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

Quarto

This is a classic abstract game that has wonderful wooden components. And while I haven’t played it yet, I know that I need to, because I think it looks really interesting and smart. In the game your opponent is picking a piece for you to place. And you are trying to get rows or columns of four that match different criteria, or don’t. It reminds me some of the game SET, which I love and am quite good at, if I do say so myself. I like the idea of having to think about where you place so you aren’t forcing yourself to give your opponent the win, but also locking down the number of options that your opponent can give you, so it makes it more likely you win. A highly strategic game.

Status: To Be Played

Quoridor

Another game from the same company was Quarto, this one is a race across the board. Each player starts on their own side of the board and you either move your piece or play a wall piece on your turn. And you can’t do both on the same turn. I love this game for trying to let your opponent get as close as possible, block them, and make them backtrack in their race across the board. Or, in a four player game, I like making an opponent do that dirty work for me, so I can push ahead further. It’s a thinky little game and while Quarto is more strategic, this one can be very tactical.

Status: Played

Raiders of the North Sea

I like games with Vikings in them, but I normally don’t like worker placement games. Or, I should say, I’m normally not drawn to worker placement games. This one the theme pulled me in, and the simplicity of the mechanics. I like that you don’t have your own workers. Instead, you start with a worker and on your turn you start by placing a worker, and then you take one off of another spot. So you get two actions on the turn basically, and that’s how it works for everyone. You are fighting for places less than many other worker placement games.

Status: To Be Played

Railroad Ink: Blazing Red Edition

Most of the time when I say that I like a roll and write, I then add flip and write, but this one is a true roll and write game. You are building out roads and train routes on your map trying to connect as many as you can. I like that it’s a true roll and write, and that everyone can go at once. Games with little downtime are a very good thing in my opinion, this will only ever have you waiting for someone else to finish filling in their route spots. It also comes with laminated sheets which is great as well, means that I don’t have to, and it makes it so you’ll never run out.

Status: To Be Played

The Ravens of Thri Sahashri

I picked this one up because I was able to use a friends Fantasy Flight game center discount and it is a two player game that they sell a lot of. It’s an interesting game of kind of tableau building for one person and the other player removing cards from it based off of a rules. The one person who is removing cards is trying to do so in such a way to keep only the cards that they match the colors of the face down cards they have. It’s an interesting puzzle of an idea and works with the limited communication you see in a lot of cooperative games.

Status: To Be Played

The Reckoners

The Reckoners is one of my favorite book series of all time. So when a cooperative game came out for it, I knew that I’d get it eventually. I love the theme of being normal people trying to stop super powered bad guys. You research, and fight, all working to the big boss, Steelheart, trying to find his weakness and be able to take him out. It also has a nice dice rolling mechanic for the heroes, so that means it is more accessible to non-gamers. I am a bit concerned about how hard it is supposed to be, but the expansion is supposed to fix that.

Status: To Be Played

Reichbusters: Projekt Vril (and expansions)

Do you want to punch Hydra in the face? That’s what you’re basically doing in Reichbusters. This is a campaign game where you are fighting Nazi scientist, soldiers, and everything else crazy they are creating. This is a campaign game, but you don’t have to play it that way. That’s something other games claim to do. Now, Reichbusters won’t be for everyone. But I like dice chucking, big minis, and table hogs of games. It also feels like Captain America: The First Avenger in some ways, which is a big selling point for me. It also took me a few hours to punch and sort everything.

Status: To Be Played

Res Arcana

I was sold on this game by some friends. I like the idea of it as it’s a small engine building game. I hope that it’s very accessible as that will help it get to the table more. The card play seems interesting because you start with your hand of cards and that doesn’t change much during the game. I need to play this one as the standard first and then move onto drafting. The drafting of the cards to start seems really interesting and can make it a bigger game with more replyability. But it looks really enjoyable.

Status: To Be Played

Rhino Hero: Super Battle

I got this one to play with the toddler. Now, I don’t think he’s ready yet. But this is a dexterity game about stacking a massive building and moving your character up on it. Any dexterity game works with adults as well. It’s a silly little game but fairly often you need fun filler like that.

Status: To Be Played

Rising 5: Runes of Asteros

This game is interesting to me because it was sold as a better version of Mastermind, a game that I liked, but that was too easy. Mastermind should be won in the game number of rounds every time. Rising 5 does a similar thing where you need to match symbols, but it has an app. So you don’t have one person running the puzzle. Now, that’s a turn off for some people, but it’s nice to take the game so it’s completely cooperative. I like games that make me have to figure out a puzzle.

Status: To Be Played

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island

I love cooperative games, and I love hard cooperative games. This one is one of the hardest cooperative games. It is the precursor to First Martians. The one issue that’s kept this game off the table is that the rule book is not good. Unfortunately Portal Games does not make the best rule books. I need to watch a video on how to play the game to get it to the table. But I am excited because I like the theme, I like that you can play Robinson Crusoe, or maybe it’s a film crew filming Kong, or Swiss Family Robinson, and that’s in the box. So it has scenarios, but they aren’t a campaign.

Status: To Be Played

Roll Player (and expansions)

Dungeons and Dragons is my RPG of choice, and even though I’m always the DM, I do roll up character sheets. Roll Player takes character creation and turns it into a board game. You draft dice, put them in the stats, and do that until you get a character. The Monster and Minions expansion make it so you fight with your hero as well. And the Fiends and Familiars adds even more to the game. There is a lot for this game and eventually I’ll be able to use the character I create in Roll Player Adventures, which I’m looking forward to. This game grew on me, but now I really like it.

Status: Played
Expansion Status: To Be Played

That’s the letters Q and R. A number of games in R had some expansions. I really want to get Reichbusters to the table. Which is your favorite game in Q or R? What should I add to my collection starting with Q or R?

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There has been a terrible accident at the magic school of Geeblegaren the most prestigious magical school in all the land. You as the important adventurers that you are have been tasked with investigating and fixing whatever might have befallen the halls of Geelblegaren.

The players show up, and were basically doing a silly multi-part dungeon crawl as the players find out that someone, on the 42nd floor has unleashed a monster on the tower, a monster known as the Puppet Master. The Puppet Master has turned all of the wizards there into children.

The problems for the players arise because not all of the children are good little kids, some of them are friends (fiends) who has Puppet Master has brought up with him in disguise. Mix that in with the kids now having to defend themselves and they used to be magical students and teachers, so they have a very good arsenal of tricks and traps up there sleeves. And a few of them, those who might have decided to help The Puppet Master are now under the Puppet Master’s control.

The players aren’t powerful enough to just undo the spell, they need to find the headmaster of the school, they need to get components, they need to figure out who might be trying to trip them up and who are the actual kids, and who are the teachers, so that they can get everything undone. I’d try and keep this light, even with there are fiends in the school, they aren’t torturing people, they are there, looking for something or someone and they are caring more about impersonating the kid version of the students or the teachers so that they can find what they need.

As for the traps and stuff like that, this is a magical school, these are powerful wizards, but they are generally nice people. We’re going home alone style on this. Traps should be “none lethal” for the most part. Make them weird with using the full array of wizard spells, so that there are now magical creatures or mirrors that if you look into them you get polymorphed into a chicken, things like that.

This whole thing will end when two things are done. The first being that they have to rescue the head master whom the Puppet Master is obviously going to have tucked away somewhere or mind wiped to not realize who they is somehow. So the players need to either rescue them or get them to remember somehow. Once that happens, they need to get to the top floor, the 42nd floor, where the Puppet Master is in order to complete the spell with the headmaster and banish the Puppet Master. However the fiends in disguise are now going to be more aggressive to the party now that they have the head master.

Facing off against the Puppet Master can work two ways. If they are just going to banish him, it’s about surviving X number of rounds, 5 or 6, and keeping the kid version of the head master alive so that they can complete the spell. If it’s not about banishing the Puppet Master, it’s still going to be about holding out for a number of rounds, 3 or 4, before the head masters spell is completed and the Puppet Master is weakened enough so it’s an appropriate CR for the players.

That’s about where the story will end. Once the players have defeated the big bad Puppet Master, the students and teachers all return to normal and the fiends will be banished.

This is a game to really keep light and fairly silly. Go as full Home Alone as you can. Make the fiends play pranks, just a bit more deadly than the wizards are doing. Do what you can to keep it light hearted as you can and make the thing that the Puppet Master and the fiends want something that’s a bit absurd, maybe even something that has some cool but weird magical power that the players can discover along the way.

How would you keep this game light and silly?

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