We’re doubling up on letters the first time today. I’m hoping that if I do that I can get through the alphabet before the end of the year, but it’ll be tight. But it’d be fairly sad if I just did E because…. well, you’ll see.

You can find my whole collection here.

Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s

E and F’s

Escape the Room: Mystery at Stargazer’s Manor

This is an escape room style game in a box. So the fact that it’s on my shelf/still owned should tell you the play status. I was given this one as a gift, and I’m excited to play it, but I haven’t gotten to it yet, mainly because I like escape rooms but I like playing with with 3-4 other people so that you can all puzzle through the game together. Right now that’s a bit tricky, and most often when I had game nights prior to Covid we’d have a larger group, and larger groups don’t work a well with escape room style games. I am still really excited to play this game though, I do enjoy escape room game a lot.

Status: To be Played

Fae

This is an interesting game, I like it because it has a hidden element to it. In this game you are trying to get the most points for your color of druid, you do that by moving them around on the board, grouping them together and then pulling them off of the board. But it’s done in an interesting way where you have a certain color of druid and it’s hidden, so you can try and get it so that your druids are pulled off in the highest scoring rituals to return from the fae realm, but if you do that, it might be too obvious so someone else might then tank the rest of your druids, so you want to score well, but not too well, all while trying to figure out what color of druid the other players might have in order to keep them from scoring too much. The game is simple, looks decently well n the table, and has a nice bit of a puzzle to it.

Status: Played

First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet

This is basically The Martian the board game as you try and survive on Mars as your space base falls apart, events happen, and all of that while trying to complete your goal to win the game. This game has an app which is okay, but needed, for keeping track of the ship status, and for a wider variety of events that can happen, some of the events are just a bit too crazy. I like this one though because it does feel tense as you try and keep everything working and complete your objective. There is a campaign mode that I want to play as well sometime.

Status: Played

Five Tribes

Five Tribes is a great looking game that uses a mancala style movement of meeples on the board to create one big puzzle that you’re trying to figure out and optimize your way through. This game is what you’d call a point salad game, get blue workers off the board, get coins, which are points, get more vizers than someone else, points, get collected sets of different items, points, get to place a camel on a tile, points, get a palace or a palm tree on the tile, points. And while there might be more optimal plays, it’s fun to try to get the points in different area in different games. This one works really well with all player counts, and the way they make it work for 2 is really good.

Status: Played

Floor Plan

A roll and write all about building a house, and trying to do so in a way that pleases the real estate agents or whomever it might be that the scoring cards are for. This, of course can create some really weird houses. But I like this one in concept because it is making a blue print/floor plan for a place. It reminds me a bit of what I like about Cartographers and Welcome To… that you are building out something that makes a lot of sense versus the more abstract roll and write games like Criss Cross and Second Chance. I hoped to see this one and try it at GenCon last year, but no luck, wasn’t there, but I’m excited to have it in my collection now.

Status: To Be Played

Folklore: The Affliction (and Dark Tales Expansion)

This is a an RPG in a board game. You have standard RPG like dice that you’re even rolling. But it takes place in a DM’less system and a dark world with lots of werewolves and vampires, you know the monsters that can cause afflictions. The game has two parts, one is more story driven where you are basically getting your next quest and the other is more of a tactical combat portion of the game. This is one that I got introduced to by Rolling Solo YouTube channel and I’m glad that I picked up, I just need to actually play it.

Status: To Be Played

Foodies

This is one that a playthrough of the game on the Dice Tower sold me on it as a light engine building game. You basically are building our a restaurant menu in order to impress some food critics or meet certain criteria, but you are also rolling a dice which then allows you to activate certain spots on your menu. It’s a 10 sided die and your menu is a 3×3 grid, so as you add in food items you can upgrade what you are getting when things are rolled. It seems to fall into that level of something like Homebrewers which I love a lot as well as a nice simple but fun engine building game.

Status: To Be Played

Forgotten Waters

This pirate themed storybook game comes from Plaid Hat Games. And pirate themed and the story book actually both really drew me to it. It also has a nice app integration which has solid voice acting on it for some of the story elements which is fun as well. I haven’t played it, but I’ve heard it works well over Zoom or other digital platforms, I mainly haven’t played it because I think that my wife would like it and right now we’ve been doing a little bit less gaming obviously due to Covid with other people and Forgotten Waters plays up to 7, I believe, so I’d love to play through it with a group of people.

Status: To Be Played

Formula D

I’ve wanted to have a racing game for a while, so now of course I have two with Formula D and Camel Up. While Camel Up is a lighter and sillier racing game, Formula D has you shifting gears around corners, trying to adjust your speeds just right, push your luck at the right time, and see if you can be the first one to the finish. This game has a ton of maps, though my used game is a base game copy and doesn’t have the additional maps you can pick up. This one is just one that’s always seemed like an interesting challenge to play and could have some solid stand-up moments as people push their luck around the turn.

Status: To Be Played

The Fox In the Forest and The Fox in the Forest Duet

I’m lumping these two together though there is a major difference between the games. The Fox in the Forest is a competitive trick taking game where as Duet is a cooperative trick taking game. But both of them are trick taking and based off of the same theme. In the competitive game you are trying to take as many tricks as you can and get right up to that threshold where you haven’t taken too many. Fox in the Forest Duet is a game that’s a balancing act as you try and collect tokens over some number of hands, and there is a fox that moves around on the board toward the person who won the trick based off of the number of paws on the card, so can you coordinate well to keep from going off the edge of the board and losing potential scoring spots.

The Fox In the Forest Status: To Be Played
The Fox In the Forest Duet Status: To Be Played

Fruit Picking

This was game that I got to try digitally from Korean Board Games during the online GenCon this year. I liked the game a lot as a simple puzzle of a game to figure out. In it you are moving around tokens from various plans to get seeds into the store house to buy cards to complete basically an end game set collection. You can also buy cards to block someone from winning. But you have to plan it out right because to buy a card of a fruit type you have to be able to mancala your seeds around to end up on the right spot. I like how the game has changing puzzle as well because where the fruits are on the board can be different every game.

Status: Played Digitally

Now we’re back to another section that I need to play more games form. The fact that there are a few campaign style games definitely meant that I would have less played. I really do need to et back to streaming on Malts and Meeples as that’ll help me get through my backlog and I do want to do it more. Right now motivation has just been hard.

What’s your favorite game that starts with E? And F? What do you think I should checkout in those letters?

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