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). 

What a Finish! (Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated)

Last night we finished our Clank! Legacy campaign and wow, what a finish! About half or our games were spent socially distanced - two through video chat and three in my garage - with me moving all of the pieces. Talking about Clank! Legacy without spoiling anything is SO HARD but I'm going to do my best because I really do want you to play this game on your own.

This last game added some new twists that we hadn't experienced before nor expected. We had to completely change our strategy, but we still wanted to work together to get the best outcome possible for the end of our campaign as a franchise of Acquisitions Incorporated. It was a wild game, but we had a solid plan and we were happy with our outcome. Brennan won again with a ridiculous score. That means (without giving away the exact number of games in the campaign) that he won about 60-70% of the games, I won 25-35% of the games, and Stirling had won 5-15% (are those ranges big enough that you can't tell how many games we played?). So, a not uncommon occurrence in our campaign - Brennan either thoroughly tramples us or we leave his deceased body in the depths of the dungeon (three of his losses were 0 point losses - neither Stirling or I had any of these).

BUT THEN!

END OF CAMPAIGN SCORING!

Wow, this did not go how I expected. I had an idea of what sorts of things would be added up or counted towards the final score and I was sure that Brennan would win the campaign but that I had a slight chance to catch him. Well, obviously, I don't want to give any specifics away, but I was stunned by the scoring categories and results! Who won our campaign? STIRLING DID! Wow! Yes, of course, winning games was important and was counted, by there were a lot of other factors that I didn't think about that ended up giving Stirling the victory. Wowza!

A wild finish to a wild game! Take a look at my final review, coming soon!

The Father's Day Escape (Bandido)

Father's Day comes at a strange time because it comes right around the same weekend as my anniversary (June 18 - nine glorious years!) and my daughter's birthday (June 20 - seven years old this year!). It feels relatively unimportant compared to these days. This year it was even more so because we had my parents and grandparents over Sunday morning for donuts and coffee to celebrate Ardyn's birthday (we had my wife's family over on her actual birthday).

Well, all of this build up to say that my wife did not forget about me! I got some basketball socks, french fry seasoning, chocolate, a key chain made by my kids, and a pocket-sized gem of a game - Bandido! It was only two days before when we were walking around Indigo and I pointed out this game to her saying that it would be the perfect little stocking stuffer or something. She told me later that she had needed one more little thing for my gifts and was going to give up on finding something and just give me some cash to buy what I wanted. When I told her about this game, she went back and picked it up the next day!

Focused Attack (Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated)

Another night of a Clank! Legacy and another wild and unique experience! We played the same strategy we've been playing for quite a while, but again, things did not turn out the way we expected! We're nearing the end of our campaign (I'm trying not to give away exactly how many games there are) and so the steaks are high. Brennan has won like 60% of the games thus far, so Stirling and I are playing catch up. Or, at least, we're playing to try and stop Brennan from winning. Here is the aftermath of our garage gaming session. If you don't want spoilers, don't zoom in, but I doubt you'd see anything anyway. Except maybe you could count how many chips were left in the bottom of Brennan and Stirling's bowls. As much fun as it is to be in charge of shuffling every deck, moving every piece, adding in every secret, it'll be nice to not have to do EVERYTHING anymore. Brennan is an ER nurse, so he's playing it pretty safe in terms of contact with others, so it could be a little while still. So what happened to make this session so wild and unique? Well, let me tell you!

Playtesting Makes Perfect (Donisi)

After a bit of a break from Donisi, the last few weeks have seen Aaron and I getting back to the grindstone. Aaron is doing his part, working on card and character art (see one pictured here) as well as a teaser trailer that will be coming out soon (keep your eyes open for that!). My main job has been the same as it has been for most of the last few months: playtest, playtest, and playtest. Here's a little rundown of my process lately.

Play through a mission with only one character. See how it feels. Too hard? Too easy? Do certain parts of the mission seem too hard or too easy? If something feels off, I'll make an adjustment. The adjustments I go to first are (1) number of enemies spawned and (2) location of spawn points. I'm not going to be changing the maps much at this point and the cards are pretty set, so this is the best place to do the tweaking. With this current mission, I actually tried completely changing the types of enemies that you'd face. It was a fail, so I went back to my original plan and tweaked the story instead.

Time to Move? (Review of Railroad Ink: Blazing Red Edition)

Roll 'n' Writes have been all the rage lately and one of the more popular series are the Railroad Ink ones. They have two versions out currently (Blazing Red and Deep Blue) and there are two more on Kickstarter right now (Lush Green and Shining Yellow). I'm a relative newcomer to the Railroad Ink game, playing Deep Blue with my family during the winter and getting Blazing Red for my birthday in April. In my review I'm going to talk about both games as the base dice are the same and it's just the expansion dice in each version that are different. I'll talk about those separately.

Railroad Ink is a perfect game for solo players or for those who like to do their own thing and not affect or alter what anyone else is doing. Each player is basically building their own railroad tracks and roads without interfering with each other. I believe the current Kickstarter versions do have more player interaction, but these first two do not. In the game you roll four dice (or six, adding two of the expansion dice) and draw the roads and railways pictured (you must include all four dice on each round - the expansion dice have different rules depending on the scenario). Your goal is to connect the exit arrows on the side of the boards to each other. The more of these you connect, the more points you score! You also score points for your longest road and railroad, for building in the middle nine squares, and you lose points for any dead ends. If you're playing with an expansion, you can gain more points depending on the scenario it puts you in. Winner is the player with the most points after 7 rounds (6 with expansions).