Where I briefly talk about the games I played this week:
My Wife and I sat down together on Friday evening and pulled out this old favourite. We reminisced about the ‘old days’ when Patchwork was one of only a dozen board games we knew how to play (and it’s those nostalgic feelings that landed Patchwork as my #26 favourite game of all time). In this particular game of Patchwork I managed to have an excellent income stream, amassing buttons like you’ve never seen before, but I left too many empty squares on my board, costing me the game (Final score 23 – 33).
10 Days in Europe is one of my Wife’s favourite games. It’s one of the few games that comes with us when we travel, as we enjoy playing it so much, and it’s so easy we can introduce it to nearly anybody. We played twice back to back with one victory going to each player. Click here to read more of my thoughts on 10 Days in Europe
I received a prototype of Inside Ups Games current Kickstarter project Earth on Monday and I just couldn’t wait to gather a group before tearing into the game (and by tearing, I mean very gently playing). I played against the Medium difficulty bot (named Gaia) and managed to eke out a narrow victory. Earth is a tableau building, hand management, engine building game. I saw it billed initially as a cross between Terraforming Mars and Wingspan, but I think the most interesting part of the game is the action selection. Much like Puerto Rico or Race for the Galaxy the active player chooses an action to take on their turn, and all other players get a weaker version of that action. I absolutely adore games with positive player interaction, even if this is the only interaction you have with other players for the entire game.
Gaia did a good job of simulating the player interaction that is core to Earth, and offers a more dynamic challenge rather than simply trying to earn the highest score possible. Some part of me wishes there were different decks that gave Gaia different focuses, but I’ll have much more to say about Earth very soon.
Otter got the Yokohama deluxe edition early in 2020 and has been languishing on his shelf for the past two years. Finally he was able to exert his influence over our group and demanded we play it. I’ve lost every game of Yokohama that I’ve played, so I know there’s some skill or mastery to be achieved but it eludes me. I managed to feel like I was competitive right up to the end, but victory was not in my cards. I’m unsure if I like Yokohama enough to seek it out again; I recognize it’s a good game, but it just doesn’t excite me or draw me back in. The production quality on the deluxe edition is quite nice.
Meeple and the Moose 