Category: Played

Just played Nanga Parbat on Board Game Arena! Neat little abstract-like, quick-playing game from “Dr. Finn’s 2021 Games Kickstarter.” Reminds me of little-known Fire and Ice (2006) published by Pin International.

Coming back to Pulsar 2849 after a while of not playing it reminded me of how great this game is. Relatively straightforward, but so good. Nails the feeling of exploration, and it has outstanding decisions with drafting and pacing your game in many interesting, different ways. It has a dash of luck, but I feel […]

This is what a rough game of Terra Mystica with Merchants of the Seas expansion looks like. I was playing the alchemists (black) and an unfortunate sequence of opening placements and further choices ended up with me being completely surrounded inland on 2 terrains which were 2 and 3 shovels away from my home terrain. […]

Coimbra is a “top tier” game for me. It’s from some of the Italian designers who created Lorenzo il Magnifico, Grand Austria Hotel, Barrage, and others. In my opinion it’s one of their better games, maybe even my favorite. It’s an excellent mix of bidding, drafting, resource management, and set collection. It also plays smoothly […]

Playing Western Legends reignited my desire to play more “sandbox” games. It’s themed exactly what it sounds like, and features some historical personalities (and fictional locations?), where you can be a marshal, a criminal, and… you can all play poker together. There’s indeed a poker minigame, and you actually play the game with multi-use face […]

Passtally is the definition of a lean, mean abstract game. It doesn’t look like much, and a “tile laying path connection game” doesn’t sound like much either, but once you start to play you realize this is no Tsuro. Absolutely clever, minimalist, attractive design delivers a highly enjoyable and brain-burning experience for 2 or 3 […]

This was my second play of The Expanse. I agree with some of the criticisms that the theme is kind of not there that much. I think at least some of the cards are thematic, but it does feel “pasted on” to an extent. Nevertheless, as a fan of the show, I played it with […]

Maracaibo was a bit of a surprise to me as far as complexity. Given that it’s so similar to Great Western Trail by the same designer, I expected it to be a step even higher – quite scary, considering Great Western Trail is heavy, not necessarily in terms of gameplay, but in terms of strategy. […]

I had avoided trying Eclipse, because I had concerns that the game might be too aggressive for my liking. I’d say the most interesting thing about it for me was the ship customization aspect, as well as actually having an ability to turn ships into carriers (a la Scythe) – a mechanic which I’ve recently […]

Medici is a decent set collection auctioning game from Reiner Knizia’s auctioning trilogy. I feel just OK playing it. It’s pretty straightforward, and I feel like a large part of why we picked to play it was because it goes up to 6 and it does so gracefully – unlike other games which explode in […]