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I love Ticket to Ride. I love collecting the train cards and putting down the train cars. I love annoying others by placing cars on routes I know others want and taking risks by choosing more routes later on. When I heard they were making a legacy version I was ecstatic. I haven’t played any legacy board games before and I’m really excited about one of my favourites being adapted into one. For anyone unaware of what a legacy board game is, it is a game which is played over multiple sessions, each with different set ups or mechanics based on the outcome of previous sessions. In the case of Legends of the West, this is in a number of ways, but a big one is how the board is expanded each time. Because of this permanent change mechanic, many legacy board games are one and done. Once you’ve played it through, you can’t do anything with it: it’s complete. Whilst you’ve had many hours of play time out of it, there is an end to it. With this game though, although you cannot play the legacy aspect of the game again, you are left with a completely playable ticket to ride board, as if you’d picked an edition off of the shelf. And get this, it is a unique board, created only by you and the players that you’ve played the legacy aspect with. Whilst it does suck that you would have to buy another copy in order to play the legacy game again, that is rather a main aspect in that type of game unfortunately, but Legends of the West has a good compromise with the unique playable board creation. This is meant to be a wishlist blog, but I have actually been promised this for Christmas so I know it’ll be waiting for me under the tree and I will be annoying my family with it immediately.
Block and Key
It was my birthday last month, and as a treat my friends and I went to a board games cafe and found this absolute gem. If you’re a fan of games like tetris, but want something physical, this is the one for you. In Block and Key, each player is competing to make patterns that are shown on their cards in the 2D view that they have, by placing tetris-like blocks. The catch is that these blocks are 3D and interact with other player’s views, potentially helping or hindering them. The components to this game are lovely to handle. The blocks are really well crafted, and as they are made of clay, they have a really nice weight to them and so feel wonderful in your hands. The play area is made out of the box base and lid, put upon one another with supports which is a really fresh idea, I haven’t seen many games that use the box in its entirety in this way. I’ve been really itching to get my hands on this since then and considering the quality of the pieces, its Zatu price is a steal!
Colt Express
Talking of birthdays, Colt Express turns 10 this year! Happy birthday! In this game, players play as bandits from the wild west, eager to gain the most valuable loot. Players play cards into a pile and once done, the pile is flipped and played out. If there is a tunnel, or you don’t pay attention to what you or other people placed, you can find your plans hilariously scuppered when you end up in a car that you weren’t planning on being in. This game is a staple when I take newbies to a board games cafe as it has the best of everything in my opinion. A lot of action, player interaction and strategy but light enough on all of the above to not be overwhelming. It also has a cardboard train as the play area, which makes for an interesting twist for newbies as well, who often expect your usual square board. I hadn’t realised that I had never actually bought a copy to call my own and this needs to be amended.
Tranquility
I’ve been playing Tranquility online with a friend, so I’m interested to get a physical copy to see how different it feels to play it in person. In this game, the aim is to place cards in a six by six grid in ascending order, which is a deceptively simple aim. Whilst there are 80 cards, so ample opportunities to reach this aim, players have to discard cards if they place them next to ones already placed, which can really reduce the pool. It becomes trickier by the rules that disallow communication between players so you may end up in a scenario where you just need a 36 to complete the grid but James discarded that card in his second turn and no one knew. Despite the name Tranquility, this game can end up feeling very tense, especially near the end, but there is a real sense of satisfaction when you are able to completely fill the grid. The gamemakers have also released a number of expansions to explore that increase the difficulty for when you have mastered the base game. I’m excited to find out how the feelings differ with a physical copy, being in the same room as my playmates. Although I’m not excited about having to actually do the maths on my own rather than the computer doing it for me. Sigh.
Hues and Clues
Clue giving games are some of my favourite party games. I will always recommend Codenames to anyone who will listen. Hues and Clues is very similar, where clue-givers give a one-word clue to allow the guessers to find a certain item on the board. However, instead of connecting words together, as in Codenames, in Hues and Clues, players have to find the particular shade on a grid of colours that their team-mate is alluding to. I haven’t had a chance to play this at all, but I’m really intrigued at how different it will feel to come up with colour clues as they have less obvious semantic connections than between labelled concepts in Codenames. It’s a team game and so many people can get involved at once and so is a perfect Christmas gift to be played with all of the relatives around on Christmas Day. Are the kids more in sync than the grown-ups? Or can one side of the family beat the other to the correct colours?