We’ve basically caught up. Yes, I have new to me games in June, but I’ll talk about those when I’m done with June. And I’m not trying to rush through this month. So let’s talk about the new to me games from May. This, of course, is on my way to 1000 Games rated on Board Game Geek. I’m over 900 with expansions and over 800 without expansions. So let’s see how much closer I got in May.

May Games (Part 1)

7 Wonders: Architects

There are a lot of games in the 7 Wonders line. Some of them are good and this is one of them. I think I prefer 7 Wonders Duel, though I replaced that with Lord of the Rings Duel to 7 Wonders Architects, but I might prefer this to base 7 Wonders. You get a simpler open drafting system and you all feel like you can build up your wonder. Simple and fast game to play but a lot of fun.

La Famiglia: The Great Mafia War

Giant game of area control as you play as Mafia families in this team game. It’s interesting that this a team game, but at the same time, I don’t know that it helps the game. I think it’d have been better to be separate players and maybe change up the winning condition to account for that. Because being a mafia family doesn’t feel like a team activity, at least with another player. And this game just has too much going on it it.

Spots

Spots is another meh game. In Spots is a rolling dice and taking them to get spots covered on your dogs. Then you can bank them. But it’s basically pure push your luck and there are busting mechanisms that aren’t that fun. I like push your luck, but I find that I’m pretty selective when it comes to which ones I like best and there are better games out there.

Spooky Tower

Spooky Tower is another light game. This one is about digging through piles of cards to try and find ghosts and the player who can get to five first wins. I love the artwork in this game, it’s a lot of fun. And the mechanisms are simple but work well. I don’t want to be that negative on this game, because I rated it a 6, but it’s not one that I’ll pick to play. It is a game that I won’t mind playing though.

Quetzal

Quetzal is a game where you are collecting treasures and then trading in sets of treasures for points. It’s an okay game. I don’t mind what it does, but there are elements, like flipping out your meeples to see what side they land on and that limiting your actions, it doesn’t fit with the game. This could be a nice clever worker placement game, and in a lot of ways it is, but they give it something silly. It’s a shame because I wanted to like it more.

Kumata

An abstract tile stacking game. I like element of this game. I think it’s clever in that you need to criss cross tiles, you can’t fully cover one. And because of that, you can lock points in. You want your numbers and your color to show at the end when looking down. But as you play, you build up and you cover tiles. I think I’d enjoy this one more in person, but it reminds me of Pyramido in some ways, which I like a ton, and I’m not sure I need to play both.

Alhamabra

Alhamabra is a classic sitting building game. But it’s not a city building game that I enjoy. The balance of gaining money and then trading in money and the money needing to match the spot but not the tile you get. Plus you want to build out a wall around your city and how that can lock you into how you can play tiles. This game restricts a ton and there are better city building games out there that restrict less and are more fun.

Pachisi

Classic game and it’s a classic game for a reason. Mainly because it’s old, we’re all probably familiar with how it works because of games like Sorry. But meh, it’s not good and I’m fine with it being not good.

Roll’n Bump

Roll’n Bump is another meh game or worse, I’d say. Mainly because in this game, you roll dice, you get lucky enough to place them, well, someone else can roll it and bump you off that spot. It’s a game of seeing if things will come around to you so you can score them. But because it’s dice, it’s all luck. Not a good game.

Darwin’s Journey

Then about as different as you can get. Darwin’s Journey is a bit worker placement game where you are trying to study and find fossils, send them back to museums and kind of follow Darwin’s journey. There is so much going on in this game, but it is so good. One that I want to get a copy of, though it’s a big euro game so how often will I play it not on BGA. But like Galactic Cruise and Pirates of Maracibo, I know I want to own it.

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