. That wasn’t the reason Blue did horrifically badly though, that was partly due to inneptitude and partly due to luck of the tile draw. It was quickly clear that she was trying to limit losses and the battle was between Lime and Mint.

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Lime finished first, but Mint only had one piece left and if everyone got the same number of turns she could have placed it thus ending in a tie. The rules weren’t entirely clear on the point although arguably, the advantage of potentially getting an extra turn offsets the advantage of more play space (especially early in the game). Either way, the group decided to call it a tie and settle the matter over another game, this time adding the variant rules. These introduce the concept of “gaps”, single space “holes” in the array. Players who “bridge the gap” and create one get to place an extra piece, and players who “fill the gap” get to “gift” one tile to another player. Inevitably, however, this meant everyone saw making gaps as a challenge.

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Mint did, eventually manage to make a gap, but it really wasn’t easy and probably partially led to her conceding victory to Blue, who made a much better fist of the second try. That left how to score—consider it to be two separate games, or combine the scores as a campaign? Well, Lime won the first “game”, Blue won the second, but Mint had the lowest overall score (with or without the extra turn), so it was decided that it was a three way tie and everyone was a winner! That wasn’t the nly tie of the evening though. There were two more tables of games, the first playing Vivarium.

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This is a card collection game with fantastic art, based round a market similar to that in Meadow. In Vivarum, however, players use dominoes to create the coordinates that dictate the card they take. After seven rounds, the player that has successfully completed their objectives and collected the greatest creatures wins the game. Jade led the game with Cobalt and Sapphire joining him. Players start with two dominoes and, on their turn swap one with central pile and then either use the new pair to take a card or take two gems—these are worth a point each at the end of the game, but can also be used to alter the values of dominoes during the game.

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Once everyone has taken two turns, the market is restocked and a new (two turn) round starts. There are three different types of cards: Creatures, Equipment and Contracts. Each Creature is one of four types, one of four colours and is worth points; Equipment are in four different types, earns Gems and give a special power; Conracts provide objectives that reward for different types of Equipment or Creatures. At the end of the game, players score for Creatures, unused Gems, Priority Tokens (earnt for taking certain cards each round) and Contracts. This time, it was close, though not actually a tie (that came later).

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Creature scores and Gems were all smilar, but the most significant differnce was in Priority Tokens. Cobalt took ten more points from these than anyone else, which more than offset his slight deficit in other departments and gaving him seventy-seven points with Jade taking second place a few points behind. After a short break, the group moved on to place Diced Veggies, a really clever little resource management game. Players take it in turns with the Cleaver, using it to slice up the central array of dice. Each die represents an ingredient and these are then assigned to the recipes players are working on.

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Players can’t just grab loads of veg though—they can only take a limited number of pips with each chop, and the right dice values can unlock bonus cards to boost a recipe’s score. Once a player has carefully sliced their veg from the main block (with a total value of ten or fewer) the can assign dice to Cook one of their recipes before drawing one more card (either a Hype/bonus card or a recipe). Players can carry eight veggies, two Hype cards and two Recipe cards on to their next turn, but when one player has completed six recipes, everyone gets one more turn before the scores are added up. And this was the game that ended in a tie—despite lots of variation in recipes and bonuses, Jade and Cobalt both finished with fifty points, with Sapphire just behind.

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The final table, led by Plum, were playing First Empires, a game where each player takes control of an ancient nation and determines its fate. On their turn, players roll dice according to how they’ve developed their empire board. The six sides of the dice correspond to the five abilities on their board. To expand to new territories or invade opponents, players unlock movement ability; to annex a territory, they have to outnumber the current occupant or have a “sword” result on the dice and chase the inhabitants elsewhere. Dice also allow players to develop their player board, using the die face that corresponds to improvement and controlling an associated territory.

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As the game progresses, players can also gain more dice and additional re-rolls, while also unlocking achievement cards. The game ends after a set number of rounds (dependent on player number) when players earn points based on played achievement cards, points unlocked on their personal board, and for cities under their control. After Plum had explained the rules, everyone began. With only four players, the far East wasn’t available, so Plum started in Morocco (K), Ruby in the the Far East (H), Flint began in Europe (E) and Pink in South Africa (M). Flint quickly achieved one of his early goal cards and occupied two islands

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Pink pressed north early on, which meant it was more difficult for Plum to invade new lands. Pink, Ruby and Plum all drew the “occupy another player’s home region” card in the first half of the game, so there was a lot of shifting about as people targeted each other’s regions picking up Cities in the process. There was a little bit of a rules interpretation error as most people restricted themselves to only re-rolling one die rather than picking a number of dice, but that was soon rectified. Flint got to the top of the dice track, but it was towards the end of the game so he wasn’t able to capitalise on it by rolling five dice.

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Flint picked up lots of points for his dice track, but failed to score on his re-roll track, whereas everyone else was the other way round. In fact, Plum and Pink both got their highest score from the re-roll track. Ruby top scored on explorers, but the winner was Pink who also did well on his explorers track, but picked up a lot of points for his cards and cities too. He finished with sixty-five points, nine points clear of Ruby with Plum completing the podium.

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Learning outcome: The shape of your poo is important.

22nd April 2025

The evening began with the sad news that Kath and Ian and their daughters were leaving for a new pub in Shipton Abbot (or was that Newton Abbot?). They have been good to the group and worked hard to give us an environment that conducive to gaming, so it is sad to see them moving on, though Devon is quite a nice place. Everdell is also reputed to be a nice place, and one that some of the group were to travel to perhaps using its new railway station, as the Newleaf expansion to Everdell was the to be the week’s “Feature Game“. The game got going after about fifteen minutes of general faffing about and reminding everyone of the rules to the base game and explaining the additional features of the expansion.

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The base game is a fairly simple one of worker placement to collect Resources and spend them to place Cards. Players keep playing until they run out of workers when they get them all back (vacating the associated Action spaces), and then start again. The game is played over four rounds (or Seasons), with players with the most points from Construction and Critter Cards as well as Event (end-game scoring) Cards. The Newleaf expansion adds new Critter, Construction and Event Cards, but more obviously, it a new railway station. This and associated Visitor Cards, Freight Trucks (which provide an alternative way to get Resources), Travel Tickets, and Reservation Tokens.

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Plum (who obviously chose to play with Cat-eeple Workers) went first, grabbing some Resources, followed by Purple (Butterfly-eeples), Cobalt (Hedgehog-eeples) and then Ivory (Duck-bill Platypus-eeples). Everyone started setting up their town, particularly focusing on green Constructions and Critters that could give income in spring. Plum built up a large pile of Resources and grabbed a Freight Truck with Resources loaded on it and her choice of discount when producing (paid in part using the Reserve Token to gave her a discount) . Purple didn’t go for green Cards, but red Cards with additional worker spots (in particular the Hotel and Chapel), whereas Cobalt and Ivory both got a Mine and Miner Mole, giving them access to valuable pebbles.

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The length of Seasons in this game is variable, with some players doing more than others before they are forced to reclaim their Workers. Purple passed on to Spring first, followed by Plum and then, sometime later, Cobalt and Ivory. Cobalt gained a few blue Cards which had given him Resources (and in particular Cards) when playing Constructions and Critters, whereas Ivory had built quite a collect of green Cards, giving him a significant pile of Resources going into Spring. Spring was very similar to Winter, with everyone focusing on engine building, although Purple was beginning to struggle, due to a shortage of green Cards. Ivory made an early grab for Harvest Festival Event which gives a points bonus for having four green Cards in his city—he was already building quite a big tableau including a Castle.

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Cobalt was taking things slightly more slowly, still focusing on blue Cards, which was enabling him to draw three cards every time he played a Card, so he was always at the hand limit. Moving into Summer, Cobalt significantly stepped up his building, as did Plum. She grabbed the Ever Wall Tower card which rewarded her for having nine Constructions. Having already taken Grand Tour event for having three red Constructions, Ivory was eyeing up the Royal Tea special event for having three green and two purple Cards in his town. However, whilst focusing on collecting resources for buildings to complement his already built Castle and the Palace Card he had in his hand, he failed to notice Cobalt had already played three purple Critters/Constructions.

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As a result, Cobalt beat Ivory to both the Royal Tea and the Scenic Flight awards. Much to Ivory’s disgust, Cobalt was then also able to claim the Sunflower Parade achievement award for having three Events too. So, Ivory went into damage limitation mode, and began focusing on the passengers at Newleaf station as an alternative way to score points. Purple was first to move into Autumn and as everyone else followed the focus was firmly on points. Cobalt was able to collect the Juniper Jig Dance Contest Event card for having nine Critters (in part due to Ivory giving him the Fool!). Ivory was collecting more passengers using his special ticket to enable him to take a worker back, something everyone had from the from the expansion while Plum was building as many building as possible.

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It was all a bit of a rush at the end as it was nearly midnight when the game finally finished. Largely due to the scores for his huge number of Events, the winner was Cobalt with ninety-three points. Ivory took second some ten points behind, closely followed by Plum who got over half her points for Critters and Constructions. The game had taken all evening, but during this time, Pink, Pine and Lime had managed to get through no less than five games. The first was one of Pink’s favourites, Zoo Break. In this game, players work cooperatively to try to prevent the escape of animals from their zoo. It is one of Pink’s favourite games, but this time it was very, very short-lived.

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Things started well as the group locked up the Capuchins, Snakes and the Rhino. But then the Meerkats, who were partying in the fountain, decided to make a bid for freedom. Three tigers and four elephants were already on the loose and rampaging round the zoo and while Pink put two Pandas back in their cage, five of the Meerkats made it to the exit and headed out. And thus a handful of mischievous Meerkats led to the sad demise of Bedlam Zoo (which really had been Bedlam this time). To help get over the disappointment of the epic failure, the group decided to go on a a train ride around France with Les Aventuriers du Rail Express, a light version of one of the group’s favourite games, Ticket to Ride.

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There are lots of versions of Ticket to Ride, from the teeny-tiny city editions through to the rather epic Rails & Sails and Legacy versions. Les Aventuriers du Rail Express is a French map that is a step up from the city editions and fits between the standard games (Like Europe) and First Journey, making it slightly quicker than the full games, as it is played on a slightly smaller map with slightly fewer trains. Aside from that, it is essentially very similar in game play to all the others: on their turn players either take cards from the market, or spend them to place plastic train pieces on the map.

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As in the larger version players can also take tickets, but this has to be balanced with the bonus for completing a route from London to Istanbul, the most distant pair of cities. The first player do so gets twenty points, the second gets fifteen and the third gets ten. Additionally, the wild Locomotive cards also work slightly differently in this game in that, instead of being mixed in with the market, they are always available from a separate stack, but as usual, players can only take one per turn. Being a quick game, and with everyone feeling they knew the game and was in with a chance of winning, the group ended up playing it twice.

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The first time, Lime finished with the most points from placing Trains, but both he and Pine carried negative points from incomplete Tickets. Incomplete tickets are a real drag as they effectively, carry a swing double their face-value. As a result, Pine just pipped Lime to second place. The winner was Pink, however, despite the fact that he had the lowest points for his tickets; he did finish the London to Istanbul connection first though. In the second game, the roles were somewhat reversed with Pink taking the most points for placing trains, but failing to complete the London to Istanbul route at all. The winner was Pine who, like Pink in the first game, also claimed the maximum of twenty bonus points, while Lime was the runner up.

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Everyone else was still playing, so the trio managed a quick couple of games of the card-drafting game, Sushi Go!. This is a very simple game, where players start with a hand of cards and choose one to add to their tableau before passing the rest on. Played over three rounds, players collect points for collecting Maki Rolls, Sashimi and Nagiri (which is all the better when combined with Wasabi). At the end of the game, players with the most Pudding cards score an extra six points, while those with the least lose six points. The player with the highest total is the winner. The points throughout both games were fairly even with nobody crashing out or having a golden round.

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Despite this, the winner of the first game took it by a bit of a land-slide. It’s true that Lime top-scored in two of the three rounds, but they were all really close. The real difference, therefore, was made by the Puddings which he had the most of and left him with a total of forty-five, a dozen more than Pink, the runner-up. It was fairly inevitable then that in the second game, there was quite a battle for the Pudding cards. The scores were close again, and again Lime won two out of the three rounds. The overall winner was arguably Pink, who despite losing all three rounds had the most Puddings and therefore took victory from Lime on a tie-break.

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The final table for the evening, consisted of Jade, Sapphire, Black and Blue playing Meadow with the Adventure Book expansion. Meadow is a clever little card game where players collect cards to add to their tableau from a central market. On their turn players place one of their tokens next to the grid with the type of token and the location combining to dictate which card they take. Players can then add a card from their hand (which may or may not be the one they picked up) to their tableau. In the base game, there is an additional campfire board, but the Adventure Book replaces this. Each “page” from the book changes the mechanics to a greater or lesser extent.

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The group played with the first scenario, which introduces Weather. There are two token that indicate a row and a column in the market, and every time a card is taken from these, players can move along the appropriate Weather track. Reaching the end of these gives players extra cards. Additionally, placing a token in a space in the Book allows players to claim rewards if they have fulfilled the criteria and have the two symbols shown visible in their tableau. These give extra points at the end of the game. There was a lot of faffing about and getting to grips with the rules changes, especially as initially, the wording in the rules for the expansion was a little unclear. Added to which, Black hadn’t played the base game at all before.

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Once the rules had been fathomed out and explained, the group got the game underway. Different players targeted different card types with some going for the harder to place higher up the food-chain cards, while others tried to diversify. Blue tried to get as many of the bonus points for collecting pairs of symbols as she could and as a result finished at the back of the pack. The game is not a high scoring one though and those bonus points made a big difference. It was not quite enough to give her the victory, however, and she finished one point behind Jade who topped the rankings with forty-six points, with Black in third. It had been a very enjoyable evening all round though, regardless of the number or type of game played.

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Learning Outcome: Cards are a critical part of most modern games.

26th Movember 2024

Plum, Jade, Sapphire and Mint were first arrive, and while they were waiting for food, settled down to a game of Hiroba, a sort of board game “Sudoku” where players place their numbered pebbles to take control of the most gardens. As in Sudoku, players must never have two pebbles of identical value in the same garden, row or column. After a couple of false starts the group eventually figured out the rules. This time, Sapphire got in early with the lowest stone number between two Koi carp ponds, ensuring he got both. Plum only got two ponds, so although she got a reasonable number of areas, others overtook her by using the Koi pond multipliers.

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Food arrived during the game, and some were still eating when the final count (and recounts) took place. Despite Sapphire’s great start, Mint’s total of thirty-five gave her victory by a single point pushing Sapphire into second and leaving Plum in third. Meanwhile, since Hiroba was underway when Cobalt arrived, he settled down to a solo game of Explore & Draw, the Roll & Write version of Isle of Cats. The game play is similar with players now drawing polyomino shapes on their ship board, but choosing a set of cards each round instead of drafting them. In the solo game, the player is competing against his “sister” and this time won by forty points to her thirty-six.

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Once everyone had arrived (except Teal who had given up battling the crazy flood-water and gone home) and had finished eating, it was time for the “Feature Game” which was to be Rolling Realms/Rolling Realms Redux. This was advertised as a light roll and write game, but turned out to be rather more involved than everyone expected. It was developed during the global pandemic as a print-and-play game, but has since been released as two professionally produced games. Each game consisting of a number of small games based loosely on other games, with more are available to be purchased separately.

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The idea is that players choose three “mini-games”, or “Realms” for each of three rounds. Then, two dice are rolled and allocated separately to two of the three games. After nine rolls, players add up the number of starts they’ve achieved in the round. The winner is the player with the most points after three rounds. With three copies of the game and several people familiar with it, it should have been a relatively straight-forward game, but with so many different mini-games, players effectively had to learn the rules each round. As the games play six and there were three copies, the group decided to play one large game. and started with the same three mini-games, based on three of our favourite games, Tapestry, Meadow and Flamecraft.

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And this was where the first problem arose. The Tapestry mini-game was quite straight-forward, with players trying to fill their grid using polyomino shapes. However, Meadow and especially Flamecraft, both from the Redux version of the game were more difficult to understand. The Meadow mini-game was based on the card market with players choosing “cards” and using them to score points and collect resources. The Flamecraft mini-game caused a lot of confusion with different “Enchant” and “Gather” actions, which are loosely based on the actual game, but it took a while to work out what they did and how to use them.

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All three games involved players doing things to collect Stars, but the real aim of the game is to collect resources (Pumpkins, Hearts and Coins). These allow players to modify dice, use them both on the same Realm, and most importantly, gain extra dice to give extra actions—these are essential as without them, players don’t get enough turns to get the more challenging Stars. With so many people playing and the difficulties in getting heads round rules, the group ended up splitting into three tables. Plum, Jade, Sapphire and Mint were first to get going and were first to finish the first round. Plum was the victor, and the group went on to play Dinosaur Island, Stamp Swap and Ark Nova for their second round.

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The second group consisting of Blue, Pink, Ivory, Lime and Pine, were a bit slower as they struggled a bit more with the rules, particularly Pine. As a result, they were a bit slower to get to the end of the first round, with Blue and Ivory leading the way. This group decided to reduce the rules overhead by keeping one of the Realms from the first round, the easiest to understand, Tapestry. To this, they added Between Two Castles and My Little Scythe, both from the original Rolling Realms game, as they thought these might be easier to grok, which they generally were. In their second round, Ivory and Blue were still fighting it out, but this time they were joined by Pink, with Pine not far behind.

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The comparative success of the second round and keeping one Realm and choosing two from the original game, meant they repeated the strategy for the last round. This time they kept the Between Two Castles Realm and added Between Two Cities and Scythe. By the final round, everyone seemed to have got the hang of things as the scores were much closer. In terms of totals though, Blue just had the edge over Ivory, with Pink in third. The other table had finished first though, with Tidal Blades, Between Two Cities and Euphoria as the Realms in their final round. Plum had continued her success in the first round winning both the second and third rounds and therefore, taking overall victory.

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Second place was less clear, however, with Sapphire just beating Mint for second place. The third table consisted of Cobalt, Black and Purple. Cobalt had played before, but online while Purple and Black were new to it. They also struggled a bit and took a more leisurely approach to the game, playing just two rounds. Their second round Realms consisted of Scythe, Potion Explosion and A Feast for Odin, the last two both add-on packs, and therefore possibly more challenging than those from the base game. Cobalt won the first round by a bit of a land-slide, but the second round was very close between all three players, with Purple just beating Cobalt (who took overall victory).

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Learning Outcome: Sometimes, one person’s simple game can be another’s nemesis.

3rd September 2024

By the time Blue, Purple and Pine arrived, Cobalt was already half-way through a solo game of Isle of Cats: Explore & Draw, a “roll and write” version of the card-drafting, polyomino cat-tile-placing game, Isle of Cats. In Explore & Draw, instead of drafting cards before choosing tiles, players choose a set of cards each turn and then draw their “discoveries” on their boats. In this version of the game, players simultaneously choose a column from the Island (the central market) and action all three cards in it in order. These could be three cards from the Cat deck, two Cat cards and one Lesson card, or two Lesson cards and card from the Cat deck.

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Cat cards are polyomino cards, Lesson cards are scoring cards and special Oshax and Treasure cards can be found in both decks. Cats, Oshax and Treasures are all drawn directly on the boat on the worksheet, while lessons are ticked off and scored at the end of the game. In the solo game, Cobalt was playing against his “Sister” who reveals a Cat Colour and a Lesson, every round and at the end of the game scores for the different Colours in that order and then the Lessons in turn. This time cobalt made mincemeat of the Automa beating it by seventy-one points to forty-three.

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With everyone arrived by this time, it was just the “simple” matter of deciding who was going to play what. Blue started off leading the “Feature Game“, which was Kavango. This is a card drafting game where players are building an animal reserve by collecting tags and adding animals to their tableau. As such, it takes familiar elements from games like Sushi Go!, 7 Wonders, Wingspan, Meadow, Ark Nova and Terraforming Mars, but has a different feel to all of them. In each round players draft and play ten cards (from an initial hand of twelve), that is to say they choose a card and pass the rest of the cards on to the next player.

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After each card has been chosen, it is added to the player’s tableau. Then players have the option of claiming money for achieving Research Goals and/or spending money on Poaching, Habitat and Climate protections. These are required for some of the animals especially the more interesting and lucrative ones. The clever part about the game is the way the decks progress. In the first round, the deck is mostly made up of Producers (Grassland, Trees, Invertebrates and Fish) and small animals while the second has mostly medium, but some small and some larger sized animals. The third and final deck contains almost exclusively larger animals like Zebras, Lions, and Elephants.

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This makes it harder to get Producers in the final round (though it is still possible by paying for Rewilding), but players can often just play cards directly as they already have prerequisites that they acquired earlier in the game. Throughout, the rules and mechanisms are rooted in reality. For example, players are responsible for their own Poaching and Habitat protections, but Climate protection is everyone’s concern and players have to work on that together. Similarly, before a player can have a Puff Adder, for example, they have to have enough small mammals and birds to feed it. Likewise, if a player wants a White Rhino or an Elephant, they need sufficient Grassland and/or Trees to support them.

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Each round, there are four Research Goals, each with several levels. The Goals can each only be claimed once, so players generally have the choice of claiming Goals early to get money they can spend straight away, or waiting and getting more money, which may delay progress. These Research Goals also progress during the game, so early on, they tend to reward players with lots of Producers and Small Mammals etc., while later in the game they reward players with lots of Protections and bigger animals. At the end of the game, players add bonus points for Biodiversity, Climate Protection and Habitat and Poaching Protection, to the points they got for each animal in their Reserve and the points they acquired during the game for achieving their Research Goals; the player with the most points is the winner.

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Nobody had played the game before, but Indigo had done her homework and had watched the “how-to-play” video, and Blue had done a decent job of reading the rules for a change. The fact that the rules all made sense helped too, and for the most part everyone had a reasonable handle on what they were trying to do. The first challenge was to try to get all four of the player boards on the table with the score-track/Research board and Climate in the middle. The boards were so huge that it wasn’t actually possible, so the side of Indigo’s and Navy’s boards were hanging off the edge of the table, and Pines and Blue’s corners were all overlapping or had a flying free-hold. Still, everyone could just about see what they needed to and could place the cards they had to, and it was all stable so long as nobody moved…

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Pine (the Ecologist), started off really well adding a lot of Small Mammals to his Reserve and achieved early Research Goals as a result. Early in the game, Indigo (the Investor) started contributing to Climate protection. Navy (the Botanist) and then Blue (the Researcher) helped her out later in the game, though Pine never had enough money to contribute enough to gain the Climate Protection bonus. Blue took an early lead in Research Goal points, but Navy soon caught up and by the end of the third round, he had an eight point lead with Indigo holding a three point lead from Pine. That is only a very small proportion of the points available in the game.

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The Lion’s share of the points come from the animals, including Lions, of course (which Navy had one of). Pine really struggled in the latter part of the game since he had loads of Small Mammals, but not a lot else. His problems had begun in the second round when he struggled to generate any money as none of the Research Goals fitted after his highly effective first round. Even so, he still got a over a hundred points for his menagerie and was one measly bird of prey short of getting the Biodiversity Award. Indigo had a slightly more valuable Reserve, while Blue and Navy tied for the most animal points.

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Indigo, Blue and Navy all picked up the bonus points for Climate Protection, Poacher/Habitat Protection and Biodiversity, which meant that Navy took victory by virtue of his eight point lead from the Research Goal points. It had been a very enjoyable game though and there was much discussion as the group carefully dismantled the precariously balanced player boards. Pine took an interest in the other animals in the deck, and there was much hilarity when he found the Sausage Tree—Google convinced him that it was not related to the infamous Spaghetti Tree, and was in fact real. Nobody could convince him that the fruit wasn’t ideally suited to coaxing Trouser Snakes out of their lair’s though.

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On the next table, Black and Pink were leading a rather ill-fated game of Wyrmspan. This is a variant of Wingspan with Dragons instead of Birds. So, like the original, players are playing cards from their hand onto a player board, and activating the habitats in turn. The differences are more than simply cosmetic, however. Firstly, before a Dragon card can be played, it is necessary to explore the cave it will be played in, which involves playing a card (and claiming a Bonus). In Wingspan, if a player needs a resource, they activate their Woodland habitat and visit the Birdfeeder, claiming the resource they want and a couple of extras, whereas in Wyrmspan, players only get resources one at a time so they don’t have any extras.

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This is critical as “Planting Dragons” requires a lot of Resources and can be difficult to do, so it is important that the Dragon planted is then exploited as much as possible. Players also need to make the most of the new Dragon Guild. A step around this Rondel typically gives a Resource as a reward, with a more valuable bonus half-way round and after a full circle. The distribution of cards is different too: in Wingspan, the majority of the cards have an effect when the terrain is activate, but in Wyrmspan, these are in the minority with most card effects happening when played or at the end of the round/game. In Wyrmspan, the rounds are also different.

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Players get a set number of coins at the start of each and an action typically costs one coin. Some cost more however, and occasionally players can pickup extra coins, which can lead to variable length rounds. Thus, although Wyrmspan is very definitely Wingspan at its core there are lots of differences. Blue suggested the group played it, as she had played it with Black and Pink a few months back and they had found it played easily given that they all knew how to play Wingspan. Thinking Purple, Teal and Lime were also very familiar with Wingspan, Blue rashly assumed it would work, but she underestimated how different it was, how long it was since that last game, and how much longer the game would take with five.

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So, Black patiently explained the rules, while Pink tried to help others muddle through. Teal focused on simply achieving the end of round goals and “planted” his Dragons accordingly while working on the top row of caves to generate resources—the equivalent of the “woodland”, which works for both Wingspan and for Wyrmspan. After fighting through one round though, the group agreed to curtail the game after the second round. In such a short game, the scoring was always going to be skewed, but ultimately the player with the most valuable Dragons, Pink, was the victor, with Teal taking second thanks to him taking the points for winning both the end of round goals.

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Across the other side of the room, the final game was Tapestry, with the Plans and Ploys expansion. On the surface, Tapestry has simple mechanisms, but they combine to make a complex game. On their turn, players move one step along one of the four Civilisation tracks around the board: Science, Exploration, Military, Technology and carry out the action (or actions) associated with it. Each space requires payment of resources, and the further along the track, the more expensive the spaces become. If a player cannot afford to pay (or chooses not to), then they instead take income, which gives them more resources. They also gain points and play a tapestry card, which usually provides a power for the next round.

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So, at its heart, Tapestry is an engine building and resource management game: players carry out actions and get resources so they can get more resources and ultimately, points. The Plans and Ploys expansion mostly just adds more of the same with new Civilisations, Tapestry Cards and space tiles. The biggest difference is the addition of Landmark Cards which are designed to give each player a personal short-term goal in the first part of the game, in the form of buildings that only they can claim. Everyone was familiar with the game, so the rules explanation was minimal. Byzantium started (Spies/Grassland) and there was an initial general rush towards the Technology track,

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Ivory (Islanders/Forest), always one for doing something different, instead went in for Exploration as this linked in with his Civilization. As the first round went on, Byzantium and Cobalt (Aliens/Tropical) stuck to Technology, whereas Plum (Riverfolk/Wetland) diversified slightly into Science and Exploration. Her primary plan was to exploit her Civilisation and then try to get to six island hexes to trigger her personal bonus Landmark. Byzantium was first to move to the Income phase, closely followed by Plum and then Cobalt. Ominously, Ivory did what he usually did and managed to stretch my first era out, putting himself in a good position to grab the first Exploration Landmark and also making progress on Military.

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Byzantium went for Technocracy as his first Tapestry card, sticking with his technology theme. He also managed to grab the first Technology Landmark and completed his Architecture card (appropriately the Game Shop). Plum also went for a Tapestry card, Terraforming, that linked her with her strategy, giving her five points for building on impassable plots, something her Riverfolk Civilization wanted her to do and gave her additional resources of. Although her alternative Civilisation had looked more interesting, it involved knowing what other people’s options were so she had chosen the simpler Riverfolk and made good use of it. She was also still fairly diverse in her track focus. Cobalt went for Socialism, to keep pace with Byzantium on the Technology track.

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Cobalt also gained Landmarks from his Technology cards, helping him build his Skyscraper Architecture card. Having only taken his Income whilst everyone else was half way through their second Era, Ivory could see Cobalt was focusing on Technology, so he used the State Marriage Tapestry card to gain befits on this track whenever Cobalt did. Having the Military track to himself and a good head start on Exploration, Ivory managed to grab a couple of Landmarks quite quickly. Everyone was also getting Income from buildings on their mats too. Again, Byzantium Plum and Cobalt all moved into their third Era in quick succession, leaving Ivory half way through his second Era.

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Cobalt managed to grab the third Era Technology Landmark, but he struggled to fit it on his Capital board and it had to overhang. At this point, Plum used the Dictator Tapestry Card (with associated comments from Byzantium) to move up the Technology track while restricting everyone else’s progress on the same track for one turn. Byzantium had been plotting a move as he was next in line for a Landmark, but Plum’s Dictatorial behaviour only slightly delayed him getting it. This, plus the State Marriage benefited Ivory and competition with Byzantium meant Cobalt used the Militarism Tapestry card to switch his focus to Exploration and Military.

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Although Cobalt had changed tack to avoid competition with Byzantium, Ivory had a health head-start on both of these tracks, grabbing the Landmarks as he went and also conquering the centre island just before Cobalt could. To add insult to injury, when Cobalt tried to conquer the island and topple Ivory, he was ready with a Trap card, foiling his plan. Cobalt quickly got revenge paying Ivory back in kind when he tried to do the same thing to one of his territories. However, that wasn’t going to discourage Ivory, and with the Military track encouraging him to conquer, he got the final word in, conquering one of Cobalt’s territories and gaining a double topple bonus.

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Moving into the final era, again, Ivory was characteristically some way behind everyone else. Byzantium picked up extra resources from the “Age of Wonder” and used these to good effect being the first to reach the end of a track. Plum, hosted the Olympic Games with her final Tapestry card (and presumably moved to Paris to do so). This gave her ten points in exchange for a Worker Resource, and additionally a bonus building if any other player took up the offer of doing the same. Byzantium was the only one who did, as Cobalt wasn’t able to and Ivory had other plans.

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Cobalt and Plum were both still fairly diverse in their track focus, although Plum had made good progress on the Science track, which was mostly ignored by everyone else. Byzantium also switched focus to some of the other tracks now he had completed the Technology track. Ivory stuck to Military and Exploration, completing the former (although there was not enough time to gain the second Civilization). He was sorely tempted by one of his favourite strategies, sending his Meeples into Space by completing the Exploration track, but instead, Ivory switched focus to the other tracks to get as many income buildings in his Capital as possible to maximize the final scoring.

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Again, everyone finished in quick succession except Ivory, who, as usual, had about five or six turns to go after everyone else had finished. Plum started with an additional thirty-five points at the beginning of the game thanks to her Riverfolk which gave her points for each territory in her City that had at least two unpassable spaces, but everyone caught up throughout the game. In the end, in Ivory’s final Income round scored him well over fifty points, overtaking everyone and winning and giving him victory. It had been a good game, enjoyed by all, and although he’d won Ivory hadn’t given everyone as much of a trouncing as he had in the past. Cobalt felt that the advantages of going first were not mitigated for those going last, so maybe next time that could be used as a slight handicap for Ivory.

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Learning Outcome: Animal games are a lot of fun—And that’s not Lion!

16th April 2024

Everyone seemed more keen on standing around and chatting that playing, but eventually, once everyone had arrived, people started dividing up into groups. Ivory began by leading Jade, Sapphire and Cobalt to the other side of the room to play the “Feature Game“, which was the new “hotness” Let’s Go! To Japan. In this game, players are travelers planning, then experiencing their own dream holiday in Japan. Played over thirteen rounds, players draw activity cards place them in different days in their week-long itinerary. These can’t-miss tourist attractions have players traveling between Tokyo and Kyoto as they try to maximize their experience by optimising their activities while balancing resources.

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In each of the thirteen rounds, players draw cards according to the pre-organised sequence. For example, there are two decks of cards (Tokyo and Kyoto), and for the first four rounds, players take one card from each deck, keep one and add it to their tableau assigning it to one of the days of their dream, then pass the second card to their neighbour. In the fifth round, players take the four cards they’ve been given and then they place two in their tableau and pass two on, and so on. Once eighteen cards have been played (three on each of the six days), the game is over and players take their planned trip, activating each of their cards in order, starting on Monday and work their way through to Saturday.

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There is a catch: where there is a swap between the two decks, players have to move between the cities of Tokyo and Kyoto by playing a Luxury Train Ticket which they can acquire during the game. Each of these is worth two points. If players do not have enough tokens to cover each change, they play a Regular Train Ticket from the supply which costs them two points. Activating cards involves moving the players’ five Experience tokens along a track, increasing or decreasing their Mood, Stress and Happiness, gaining points and then evaluating the requirements for the Highlight of the Day depicted on the final card of the day. If these requirements have been fulfilled, the player gets bonus points and the player with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.

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The game rattled along very quickly with swift turns and the added bonus that setup was quite rapid too. As a result, it was easily under forty-five minutes before everyone was explaining their plan and scoring it. That said it was hard to keep track of what everyone was doing. Ivory was the first to fill a day and managed to get everything aligned to get the top bonus of a Luxury Train ticket. Although this was very nice, it in no way indicated Ivory was going to get a big score. Jade and Cobalt quickly followed suit, Cobalt also gaining Luxury Train Tickets (which he got quite a few of throughout the game), and Jade got quite a lot of the second best reward, choosing Wild Tokens that would be really useful at the end of game to ensure meeting Highlight of the Day/End of Game objectives.

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Sapphire was spreading his activities out a little bit more, but as the game went on he also managed to build a large store of wild tokens. At the start of the game, Jade and Sapphire (who were not sitting next to each other) focused more on Kyoto, whereas Ivory and Cobalt were playing a lot more Tokyo cards. Inevitably, however, everyone ended up going to both cities and need Train Tickets as a result. Cobalt and Jade were the only people who choose to grab research tokens; Cobalt used one of these mid-game and managed to manipulate his hand so he ensured he passed nothing of use to Jade, much to his annoyance. Otherwise, everyone worked on their mental health and managed to keep their stress down scoring positive points for the trip.

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At the end of the game, Sapphire, Jade and Ivory had minimized their travel between the two cities though, whereas Cobalt required a lot of trains: as he had lots of Luxury Train Tickets he actually increased his score significantly with these. Jade had not picked up enough Luxury Train Tickets, so was stuck on commuter trains causing him to lose a lot of points. Sapphire ended up with a quick return trip between Kyoto and Tokyo on his last day, but that was acceptable because you should always go out your way for Sake!

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Scoring took longer than usual as everyone gave a detailed description of their trip. Both Cobalt and Sapphire scored well on every day of their trip, with Cobalt slightly ahead thanks to his Luxury Train Tickets. Sapphire managed to complete all his Highlight of the Day objectives though without using his wild tokens, so he cashed these in at the end of the game to push all his tokens into the next scoring zone and subsequently won the game by two points from Cobalt. It had been a highly enjoyable experience though, enhanced by the beautiful components, especially the extremely pretty, but totally over the top ceramic component bowls!

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From there, the group then played a game of Faraway, a light game set on the mysterious continent of Alula with its ever-changing geography, shaped after the rhythm of the seasons. On each turn, players play a card from a hand of three. As play is simultaneous, players must take into account the priority system in all their choices—being last to pick a card leaves fewer options and often less profitable choices for later turns. During the game, players will play a row of eight cards in front of them, from left to right. These cards represent the regions they will come across while exploring the lands. Characters on these cards will give victory points if the player later fulfills the conditions they demand. At the end of the game, players walk back along the same route, scoring cards in the opposite order to that they were played in—and therein lies the heart of the game-play.

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Throughout the game, the cards played serve both to set new objectives, and to meet ones played previously. This time, Ivory started quickly out of the traps playing the highest card and subsequently getting the last pick in the following round, which was a minor hindrance. As the game went on, the order of picking the cards changed each time and everyone managed to pick first at some point, although it did seem like Sapphire and Ivory had the greatest varieties, mostly either being first or last! Jade was very quick off the mark getting lots of maps which gave him a significant card advantage throughout the game as he could look at four or five cards and pick the best one. Ivory also didn’t do too badly with maps.

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It eventually became clear that Jade had managed to play his cards in such a way he was always playing a higher card than his last card giving him an additional secondary card, but he was also able to fulfill the requirements to score the objective on that card even though it would need fulfilling earlier in the journey. Come the end of game scoring and going on their journey, both Cobalt and Ivory had slightly take their eye of the ball and missed fulfilling the requirements of some of their cards and thus missed out on points they though we were going to get. In the end, it was very close for second place Sapphire just taking it, while everyone was thrashed by Jade.

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On the next table, Green was keen to play Lost Ruins of Arnak, and was eventually joined by Black and Plum. This game combines deck-building and worker placement with resource management. Players start with six cards in their deck, two Money, two Compasses and two Fear cards, and draw five of these to play. As in the original deck-builder, Dominion, or in the racing games, Flamme Rouge and Snow Tails, Fear cards clog up players’ decks and more are acquired as the game progresses. But also as in Dominion, there are ways to “exile” cards during the game. So, players can try to keep a tight deck with minimal cards, or try to buy lots of cards that work well together.

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Players then have two meeples each that can be sent to locations on the map, to either discover or use an action Location. These generally give Resources plus some additions like draw a card, or gain a Fear card etc.. Each new site also has a Creature guarding it, which, if beaten, will give points and a small one-time bonus. The Research Track is where players spend three of the resources, Tablets, Arrows and Jewels. Each player has two tokens which move up the same track giving different rewards as it ascends. Thematically, you can’t write stuff in the notebook until you find it with your magnifying glass, so the former can never overtake the latter on the track. And of course, the notebook gives cooler rewards.

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Players get one action each per turn, until everyone has passed signalling the end of the round, and the game finishes after five rounds. At the end of the game, Points are awarded for Cards, for progress on the Research Track, for discovering Locations and for beating Creatures; the player with the most points at the end is the winner. This time, early in the game, Green pointed out to Plum that she could use an Idol gained by defeating a Guardian to give her the resources she needed to go up the Research Track. That gave Plum an Assistant and she picked one that turned a Boot into an Arrowhead.

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Green bought the card Plum had been eying up, which let players rid themselves of Fear cards (worth minus one point), and therefore seemed like a good use for a Boot/Fear. It was pointed out later, however, that any card could be used in place of the Boot as all other transport types work for Boot icons. Plum then got an Assistant that could upgrade a resource, which in practice she used turn Arrowheads into a Rubies as that was all she had by the end of the rounds. She also managed to get ahead with her Explore magnifying glass token and was the first to a new level on a couple of occasions, which gave her valuable bonuses.

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Green picked up a couple of Fear cards from leaving Guardians undefeated; Black got at least one as well, but Plum managed to dodge them. Both Black and Green got useful Artifact Cards where they could get lots of resources. It was a little way in that the group noticed the slight Rules Malfunction: although players were putting their new cards at the bottom of their Draw pile, players were then shuffling the Draw and Discard piles together before drawing new cards. This gave an extra bit of randomness that this time, worked in Plum’s favour. For example, she had an item card that gave a Compass per worker when it was played, and it seemed to put in a lot of appearances. In contrast, all the cards Green had bought didn’t come out until the final round—he got the balance of the bad luck.

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Black picked up an Assistant which helped him cycle through his cards which helped mitigate the randomness a little, though there were a couple of occasions when someone took the location he had been working towards. Right at the end of the game, when Plum had managed to reach the top of the Explore/Research Track with her magnifying glass, she was able to use the Icons on her board to get the resources needed to pick up one of the most valuable Temple Tiles—worth eleven points. Green, however, scored almost twice that of the others for his Idols and Black top-scored for his item and artifact cards.

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It was the Temple points, together with the extra points Plum got for getting to the top of the Explore/Research Track that ultimately made the difference, giving her a total of sixty-nine points, thirteen more than Green who took second place. Both Plum and Green had played before, though most of their previous games had been online where the administration of the card shuffling was done for them, hence the Rules Malfunction. It was Black’s first game, and despite the rules issue and not scoring as well as the other two, he still really enjoyed the game, so there is a good chance it will get another outing in the not too distant future.

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Meanwhile, that left six players; Pink was keen to give his favourite panda game another outing, so Pine and Lime joined him in a game of Zoo Break. This is a cooperative game, where players work together to try to prevent animals escaping from Bedlam Zoo. On their turn, players roll the die to decide how many Action Points they get, then, after carrying out their turn, flip a Escape Card and a then a Move Card to determine what gets out of its cage and what moves. Players have to avoid getting trampled on or bitten by the animals, while catching them and then locking them in their cages.

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The group started well, or at least it started well from Pink’s perspective when he was cuddled by a Panda (one of his real-life wishes). However, the game did not go so well. There are a number of optional variants, and the group had chosen to use the “Faulty Lock” Variant which means that if an escape card is drawn for animals who have already been locked up, the die is rolled to determine whether there are escapees. This turned out to make things just a bit too difficult and a Coral snake quickly made a bid for freedom, and as it’s a dangerous animal, that was that. One snake might not seem like much, but there were another five lining up in front of the gate and three tigers too, so it really did not go well.

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Reluctant to leave it like that, the trio decided to give it another try, this time without the “Faulty Lock” Variant. This second try went better, though at one point two elephants got very close to the exit. The situation was rescued by peanuts which enticed them to the Snack Stall where they were eventually captured. There was some extensive rules reading to decide whether Pandas were considered “Dangerous” so only one escaping would trigger failure. The group concluded that Pandas were not Dangerous animals after all though, and four Pandas roaming the streets would not lead to closure of the Zoo (though perhaps the Chinese government would not be appreciative).

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In the end, the distinction wasn’t necessary, none of the Pandas got out, though one Capuchin did manage to escape. That was all, however, and once the group finally rounded up the last of the mad Meercat escapees, the writing was on the wall and the Zoo was saved. The other games were still underway, so once the charming wooden animals had been tucked away, the trio opted for a couple of rounds of Coloretto. This is a charming little card game which is the core of the, arguably better known board game, Zooloretto.

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The game is very simple: Players either draw a Chameleon card from the deck and add it to one of the Carts, or take the cards on one of the Carts and add them to their tableau, stepping out until everyone else has taken a Cart. Each Cart has three spaces and players core points for their three largest sets of cards and negative points for any others. The player with the most points at the end of the round after the trigger card is revealed is the winner. The clever part is the scoring for sets, which uses the Triangular Number sequence and means that later cards are worth a lot more than the early ones.

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When the Golden Chameleon card came out, there was some discussion about the difference between it and the multi-coloured Chameleon. Blue, on the next table was consulted, and explained that it meant the person who takes it gets an extra card drawn from the top of the deck. With that sorted, the game continued. The group played two games and both were close, especially between Pine and Pink with Pink just edging it for the first game by two points and Pine just beating Pink by a single point in the second. Both games were won by Lime, however, and by a larger margin, taking the first by four points and the second by six.

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The last table included three players, Blue, Purple and Byzantium. They were the last to start, and were somewhat torn between two of the current hot games in the group, Wyrmspan and Meadow. After some discussion, the group went for what was probably the easier of the two, and gave Meadow its their outing in three consecutive meetings. A light to medium card collection game, it was new to both Purple and Byzantium, so Blue explained the rules. Most of the game is built round a Card Market with players placing an Action Token and taking a card into their hand, before playing a card from their hand.

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This aspect of the game has led to some reviewers comparing the game to Splendor, though there is a lot more to the game than that. In addition to the Market, there is a second Campfire board, which allows players to carry out special actions, and also claim Bonus points. for cards in their tableau. The first time the game was played, there was a token included erroneously from the Envelope U mini-expansion, and last time the game got an outing, there was a minor rules malfunction where the four players ended up playing on the three-player board. So although the game has been played three times in fairly quick succession, this time was the first time the game was played by the rules as written, probably.

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Players start with a hand of cards, including one from the North deck (which is only introduced halfway through the game)—this last card is typically more worth more but is difficult to play, so is a good way to get a steer in the early stages of the game. As well as the other cards in their starting hand, another key strategy lead is the Bonus points obtained from the Campfire board. These are obtained by placing a Bonus point token between two Icons, but in order to do so, the player must have those icons in their tableau. Since each bonus place can only be claimed once, this element of the game is something of a race between those who want to compete for these points.

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This time, the Icons drawn at random and placed round the Campfire included the relatively scarce Cottage, Fence and Garden Bird as well as the Wolf and Hawk which only come out in the second half of the game, when the North deck is introduced. This made the Bonus points hard to claim. Although neither Blue nor Byzantium appreciated it at the time, although most Wolf cards are in the North deck, this copy of the game included the Seal promo card, which is a Wolf card that hides in the South Deck. As it was key to getting bonus points, when it came out, both Blue and Byzantium spotted it, but Blue got to it first, and that turned out to be critical to her Bonus point objectives as Byzantium pinched the other spots early.

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Meanwhile, Purple was busy collecting frogs and very effectively daisy-chaining cards to give her points. As the game moved into its final rounds, Byzantium struggled to get a Landscape card that he could play without needing too many difficult prerequisites. In spite of the frustrations when players can’t get cards, the game has a nice gentle roll to it and with three players doesn’t outstay its welcome in the way it does with four (when there are two extra rounds). It was quite a tight game—Purple and Byzanium finished with thirty-seven and thirty-six points respectively from their observations, but Byzantium had more points from his Landscape cards.

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Blue didn’t do as well as them with her observations, but had the most points from her Landscape cards. Although Purple hadn’t managed to get any Bonus points, both Blue and Byzantium had picked up the full nine giving them a bit of a lead. In the end, it was the Observations that were key, and they gave Byzantium victory by four points with a total of sixty. As the Meadows were tidied up, the last of the other games came to a close too and everyone chatted until it was time to go home.

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Learning Outcome: Every game should come with ceramic component bowls.

2nd April 2024

While Blue, Pink and Cobalt were finishing their supper, Plum led a quick game of Draftosaurus with Black, Purple and Cobalt (who had already finished his pizza). Cobalt was new to the game, so after a quick rules explanation the group were passing dino-meeples left and right and building themselves exciting dino-parks. The game is really quick and simple: players start with a handful of wooden dino-meeples, and on each turn, they draft one, that is to say, they choose one and pass the rest on. The chosen dino-meeples are then placed in the players’ parks, obeying the rules on the Die (the active player who rolled the Die excepted).

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The Die roll forces players to choose from locations in one half of the board, or restricts them to playing in an empty pen or one without a T-rex, making things considerably harder. Players draft a hand clockwise, and then a second hand anti-clockwise, after which, points are scored for each pen and totalled up to find the winner. This was Plum’s fiftieth game—it was one of their group’s go-to warm-up and filler games played remotely during the global pandemic on BoardGameArena. Although her 24% success rate seems really good at first, at four players, one out of four could be seen as about par.

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Plum marked her milestone with a change of strategy, forced by the Dice to go for the most T-rexes, but it worked giving her victory with forty-one points. Purple took a very respectable second with thirty-five points—one of her best scores in this game. From there, Cobalt headed off to play Meadow with Blue, Jade and Sapphire, while everyone else joined Plum, Black and Purple to play the “Feature Game“, which to mark the thirtieth anniversary of 6 Nimmt!, was the new Jumping Cow mini-expansion. 6 Nimmt! is one of the group’s favourite games and was arguably responsible for keeping us sane when we were stuck at home in 2020 and as a result, won the Golden GOAT Award.

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The game is super-simple: players simultaneously choose a card from their hand and then, starting with the card with the lowest face value, they are added to one of four row. Each card is added to the row that ends with the highest value card that is lower than the card to be placed. If that means the row now has six cards, the active player takes the first five cards in the row into their scoring pile, with their card becoming the new first card. The new Jumping Cow expansion is a single additional card that lurks at the end of the row. Cards are added as normal, however, when one is added to the Jumping Cow row, the Cow jumps to another row, the one with the lowest face value at the end.

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The Jumping Cow Card does not have a value itself, but it does add to the number of cards in the row. So if the card added is the sixth, the player takes the other four cards and then the Cow jumps. If the row the Cow jumps to has five cards in it, the active player takes four of those too before the Cow jumps again… Thus, as Plum discovered this time, multiple jumps can lead to collecting a lot of points! The game was the usual entertaining fun, but although the Jumping Cow expansion adds more madness, 6 Nimmt! is a near perfect game that needs little to no improvement (although we have found the Professional Variant an occasional worthwhile addition).

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This time, the top scorer (aided by the Jumping Cow) was Plum with sixty-one, closely followed by Ivory with fifty-seven. Purple did very well to limit her takings to nineteen, but she was beaten into third place by Pink who just kept his to single figures with nine. The winner was Teal, however, with just four from the first hand and a clear round from the second. From there, with six, the options were limited, but the group decided to stick together and, after eschewing Bohnanza, opted for another golden oldie: For Sale. Remarkably, Ivory had somehow not played this before, and was really taken with it, so much so that he immediately looked to see if he could get a copy and everyone was shocked to find it was out of print and the only copy available was for forty pounds on ebay!

– Image by boardGOATS

For Sale is really simple: Players start with a hand of cash and use this to bid for buildings, with a face value from one to thirty. In the second half of the game, cheques are revealed and players have to choose one of their properties—the player with the highest value building then takes the highest value cheque, thus the idea is not to waste high value buildings when the takings available are low. Pink, Plum and Teal were all really close and ended in a three-way tie for third place. Ivory and Purple were some way in front, but separated by a single point with Purple just taking victory, with a final taking of fifty-six thousand dollars.

– Image by boardGOATS

Casting about for another game that plays well with six, Bohnanza was passed over once again, this time in favour of Saboteur. Saboteur is a hidden traitor game where players are Dwarves tunneling to find gold. With six players, the rules have either one or two Saboteurs, however, as the game is always difficult for the Saboteurs and impossible alone, the group chose to forgo the ambiguity and go for a guaranteed two Saboteurs. Once the Saboteurs knew who they were, everyone got a hand of cards: a mixture of tunnel cards and special cards. On their turn, players play a card and draw a new one. Tunnel cards extend the network, while special cards allow players to break or mend tools stopping other players from building tunnels (or reinstating that ability).

– Image by boardGOATS

Additionally, there are Treasure Map cards which allow players to look at one of the three potential gold cards to see if it is gold or coal, and Rockfall cards which allow players to collapse the tunnel by removing one card. Usually, the Saboteurs hide for as long as possible in an effort to acquire some good “Saboteury cards” and play them with a lot of impact. Choosing the right time for that reveal is really critical though, leaving it too late means there isn’t time to do enough damage. This time then, Black announced his position very early by playing an obviously obstructing tunnel card and was swiftly followed by Pink who compounded the poor Dwarves’ problems by playing a Rockfall card.

– Image by boardGOATS

The Evil Criminal Masterminds were aided by the fact that when the Dwarves played their Treasure Map cards they struggled to find the gold. The game turned out to be quite epic, but success just fell to the Saboteurs, giving them a rare victory. As Teal and Ivory waved farewell, the others looked for something else to play. Saboteur is a great game, and although it is not as old as 6 Nimmt!, this year is also Saboteur’s anniversary year. It is celebrating twenty years, as is another old favourite, No Thanks!. In choosing this, those that had played all five games had played over a hundred years of popular games in one evening.

– Image by boardGOATS

No Thanks! is a super simple, push-your-luck game, where players are trying to finish with the lowest score from the total face value of their cards minus any chips they have. On their turn, players either take the top card and any chips on it, or pay a chip to pass the problem on to the next player. There are thirty-three cards in the deck (numbered three to thirty-five), but nine are removed at random, which is what makes the game really tick—when scoring, players only count the lowest card of a run. This time. Pink top-scored with forty-nine points. Plum and Purple both took forty-eight points for their cards, but in Plum’s case this was off-set by her enormous pile of chips, leaving her with just twenty.

– Image by boardGOATS

It wasn’t enough though. Black managed to just scrape through with only a single chip left at the end, giving him a total of thirteen points, and with it, victory. While everyone else had been sampling a smorgasbord of golden oldie games, Jade, Blue, Cobalt and Sapphire were revisiting the relatively new Meadow, which they’d missed out on playing last time. This is a fairly simple game, where the complexity is in choosing and placing tokens to get cards that combine well together. Players take it in turns to play an Action Tokens either in the Market or round the Campfire, and complete the associated Actions. The Market consists of a four by four grid of face up cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

Players play an Action token in the market to define a row or column with the number on the token dictating which card they will take from that row or column. They then place a card in their play area. This can be the card just collected or one from the player’s hand, but the prerequisites must be satisfied. Playing around the Campfire gives a special action and the option to additionally place a bonus point token on a tree-stump between any pair of symbols currently displayed in the player’s area. At the end of the game, the total score for the cards played is added up together with any bonuses and the winner has the most points.

– Image by boardGOATS

Last time, the general feeling was that the game dragged a little with four, so Blue suggested that instead of playing with the full eight rounds, maybe playing with six (as for the three player game) would make things easier. Jade interpreted that as the suggestion to play with the three player board, but as quickly became apparent, the campfire circle is smaller with three, leaving fewer bonus spaces available making that element of the game very competitive. Blue and Sapphire were already committed to their strategy as placing later bonus tokens give more points, so they went for the bonuses doubly hard.

– Image by boardGOATS

Jade kept getting Cobalt’s name wrong in a way reminiscent of Blue with Ivory’s name some ten years ago—that lasted the best part of a year, but hopefully Jade will sort it out before then. It didn’t seem to put Cobalt/Chromium/Cadmium off his game though. From early on, he focused on building some Landscape cards adding some valuable Observation and Discovery cards. Sapphire’s starting hand included a Wolf icon for his card from the North deck, and he played that nice and early giving him the opportunity to use it to claim a couple of the bonus spots giving him all three and a total of nine points. Blue also claimed her third quite early leaving only two for Jade and Cobalt/Chromium/Cadmium to share between them.

– Image by boardGOATS

Although she couldn’t see it, going into the final couple of rounds it was tight between Blue and Cobalt/Chromium/Cadmium. The game is very tight though, with only four turns per round, so it is important to make sure they all count. In the final round, Blue was fortunate in going first and was able to grab and play a couple of high value cards. Jade and Sapphire also added a couple more cards to their tableau all of which made it really hard to call. In the end, Jade (who had the most valuable tableau) pipped Sapphire by a single point (after a couple of recounts) and Cobalt/Chromium/Cadmium was two points clear, finishing with forty points. The winner, however, perhaps thanks to those final couple of cards, was Blue with a total of forty-three.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Golden Oldies are golden for a reason.

19th March 2024

There were a few absentees again, but the group still made it into double-figures. So, after the usual chit-chat, the group split into two—the first group playing the “Feature Game“, Meadow, while the other, larger group, played a couple of lighter games. Meadow is a very smooth, engine building, set-collection card game with charming artwork. Players take on the roles of explorers competing for the title of the most skilled nature observer. Reviews refer to it as a “Splendor Killer”, that is to say, these people feel it has a similar feel to Splendor, but is a better game. It is also considerably more complex, though not especially difficult in its own right.

– Image by boardGOATS

Players start with four or five Action tokens (depending on player count), a Road token and a double-sided Ground card. There are four decks of cards, North, South, East and West, and players also begin with a card from each of the North, East and West decks and two from the South deck. Players then take it in turns to play one of their Action tokens either in the Market or round the Campfire, and complete the associated Actions. The Market is the simplest: this consists of a four by four grid of face up cards. Players choose a notch along the edge of the board to play their token in and this defines a row or column and the number on the token dictates which card they will take from that row.

– Image by boardGOATS

There are four types of cards: Ground, Observations, Landscapes and Discoveries. After taking a card from the Market, the active player then plays a card from their hand or the card drawn into the play area in front of them. In general, each card has a large symbol in the top left corner usually with smaller symbols below—these smaller symbols are prerequisites for playing a card and the player must already have them in their area before they can play the new card. Ground cards are just played in the players’ Meadows and are the lowest cards in the Meadow stacks.

– Image by boardGOATS

Landscape cards are similar, but require a Road tile, and are played in the Surroundings area, above the player’s Meadow. Observation and Discovery cards are played on top of existing cards (in the Meadow and Surroundings respectively), such that the new symbol replaces one of the old ones. Instead of collecting a card from the Market and playing a card, players can play their Action token in one of the notches around the Campfire. This activates the special Action shown on the token (take one card from the Market; take two Road tokens; take three cards blind from any deck and keep one; play two cards).

– Image by boardGOATS

Players taking the Campfire option can additionally place a bonus point token on a tree-stump between any pair of symbols as long as they are displayed in their play area. Players have three tokens (valued two, three and four points) giving a total of nine extra points at the end of the game if they manage to place them all. Finally, in the absence of anything else they can do, players can place their Action token on a bench on the Campfire board and play one card. This is really very much a last resort as this is a much weaker action, giving half or less than the other options give.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pink led explaining the rules to Plum, Lime and Teal, and was roundly chastised by Pine from the next table for not knowing what a Meadow was, and confusing it with “normal grassland”. The first round was a little slow as the group found their feet, but then it was all go. Plum started with a Badger card which is quite high value and features a Wolf icon, so she planned her strategy round that. As the game progressed, everyone was collecting Satchel icons and expected them to be needed for something in the second half of the game. However, after the South cards were swapped for the North deck at the half-way stage, there was a slow realisation that they were just the final step on the path (though that could change with the inclusion of expansions of course).

– Image by boardGOATS

Plum’s Badger card turned out to be quite difficult to place, so as players can have a hand of ten cards, she filled her hand to give her the most options. Someone else took the space around the campfire on one side of the wolf before she got to it, but as the the icons on either side weren’t as rare she was able to take the other easily enough and followed it with two more to get the full nine Bonus points, the only one to do so. There was a problem with an odd token around the fireplace that featured a Stag with a red border, that turned out to be from Envelop U: Big Encounters. This is a mini-expansion that comes with the base game, and had been confused with the core game as one token had been accidentally left at home.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game was enjoyed by all, though with four it perhaps slightly over-stayed its welcome a little. The eventual winner was Plum with sixty-one points nearly ten points ahead of Pink in second. Meanwhile, on the next table, the rest of the group were having a light evening, playing as a group of six. First up was Die Wandelnden Türme (aka Wandering Towers)—a game that has been very popular in the group since it first came out a eighteen months ago. The idea behind this game is that on their turn, players play two cards from their hand of three cards, one after another, performing all the moves if at all possible. There are three types of cards, those that move a Wizard, those that move a Tower and those that move either a Wizard or a Tower; in each case, the number of movement spaces is given.

– Image by boardGOATS

Players can only move their own Wizard and each Tower and empty space can hold up to
six wizards (if a move would exceed that limit, it cannot be made). Whenever a Wizard’s move ends in the space with the Ravenskeep, the player drops the Wizard into the keep—this is one of the key targets during the game as the winner must have all their Wizards trapped in the Ravenskeep. In contrast to Wizards, players can move any Tower segment along with everything on top of it (Tower segments and Wizards). Whenever a Tower’s move ends in a space with Tower segments already in it, the new Tower goes on top, imprisoning all the Wizards it covers—all nine towers and the Ravenskeep could end up in the same space!

– Image by boardGOATS

Whenever a Tower covers Wizards, imprisoning them players get to fill one of their Potion Vials, turning it over—this is the other key target during the game as the winner must have all filled all their Potion Vials. The player with both, all their Wizards in the Ravenskeep and all their Vials full of Potion, triggers the end of the game, with play continuing until everyone has had the same number of turns and all players that fulfill the criteria share victory. Jade led the group, reminding everyone of the rules and explaining them to those who had not played before.

– Image by boardGOATS

Cobalt managed to tease a few extra rules out of the rule book , in particular that no more than six Wizards can sit on any one Tower segment, and a player’s turn finishes immediately if they place a Wizard in the Ravenskeep. Aside from this, much amusement was had, especially as the stacks of Towers got really tall, they didn’t quite make it to the maximum of nine plus the Ravenskeep, but they did reach a good six or seven segments in one stack. Black was the first to fulfill both the end-game criteria and Cobalt trapped dropped the last of his Wizards into the keep before the round finished.

– Image by boardGOATS

As Cobalt still had two empty Vials, he took second place with Sapphire and Jade taking joint third. Staying together as a group of six, they then went on to play King of Tokyo, a fast dice roller along the lines of Yahtzee where players control a monster try to destroy more of the city than their opponents while also attacking the other monsters to either take them out or keep them down long enough to enable the attacker to take victory. Players each have a Monster and two dials which are used to track their Monster’s health (starting at ten) and the number of Victory Points they have gained. The winner is either the first player to earn twenty Victory Points or by being the last Monster standing.

– Image by boardGOATS

Players take turns before passing the Dice on, clockwise. They get a maximum of three rolls, but can stop early and any number of Dice can be put aside after each roll. The Dice are not locked, so Dice set aside after the first round can be rolled in the third if desired. The dice feature numbers one, two and three, a Claw, a Lightening Bolt, and a Heart. The numbers give the player Victory Points and the Claw indicates damage inflicted on a chosen opponent. The Lightening Bolt gives the player an energy cube which can be spent on Power Cards, and the Heart increases the Monster’s Health (though the Monster must be outside the City to be able to take advantage of this).

– Image by boardGOATS

Once the dice have been rolled and resolved, players can buy Power Cards from the face-up display—these typically cost between two and eight Energy, and can be very useful at helping to control the game. The other key part of the game is the Monsters’ locations: they can be “In Tokyo” or “Outside Tokyo”. To enter Tokyo a player must roll one or more Claws; when a monster in Tokyo is attacked they will take damage and the player has to decide whether to stay in Tokyo or not. If they Yield Tokyo, they allow/force the attacking monster to enter Tokyo in their place. This is critical because Monsters deal damage based on their location and any Monsters in Tokyo deal damage to all monsters outside Tokyo and vice versa.

– Image by boardGOATS

One of the handicaps of being in Tokyo is the fact that a player cannot heal whilst in Tokyo. However, when a Monster enters Tokyo it earns a Victory Point for doing so and if it starts its turn in Tokyo, then it earns two Victory Points. These points help a player inch towards that winning total of twenty. With six players the Tokyo Bay location on the game board is also used, effectively meaning that two Monsters can be in Tokyo at the same time, improving the balance and preventing five monsters ganging up on one, while also discouraging everyone outside Tokyo to try and displace them rather than just focus on collecting Energy, Healing or Victory Points.

– Image by boardGOATS

Unusually for the games the group plays, King of Tokyo has player elimination—when a player’s health falls to zero, they are out, a fate suffered by half the players in the game this time. Jade was first to be knocked out, but Sapphire and Cobalt weren’t far behind. With six players, Black’s stay in Tokyo which lasted three full rounds was quite remarkable. It was perhaps no surprise therefore that he was the eventual victor, collecting the full twenty Victory Points, some way ahead of Pine in second with eight and Purple just behind him in third.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: A meadow is grassland which is not regularly grazed instead being left to grow to produce hay.

Essen 2022

Known to gamers worldwide simply as “SPIEL” or “Essen”, the Internationale Spieltage, the annual German games fair is the largest in Europe and arguably the world. The fair is of particular significance as many new releases are scheduled to coincide with the event just in time for Christmas sales. In 2020, like many other events, SPIEL was cancelled. The online event that replaced it was not as successful, and in 2021 there was a return to the in person fair albeit with restrictions and much smaller than that in 2019. Today is the first day of this year’s SPIEL which runs from Thursday to Sunday every October.

– Image from spiel-messe.com

Although many of the Covid restrictions have been lifted, medical grade surgical masks covering mouth and nose are still mandatory for all visitors and exhibitors. So while SPIEL will likely be larger this year than last, it probably won’t reach pre-pandemic proportions. The maths trade is back though, a crazy event where hundreds of people agree multiple trades and sales online in advance and then all meet up at 3pm and try to find the people they have made contracts with and make the exchanges. Remarkably, it works, and very well too, with some people selling hundreds of euros worth of games through this means.

– Image by Friedhelm Merz Verlag

Despite the number of people involved, the exchanges only take a few minutes and it is usually almost all over in half an hour making it a surprisingly efficient way of making space for the new arrivals. In addition to the Maths Trade, there will be the usual exhibitors showcasing their wares. The Spiel des Jahres and Deutscher Spiele Preis winners will also all be available and there will also be lots of games making their SPIEL debut. These include Uwe Rossenburg’s latest game, Atiwa, and the top of “The Essen Hotness” games: Tiletum, Revive, Woodcraft, Lacrimosa and Hamlet: The Village Building Game. Games like Flamecraft, Turing Machine and War of the Ring: The Card Game will be for sale too.

– Image by BGG contributor W Eric Martin

There will be re-implementations, like Richard Breese’s reworking of his 1998 game, Keydom’s Dragons (formerly Keydom), Clever 4Ever (extending Ganz Schön Clever), Skymines (a redevelopment of Mombasa), Amsterdam (formerly Macao) and of course, Ticket to Ride (San Francisco). Expansions will also be on show for games like The Red Cathedral (Contractors), Galaxy Trucker (Keep on Trucking), Meadow (Downstream), Sagrada (The Great Facades – Glory) and two of our favourites, Viticulture (World) and Wingspan (Asia). Sadly, no-one from boardGOATS will be there to see them though; maybe next year…

– Image from stonemaiergames.com