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Emotional Weekend Part 2 – Beartown
Beartown is a tiny community in northern Sweden, stuck in the far side of a forest. The factory is dwindling, the economy is sagging, and people are moving away. Any community faced with this hardship has to rally behind something, and Beartown, is a hockey town. The junior hockey team has a chance to compete in the national semi-finals, and actually have a shot at winning! If they do, it would breathe new life into the community. A hockey academy would be built in Beartown, pouring much needed capital into the community. The hockey team represents hope, a light in the cold, dark winter night that Beartown is going though. At the head of that hope is Kevin, the star player. He’s the one who scores the goals, he’s got the skills and drive that could lead him to the NHL, and he’s the one that’s going to lead the Beartown junior hockey team to national victory.
Emotional Weekend Part 1 – Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story
I’m keenly aware that this is a board game review blog, and that I’m ill-eqipped to offer a proper review on something so ouside my wheelhouse, but sometimes you need to step outside your comfort zone. This weekend, I engaged with art that left me emotionally raw, and I feel compelled to share them here. I hope you enjoy this divergence from the regular, cardboard content that normally appears here.
Trekking Through History
I have a trick when it comes to introducing people to hobby board games. I find the easiest, most colourful, aesthetically pleasing game with a theme that they already enjoy, and use it to ease them into the hobby. Underdog Games has been producing some very bright and vibrant games with absolutely no expense spared on the production. Neoprene mats, tarot sized cards featuring full sized art, and chunky components make for excellent introductions into board gaming. Add in an educational twist, and suddenly you’ve got a game for both parents and kids to enjoy!
Beast – Assar and Helga vs. Fangrir – First Impression
I have very little experience with One vs. Many games. I’ve played Scotland Yard once, Betrayal at House on the Hill once, and Pandemic with the bio-terrorist expansion once. All of these experiences have been fine, but none of them have inspired a love for the genre for me. Bear backed the Beast Kickstarter, and has been eagerly anticipating its release, so, for this week’s game night, Beast was the game we played.
Don’t L.L.A.M.A Card Game – Don’t Let Llamas And Markers Accumulate
I recently took a minor vacation to visit my family, but travelling with a toddler is tough enough without carting around extra luggage, so I vowed to pack as leanly as possible. This meant bringing none of my games on vacation with me. Fortunately, there’s a few great game stores in Saskatoon, so I popped into a couple and one of the games I walked out with was a $12 copy of Don’t L.L.A.M.A.
Stronghold 2nd Ed. – Initial Impressions as a Defender
Portal Games tagline is “Board games That Tell Stories”, and in my experience, they do a good job in delivering a story to tell during game night. Neuroshima Hex spins a tale of a standoff, each side getting stronger and stronger with each passing turn, until a climatic battle takes place and razes both sides. Robinson Crusoe is a story of a couple of shipwrecked survivors and how Mother Nature is just going to take their day from bad, to worse, and Stronghold 2nd Edition is basically Helms Deep in a box. Invaders are crashing against the stronghold walls, and if they get through, it’s game over for the defenders.
Pendulum – Worker Placement Pandemonium
Pendulum, by Travis P Jones, and published by Stonemaier Games in 2020, is a real time worker placement game. It was lauded in that it was the highest-rated prototype ever during a Stonemaier Games Design Day. Now, I don’t know what the scoring rubric is for one of those Design Days, but I’m a pretty big fan of Stonemaier Games prior products, like Viticulture and Scythe, and, I absolutely adore real-time games, so this should be a hit for me, right? Let’s find out!
What Does Your Board Game Collection Mean to You?
I recently saw a post on one of the various online board game groups that I’m a member of that got me thinking. It was “Shelfie” (A photo or series of photos of one’s board game collection) that’s fairly common in those spaces, but the caption read “My next game not (not counting expansions) will be my 500th game. What does my collection need?” And I was a bit taken aback by it. Here was someone with so many board games that they could play a different one every day of the year, and still have 25% of their collection unplayed, looking for what more should be added to it. It got me thinking about the buying and accumulation habits for those of us who consider ourselves to be board game enthusiasts.
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