This week we played our recent purchase of Viticulture for the first time. As a learning-game with two players the experience was fine. It was not exceptional but still enjoyable and very thematic.

I think it blends some worker placement and order-fullfilment well. We will have to play a couple more times to make a final assessment.

We also played our classics Dominion and Ark Nova

Got in a play of Tiger and Dragon and Cosmoctopus.

Tiger and Dragon is a larger box game from Oink Games. I like the slightly puzzly nature of this one and playing with the tiles.

Cosmoctopus is gonna take a couple more plays before I get a good opinion of it. The table presence is fun, but I almost can’t imagine a world in which I don’t always play the “fast” game and just start everyone with 3 tentacles. This thing seems like it runs long. We definitely had a couple questions about the rules as we were going through.

Simple games for us this week!

We played Nacho Stack, a small little dexterity game. We manage to stack some of these in some pretty clever ways that made the second phase of remove the cards hilariously difficult. Silly, simple fun!

And then we played a few rounds of Skull to see the evening out!

Satori - 4 players. The game is tight and I guess once all players know the rules in and out one stupid move could end the game for you. Need more plays though

The labours of Hercules - first play for all 5 players. Emerging traitors and secret role playing needs the right crowd. Need a second game. I feel know kind of confident to explain the rules. The original rule book is pretty bad, bgg helps here a little. Celestia - as usual a good time

Feel kind of underplayed, but this week TI is waiting. Then I certainly will feel overplayed 😅

Played Iberian Gauge for the first time in a 1x4P

Great theme of building railways across Spain. Interesting interplay from each person being a shareholder with a proportionate say in their own companies, then able to also lease tracks from other companies they own.

Rolling Ranch 1x 5P First play.

Small roll and write. Add your chickens, pigs and cows to hex-pens. Claim some bonus buildings and get max VP.

Fun and straightforward.

Meadow with the Downstream expansion - I like the new river track a lot, adds a race element to the game and the new rules are simple and integrate well. It does make the game slightly longer since each player gets one more action every round. Base Meadow is great on its own but the expansion is worth checking out for anyone who enjoys the game. Fitting it all into the base box with the insert is slightly awkward but doable.

Project L - simple polyomino engine building with excellent production. A comfort game for us that I am always happy to play.

Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade - we like it and I am looking forward to trying the other tables but I kinda wish there was just a little less rolling and writing. Very thematic but feels a bit too granular at times.

I am currently learning Maracaibo, hoping to try that soon.