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Welcome to another What We've Been Playing. July has been and gone.
Harold Cataquet
Dead of Winter is a 3-5 player co-op game that takes about one to two hours to play. One of the nice features of the game is that there are various scenarios from which you can choose from to allow you to dial in the length of the game (short, medium or long). Don’t confuse the length of a game with its ease. You’ll probably have to play that short game a few times before you can eventually declare a team victory.
At first glance, it looks like a Walking Dead board game, or a simple zombie killing game, but this is really a story telling game, and each player will have to make some tough decisions as the game goes on. Although there’s a lot going on in this game, it’s nonetheless very easy to introduce to new players.
What I love about this game is the big red exposure die. You can easily get rid of a zombie by rolling the blue dice. But then you also have also to roll the red die to tell you whether your survivor has been bitten, wounded or frostbitten. Thankfully, most of the sides are blank. However, once you’ve been bitten, every character that bumps into you thereafter must decide whether to kill you (and in so doing have to roll that red die), or allow the virus to spread. But don’t worry if your character is killed because you can just get another one.
As the characters are killed off, the morale of the colony declines, and the game ends in a loss when the morale goes to zero. Each scenario has its win conditions, but players will also have their own individual goals. But another feature of the game that has to be mentioned is the titular crossroads deck. Basically, this is a deck of cards where each card has a story on it, and if the conditions are met, the card is read and the named character has to make tough decision. That really adds to the theme of the game.
Seb Hawden
This month, both at work and at home we have been playing a lot of That’s Not a Hat, Marshmallow Test, Cat in the Box, Heat, Cover your Assets and even a couple of new games like Champions of Midgaard and Hero Realms.
Firstly, That’s not a Hat, has had everyone I have played with end up in tears of laughter. Just about every podcast I listen to has sung its praises so I just had to get a copy. It costs under a tenner, is very small but boy does it slap! Kids, adults and newcomers alike roll around laughing about how rubbish they are. It makes me consider my sanity when I fail to remember a card in front of me I put there under a minute ago, just go and buy it, you will not regret it.
Marshmallow Test and Cat in the Box are both trick taking games with spicy twists, we have really got into trick taking games recently and these two are both bangers. Cat in the Box is insane as every card is every colour and has a small area control mechanism to it. It has to be seen to be believed. Marshmallow Test, like the psychological test it's based on, sees you trying to stay in the round as long as possible to get the most points. However, if you are last, you get nothing, that's right, nada, nil, zilch. It's superb
Along with those, Cover your Assets is in equal amounts hilarious and annoying and my kids love it. Champions of Midgaard was fun but I feel I need to play again to absorb its content better and who does not love Hero Realms? It’s Star Realms with swords. As for Heat, it continues to be my favourite racing game, it actually feels like a race, crunching through gears and managing your heat cards is very rewarding, it's super-tense and so satisfying. See you next time gamers!
Favouritefoe
Summer is here!! I Well, Summer in Blighty anyway! And that means rain, rain, and more rain. But that’s okay as that just means more time inside to play games! And we have been playing some awesome ones this month! MY ISLAND by Kosmos Games is the follow up to the absolutely brilliant MY CITY. It’s another Reiner Knizia legacy, campaign game and this time we are building on a tropical island! Swapping polyominoes for multi-terrain hex tiles, I can’t tell you too much (spoilers are a no-no!), but I can say that we are enjoying every minute! And opening the envelopes for each new chapter never ceases to be exciting! Another game hitting our table in July has been NEXT STATION TOKYO. This is a flip and write which takes the game play of the fantastic NEXT STATION LONDON and adds some extra synapse sizzle! We are still re-designing a 4-line tube network using 4 different colour pencils, but in TOKYO there’s an extra fixed line, different scoring criteria, new restrictions, and round bonus powers! Small box, quick game play, and lovely colourful artwork.
Our son has also been playing with us and he has been doing his best impressions of sharks, aliens, and dinosaurs in QUIRK! This is a go-fish style game where we are all trying to collect sets of 3 card characters, but the twist is that we can’t just ask for the ones we want. We are acting, snarling, roaring, miming, and basically laughing our socks off! With two decks in the box (one with slightly more challenging characters) which include some sneaky mischief cards to add into the mix, this is a great family fun card game!
Camille Hindsgaul
July’s gaming was characterised by occasional intense bursts rather than a steady flow. While daily life was busy, we did have a couple game nights with friends. And, excitingly, more people than usual showed up, allowing us to play some of the games that really shine with 5+ players, a range of games with various levels of deception and/or treachery.
On the more light hearted end of the scale, we had The Chameleon and I Would Fight the Dragon.
The former is a sure crowd pleaser among my friends, a hit at any game night whose simple setup and moreish gameplay makes it a great introduction for new gamers - quick to explain and easy to fit in multiple plays.
The latter was completely new to me and such a delightful surprise. The goofy mix of push-your-luck, bluffing, and role playing struck the perfect balance between interesting mechanics and hilarious execution.
For the darker, more serious end of a night, we had Deception: Murder in Hong Kong and Betrayal at House on the Hill.
Deception brings out both the most astute sleuthing and the wildest stretches of interpretation and connection making. This makes it particularly amusing to be the murderer, riffing off theories you know to be false and casting aspersions on innocent detectives.
And though I love Betrayal, I get to play it so rarely that it was a real treat when our friend invited us over to play it a couple of weeks back. As always, I loved the narrative elements and exploring the house room by room, even if we did all get horrifically murdered by a small child.
All in all, even if July didn’t contain as many games as I would have liked, it was a very good month for lying to friends for fun.
Luke Pickles
Ah the July that was. The games we played. The days we sat inside because it was too wet to do anything at all so we played more board games. I had a pretty good month for gaming, getting 20 new games, 57 total games and 106 plays logged. A couple stood out for me this month. The first was Hallertau, an Uwe Rosenberg farming special. It hopped on my radar after watching some playthroughs and realising it’s not just a copy of Agricola or Caverna, but a proper worker placement game where you have to use the land wisely to develop the community. This is done through management of your fields, sheep and general resources, to push buildings along a track, gain more workers and score a ton of points. What makes this game sing though is the cards you can trigger during the game. Some give you quick resources, others give you income bonuses and some are end game scoring, but clever use of the cards makes everything achievable and it’s very satisfying.
The other stand out was Darwin’s Journey, which scraped in under the wire as I played it last Sunday. This is a crunchy euro worker placement game where you’re following Darwin around on his travels, discovering specimens of animals, working in the Theory of Evolution and exploring the world. Each of the action spots requires your workers to have seals of knowledge, so at various points you have to gain more to let your workers explore. You have bonuses for completing crew knowledge, and incentives to gather the animal samples to place in the museum. The gameplay really reminded me of something like Ultimate Railroads where you can chain a good handful of actions together and throw them all out in order to get huge bonuses. Highly recommended!