Yes, more work play, this is what you’re all here for, I know it. Yesterdays was completely insane as I had a million games, or so that started with the letter S, but the letter T is considerably more reasonable, but still a bunch of games that start with T.

The Collection

Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s – E and F’s – G and H’s – I, J and K’s – L’s – M’s – N, O, and P’s – Q and R’s – S’s

T’s

T.I.M.E. Stories (and Expansions)

I love this game, it is really well made in what I’ve played through of the expansions with each different scenario pack feeling it it’s something new. I’ve heard that some aren’t as strong as others, but through four of them it’s been really interesting. This reminds me of Assassin’s Creed in some ways, though depending on the scenario, less about fighting. And they have done a lot of weird things, from dragons to ancient Egypt to zombies.

Status: Played

The Table is Lava

We all know the rules of the floor is lava, don’t touch the floor. But with this, you have meeples and you are flicking cards. You flick them onto the table, and if you hit someone else’s meeples you can knock them over or knock them onto the table, which is lava, of course. But you get points if your meeples are standing up and less if they are laying down, so you have a lot of different ways to score, but also some strategy in how or where you toss your cards, because you could go to knockdowns or you could try and keep it separate so you are less likely to have meeples knocked off. It seems like silly fun.

Status: To Be Played

Tainted Grail

I love my Awaken Realms games. Tainted Grail is a massive grim dark Arthurian legend and it’s really hard. I like the fact that it’s hard, I like that the combat has you running away fairly often and that you are fighting for survival, what they advertised the game as. The story in this game is really good, and I’ve played through the first chapter multiple times and I always find something new that I haven’t done before and places that I’d love to get to, except for the time that we have left on the Menhir. I’m excited to get back to this after Christmas.

Status: Played

Takenoko

Sometimes you want a game that is just a fun time, and Takenoko with it’s fat bamboo eating panda definitely is that. This game looks family weight but has a little bit more going on as you are putting out tiles, growing bamboo, eating bamboo and more. It has some random elements with the dice, but overall is a really fun time with a lot of good decisions to make. When do you want to water a spot so it starts to grow, does it help you more than the other players by doing that, when you want to move the panda and do you want to get more panda, gardener, or tile scoring cards?

Status: Played

The Terrifying Girl Disorder

Japanime Games makes weird games that definitely have a bit of an anime feel to them even if they aren’t about an actual anime, and this is one of those games. I picked it up because it was on a sale and it looked weird. From what I remember about it, you are picking cards, almost drafting them, to get sets for the girl that you have, but that can change who you have. It is a weird game and sounds like it either will be an interesting game for some people, or that it might be a bit too much game for how small it is.

Status: To Be Played

That’s Pretty Clever

Roll and write, you know the drill. But this roll and write has the distinction of being the one that really started the roll and write craze we’re in now. Ganz Schon Clever, as it’s known in German, is a good comboing roll and write game that has a lot of interesting scoring to it. The sequels then use that and build upon it, but they are their own separate games. That’s Pretty Clever introduces one of the best ideas that I’ve seen, of foxes, these are points where if you can get them can score you a lot of points, but they only score the lowest point total of another section, so if I don’t do well, let’s say in the yellow section and get zero points, foxes are worth nothing. This forces you to diversify as you go.

Status: Played

This War of Mine

Probably better known as a video game, this war of mine is another Awaken Realms game, one of the earliest ones that they did. It is based off of the IP of the video game, and is about trying to survive in a war torn world. From what I know of the game, it’s extremely dark, depressing and hard to in. Now, not all Awaken Realms are like that, but I always expect that an Awaken Realms game will have some elements to it that are punishing. This one I want to try solo and just play in short bits because of the darkness of the theme.

Status: To Be Played

Ticket to Ride

It’s a classic gateway game for a lot of people. This one is all about collecting cards, putting down trains and completing routes. What makes this work so well as a gateway game is that you do one of a few things on your turn. You either take train cards, play down trains, or you take routes. That’s it, you don’t do more than one of those things on a turn. It makes the game easy to teach an very accessible. The game also is based around connecting those routes which is an idea that is really easy to grasp, because we’re all familiar with a road trip of going from point A to point B, with Ticket to Ride it’s just about how you get there.

Status: Played

Tiny Towns

This game has been a pretty popular one this year from AEG and last year. It is a simple cube placement game with a bit more depth than it’d first seem. What makes this really interesting for me is the picking of the resource and how I can use that to my advantage at times or to hurt someone else. Now, I don’t think that hate picking is a viable strategy, but if I see that my next opponent has a brick and wood for building a house, or straw, whatever it is, and I just have a wood, I might pick brick so that they are likely to pick straw and we both get houses, but now they have an extra brick they have to work with. And there are a ton of combinations or buildings that are really fun to work with.

Status: Played

Titan Race

Another fun filler type game is Titan Race. This one is again really easy with dice drafting and racing either across the same board three times or across three different boards once each. The game is fast and easy to learn, and each racer having their own powers is fun. What I also like about the game is that even when you are knocked down to 0, you just lose a turn and you get going again. But what is the most fun is knocking people around, being able to drop a trap right in front or someone or push them into lava, it’s great. And even though there is the take that feel to the game, since it’s so fast and so silly, people aren’t likely to have their feeling hurt.

Status: Played

Tofu Kingdom

I bet you didn’t know tofu had a kingdom. This is a bluffing game where players can either lie or tell the truth depending on what cards they have in their hand and the person who is Prince Mochi is has to try and guess who has Princess Tofu in their hand. It seems like one of those silly little games, almost social deduction, with a little bit of deduction thrown in. What is nice is that it plays a pretty large number of players. I’m curious to get it to the tale once we have people playing in person again, because it seems best at a higher player count.

Status: To Be Played

Tokyo Highway

Dexterity games are a ton of fun for me. I like them because late in a game night, you might not want to sit down and play something too meaty. Instead, you can grab out a game and try, in your tired state, to balance roads and place cars on them. Tokyo Highways is one of the most aesthetically pleasing games to see played. When you wrap it up, it’s almost a piece of artwork, which is crazy to say for a board game. And the rules are simple enough, if your road crossed over or under another road, you get to put a car on your road, the first person to get all their cars out is the winner. But you only have a limited number of discs to raise or lower your road, and without special discs you can’t raise or lower than more by one. It’s a lot of fun and tense, but so pretty that it’s calming.

Status: Played

Tsuro

This is another of the high player count but not a party game games. It’s actually one of the most played in that category for me. Tsuro, the way of the path, is about using your tiles to keep yourself on the paths as long as you can, and outlast everyone else. I think this game plays best at the higher player counts where you can knock out a game or two fast and then move onto something bigger. I’m a little bit played out of this game which is why I’ve added more games of similar player counts to my collection, but it’s still a good one when you need something fast.

Status: Played

Twice as Clever

The follow up to Ganz Schon Clever (That’s So Clever), this game takes the foundation that you get in That’s So Clever and builds upon it. Twice as Clever is by far, I’d say, the most challenging of the three games to play. You have to think a lot about all the sections because the scoring is quite different. I do like pieces of it though, the pink track is great, the grey/silver area is really interesting to think about. The yellow area is hard to rock, but if you can, you can get a lot of points and some good bonuses. It, like That’s So Clever, is all about getting as many combos as possible and getting to those foxes so you can score the most points off of them, but not forgetting to get points in every area.

Status: Played

That’s it for the T’s, definitely less than there were of the S’s, but that’s fine, I have a lot of games as it is. What is your favorite game that begins wit the Letter T? Is there any that I’m missing from my collection that you’d think I’d like?

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