The Games

You’ll have to watch the video to find out what they are, but all games that I really love and all of them are in small boxes, I think the largest box was still smaller than the Just One box for size comparison. I also did skip all the roll and writes in my collection. I can and will do a Top 10 of that overall on Malts and Meeples coming up here, because I have played more than ten roll and write games, so I didn’t want to create that overlap.

Okay, I will at the very bottom put down all the games that were in the Top 10 list, and you can see if you can guess the order. Also, let me know in the comments what some of your favorite small box games are. We had a few one ones tossed out there on the live stream with Tiny Epic Galaxies, Mountain Goats, and more. I like games that come in smaller boxes because they are easier to take places, so finding about more is good.

The Beer

Of course there was a beer, this time it was Aqua Fuzz by Indeed Brewing Company out of Minneapolis. Aqua Fuzz is a hazy IPA that has a nice balance of tropical flavors to it. Hazy IPA’s are a hit or miss beer for me. While I love IPA’s, the hazy IPA’s can often end up being too sweet. This comes from some breweries adding in fruit juice to give it more of that tropical flavor. It also provides more of the hazy look that they are going for. However, for me, that causes them to be too sweet. And as we have talked about before, I do not like sweetness in my IPA’s, at least to finish.

Actually The Games

If you don’t have time to watch through the video, save it for later, and you want to see the list now, here are all the games on the list in no particular order.

• Parade
• Claim
• Say Bye to the Villains
• Silver Amulet
• Hanamikoji
• Point Salad
• Cross Clues
• Skull
• Ohanami
• Onirim

Take a stab at what order you think I put them in and watch the video and let me know how close you got to being right.

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The Games I Played

I’ve done a big board game battle with these three games before. I talk about them all in some detail and about what my favorites of them are. Really all three of them are good games and they use the same mechanic, roll dice three times, keeping one die and getting rid of all the lower ones. Then on the opponents turn, all the dice they didn’t use, you can use one. And as you fill in things, you get tons of combos which will give you more ways to fill things in.

Ganz Schon Clever

The most straight forward of the three. Ganz Schon Clever follows the basic rules that I described above. It has the simplest game play because the other two add in additional mechanics. That, however, makes the game easier to learn than any of the others and faster to play because the decision space is a bit more limited. I really like this one solo or at any player count.

Doppelt so Clever

I’d say that Doppelt so Clever is the most complex of the three of these games. The play is basically the same, and you have a new ability of unlocking. In the stream, my score is way above anything I’ve scored before. My previous best was around 230, I scored almost 300. Doppelt so Clever definitely scores higher at lower player counts because you can manipulate the dice more.

Clever Hoch Drei

Clever Hoch Drei is up there with Ganz Schon Clever as my favorite. You can get extremely high scores in the game. I really like it, because there are so many combos and the combos are fun. The game does have a few more complex rules than Ganz Schon Clever, but the basics are easier to understand than Doppelt so Clever, in my opinion.

Which of the three is your favorite?

Next Weeks Stream

My plan, as of right now, is to stream two handed play of Marvel United. Now, if that goes fast, I might play solo as well, demonstrating how that goes. The question that I have is, what heroes should I play. Right now only the base box is out there, so I can choose from the likes of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, Captain America, Hulk, Captain Marvel and Black Widow.

Who should I play as?

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Claim Expansion Bundle

Claim is a trick taking game that I need to get to the table. I want to get more trick taking games in general to the table, and Claim does something interesting. In it you take tricks over two rounds, the first round you are taking tricks to get your choice of cards for the next round. It uses a mechanic like The Grimm Masquerade where you might either get the card on top of the deck or one face up, and you might push your luck if you don’t like the one face up. Then you play another round of trick taking as well as set collection for the suits, monster races, to score the most points at the end of the game. This adds in some new mechanics in three smaller expansions, I’m excited to see how it can grow the game, though this is a game that I want to really dive into and explore soon.

MonsDRAWsity + Expansion

This one the theme just sold me on it. We’re all Paranormal Sketch artists who are trying to get as close to the monster that’s been described by the person who is it. This is one of those party/group type games where the points don’t matter and it’s all about the laughs that you get out of it. Compared to something like Stipulations where you need to be able to come up with ideas on the fly, I think this game will be more accessible. I also think that it will be more replayable than something like Cards Against Humanity because the people playing it are creating the jokes, and by that I mean drawings. I’m guessing that this game would even work via Zoom for a game night, depending on how fast it comes.

Shadows in Kyoto

I mentioned EmperorS4 because I picked up a game, it was on sale for $4.99, that Deep Water games is distributing. This has a similar aesthetic to Hanamikoji and is also a two player only game. In this one you are protecting your shogun. But what really interested me was the different ways to win. It almost has a Stratego type feel, but you can win by capturing two opponents agents who have some real intelligence on the enemy shogun. You can get an agent of your own with real intelligence to escape, or you can get your opponent to capture three of your agents with fake intelligence. I like the deduction and bluffing nature of this. It seems, like Hanamikoji, to require you to read your opponent which is something that I find interesting. It is going to feel abstract, but should work nicely, I think, in my collection.

Those are the three different bundles or games that I picked up. I’m excited for all of them obviously, and they’ll join Floor Plan, Welcome To…, Welcome To New Las Vegas, Claim 1 & 2, and Hanamikoji in my collection. If you haven’t checked out Deep Water games, they are definitely a company that puts out smaller games, but really interesting ones.

Which of these games would you be most interested in?

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