Monday Recap Week 35 - what did you play last week?

we had a busy week and only managed to get our group together for a long session Terraforming Mars- it was a 4 player game with one new player at the table. While the newcomer did good, it came down to us other three to see who contributes the most.

I had a terrible start with almost all cards being useless early game. I had the Tardigrade card as my only card for 3 generations. I managed to claw my back back into the game by pursuing aggressive card-drawing strats. Placing oceans on the card-drawing hexes and take every opportunity to draw more until I had some decent cards on the table. Only ever build 2 cities and 2 greeneries but managed to get a head in the terraforming score by having some good science cards. In the end it was not enough still. My gf won the game scoring a whooping 23 points just from her cards and additional 10 points being first with 3 cities and 8 construction cards. She also got the Titan/Iron competition and flew ahead by 3 points. In-between me and her was our third player who is a longtime veteran of the game. While she had an amazing early game, her late-game faultered a bit.

For me, the game plays extremely well with 4 even though it can be a bit long.

I played a few hours of an ongoing Carcassonne game. Currently fighting over a massive field and losing...

A little bit of Go when I'm not too frustrated from loosing the last game (don't know why this happens only with Go, but I can't help it) and Netrunner.

Second week in a row that we brought Cat in the Box to the table, but this time with the full capacity of 5-players!

We've now had a few plays of this game, and I think it's been cemented as one that we actually need to add to the collection. It's had us howling and shouting at each other like no other game has for a while, but it's light and snappy enough that you don't feel like never speaking to these people again!

Last night, we played Greed with my partner's family. This dice rolling game has you banking dice to try and race to 5000 points. Each roll must score points, or else you'll bust for the round and accumulate nothing. Not a complicated game, and very little decision making space (to keep rolling, or to keep scoring?), but it was fun! I'm probably saying that because I won at my very first play of it.

This morning, I brought River Wild to the table. This is a solo game in which you're trying to create "protected lands" to score points. Additional objectives are printed on cards which score bonus points if met! As with all Button Shy games, there's fewer than 20 cards, which means the game is tight and doesn't take too long.

Had a friend over this weekend so I was able to get play some games!

• Cascadia (3x, 3p): We hadn't tried this one before and I was pleasantly surprised. Easy to setup, fast turns, fast games. It's hard to find good games with < 2 weight, I was glad to be surprised. Definitely recommend it.

• Dorfromantik (1x, 3p): We continued our Dorfromantik campaign, I still have mixed feelings about this game. On one hand I do enjoy the chill experience the game provides. On the other hand, the lack of win conditions makes my actions feel meaningless. I don't put much thought into tile placement, I don't see a reason to try harder.

• Turing Machine (3x, 3p): I absolutely love this game. It gives me Shipwreck Arcana vibes and I love it. Solving these puzzles is extremely satisfying, I wish I had the time to do the Daily Challanges every day. If you enjoy logic puzzles this game is fantastic. Can't recommend it enough. 9/10, at the very least.

• Flamecraft (1x, 3p): This game has really cute art and components but the more I play the game the more I dislike it. I wish the game was more about Dragon placement and activating their bonus. Some of the advanced shops are so strong that I just feel pushed to choose shops by their power instead of the dragons that have been deployed there. Often times I feel like there's a natural action to collect goods or enchant stores and a degenerate action that ignores the game loop and provides a ton of raw points/goods for barely anything. I also hate when games provide an uneven number of turns per player. The first player can play more turns than everyone else, that just feels wrong.

Tuesday our group met. First we played some weird memory game about being an orchestra conductor which was really bad. Then we tried the 5th mission in Port Royal Big Box... twice.. in vain. We ended the evening early because:

On Wednesday we met again to play DnD. My character had an emotional reunion with a lost family member and we encountered our first gelatinous monster.

On Friday there was a public game night in town which I attended. The group I landed with first played two rounds of Frantic - a domestic UNO alternative but for some of them it was too chaotic so we cut the game short. We then played Ricochet Robots and the ladies at the table completely trunced me out of the gate. But after about 4 rounds I got up to speed and managed to race ahead after all. From this we moved on to X-Code where we managed to win the 4 basic missions and the first mission of the blue box. At this point we believed that the evening would wind down soon so we snuck in a quick game of Shark Attacks - where I finally did not come in in last place! Only to then learn that the game night would go on a bit longer this time. So picked up Las Vegas as well. I hadn't played so many different games in one setting in ages and really enjoyed it. The evening also served as a nice way to cap off the organizer's 5 year run in hosting these game nights.

Got to break out The Witcher: Old World for the second time. This time with 3 players (first time was 2P) and it went over really well. It was definitely one that everyone wants to play again, especially after getting a feel for how a lot of the deckbuilding and fighting works.

The week started with

Flamecraft. Still cute. Still like the game.

Thursday a brand new Kickstarter was played:

Voidfall. We only managed 2/3 since it was for all players their first game. Once you get the hang of the game each turn plays smoothly.

Cabo. There is always time for a quick round and the opportunity to play a kamikaze move. And fail miserably.

Fort. Introduced the game to two new groups. Everyone just likes this entry friendly game.

Terraforming Mars. When is the right time to buy into the goals? I still don’t understand it 🥲

The games from the Nerdz Day sale have finally arrived so we had lots of new stuff to get through.

• Ark Nova: First play had a rough start because I haven't spent enough time with the rules beforehand so some of it didn't click until the second half of the play. The game really stuck with both of us though and we are very much looking forward to our next try. I think it will play a lot more smoothly once we are solid with the rules. Got in some BGA plays too since.
• Orichalcum this is a fun one too, spatial puzzle combined with some light engine building. Only concern is that the 2p rules are a bit fiddly, might try some changes to streamline it a bit. It doesn't feel good to discard half of the card-tile (and sometimes monster) combos that we carefully assemble in the draft area and the turn-order check is very easy to forget.
• Flamecraft fell a little flat, feels both too little and too much (table hog!) at the same time. Will have to see how it fares after a few more plays.
• Mille Fiori is neat and looks really good on the table. Feels a bit like a roll & write but with nice tactile components. The shared board play reminded me of Faiyum a bit. We are planning another play soon with a 2p variant from BGG that tightens up the board.

We also got some expansions that we've yet to try. And the biggest project to tackle is the LOTR LCG. Watched a bunch of videos and studied the rules so I think I am almost ready to dive in. Will try solo first, I want to make sure that I have a very solid understanding of it before we try the co-op.

Edit: turns out we made a pretty big rules mistake in Orichalcum, we were refilling the draft board after every pick! I think it will be even better once we play it right :)