Kingsburg is, hands down, a game I absolutely love to play. It is dice rolling and worker placement, which are two mechanics I absolutely love. So we pulled out this classic for today's game. What we didn't do, though, was play with any of the expansion material. I wish I was motivated enough to try some of the expansion stuff, but maybe next time. If you haven't played this game, it's really worth checking out and is a nice light worker placement. I really, really enjoy it and love breaking it out with my game club when I can.
I used to play Viticulture and loved it. It's been a while since I've played and today's playdate revealed how rusty my skills area. I wasn't even close to the winner's circle. Viticulture uses hand management and worker placement to help you be a successful purveyor of fine wines! You earn victory points in various ways, but primarily you want to fulfill wine orders. I am the little green piece and clearly did not make it to the 25 MAX points that my husband (blue) got. I will say, I kept getting super lame cards from the yellow and blue stacks, while he got quite a few cards that helped him, for example, get cheap extra workers.
Ah well. I still like the game, but it was rough getting back into the saddle.
Kingdom Builder is a game that my husband has broken out quite a few times when we've had lock-ins with the tweens, but I had never played it. Finally, I got my chance to play. My husband explained that it's by the designer of Dominion, so there are tons of variables and options for how the game can unfold everytime you play. So for example, he held up all the different board times that you could randomly have and I was like "woah!" He's got expansions for dayz.
What was nice as a two-player game was that the game play went quick, it wasn't overly heavy, and it offered a decent amount of options for earning points. Not enough, though, as I was ahead on the scoreboard until my husband counted up one of the points and he pulled ahead by one. NOOOOO!!!! Ah well. It was still a good game and is one I might recommend picking up again.
The Captain is Dead is one of my absolute favorite games. I've run it at conventions. I've met the creators and publishers (who also are local to us - The Game Crafter). It is just a really fun game to play and tonight we introduced it to our daughter, who said it was like "Among Us." Oh goodness gracious!
Playing, we lucked out with our variable player powers and I ended up having something useful! So I stayed in the Engineering Room, mostly, and kept bumping up the core so that we could engage. Since we were playing with my daughter, we played on Novice, but that's still pretty intense. We got all the way into the crazy orange cards and stuff started to go bananas!
I can't recommend this game enough, especially if you're into cooperative games.
My husband absolutely loves this engine building game. He was also shocked at how quickly I picked it up. You can see from the scoreboard that we were really close, both scoring well over the required 25 points. It was my first time playing it, but I quickly caught on to the combinations you can play with the cards.
Ignacy Trzewiczek's 51st State utilizes card drafting, variable player powers (the organization that you're part ot), and hand management in order you to quickly build up your faction and start earning those victory points. The game has a competitive component where you can actually attack the other player, but it's not a required part of the game if you're not into that kind of competitiveness.
Either way, the game quickly lept into a high ranking on my husband's Top 100 games and he is loving playing this. I, personally, feel that this game is much more up his alley than mine, because he loves deck building games, but I can see picking it up again. It was a good time and a fast play.
The Game of Thrones card game that I am playing is not the one that matches the box on the calendar. Ooops. My bad. It is the black box one put out by HBO, but Eric M. Lang was still the designer behind it. It is meant to be a two-player game just against Stark and Lannister, but there were fan made decks made, which is what my husband and I ended up playing with. Also, this game came to us in a Math Trade and my husband gave it a whirl.
We played with Martell and Baratheon. Sadly, the game play didn't go as desired, as my husband forgot that the person who wins initiative gets to CHOOSE who goes first and isn't the person who goes first. I was winning at the time and he decided that he could concede, because there was no way he was going to catch up with that mistake.
It was fun while it lasted. If you like 2-player deck dueling games, it's worth checking out. I liked some of the neat mechanics of how you can attack. My husband really enjoys deck-dueling and this is up his alley.
Covert is a game my husband was very excited to play with me. He said, "this game is in your wheelhouse." So he was banking on me really enjoying it. It has some mechanics like Ticket to Ride, which is my signature game, and some mechanics like Tokanoko, which I love.
Luckily, my husband wasn't wrong. This game was totally in my wheelhouse. I had to complete missions by gathering materials, which I could only get through certain ways. It was strategizing, but without the headache. It even offers variable player powers in the form of your spy persona. I enjoyed it, and, won AGAIN! I was surprised I won, because my husband had tons of code-breaker cards, but I beat him by a good 30 points. I had been taking high point value missions, so when I got 6 of then, it was 10+ points for all my missions, except one. (You need to complete 6 missions to trigger the end game.)
I can see this game being more intense with more people and that much more strategy would be involved. My husband and I wouldn't have been able to benefit like we did from the code breaker section of the game if there were more people.
1960: The Making of a President focuses on the election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. My husband played Nixon and I played Kennedy (randomly assigned). Essentially there is quite a bit of strategy involved in the game. You have to try to secure states to get the electoral votes. You have to think about media support in the various regions (to help you secure states). You have to think about the debate and building up your presence on the primary topics: Economy, Civil Rights, and Defense. And then you also had the think about endorsements. The cards you can use along the way are real events/people during the election and have certain benefits for Nixon, Kennedy, or both. Balance all of those things and use the cards to your advantage and you just might win the election!
I somehow was able to manage all of these things and when we totaled up our electoral votes, I won with 318! I really hung on to some high vote states.
Regardless of the outcome, the game was intense. My anxiety was up with the competitiveness. It was also the first time I played, so I get a little anxious that I'm screwing up. I never expect to win. 1960 really gets into the election vibe and echoes the same excitement as election night. I'd definitely play this again under the right conditions (AKA time to play).
My husband says that it's like Twilight Struggle, but has a mini game in the middle of the game. So if that's you're think, this democratic historical take on strategy, area control, and hand management might be right up your ally.
Freedom: The Underground Railroad (2012) is a cooperative game where you are trying to run the underground railroad. You have to move slaves from the plantations to get them to Canada, but along the way you run into slave catchers. You also have to raise money in order to get your railroad going and be able to move slaves away from the plantations. The game uses historic background, events, and people in the game.
I enjoyed the game, but my husband kept saying we started off really poorly. Suffice to say, the Abolitionists didn't succeed at their goal and lost the game. It does generate a discussion about the real Underground Railroad during the game and after play. It's not too heavy and the cooperative aspect helps to carry forward the idea that we are all working together to fix the wrongs.
We had originally played The Voyages of Marco Polo with a friend of ours and I apparently loved the goodness gracious out of it. So my husband put this on his list just for me. We played together and forgot how quickly it plays (5 rounds). I went all in on getting contracts and my husband was trying to do a little bit of everything. By the end of it, I came out victorious!
Marco Polo uses numerous mechanics, but it fed into my need for set collecting and having variable player powers and using "worker placement". It can be frustrating, but I get my plan ready in my head and then go! It's great fun and with even more players, it's intense! Highly recommend.
We played Francis Drake last year as part of the Around-the-World theme calendar I made for him. This year, he just wanted to play it again, because we had fun. We played the 2-player approved variant and we still hate the green guy. He is just such a jerk - always taking what we wanted next. The mechanics of the game really suit as, as it has a little bit of something for everyone: secret deployment, working placement, a little push your luck here and there. It's the kind of game that keeps me and my husband right on each other's tail as we move around the VP track. This time we weren't as close, but it was still a good game. I'm glad I was in the frame of mind to enjoy it and feel good about things. Francis Drake always looks like a heavy game, but is a quick play in three rounds.
Stefan Feld is a #1 favorite of my husband. We played this for our last Advent Calendar together and had a ball playing it. Bora Bora uses dice rolling, set collecting, and working placement, which are mechanics I do enjoy. It is not a long, arduous game to place and works well with just two players. He was really glad we got to play this again together, especially since he won using his jewelry collecting strategy.
Pandemic - Iberia is a great new take on the Pandemic model. Here you have the addition of traveling by sea, as well as building a railroad to help you get to all the locations. I really enjoy it and the cooperative aspects make me super happy. This time we ran out of cards before we could discover the last cure. All the colors we needed were at the bottom of the deck and made it hard to get the final cure. We had them all, but just didn't make it to the base on time.
Every time I get an email from a politician, I think of that exchange in Clue:
Cop: What's going on around here? And why would you lock me in? And why are you receiving phone calls from J. Edgar Hoover?
Wadsworth: J. Edgar Hoover?
Cop: That's right! The head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation!
Colonel Mustard: Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?
Wadsworth: I don't know, he's on everybody else's, why shouldn't he be on mine?
It just makes me laugh inside. This was brought up, because in my trash email there was an email from Pete Buttigeig (the campaign). A good laugh to start the day.
The majority of the morning was spent muddling. I paced excessively. I hemmed and hawed over what to do with myself. I did some small tasks requested of me by various people and did a bunch of shopping for my mom. But then... as I was sitting on the couch just flipping through the lists of recommendations or coming soons on Netflix... I saw it...
If you haven't read Dash and Lily's Book of Dares and it's sequel, The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily, and you love quirky romantic stuff around the holidays... oh my goodness... The books are edgy and have language and sexual references and can be a bit over-the-top with the Dash sections of the book, but they end just so very sweetly. I do so love them. So when I saw this trailer, I wasn't sure what to think... if I was excited that they made it into a Netflix series or if I was devastated that they toyed with the idea of turning it into a series that will probably be canceled and will screw up all the beautiful images of romance that I have in my head. I admit... I cried. I couldn't figure out if it was from happiness or sadness, but I am excited.
Before settling in for a game to help exercise my broken mind, we had to run up to my daughter's school and pick up her book club book. Then we also swung by the grocery store for a few items and picked up lunch at Kwik Trip. They had a new pizza called the Oktoberfest pizza. It had brats and onions and peppers and cheddar cheese on it. It was pretty ok.
Once we were settled again, I finally got to play a game. I can't tell you the last time I played a board game, it has been such a long time. But I pulled out a game that was a familiar and yet new: Ticket to Ride: United Kingdom.
Due to my head being so very off, I knew I wasn't going to win this game. But I had fun trying. We were within 4 points of each other. We discussed the different aspects of the game that caused that four point difference and it was interesting enough.
It is going to be a fun little adventures. A Halfling Wizard, Halfling Rogue, Kobold Rogue, and a Yuan-ti Pureblood Druid. I swear... we make the strangest groups of people.
The night wrapped up with a quick movie that we rented for cheap on Amazon Prime Day. You Should Have Left was a movie that was on my list for a while and is a Blumhouse Production. To mean that's more of a hit than a miss, but you can't always be sure.
It wasn't a horrible movie. It kept us guessing, but it also had those moments where you weren't, "Clearly this isn't working and you 'should have left.'" Hahaha! But it raises some interesting questions about the supernatural. The movie uses some typical American Gothic tropes and for this film... location is important. Sadly, it leaves some problems with the believability factor that is supposed to hook you and the twist at the end, for us, was an obvious surprise.
I'm glad I rented it and didn't buy it, because it isn't one of those supernatural films that makes me want to watch it again to catch more details. The film takes its time to make sure you absorb the details in the same way the characters do. But it was interesting enough for a suspense film for the evening.
Today was littered with joyful moments, but it was a good bit of a muddle and feeling indecisive about so many things. I just hope tomorrow is better.
