Catching Up on Games (12/1/25)

Valheim

For gameday, I picked scenario 4, the first one with Bonemass. This was on Halloween, and there’s lots of undead in the scenario. I also figured it’d be more interesting for the others to see more than what the first scenario has. Both of them have played the video game before, though my brother hadn’t played much.

The first impressions all around were positive, though my friend probably enjoyed it the least. But even at 3-player, it plays pretty quick. We also used the optional rule that resources have to be dropped off at the house.

• Valheim: 8/10. A fast adventure game I look forward to playing more.

---

Endeavor: Deep Sea

We had all heard about Endeavor, though my friend had no interest in the original theme. We all were pretty interested in trying it out.

I ended up finding it a little more random than I was expecting. Particularly for the journals and getting the tags for them; there were times when I didn’t have access to the right thing, or the journals needed something that wasn’t out, etc. And missing out on one of the starting journals ended up putting me behind the other two players early on, and it turned out that I just didn’t have a good way of catching up. Maybe an experienced player might have been able to turn things around, but it sure didn’t make a good first impression.

But overlooking that, it’s a decent game, but… I don’t know, it does kind of show its age a bit? It’s hard to put my finger on it after only one game, but it felt like playing an older Euro (and the original is a bit older of a game). My brother seemed to like it the most, so we’ll see if he picks it again. I enjoyed the actions and getting new people, but found the mission board terribly abstract and not particularly engaging.

• Endeavor: Deep Sea: 6/10 (first impressions). It’s not bad but hasn’t grabbed me yet.

---

Hubworld: Aidalon

Both my friend and I wanted to bring this back out before the end of the year. We’ve played four times total and had a blast each time. Sure, sometimes you might get caught into an unwinnable situation where your opponent knows where your agent is and there’s nothing you can do to stop them even with multiple turns to do so, but pretty much any card game can reach these kinds of situations in a close game.

What’s amazing is how much gameplay we’ve gotten out of the demo deck; we’re not even playing different decks, just different seekers. And we both agreed, we could easily keep playing the demo deck more without getting tired of it.

Both of us have backed the crowdfunding campaign, though it’ll be a while. Really looking forward to the finished game; the updates have looked amazing.

• Hubworld: Aidalon: 8/10. A great game with just demo decks; can’t wait to see the full game!

---

Altered TCG

We finally got around to playing some other decks we made. Ordis has been extremely powerful for us, though we’re essentially playing kitchen-table limited, not constructed. We haven’t really heard much about the tournament scene since the game never really took off in the US.

We both bought a box of Trials by Frost, so we’ll be playing that soon, but we’re so far behind, and future releases will be crowdfunding exclusive, so we’re not entirely sure how we’re going to engage with the game in the future, but there are at least a few sets out, so we’ll see how things are in a year.

• Altered TCG: 8/10. It’s come down a little from a 9, but still very enjoyable.

---

Valheim

I felt like playing more Valheim, so I picked it again! This time it was scenario one for something more chill. Still, we ended up with two knocked out by the end. I’m very interested to see what the Moder scenarios are like as well as the campaign mode.

• Valheim: 8/10.

---

Star Wars: Unlimited JtLP

We played some more with the spotlight decks, this time swapping decks. My friend wanted to play the Boba Fett deck since the Han Solo one was trickier to play. Things were close (ignore that he already removed the damage from his base in the second picture), though nothing like our epic match with our sealed decks. We also opened the booster box and some packs, so we’ve got two sealed decks ready to go for next time.

• Star Wars: Unlimited: 9/10. Still enjoying it and loving the different mechanics of the sets (the ones we’ve played, anyway).

---

Fields of Arle

My brother wanted to return to this one, and he enjoys it the most in the group, but my friend and I are still a little lukewarm on it. We just prefer other Rosenberg games a lot more. This one doesn’t quite feel like the smooth “greatest hits” style game like Nusfjord, it feels a bit like a draft of ideas better explored in other games.

• Fields of Arle: 6/10. It’s okay, but not really doing it for me.

---

Speakeasy

We kind of skipped Inventions for now. We heard too many good things about Speakeasy. It’s definitely more approachable and streamlined than Weather Machine. The flow of it is very easy to grasp. But like Sweet Lands, there’s stuff all over the place, and trying to spot all the right things you need to combo is really difficult.

And in a rare example for Euro games, the game itself fights back, and it can be really brutal if you’re not prepared. I lost a ton of points from losing a single building. We’ll see if the randomness feels too oppressive, but there definitely could be times where you’ve calculated everything the best that you could, and you get the one single mobster that’s too difficult for you to beat.

Similar to Sweet Lands, my brother had really bad AP trying to analyze the board, and his turns took a long time. We’ll have to see how things go the second time.

• Speakeasy: 7/10? (first impressions) Really hard to gauge where I’m at with it, but I enjoyed it.

---

Earthborne Rangers

We finally return to our campaign after a bit of a break to play a bunch of stuff that came in. We caught a flight down to Tumbledown. An unfortunate ambush prevented us from camping, though.

Still, we got a lot of progress done, and the story is finally getting interesting. Not that it was boring, but it was clearly still setting things up. Now we’re getting into the real meat of the story. It’s kind of hard to pursue side missions though, since the main story keeps putting you on a timer, “do this or things advance without you!”

• Earthborne Rangers: 9/10. Have yet to start my solo campaign, but I’m hoping to squeeze it in before the end of the year to see how it is solo.

---

Valheim

This time, it was my brother’s pick. He’s been really loving it, and he also started over in the video game (as have I, but I’m constantly playing it).

We played scenario two this time. Resin was rough for a bit, and time almost ran out, but we puzzled out a way to summon the boss just before a raid hit us. I got the last hit in for the victory with only 1 health left.

I think I might do Moder solo next and with the optional home tile.

• Valheim: 8/10.

---

Unsettled: Kaélyfos & Yendraal

Been a while for this one too. The giant head planet was… quick. We died only a few rounds in. Didn’t even get to explore much. We decided to just swap planets and play again.

Second planet was the ocean world. It’s not bad, but felt a little more basic than most of the others, especially since you’re constantly discarding your stuff for favor instead of using them. Technically, we should have lost by the end since there was a surprise final action on the last card, but we had calculated everything and didn’t know to try and save an action.

We also had some rough luck with resource rolls. We had maybe three or so rolls all game that weren’t 1s, which made collecting slow. We also had a really bad favor card come up that was going to cost us 3 time when we were already low on time, and some of the opportunities popped up in far-away spots that wasn’t worth trying to get to.

My friend and I agreed that we still enjoy the game (it’s one of his favorites), but the randomness does take a little bit of the fun away. There are just so many random elements to the game, which is probably intentional to create more dramatic moments, but it makes the puzzle a bit less fun.

• Unsettled: 7/10. This has come down a bit from an 8. It’s just not quite one I’d pick.