Race for the Galaxy is a tableau building game for 2-4 people designed by Thomas Lehmann. In Race for the Galaxy each player secretly chooses one of the actions they want to perform (2 actions if playing a 2 player game). The chosen actions are revealed simultaneously, and each player gets to perform each of the actions chosen by all players, with the person who chose the action getting a small benefit.
There is a interesting history of this game and how it relates to Puerto Rico, but I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to tell you that Race for the Galaxy is a masterclass in engine building game design, and a 2 player game of Race for the Galaxy only takes 9 minutes on Boardgamearena.com. It’s amazing the quality of game design that has been achieved by Thoman Lehmann in such a small playtime. Factors such as tense decisions and satisfying resolutions contribute greatly to the game’s success. Most engine building or civilization building games take a lot of time to play (usually a couple of hours per game), so the fact that Race for the Galaxy can award its players with feelings of growth and achievement while boasting a shorter playtime is attractive to someone who doesn’t always have as much time to play games as he would like.
The BGA implementation of Race for the Galaxy also includes several expansions; The Gathering Storm, Alien Artifacts, and Xeno Invasion are some of the ones that I’ve tried, and the community is very healthy. I’ve never had to wait longer than a couple minutes for a game. I will say it is intimidating when playing against someone with over 3,000 plays, but when a game ends in 9 minutes, you can get crushed and just start again from scratch without any hard feelings.
Can’t Stop – 59 games
Can’t Stop is a push your luck game about rolling dice and moving up tracks. On your turn you roll 4 die, pair them up in any way you’d like, and progress on those tracks that match the numbers you have chosen. During your turn, you move black pieces that represent temporary progress. Once you’ve moved the black pieces up the track, you can choose to stop and save your progress, or you may roll again and continue moving up the tracks. Roller beware! If you happen to roll something that does not match your chosen numbers for that turn, all of your progress for that turn is lost and play passes to the next player. When you successfully reach the top of a column, you win that column (so long as you stop and save your progress), and no other players may continue climbing that number. The first player to win 3 columns is the winner!
Can’t Stop tends to be the game we play while we’re waiting for someone to join the group. It’s fast to play, and I enjoy chanting the name of the game as someone makes 12 rolls in a row, climbing higher and higher, only to bust and waste all of their progress. It creates some excellent moments.
Jaipur – 30 games
Jaipur, designed by Sébastien Pauchon, is a card drafting hand management game for 2 players. You each take turns collecting resources from the card row, either trading your existing cards or taking 1 card on its own. Eventually you sell your cards in sets, gaining tokens that represent victory points. The game ends when 3 of the 6 resources have been depleted.
I’ve always loved well-designed 2 player games, and Jaipur absolutely fits that bill. Jaipur is the kind of game where you and a friend can play dozens of games with each other and still find ways to upset the developing meta. There is plenty of luck in the game, so if a game doesn’t go your way you don’t feel too bad about the loss. Having said that, there is enough strategy that I have a 60% win rate (that sounded a lot more impressive in my head).
Through the Ages – 25 games (plus 8 games of through the ages: A new Story of Civilization)
Through the Ages is another one of those games that makes me question the distinction between board games and card games (although I also question whether the distinction is necessary). Through the Ages is a card drafting civilization game that takes you and up to 3 opponents from the age of antiquity all the way through to the modern ages. Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization is a remake of the game that rebalances a lot of the cards, adjusts a few of the mechanics, and adds some nice new art.
I’ve only played a physical game of this once, and it took hours to play. There are 30 tiny wooden cylinders to represent your citizens and resources, and tracks that need to be managed for each player to represent culture (points), military strength, and knowledge. Also, some of the turns can be quite involved, with lots of things chaining off one another. It’s awful when you get to the end of a 7-action turn only to realize you’re one stone short and need to start over from the beginning. The BGA implementation has completely replaced the tabletop version of this game for me, as I find that not needing to deal with the fiddly little bits and counting up all the various places that you get resources from makes the game much more enjoyable. On BGA, Through the Ages takes about 45 minutes to play, although it does play asynchronously very well and I would highly recommend it.
7 Wonders – 29 games
7 Wonders is a card drafting civilization building game where each player is trying to make their civilization the best in the world. The game consists of three decks of cards, each representing its own age. Each deck is divided into the number of players present. During play, each player will choose a card from their hand, then pass the rest of the cards to the next player. Choose wisely! You may see the cards you pass away again, but only after everyone else has had the opportunity to pick through and take what they want.
BGA has an excellent implementation of 7 Wonders that I’ve been using to bring my family together over the last year. The interface is easy to navigate and all the necessary information is readily available. The real strength of BGA is that it manages all of the rules for you. There’s no worry of someone accidently cheating by building the same card twice or ‘forgetting’ to pass the necessary coins to their neighbour. And when an easy-to-play game supports up to 7 players, I can get my entire family involved!
7 Wonders Duel – 21 plays
I’ve already gushed about 7 Wonders Dueland how much I enjoy it. It’s a fantastic 2-player card drafting game where you’re building your civilization head-to-head against your opponent. This is another instance where playing on BGA is fast and easy. A very active game, you’ll have no problem finding players to face off against, and a entire game should only last 10 – 15 minutes, assuming neither player goes AFK for some reason.
This is one of the few games where I dabbled BGA’s Arena mode. Arena mode is a competitive mode where you can earn points on each game you play and achieve higher ranks, proudly displaying your achievement to the world. Having a higher rank does nothing tangible, other than letting you show off how big your dick hat is.
BGA has the Agora expansion available to play right now, and the Pantheon expansion (which is a must play for experienced players) is currently in Alpha.
Targi – 16 games
Oh look, another 2-player only game on my list. Can you tell that I have a type?
Targi, designed by Andreas Steiger, is a cut-throat worker placement/set collection game. On your turn you place your 3 workers on spaces along the outside of the board. When all 6 workers have been placed, you draw a line from each of your workers and place a wooden cylinder where those lines would intersect. You then take all 5 of those actions in the order of your choosing. As an added twist, the game has a robber piece that moves around the board, and players may not place a worker on the same card that the robber occupies.
In Targi you’re trying to collect resources and spend them on tribe cards to place them into 3 rows in front of you. At the end of the game you get bonus points if all the cards in a row are the same suit, or if they’re all different suits (some of the cards will give you bonus points based on the cards and their positions in your row).
The cut-throat aspect of the game comes from maneuvering your workers to block the spaces your opponent so desperately needs, as you can’t place a worker directly across from another worker (after all, how would those lines intersect?). You’re constantly weighing the costs and benefits of spending your precious few workers. Should you claim a card that you desperately want? Or should your first action be to deny your opponent their needs? Targi is finely crafted and a joy to play, especially if your friend is willing to engage in some light trash talk, and won’t take it personally when you ice them out from a specific card for three turns in a row.
Alan Moon is a prolific game designer. With a game like Ticket to Ride under his belt and selling millions I’m sure he could retire to a comfortable life and never need to design another game again. But when Board Game Design is your passion, I’m sure you can’t help but create games.
Here we are with another one of his games about traveling. In 10 Days in Europe, you collect tiles and place them into a timeline as you attempt to contiguous a trip across the continent spanning 10 days. The hook that turns this activity into a game is that once the tiles are in your holder you can’t swap them around. You can only replace a tile with one picked up from one of the three discard piles (or drawn blindly from the top of the deck).
In 10 Days in Europe you can always travel by walking to two neighbouring countries that are next to each other and share a border. You can fly between two countries as long as they’re the same colour as the plane you’re using, and you can travel to any country by sea, as long as they have a shore on the indicated Ocean or Sea
Other games in the 10 days series have other types of transportations. Asia has trains,USA and Africa have cars, but the core game remains the same between them all. Manipulate your hand of tiles until you have a cohesive 10 day trip across the continent.
The game starts with the board (which is literally just a map) and all the tiles splayed around the table. Each player picks up tiles one at a time and places them into their card holder. Depending on the order that you draw your tiles, this can set a player up for a easy game, or it can telegraph to a player that they’ll need to replace all 10 of their tiles before their game is over. In theory you could win right off the bat, but I’ve never seen it happen.
Once the game is underway, one of two things seems to happen to each player. Either they put themselves into a situation where they need a specific country (most countries only have one tile in the deck), or they hold their head in their hands waiting for someone to end the game so they can pitch the tiles they’re currently holding into the ocean.
10 Days in Europe is the kind of game that gets played back to back often. Games are almost always over within 15 minutes, and to reset the game all you need to do is throw the tiles back into the centre, give it a stir and begin again.
I don’t know how I feel about the board basically just being a map of Europe. I say that I’m bringing a board game, but really, 10 days is a card game with a cardboard map.The map does tell you what colours the countries are and which shores belong to which oceans, which is key information in the game. But it still feels more like a card game than a board game. This can also be a great learning experience if you aren’t familiar with a continent as learning the where in the world the U.A.E and Boliva are can make you look worldly and traveled when asked to point them out on a map.
10 Days is the perfect game to bring to the in-laws for Thanksgiving as it’s dead simple to play and is over quickly, allowing players who feel like they’ve lost to reset and start again from the beginning. There is a lot of luck in the game but I will counter that by saying there is a element of strategy involved, otherwise my wife wouldn’t have a 70% win rate over her 20 plays.
I do also appreciate the box size. The insert keeps everything in its place, even when it’s stored vertically, and if you took the insert out, you’d only have enough empty space for a banana.
Mechanics: Push your luck, Dice Rolling, Area Movement
Release Year: 2017
Designer: Scott Almes
Artist: Miguel Coimbra, Adam P. McIver
Intro – In where I try to not talk about The Legend of Zelda
If you walk around my living space, one thing will become apparent very quickly. I love video games. I have knick-knacks and memorabilia adorning my shelves, giving brief glimpses into my nerdiness. The franchise represented most prominently is The Legend of Zelda, as the Zelda games are amongst my most favourite video games ever. Most games I wait to pick up on a sale or second hand as the price of buying new is a pill that I have a hard time swallowing. The exception to that rule is a new Legend of Zelda game. If you doubt me, ask me about the time my wife woke at 6am with me frantically hitting the refresh page on Best Buys website the day the Nintendo Switch and Breath of the Wild were launching their pre-orders (spoilers – she wasn’t pleased).
I can hardly be blamed for my obsession however. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is one of my most played video games. Back in 1995 when I could barely hold a controller, my mother and I explored Hyrule together. I vividly recall running through the green fields, sword thrust forth to parry any foes, getting the guards called on me in Kakariko village, and my tiny mind being blown wide open when the Dark World was introduced.
When Gamelyn Games launched their Tiny Epic Quest kickstarter in November of 2016, I was immediately enthralled with the aesthetic of the game. While the art assets were vaguely generic fantasy, the items looked like they were ripped straight out of The Legend of Zelda. I backed that project immediately without a further thought. Come Summer of 2017 when the game was delivered, I delighted in the ITEMeeples and the tiny items arranged on the item rack. Aesthetically, I was already in love.
Nostalgia always knows how to get me to open my wallet
Components and Play Space – Hope your table is epic, not tiny
Like all of the Tiny Epic games, they boast a large game experience, crammed down into a tiny box. Foolishly, at the time I also thought that meant the play space would be small, perhaps I could play this game on my coffee table. Not the case here, as the components sprawl out, demanding nearly as much space as you’re willing to give to it.
Setup for a solo game
The art on the cards is bright and colourful, full of the promise of adventures to come. The ITEMeeples are cute too, made of plastic and slightly larger than your standard meeple. I never thought of myself as a meeple connoisseur, but I found myself wishing they were made of wood instead of the cheaper feeling plastic (not that your wooden meeples is a ‘deluxe’ component).
The items that go into the ITEMeeple’s ‘hands’ are absolutely tiny, making some of the more delicate ones difficult to manipulate (I’m looking at you, Bow and Arrow). Luckily you won’t need to manipulate them too often, as once they’re acquired, you stick em in someone’s hand and then there’s rarely a reason to move it.
My wife tells me size doesn’t matter.
Gameplay – A Gamblers Journey
A game of Tiny Epic Quest is played over 5 rounds. In each round players are trying to accomplish tasks to accrue the most victory points. It’s all the normal, heroic acts you accomplish during the dead of night that get you victory points (sounds sketchy). How many spells you can master, how many quests you can accomplish, and how many goblins you can smack into the ground will all affect your heroic rating and win you the game (also bonus points for pillaging the Legendary Items).
During the day phase, one player you will choose a method of travel, then move one of your meeples according to the card. A raft lets you sail up the perfectly vertical and parallel rivers, a Horse can take you as far east or west as you’d like (you all know of horses natural aversion to north and south movement), the griffon can take you diagonal, and the travel by boot option can take you one step in any direction. Once you’ve made your move then everyone else gets to make a movement of their own, following the same card. No matter how many players are at the table, this phase of the game has 4 turns, meaning one of the movement types will go unused.
And no, you can’t put your horse on the raft. We tried that once, it didn’t go well.
Once the Day phase ends, night descends. During the night each player decides if they want to adventure, or rest. Every player who chooses adventure is IN. The lead player rolls the 5 custom die, and then the die results are resolved.
First, the goblin heads represent the total damage inflicted. Each player takes 1 damage each clockwise around the table until all the hits have been distributed. If there are more goblin heads than players, it overlaps, hitting the lead player again and continuing on.
Then power is gained based on any power symbols, and where the mushroom marker is. Then the mushroom marker moves down its track based on the number of mushrooms that have been rolled. If the mushroom is at the end of its track, it just deals damage in the same way as the goblins.
Once those are out of the way, all players can use the torches, scrolls, or punches to complete their objectives. Torches and scrolls advance your adventurers along their track, inching them closer to acquiring their treasure, while the punch symbol lets you pummel into the sleeping goblin who had the misfortune of being on your space
The one time you didn’t need any goblin punches…
After all the die have been used, the active player passes the die to the next player who now has to choose to adventure, or to rest. Should they choose adventure, all players are dragged along, like lackeys in a gang.
The dice rolling is the crux of the push your luck mechanic that is the core of Tiny Epic Quests gameplay. Sometimes you’ll find your meeple on a dungeon that requires torches and all you roll are scrolls. You’ll sit in anguish as your friends march up their tracks, pilfering the treasures, equipping their new items that bestow special abilities to the meeple that holds it, while you grumble that yet another torch has been rolled. There is a bit of mitigation in the form of Power. You can always spend 2 power to gain an extra Scroll or Torch for a meeple, or to block a hit from a goblin.
Two of my adventurers finished their quest. The third one had to sleep in a cave.
As the players turns go on, health will begin to dwindle and the risk of death will loom ever closer. The Mushroom track I mentioned earlier will pass thresholds that will make the game riskier, like increasing the amount of damage goblins do, or removing the ability to recover power via die rolls, eventually causing extra damage if there is no space left on the mushroom track. The benefits of the mushroom track going up is the higher it is, the more potent the magic is in the night and allows you to learn even greater dark magics (with only 5 turns and 10 levels of magic to learn, you’re expected to skip a couple lessons).
Should you fail in your quest of murder, thievery, or sorcery and become exhausted, all of your meeples are returned home, health and power restored, but empty handed. You only get to keep the spoils of your exploits if you choose to stop during the night phase, returning to camp before your metaphorical parents catch you out on a school night.
Crafting the legendary weapons requires finished two specific dungeons in order. Hopefully you’ll have some overlap with the other quests
Tiny Epic Quest bills itself as a push your luck game, and it absolutely is. Some bad dice rolls can throw the entire experience for you. In my plays, I’ve found the luck factor is much lower in lower player counts. You may be taking more damage, there are more opportunities to rest. In a 4 player game you may find yourself with only 2 health left, your goblin punching meeple has won their combat, the spell learning meeple has finished studying, but your dungeon crawling meeple is only two torches away from grabbing that precious loot. If you choose to roll, you may be committing to 4 rounds of die rolls, and should you accomplish what you needed during your rounds, you’ll sit in terror as the other three chuck those misery cubes and flinch as somehow the player before you rolled a full round of goblins, pummeling you right back to the start.
I understand that is the draw of push your luck games, trying to get as far as you can and if you go bust then you’re kicked back to the beginning. I love Can’t Stop, but the salient difference is Can’t Stop takes 10 minutes to play, while this goes on for an hour or more! And the cascading failure of missing out on a whole round of adventure, when your friends may now have gear that makes their subsequent heists easier is a rough feeling.
Final Thoughts – Are we the Baddies?
Is it wrong to complain about luck in a push your luck game? Maybe. While I did enjoy my play of Tiny Epic Quest, most of that enjoyment came from the aesthetics. Seeing my ITEMeeple run around the map with a bomb and a rupee filled my heart with joy. I recently gave the solo mode a try, and barely managed to achieve the lowest score acceptable, 40 points to be a peasant. Because you only have 3 meeples and 5 rounds, you’re expected to complete a quest with 2 of your meeples, if not all 3. The scores ramp up the more you achieve of each objective (beating 3 goblins is 3 pts, while beating 10 is 30). Achieving 15 tasks is about the best you can hope for, and it’s not THAT hard to accomplish, but if you fail early quests it can leave you feeling like it’s impossible to catch up. Looking at amigoodat.games, the average winning score is in the low 30’s. With no catch up mechanic to speak of, The winner will more often be the player who got the best loot the earliest.
All that said, I am keeping this game, and would pull it out of I knew someone was a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda. The aesthetic is strong enough to keep the box on my shelf (and it helps that the box is tiny, getting rid of it wouldn’t free up much space on my overflowing shelves). Also, I don’t have very many push your luck games, so it’s a small niche that’s being filled.
I begun this review with the fresh innocence of a Kokri boy waking up to the cries of a fairy, ready to go on a quest to save the Kingdom. I’ve come to realize that while this is indeed a epic quest, we just might be the bad guys. After all, we’re tearing across the kingdom by day, and wreaking havoc over the night, punching sleeping goblins, casting demonic spells, and stealing treasures. At the end of the game, we’re not coming home to a waiting princess, we’re going to face trial for the crimes we’ve committed! If the authorities found me with standing in a magic circle with a sword in one hand and a bomb in the other, I don’t think they’ll give me the benefit of the doubt.
Preface: This list does not include app plays, or from websites such as Board game arena or Yucata. Plays on those platforms get tracked by their own platforms and I’m a firm believer of not double recording a play. Also, while none of these plays are astronomically high, for a player like me who gets so much enjoyment form discovering new games over replaying known quantities, playing a game more than 10 times is a massive achievement in my stats.
Magic Maze – 29 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Magic Maze it’s a real time coop that you can lose quickly if you’re not careful. I’ve counted every mission I played in Magic Maze as it’s own individual play. the first few missions slowly introduce the mechanics, while the last dozen make the game harder. Like many coop games it restricts communication and half of the fun comes from staring at your partner who will not receive your telepathic demands to move that one pawn to the left!
Magic Maze also has a very interesting and unique mechanic where each player isn’t controlling a specific character, rather they are in control of a specific move. Every piece that wants to move left? That’s my job. You get to focus on moving people to right. And if you make a mistake and move too far, you have to hope I know what you were trying to do and correct it for you.
Why I don’t own it
I’ve played this game over 3 sessions at the local board game cafe. Those 3 sessions were with entirely different groups (my wife and I being the two consistent parties at each of the sessions) and although each session was fun and everyone walked away from the game with smiles, by the time the third session finished my wife and I agreed that we felt the game had been explored and would not hit the table in our home compared to the rest of the games we already owned. I’ve read the expansion adds significantly to the experience, but it’s not a game that I feel compelled to own.
Karuba – 27 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
The coronavirus pandemic forced my game herd to migrate online for a year. One of the games we found on Tabletop Simulator that had a fantastic implementation was Karuba. This highly scripted version takes care of randomizing the setup, and drawing the same tile out for every player. Once tiles are placed, it automatically locks it in place, moves any gems onto the board (or off if your meeple landed on it), and pulls the next tile. We can knock a game of Karuba out in less than 10 minutes, which is impressive considering most games on Tabletop Simulator take longer to play than their IRL counterparts, even without the setup and tear down times.
Like most games on the platform, it won’t enforce the rules for you, if someone cheats and leaps around the board, it’s up to you to be aware of it and to immediately find better friends.
Why I don’t own it
This is a rare instance where I would rather play a game on TTS than on the table. I wouldn’t turn down a play of this if someone brought it out, but I do not feel the need to have a box sitting on my shelf when I know a fully functional version exists just a couple of clicks away.
Istanbul – 16 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Because it’s great! Really, a race to collect gems with decisions on building up a engine or to pick the low hanging fruit before your opponents get to them first. An incredibly variable play space, easy turn structure, and a fair amount of mastery if you want to plan out your turns a dozen moves ahead. Enough randomness that could swing the game if someone was feeling bold enough to bet high and roll successfully. The expansions each add a pair of mechanics that can swing an entire game (I once won a game by running my coffee engine only), and some more variability to the board, giving this game even more replayability
Why I don’t own it
In what I suspect will be perceived as a personal slight against Rüdiger Dorn, considering I have 3 of his games in a row on this list, the only reason I don’t own Istanbul myself is because someone in my friend herd already owns it, plus an expansion. If I’m ever thirsting for a game of this I can either borrow the game from him, or fire up the Android app and get half a dozen plays in over the course of an hour. This is probably the second game on my to-buy list if suddenly the game was no longer easily available to me.
Scythe – 15 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Rise of Fenris campaign contributed a lot to this play count, but even without the campaign compelling us to play, I very much enjoy Scythe. It’s a cold war game where the threat of combat is more tense than the actual combat. I have had some fantastic plays where my engine grows and hums and I conquer the peasants of Europa, while other games I’ve made blunders and had my opponents promptly capitalize on my mistake (over-committing to a combat, losing by 1 point, having the other 3 players all on their next turns combat my now battered army). I love the mechanic of moving things off the board to make some actions stronger and other actions cheaper, and the player who ends the game is not always the player who wins the war.
Why I don’t own it
A friend in my herd has the collectors editions, upgraded resources, expanded event cards, 2 expansions (Invaders from Afar and Rise of Fenris) and has it in his top 10 games of all time. If I’m going to be playing this game, I’ll be playing it with him.
Las Vegas – 14 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Las Vegas plays fairly quickly and is very easy to set up and teach. Being a very luck based dice area control game, having a serious attitude is a detriment here. Usually, I pick one person and decide to do everything I can to squeeze them out of Vegas. I often play with a variant/house rule where each player is given 2 neutral die that get rolled with all of their normal dice and must be placed with the same restrictions. Using those extra die to manipulate the market is a joy, and when you and your opponent have both committed 5 die to a single spot and you’re down to your last die and you manage to roll the exact number you need, the whole table erupts with laughter. Except for the other guy, but screw that guy, he lost and we don’t care about losers.
Pro Tip, don’t add extra sets of die and play with 8 players. At that player count the time in between turns is unbearably long, and every casino gets 8+ die on it meaning almost everything ends in a tie.
Why I don’t own it
It seems to play best with larger groups (4 or 5) and I rarely have that many people over to my table. Someone in my herd already owns it (and has more friends than I do) and I know it won’t hit my table as a 2 player game over the games I already own.
Can’t Stop – 13 Plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Aside from being my wife’s #1 favourite game of all time, I keep finding this game everywhere. At various events where people bring games, this one always seems to be available. Each time I see it around I usually rope in the nearest two people and break it out. I’ve played this in board game cafe’s across the country (BC, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia), 2 different weddings, and at least 2 picnics. It’s easy and fun to play, and the push your luck element has my hair standing on end every time I roll the die.
Why I don’t own it
It’s way too expensive for what it is. A plastic board, a few cones (11 in each colour, plus 3 white ones), and 4 die. at my FLGS it was around $50, while online I can see it as low as $40. If I ever see this game available used for $15, I’ll be sure to snag it. It’s also the game Board Game Arena uses to teach you the platform. With it being available there and a premium membership allowing for games to be played from the same IP address, I’m not compelled to hand over my cash for this one.
Azul – 11 Plays
Why I’ve played it so much
A very attractive game that is easy to teach and offers interesting decisions. This game usually ends up capping off a game night, or it’s another tool I use to lure people into the hobby when they’re foolish enough to accept my invitation to the local board game cafe.
Why I don’t own it
As far as abstract puzzle games are concerned, I prefer Sagrada. While not directly comparable, both end up scratching the same itch for me, and I just like rolling colorful die more than pulling Starburst from a bag.
Splendor – 11 Plays
Why I’ve played it so much
in 2018 I was mildly obessed with this game. I loved the puzzle of building a ‘engine’ of resources and figuring out the perfect moment to shift my gameplay from collecting cards for the purpose of having more gems, and using the cards I have to finish off the recipes for the nobles. I played the Android app a bunch as well, using it to finely tune how I approached the pivot of the game and how to leap for the endgame victory points.
Why I don’t own it
Honestly, I don’t know about this one. I last played in in June of 2019 and haven’t had the urge to seek it out. I know I still like this game, but I don’t have the desire to acquire a copy and coerce my wife into playing it with me. Which is double odd because I know she likes this game too! Perhaps something replaced it for me, but I’m not sure what it is.
Concordia – 10 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Like Istanbul, this game is so good and so replayable it’s almost funny. with dozens of action cards with end game points coming out in different orders, the resources each city provides shuffling around, and the various way to accrue points, I love to explore this game. And this is even without the additional maps, or Concordia Salsa (which is an expansion I love) which add even more twists to the formula. The end game scoring is sufficiently obfuscated so while you may feel like you know who is going to win the game, it’s not a sure thing and I’ve seen more than a few upset victories when one player sneakily captured all the cards of a single type and exploited it for all they could.
Why I don’t own it
This is my favourite game that I don’t own and would be the first one I purchase if the person in my herd who already owns it suddenly left. Its a little more complex than the games my wife tends to enjoy so I know I wouldn’t suggest it for our 2 player game nights, but it is a game that I love to play, and with my recent foray into Solo gaming, I would like to try the solo play deck that is coming out soon.
Quadropolis – 9 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Quadropolis is a cute, well made city building game, with 2 modes to play. I’ve mostly played this one at the request of others, but each time it hits the table I find myself enjoying it more than I remember. One mode of the game gives each player a worker of their own number, leaving it entirely up to them to not let themselves get painted into a corner where the one tile they want is out of their reach, while the other mode of play pools all the workers together. I’ve been that guy before to just use all of the #1 workers, just to sow discord and panic amongst my ‘friends’
Why I don’t own it
I don’t love it enough to request playing it, which means it won’t be a game I pull off my shelf often enough to justify the price. This is on top of the fact that another player in my group does own it and does request playing it. No need to double up on our collections!
It’s hard to imagine the mind of a person who sees a busy airport, full of delayed planes and the slow seething anger of the unwashed masses and thinks to himself “I can make a game out of this”. My friends, let me introduce you to Tim Fowers.
Tim Fowers is the only board game designer my wife knows by name. His continued collaboration with artist Ryan Goldsberry and re-use of characters has established a familiar aesthetic when a new game hits the market that makes everything feel somewhat familiar.
My wife and I played Now Boarding for the first time at our local board game cafe. Knowing very little about how the game was played ahead of time, I found the rulebook to be adequate for teaching the game with only minor confusion during the set-up process.
I don’t fault the rulebook for our confusion, though. It can be difficult to convey concepts for a real time game using the written word. The game has a “STOP! Check out our How to Play Video!” inserted in the box, but watching a video on your phone isn’t the best option when you’re in a noisy public space.
Concepts learned and game prepared, we launched into our first play of Now Boarding. At first the morning flights were easy affairs, single passengers going directly to their destination, no one waiting for longer than a turn at their home airport, and even able to take advantage of some good weather on the way.
Shortly into the afternoon phase of the game, the pace began to quicken, at one moment there was a single person waiting on the eastern seaboard, but half a dozen customers were angrily stewing in their delays all along the west coast. a concerted effort saw these passengers picked up, but with all the planes on the right side of the board, suddenly the left was filling up with a pair of travelers at each gate, and not enough time to pick them up before their anger boiled over and complaints were filed.
Now Boarding does a real time coop game very well with some interesting mechanics. In between every real time phase of the game you deal out the next set of passengers to their home airport, face down. At this point you can sit and discuss what your plan of attack is, but you only have half the information you really need. Once the real time phase begins you flip over the face down passengers and reveal their destinations. It’s at that moment you realize that the person you were going to pick up needs to go in the complete opposite direction, and the airport you’re passing through has someone that wants to go to your destination! Too bad your plan is full. You couldn’t just… kick someone off the plane because a new customer is slightly more convenient, could you?
Yes. Yes you can. In fact, if you want to win, expect some sudden layovers. It feels rude to jettison a passenger, but seeing as how people only accumulate anger when they’re idle in an airport it makes sense to juggle your customers between planes. After all, once you’re on the plane and moving you just feel so much better, even if your plane isn’t bound for your final destination.
All in all, Tim Fowers has designed a fantastic real time co-op game (two of my favourite game genres mixed together). Our initial thoughts is the game is a little easy, we’ve won 80% of our games, and one of our losses was due to us having people complain at 3 anger, not 4. We have started introducing the MVP cards which add some wrinkles such as crying babies (people get double anger), unattended minors (can’t fly alone), and nervous fliers (can’t fly through weather). These slight wrinkles can throw a wrench into your smoothly running engine and cause a small freakout on my side of the table. I would like to see an expansion added to the game to create some variability, perhaps another country, or adding a ‘first class, business, and coach’ section to your planes offering more rewards for prompt delivery.
TL:DR – Real time, Co-op, and pick up and deliver. If you don’t like any of those words this isn’t going to change your mind. If you do enjoy those, this is a hit.
