Let's Take the Shortcut (Review of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion)

Gloomhaven is king of the hill over at BoardGameGeek (it's the number one ranked game of ALL the games), but then along comes the little sibling. Will the upstart show up their older relation? Or can they cannot compete with the bigger version? 

For those who don't know anything about Gloomhaven, it was created by Isaac Childres and it is BIG. Twenty-two pounds of miniatures (18-ish), scenarios (100-ish), boards (a bunch) enemy standees (like a zillion), and every token and card imaginable (immeasurable). It's a cooperative campaign-style game with some legacy elements (stickers added and whatnot) taking place in a fantasy world created by Childres. You choose one of the starting characters and level up as you progress through the campaign, making choices that affect what happens to your party and what your character becomes. There's a whole lot more, but you can read about that in my review of the original game here.

in 2020, Childres made some kind of deal with Target to bring a scaled down version of Gloomhaven to the shelves, something that more than just hardcore gamers could get into it. Jaws of the Lion was born and contains around 25 scenarios, 4 characters, but still a buttload of enemies to battle and cards to acquire. How does Gloomhaven: Lite compare with the original? Let's find out together.

Don't Cry over Spilled Milk or Zombies (Zombie Kidz: Evolution Review)

This week my daughter was eager to play just one more game of Zombie Kidz: Evolution so that we could open up the very last envelope. So eager, in fact, that when she opened the box she spilled some of the pieces into her cereal and milk. After a few tears and the wipe down of a few pieces, we were ready to go for our final game of the campaign!

It's not often that I have a game that one my kids begs to play, but that was certainly the case here. From when we opened the game Christmas morning to our final envelope opening on January 8th, we played the game a total of thirty times. But, why? Was the draw for her enough to make it a good game? How did it feel for a parent playing it with her? 

First, an overview of the game. You play cooperatively as a group of kids protecting your school from zombies. On your turn you spawn new zombies, move, and then remove/kill/scare- away/insert -your-age-appropriate-verb-here zombies. Your job in an individual game is to get two kids(you can play up to four players) in a entranceway together and lock the gates. If all four gates are locked, you win. If the pool of zombies is empty (i.e. they're all on the board), you lose. Without spoiling anything, as you play the game multiple times and complete missions, you open secret envelopes (13 in total) that change the rules of the game and add more elements. This, to my knowledge, is the first legacy-style game geared towards kids. How successful was it? Let's find out!

Top Ten Solo Games of 2020

It's that time of year again! That beautiful season when Kevin Erskine from BoardGameGeek runs the People's Choice Top Solo Games competition. I believe this is the 6th or 7th year he's put this on and it is a blast! Anyone who wants to can submit their list of up to 20 solo games to Kevin and he'll rank them all based on how many votes they get. There's usually some minor controversy, but Kevin makes it clear that this is for fun! Well, it's not always so fun for my wallet because I want to buy ALL of the games on the list.

As I did last year for my list, I used Pub Meeple's ranking system to help me get started. Basically you upload the list of your solo games (it easily links to your BGG account so this is easy-peasy) and then it puts two games in front of you and you choose which one you like best. You do this a bunch of times depending on how many games you have and voila! You have a list! This becomes my starting point and I tweak and move a bit after I have this last, but it's usually pretty darn close!

When I look at the list I ask myself the following questions: Do I love this game? Do I love to set this game up? I try not to overthink it too much and just have fun with it. So, without further ado, here is my Top Ten Solo Games of 2020!

Master Mapsmith (Review of Cartographers)

I've really been enjoying the roll 'n' write and flip 'n' fill kick that the board game world has been on lately. What I feel like I've been missing, however, is a fantasy-themed one. Well, voila! Cartographers is here! It's not really the battle that I was hoping for - you're actually a cartographer, a mapmaker, scouting and mapping out the lands for your king. You work through summer, spring, autumn and winter, each season bringing with it different objectives and scoring conditions (indicated by random cards each game). You need to be sure to plan for the current season as well as future ones or you'll miss out on some points.

Each season you flip cards from the deck which will give you a terrain type (farmland, water, village, or forests) and a tetris-style geometric shape for you to draw onto your map sheet (the game comes with a pack of 100 of these and they are double sided with an easy side and more difficult side). The objective cards will direct you to place certain terrain types in certain arrangements to score the most points. There are also ruins that you may need to play on sometimes and also mountains. If you surround a mountain completely, you receive some gold. Watch out though - some cards involve a monster ambush! In competitive play, the person next to you will draw this ambush on your sheet and in solo play there is a pattern they follow for placement. Either way, any spaces adjacent to them left unfilled will lose you points at the end of the season.

It's Euro-Tastic! (Review of Terraforming Mars)

If there were a Euro game that I was going to play and review, it was going to be this one. Not because I love the theme (growing bacteria on Mars? When do I get to stab someone with a sword?), not because I love the artwork (so many neutral colours...), and not because I love moving cubes around (soooooo many cubes). It's because it's the number four ranked game on BGG and EVERYONE in the solo guild says it's amazing! Well, EVERYONE can't be wrong, can they? Even though I'm an Ameritrasher through and through, I can still enjoy cube pushing, right?

Only one way to find out.

First of all, though, let's make sure you know what Terraforming Mars IS. I think that I would summarize it as a hand- and resource- management game with some area control mixed in there. You're trying to make Mars habitable by changing it, increasing the planet's oxygen, temperature, and amount of water. Raising these three also raises your Terraforming Rating (TR) which also increases your income. That's good, because you'll need money to play cards and perform the standard actions that will allow you to increase the big three. The cards include a variety of things from strip mining, crashing meteors into the planet, launching nuclear bombs, and growing bacteria. Different actions will also allow you to increase your income and production of plants, energy, heat, steel, and something else.

That's the gist of how you play. But did I like it?

The Oblivion of Dinosaurs (Review of Dinoblivion)

If you've been following my blog or my reviews at all, you've probably picked up that I LOVE deckbuilders and that Goblivion (check out the review and playthrough) was one of my surprise favourite games of 2019, making its way to my number four solo game of the year. Well, when I heard that the wonderful Jean-François Gauthier was launching a new and improved deckbuilder on Kickstarter, it was a must-back for me! I've had the game for about a month now and it has gotten to the table a lot. That's one of my favourite thing about both of these games is their quick set up and play time. Rather than just making a new Goblivion with a few gameplay and component tweaks, Gauthier created a game that was a completely different type of deckbuilder.

Goblivion feels familiar as a castle defense game. Enemies come closer and closer to your castle and you need to train your troops to take them on. In Dinoblivion, the premise and execution is much different. You are a cave-person tribe attempting to survive in a prehistoric jungle (I don't know how accurate to history this is, but I'm suspending reality a bit because it's a board game). Dangers include dinosaurs, opposing tribes, cannibals, and piranhas. You start off with a deck of ten cards (nine standard and one variable chief card) and you use these to build up your tribe. You need to collect and manage various resources: food, dinosaur pets, and new babies. Food and babies allow you to "purchase" new cards: items and tribes-people, respectively.

The Knights Radiant (Playthrough of Call to Adventure: The Stormlight Archive)

Growing up in an aristocrat's house, Weset's youth was given over to indulgence and excess. When he reached adulthood, however, and reflected back on his life and the priorities of his harsh father, he realized something was missing. He gave his life to religion and joined the Vorin priests, searching for a higher meaning. His father urged him back into the family business by offering him a position of greater authority and control. Reluctantly, he agreed, finding less fulfillment than expected in being an ardent. 

Summer 2020 Update

Wowza! Has it really been so long since I posted last? Time flies when you're playing the same game over and over and over and over... Well, before I get to that, I'm going to start at the most recent news and work my way backward, because it's the most recent news that I'm most excited about!

Cut and Play (Cloud Dungeon)

I was looking for a storytelling or RPG-ish game to play with my seven year old daughter, and so where did I look? That's right, I went to the best source: BoardGameGeek. Whenever I'm having difficulty finding something to play next, I just asked the wonderful BGGers and I always get amazing responses!

One of the games that really stood out to me from their suggestions was one called The Cloud Dungeon. Not only is it a light-RPG for kids, but you also get to cut everything out and colour it! My daughter is very crafty and so I knew that she would love it. I picked up the print and play version for $7 USD and we spent the last three days prepping and playing. I leave for vacation today and so I'd like to gather my thoughts a little bit more before I do a full review, but here are some pictures of the experience!

Starting out on our adventure - my daughter is on fire and I can shapeshift.

Left Him in the Dust (Review of Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated)

While there is a lot of buzz around legacy games these day, there aren't actually that many true legacy games around. A legacy game is one that is a campaign style (multiple sessions connect to each other), but your choices and actions leave a lasting "legacy" on the game. This usually comes about through adding stickers, tearing up cards, and/or writing on boards. I could be wrong, but I believe the first, or at least most well known, of these games is Risk: Legacy. That is not one I've played, but I have played three more-or-less legacy games now: Charterstone, Gloomhaven (see that review here) and now Clank! Legacy. I've spent the last nine months playing through the game with my friends Stirling and Brennan and this past Saturday night we played our last game (read about that here).