Cathing Up on Games (6/10/24)

It’s been a busy time, but an especially good one thanks to the Dungeon Dive’s review of The Unseen World! It was also busy because I did my first game trades. And between the Monday writing group and the once-per-month Thursday writing group, I’ve also been getting some good work done. Time has flip-flopped from moving too fast to moving to slowly (but only when I’m waiting for something to arrive!). But here’s what’s hit the table recently.

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island

It sure took a long time for it to deliver, but my friend finally got his collector’s edition. It’s such a heavy game that none of us have played before, we decided to do the tutorial only to realize after getting it set up that the tutorial is only 2-player. Seems like a very strange decision, but we made it work. Two of us played and the third handled the rules.

I enjoyed what we played so far, but we’ll have to get it back out to see a real scenario (and also play a real 3-player game).

The White Castle (solo)

More White Castle! Even though I use the fan-made adjustments to the solo mode, it’s still quite the challenge. But it’s a ton of fun to explore the different directions you can go in. Can’t wait for the upcoming Matcha expansion. I just wish they made the promos available! Let me buy them or something!

Lost Ruins of Arnak + Expedition Leaders

It’s been quite a while since we brought this one back out. It’s still a really fun game, but I seem to always walk away disliking the research track more each time. Nothing I try ever seems to work. The winner is always who got the highest on the track. Period. Maybe that’s just the simplest way to win? A shame that it’s (to me) also the least interesting part of the game. I worry that at some point, I’m going to start enjoying the game less because of the research track. My character was really fun, though.

Arkham Horror: The Card Game (The Dunwich Legacy Campaign)

This was by far what we played most. We played a couple games of it and then decided to just push on through the whole campaign. It wasn’t the only thing we played, but each game day was 1 scenario of AH plus another game if there was time.

I’m glad my friend decided to get into the AH LCG. I really enjoyed playing the original core box, but LCGs are such a huge money sink that it wasn’t very realistic to try and keep up with. My friend wanted to find an ongoing game to get into and ended up really enjoying AH (despite previously not liking the Cthulhu theme or even having much interest in narrative games, which he’s already changed his mind on).

Overall, I really enjoy this one, and I suspect it’ll end up on all three of our top 100s for this year. It’s immersive, the characters are interesting, there’s plenty of cooperating, and really fun card-play. The writing, however, is still very “FFG” and doesn’t quite hold up to Lovecraft, but it’s not as bad as some of their other games. Can’t wait to return to this one, probably in some stand-alone scenarios later this year. Nathaniel Cho was such a fun character, it’s going to be hard not playing him again!

First scenario map only and other non-spoiler photos below. You can see the evolution of what my friend bought for the game as the campaign went on.

Star Wars: Unlimited

It’s been a very long time since I was into a CCG. SW:U might not be particularly brave in its design, but I think they made enough of the right decisions that it still feels like Star Wars, especially when it comes to the card designs themselves. Many cards have nice little touches with how they work that feel thematic, and a lot of interactions come out perfect for the theme.

I was THIS close to buying a booster box while they were in stock, but I held back until my friend could check out the game and let me know if he was interested. Boxes sold out everywhere the very afternoon he said he really enjoyed the practice game against the online bot (here). Now I have to wait for the reprint later this year! And so far, it seems like supply might be an issue for set 2 as well, with hardly any store able to keep preorders open (and no one seems to be doing discounts anymore). I really hope they get the supply issues solved real fast. At least the starter decks are really good. Can’t wait for the new decks.

I also experimented with some simple solo rules.

Tokaido Duo

I was kind of surprised when they announced Tokaido Duo; sometimes I feel like one of the only people who enjoys the original game. But at least the Duo game seemed pretty different and not just a smaller version (or a 1.5 redux like Namiji).

For a simple dice-drafting game, it can be pretty tense. And it’s certainly not a strong strategy game; sometimes the dice just aren’t what you need. But it’s quick, easy to get the hang of, and fun. And I appreciate the restrained production. They didn’t try to make it a bigger game than it is, everything feels just right for a simple, quick, 2-player game.

Xia: Legend of a Drift System + Embers of a Forsaken Star

Oh, Xia. It’s quite the random game. And honestly, without the expansion, it seems like it would be a pretty miserable game. I feel bad for everyone who played without the expansion. They really should just make a second edition that puts the expansion in the main box and get rid of the unused components. It really improves the game that much; just about everything I like about the game is from the expansion or was improved by the expansion. It’s still very random, though.

Planet Unknown

This one kind of came out of nowhere. Only heard the name a few times, heard it was supposed to be good, but I saw nothing of it. Then I saw The Dice Tower play it and it actually looked pretty good. And since it’s a space game, my friend had to get it anyway, but it was a while before we got it to the table.

While the bulk of what you’re doing is done in order to move up on tracks, the tracks each do something different and have rewards along the way. And most of the puzzle is in choosing which piece to add to your planet and where to put it. You’ll still want to pay attention to your tracks, but they don’t feel like the focus of the game. And it’s a pretty fun, easy-going game.

That said, one possible downside is that a player who takes mostly large pieces will determine the length of the game and if someone else is mostly taking small pieces, they’re going to lose out on a lot of scoring from not filling in their planet. It seems kind of weird, but you’ll have to pay attention to how quickly your opponents are filling up their planet and try to keep pace with them.

Ra

This one is pretty far outside of our normal wheelhouse, but I thought it looked pretty fun, and my friend had heard a lot of good things about it and grabbed a copy to try. We all ended up enjoying it. There’s a lot of nuance to the auctions; it’s not as simple as bid high on good tiles. And being stuck with low-value bids isn’t that bad. You can be aggressive with your auctions to get your opponents to commit their bigger bids or sometimes get something good for very little.

One downside is that the tiles are quite random. Not only will an era possibly end “early” because too many Ra tiles came out, but when you’ve still got bids to make, the tiles that come out might be a pretty worthless assortment that won’t score for you (or maybe the perfect tiles come out for an opponent when they can guarantee an auction win). There isn’t really any mitigation for this other than to just pass on tiles even if they might otherwise have been good, just not when they came out. But it’s at least a pretty quick game too.

7 Wonders: Architects

I’d make a joke that this is solidly a 7/10, but to be honest, it’s probably a 6 for me. We even played with a house rule that there’s a face-up middle card. And still there were turns where every card is the same thing or effectively the same thing. But even when you have choices, there’s really not much decision space anyway. Considering Knarr and Let’s Go! To Japan are both about 30 minutes, 7W:A just isn’t for us. Too simple.

Legends of Andor

I recently made my first game trade, giving up Oltréé (a solid 7/10 that’s just too big and a bit too simple) for this and Apocalypse Chaos. Legends of Andor, I think, is more what I was looking for out of Oltréé; a bit more depth and more focus on cooperation instead of narrative.

We only played the tutorial scenario (Legend 1) which sadly doesn’t use the merchant board, so we couldn’t buy items. It was really just a combat tutorial. There are a few other things that show up in later Legends. We ended up losing a bit early because we didn’t see two particular spaces had an arrow, and the monsters hopped over each other to do double movement and one got into the castle (one had already gotten in).

It’s not a particularly compelling way to introduce a game; we really felt the items were missing. We’ll just have to bring this back out to play a real scenario another time. But overall, I think this will fulfill what I wanted from Oltréé better. More mechanics, more depth, more puzzling.

Champions of Midgard + Valhalla

I recently needed to add $20 onto an order to get free shipping, and Valhalla happened to be in stock for once and happened to be $20. So the game to play with Legends of Andor was between this or Apocalypse Chaos. Since AC is also a co-op I can play solo to try it out later, I went with Champions of Midgard. I really wanted to see how much Valhalla improved the game (though I already enjoyed it).

It wasn’t long into the game before I was enjoying Valhalla’s changes. The leader die alone was a big improvement with a new ability but also another die that was easy to keep around. But being able to turn losses into further gains greatly improved the game. It really expanded the decision space. Luck is still a high factor in the game (more so in the cards than the dice, actually), but it’s a fun game. Might look to get The Dark Mountains for next time.

BattleTech TCG

I’ve had 2 booster packs worth of cards that I bought back in the day (I used to buy random packs and starters to check out various games), but with the help of the BattleTech Facebook group, I’ve started adding to what I have and getting into the game. Sadly, we didn’t have time to play this past game day, but I gave a quick overview to my friend so he’d have an idea of how it played at least. I still don’t have very much BattleTech, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for more. I only ever played once back in high school with a deck my friend made, so I’m very eager to play it again.