Pros

• Solid Price for Deluxe
• Can Get Everything
• Cooperative Game

Cons

• Game Can Be Really Easy
• Shipping to some locations

The Page

Fireside Games has done a very good job on this page. I feel like they have some advantage with that because this is a game that already exists. I first found out about this game when it was on Wil Wheaton’s TableTop show. I fact, I was so interested in the game, I picked it up. You can see my TableTopTakes review here.

Let’s talk about the upgraded pieces, because those are a big deal. That is what is selling this campaign, because the base Castle Panic, that hasn’t been hard to find. The plastic monsters look cool, or the wooden tokens. Mainly I am noticing the updated art. The art on the original Castle Panic has okay art, but this one, it has much better looking art. It isn’t serious art, but it is a good for a light cooperative game you can play with your family.

The Game

The game itself is a good time. This is one that I have in my collection, though, I haven’t played it in a while. Why is that, it is because the game is easy. Castle Panic is a cooperative game that is meant for families. I think I have played it around ten times, and I probably have beat it nine of those times. That is too often for me to win a cooperative game.

So why is it still in my collection? Castle Panic is a step above kids games. This is on par with games like Ticket to Ride, Catan, Splendor and more of those family-weight games. So I’m keeping it in my self for when I can pull it out to play with my kid as he gets older, but also for people who I am maybe introducing board games too. Pandemic would have been my go to cooperative game, but some people might prefer the theme be a little bit different and a fantasy tower defense is different.

Back or Brick

Is this a Back or a Brick for me? This is a Brick. Now, would I recommend this game to new gamers, I would. This is a fun cooperative game. However, I don’t know what I’d recommend this fancy version. Unless someone loves the game, I don’t see the value in it. The cost is very good and shipping to continental US is great. However, for more serious gamers who are playing more complex games, unless you know you like it or know you have a group, I don’t recommend this. It is clearly doing well, but it is a specific audience that I would recommend it for.

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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

Sagrada (and Expansions)

I wish that I had backed Sagrada on Kickstarter, not because there is anything special with that edition really compared to what I have, but because I like the game that much. This dice drafting game just works and looks amazing on the table. The theme of stained glass windows appeals to most everyone, even non-nerdy gamers. And the concept of taking a die and placing it into your stained glass window makes sense. Add in that the dice look amazing in the windows because they are translucent, it sells the game even more on the table.

Status: Played

Santorini

I don’t always love abstract games. But Santorini looks great on the table, and that counts for a lot in a game, in my opinion. Especially for a game that is abstract. The simple game play helps the game be even more appealing. You are just moving a piece and building a level. The goal is to make it to the third level of a building, which is simple enough. And when the game becomes too simple, you can add in god cards which give players powers.

Status: To Be Played

Say Bye to the Villains

I like extremely tough cooperative games. Say Bye to the Villains fits that mold perfectly as I have yet to win it. But for me, I don’t see that as a negative, mainly because we are always close to winning. None of the games feel like we’re too far away which is saying something considering how many times I’ve played it. It also helps that the game play is simple enough. You are just playing cards that eat up time, and the game isn’t too long either. For some people it would be a negative, but for me, it’s a good thing. It feels like there’s always just one more thing to do in the Say Bye to the Villains than you have time for.

Status: Played

Scattergories

I have a game from 1988 on my list. And yes, I play Scattergories still. Scattergories is a party game that works well since it depends on the players creativity but not on in-jokes. It also works well over Zoom which has gotten it played several times this year. The game is simple and everyone understands what is going on when played. Scattergories isn’t a game that I’ll pull out all the time, but people have fun when it is pulled out. And it’s a game that everyone knows because it’s been around so long.

Status: Played

Scrabble

If you thought Scattergories was old, think again. I have Scrabble in my collection as well. Scrabble being published in 1948 might make it the oldest game in my collection. I still enjoy playing Scrabble, though. I prefer regular Scrabble to the “quick” Scrabble or Banagrams. The main reason is that Scrabble has more strategy and tactics than those do. In Banagrams it is purely pattern recognition and while I am good at it, it isn’t as fun. I prefer to think about how I might be setting up my opponent in Scrabble and the strategy that comes with that.

Status: Played

SeaFall

I wanted to like SeaFall so badly. And it’s funny that I do have a copy of it still. I was gifted a copy that a friend got for cheap. SeaFall promised that it was going to be an epic seafaring game where the story unfolded as you explored. Instead, we got a story that was a mess and complicated but only because it didn’t unfold in order. Compared to other Legacy Games, story happened much more randomly and the games themselves took too long. I wanted a game that told epic punchy story about adventure on the high seas. And, I think that is possible within SeaFall, how the story works, though, needs to be reworked.

Status: Played

Second Chance

I like flip and writes as I’ve said many a time before. Second Chance is a simple flip and write. You try and fill as much of your square as possible and that’s it. To do that you are putting in polyomino like shapes onto your board. If you can’t place one of the two shapes, you get a second chance card, a card only you can use. If you are able to use it, you stay in the game and continue playing. If not, you are out and count up the empty spaces you have left. The game is that simple. But it works well because it gives a chance for people to be creative in how they fill in the shapes. You doodle on them so you can tell what is filled and what isn’t, or create patterns. And that part of the game is really a lot of fun. Plus, the game works for everyone since it is so simple.

Status: Played

Sentinel Tactics: The Flame of Freedom

Honestly, I ordered this game on accident. I thought I was ordering another expansion for Sentinels of the Multiverse, but I ordered Sentinel Tactics. Thankfully I ordered a standalone game, not an expansion for Sentinels Tactics. Sentinel Tactics still takes place in the Sentinels of the Multiverse world, but is a tactical game, as the name implies. You move chits around a modular board playing through scenarios that have you trying to beat a villain. I hope it’s good, I know one person who said it was interesting, if not, I got it on a steep sale, so I can always use it to get store credit at my FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) for a game I want.

Status: To Be Played

Sentinels of the Multiverse (and Expansions Galore)

What, this game comes after Sentinel Tactics alphabetically, who’d have guessed. I picked up the base game used from my FLGS. Sentinals is a game that I’ve wanted to try for a while because of the superhero theme. Then when Tom Vassal played it on a What’s Appening stream for the Dice Tower, I decided it looked good enough to pick up. Then, Black Friday rolled around and Greater Than Games had a massive sale. So I picked up a ton of expansions for it, almost a literal ton. I believe it was 17 expansions for it, plus Sentinel Tactics. I still need to get it to the table, and I plan on starting just with the base game, but I love the superhero world and the comics that come with some of the boxes.

Status: To Be Played

Shadowrun Crossfire: Prime Runner Edition

I picked this one up recently as well. Shadowrun Crossfire first came onto my radar when I played it at Fantasy Flight Game Center off of their demo wall. I knew when I played it that I’d pick it up eventually. I really like the world of Shadowrun. A world where big corporations are running things, and hackers go on runs to try and get data and take them down. The cyberpunk setting works really well for me. I know there are some knocks on the game with how slowly characters level up, but I am still excited to play through it’s campaign.

Status: Played

Shadowrun: Sprawl Ops (with Cooperative Expansion)

This game was a bit of a mess getting it from Kickstarter. The shipping company messed up royally, and while we did get cool extra boards, the creators who were doing updates were not professional about everything. I don’t have any issue with the publisher Catalyst Game Labs, but with Lynnvander Studios, I’d be hesitant to back any of their projects again. The game looks amazing and has a great cyberpunk aesthetic, though, so I am excited to play it. And the game comes in a massive box, where even the box looks awesomely cyberpunk.

Status: To Be Played

Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients

I have some beefs with this game, though it is still on my shelf. The main beef I have is that it sucks to put together. All the little minis come in a lot of pieces and are not easy to put together. This sounds like it’s been rectified to some extent in other prints of this box. However, the game itself is a lot of fun. It’s a weird west game where you are pushing deep into a mine to try and complete objectives. But there are monsters in there, and you might stumble into a whole other world if you aren’t careful. I want more time to play it, but I have to reassemble my minis first, which might be a good winter project, assuming I remember how they go together.

Status: Played

Shadows of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game

I have mentioned a few places that have caused me to pick up games and Shadows of Kilforth is one of those game. This fantasy game with an Eastern flare to it, was one that I saw the original, Gloom of Kilforth played on the Rolling Solo channel on YouTube. The game play looked interesting, so when a sequel showed up on Kickstarter, it felt like a good game to back. I still think it will be, I just need to get it sorted and ready for the table. This game is one that I should be able to play solo on Malts and Meeples in the new year sometime.

Status: To Be Played

Shakespeare

I’m ashamed of how long this game has been on my shelf without getting played. My wife picked it up for we as a gift, and as a game that she’d also like the theme of. But it’s euro game, so I don’t get those off my shelf as much. I am interested in it as I like the theme of putting on a play. Getting costumes, actors, sets, and more ready sounds like a lot of fun, I just haven’t played it yet. I am excited to try it still, I just need to sit down and learn the rules so we can get it to the table.

Status: To Be Played

The Siblings Trouble

I picked this one up off of Kickstarter because of how much I had enjoyed Lift Off! from the same design and company. This one is a light RPG like game that is targeted for families with kids. It is meant to be a way to get that RPG feel without having as much of a ruleset as something like Dungeons and Dragons does. I’m waiting until the toddler is old enough to play it with us because the game looks very cute.

Status: To Be Played

Silver: Amulet (and Coin, Bullet, and Dagger)

Silver: Amulet was a game that I got to try at GenCon in 2019. The game has a puzzle feel to it as you are trying to score the fewest points in your village. The twist comes with being able to swap out two cards for one card, if the cards are the same number. Add in a lot of powers on your cards, and you have an interesting puzzle. And then to top that all off, you don’t know what most of your cards are at the start of the game. The amulet, coin, bullet, and dagger all do different things, so depending on which version you play there will be a unique special power. And the cards you play with between the games can be mixed together, you just need one set of each number to make it work.

Status: Played

Silver & Gold

Roll and write, you know the drill. I like them, and this one does something cool. You fill in spots on cards, which seems bad. But the cards are dry erase, so you can play with them over and over again. It is a clever twist as you start to do set collection with them and score points off of which ones you have filled in. You still make combos though. If you cross of a treasure spot, that allows you to fill in another spot on any of your cards, and there are palm trees that are worth points as well. Super small sized game, but looks to pack a lot of game into it.

Status: To Be Played

Skip-Bo

The section of old games apparently. Skip-Bo is a classic game that I grew up playing less than I’d want in some ways. Fairly often for a simple card game Uno would be the game picked. But Skip-Bo had more interesting game play to it than Uno does. I like figuring out how to place your discards in the most optimal way possible, and sometimes stopping early to try and lock an opponent from being able to play easily. Now, the game can drag because of poor card draw, but it is generally quite fast.

Status: Played

Skulk Hollow

A two player game that was on Kickstarter. Again from the same company as Lift Off! Skulk Hollow is an asymmetric two player game. One person plays as the fox kingdom and the other as the old guardian that has awakened. The fox player needs to get onto the guardian, since it is to too large to beat otherwise, and take out it’s different actions. The monster generally has it’s own objective, but can by taking out the fox leader. The game has simple card play but is very tactical in nature and the box comes with multiple leaders for the fox and guardians for a ton of replayability.

Status: Played

Skull

The first time I played Skull, I wasn’t sure how much I liked it. It had weird coasters that you played with, and it was a push your luck sort of game. However, the more I played it, the more interesting it became, how did you successfully bluff someone into picking from your pile which has a skull in it, when that will bust you if you get stuck with the bid. The bluffing is what makes this game, it doesn’t have a lot of strategy to it, but if you can bluff and read your opponents you’ll do well in this game. And the coaster shaped “cards” are still weird.

Status: Played

Small World (and Small World Underground)

Small World was one of the gateway games for me that got me into the hobby. I like how it has Risk elements, but it’s actually fun. It has a lot of attacking and defeating your enemy, but in a fun way. You aren’t rolling die like in Risk, the battles are determined just by if you have enough pieces of cardboard to beat an area. The powers and races make this game work though, because something like undead ghouls or flying halflings are just silly, and you can get some great combinations, like commando elves or flying sorcerers that can put a bit of a target on your back. Game is a lot of fun every time I play it, which is about once a year.

Status: Played

Sonora

I’ve talked about roll and writes, and flip and writes, even a draft and write, but I haven’t mentioned my flick and write. Sonora is a combotastic [blank] and write game. To start your turn you flick disks around a board which determine who much you get to put in certain areas. Some of them are simple race to completion, others have you putting pieces in like they are Tetris, or filling in dots, or closing off sections of the board. It has a ton going on, and if you get the right things, you then get more to fill in other areas and it can repeat even more. It is extremely satisfying.

Status: Played

Specter Ops

A game that I picked up used, but that was on my radar for a long time. Spector Ops is a one versus all game, but the one is hidden. They are moving around to various objectives trying to get them all. The concept is so interesting to me. I want to play both sides of it, see how well I can hide where I’m at and see how well I can deduce where someone else is going. It feels like it should be a good and challenging experience.

Status: To Be Played

Splendor

Splendor is a light and small engine building game. You are collecting gems to get cards that have permanent gems and sometimes points. And you can use those permanent gems to get even more cards which games on them and the process repeats until someone has 15 points. The game is really simple to play, the theme is not there, but that’s okay. It is meant as an introduction to engine building and it works for that. Not one I want to play all the time, but I keep it on the shelf for what it is.

Status: Played

Star Wars: Destiny

Fantasy Flight Games foray into collectible card games. It was a fun game because it wasn’t only card it was nice chunky dice as well. And I like the Star Wars theme better than say, Magic the Gathering. The issue is that the game isn’t quite as good, and people didn’t get into it as much. Destiny is now a retired game, but one that had a good following and people were sad to see leave. What I think worked well was that none of the cards were rarer than the others. So you got good stuff all the time. That was part of what killed it as well, Magic works because it has a massive secondary market for it for FLGS’s, Destiny had none.

Status: Played

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

The Star Wars dungeon crawl. This game does one thing that I really wish the Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth did, and that is that it is adjacent to the main story and the main characters. But I can’t play as Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader, those are characters who just make appearances. But out of the base box, you are still playing around the original trilogy storyline. The game also has an app, so it can be one versus all, but it can also be fully cooperative. I need to play it more because I’ve liked the plays I’ve had.

Status: Play

Star Wars: Unlock!

The unlock games are basically escape room games in in a box. And the Star Wars: Unlock! game is a game that is an escape room in a box with a Star Wars theme. I like these games because they are very puzzly and can give you an experience while you play them. I’ve heard that the Star Wars: Unlock is a bit easier than some of the other ones, but I’m fine with that as it’ll be more accessible to more people. I want to play this over the holidays, and that’s the one downside, once you’ve played an unlock game once, you can’t play it again because you’ll know how it goes, still $30 for three hour long experiences in a group isn’t bad.

Status: To Be Played

Stipulations

I talk about this game a lot, mainly because I really like it was a party game. Stipulations asks the question, what horrible thing will your friends come up with. If you have the super power of flight, what’s the stipulation, or the dream job of being a movie actor, what is the stipulation. This game does what most party games do, it ends up with a lot of in jokes, but it is a fun time and compared to something like Apples to Apples which is basically always clean or Cards Against Humanity which is always dirty, Stipulations can be tailored to those whom you’re playing with.

Status: Played

Super Fantasy Brawl

I’ve decided that I really like games that Mythic Games puts out, or at least in concept. Reichbusters looks like a fun twist on a dungeon crawl, and Super Fantasy Brawl seems like a really accessible two player fighting game. The game has chunky minis that look great, and simple but interesting card play. I like that you play three cards on your turn and those cards have to be of different colors, but each character, of the three you have doesn’t correspond to a color, so if you get a red and a yellow card for one character, you can activate that character twice, from my understanding. I really want to give this one a whirl as it has an epic table presence for a fairly simple seeming game, rules wise.

Status: To Be Played

Super-Skill Pinball: 4-cade

You know the drill, I love my roll and write games. And I like the theme on this one a ton. I like the idea of playing a pinball machine and seeing what the high score is that I can get on it. I like the mechanics of how the ball can bounce around and how it will only bounce certain ways and generally down. You are also trying to bounce it up higher and complete combos on things, just like in real pinball to get even more points. And it’s called 4-cade because there are 4 different machines that you can play.

Status: To Be Played

Sushi Go Party!

This was another early game for my collection as it was on Wil Wheaton’s Table Top show. It is a card drafting game, a mechanic that I quite enjoy, with set collection as well. The game works well, even though with new players you sometimes have someone get off on what they are drafting. Sushi Go Party! also gives you ways to change everything up, so that you can have different combinations of foods on the menu. The game has a very cute table appeal and is just a hit basically all the time.

Status: Played

Sword and Sorcery (plus Expansions)

Sword and Sorcery is a classic dungeon crawl game. This one is pure Amerithrash dice chucking fun. I like how much mitigation you have, but only mitigation in having multiple symbols to use on the dice and being able to reroll dice. My knock on this game is that it is almost a little bit too easy at times. You get great weapons for completing things and now you are hitting really hard and can take down monsters fast. Granted if you roll poorly no matter what you’ll do poorly. I wish it had a bit more of a story to it, but overall, the story isn’t too bad and the game is meant to be mainly a dice chucking dungeon crawl anyways.

Status: Played

Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellows

I love Sword Art Online, one of my favorite anime, and I’ve watched it multiple times. I am also working on a game idea based off of some of the isekai themes from it. But this game is a bit sad, the anime is big and epic, this game is tiny. it does get some things right, mainly the combat of switching in and out and not letting the bad guy go feels like it matches the theme. I need to play this one not solo, because I think it might be better that way and have less upkeep for one player. I’m hoping some day we’ll get a truly epic Sword Art Online board game.

Status: Played

So that’s all of the S’s, there are ton of them. I hope that you were able to stick it out, hte rest of the list will be a lot shorter. There are so many good games in the S’s as well and a lot that I need to play. Which one should I play first? Do I have something that seems like it’s missing to you? I’m guessing people will say Scythe, which I owned, but got rid of.

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Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s – E and F’s – G and H’s

I, J and K’s

ICECOOL (and ICECOOL 2)

Yes, that is how the name is listed on Board Game Geek, so I’m going with that. ICECOOL was a flicking game, that I forget where I stumbled across it, probably the Dice Tower, and what was interesting about the game is that not only were you flicking the penguins, not something that I had done before, but the box formed the penguin high school that you were flicking the penguins around. Just how the different parts of the box formed the board and stuck to together was cool. Add in ICECOOL 2, now you can play with up to 8 people, you can either do the normal way with hall monitors trying to catch the students ducking out of class or race around the board if you want another mode to play. The game is a ton of fun, and has always been a smashing success at game nights.

Status: Played

InBetween

Another game that I know I learned about on the Dice Tower, this is a two player only game that has a theme that reminded me of Stranger Things when Sam Healey would talk about it. This game has one person playing the InBetween or basically the upside-down nd the other person playing the real world. There are a group of people, and you are trying to put your influence on them and make it so that the people go to your side and not your opponents, So it’s an interesting tug of war sort of game as you try and figure out through card play how to influence that. That concept really drew me to the game, and the them, because playing a Stranger Things game, basically, sounded like a lot of fun.

Status: To Be Played

The Isle of Cats

This game has cats, that’s a selling point, but it also has your drafting cards and playing down polyominoes, think Tetris sort of pieces, which are the cats onto your ship, all the while trying to create “families” of like colored cats to score points. Plus you have objective cards, and there are sections on the boat that you need to fill up. But you have to be able to pay for this call, so you get baskets to pick up the cats you have to pay for, you have to pay for the cats with fish, because fish lure cats into baskets, and you have to pay fish for the cards that you draft that you decide to keep. There’s a lot going on in the game but all of it seems to flow together quite well.

Status: To Be Played

Just One

Party games can be hit or miss for me, but Just One is a really good game. Firstly, it’s cooperative, which I think can be an issue with other party games. I get that something like Cards Against Humanity or Apples to Apples are supposed to have the in jokes created, but it eventually just becomes people playing those in jokes because they are funny versus because they are trying that hard to win, even games like Stipulations, which I also like, eventually has people starting to put down the same jokes. Just One, however, since it is cooperative, has people focused on helping the group by coming up with a good one word clue that hopefully no one else will have. I also like how those clues work so well, one word, if it’s duplicated by someone else, you can’t see either clue. That really ups the ante for people putting out unique clues which makes guessing the right thing harder, but maybe with all the clues together a more obscure clue will make more sense.

Status: Played

King of Tokyo

My only K game as well, King of Tokyo was one of the earlier games I got. You’ll find that a lot of the earlier games are one’s that I saw on Wil Wheaton’s TableTop show. This was one that looked like a lot of fun, and still gets played probably a couple of times per year. The game works well because it is a nice simple step up from other games. You are rolling dice Yahtzee style and either getting numbers for points Farkle style, getting punches, getting energy (think currency), or healing up. Now there are more rules, but for the most part the punches and the points are what you really care about because you can either win by knocking everyone else out or by getting enough points. That’s one thing that I really enjoyed about the game is that you have two options to win as well, that wasn’t super common or possibly even a thing, in the games that I’d played before.

Status: Played

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You can find my whole collection here.

Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s – E and F’s

G and H’s

Gloom

This is a fun little story telling card game, and one of the earlier “new” games that I picked up after watching it played on Wil Wheaton’s Table Top show. What drew me to this game was how creative and morbid they were with everything, and how a game could have such a silly objective, such as killing of your family for the fewest points possible to get the win. What keeps this on my shelf, even though I haven’t played it in a few years, is that it’s just such a fun time when you do play it. You get into the morbid absurdity of it and collectively tell such a tragic but absurd story.

Status: Played

Gloomhaven (Forgotten Circles Exp and Jaws of the Lion)

Gloomhaven is my favorite game of all time, so clearly I’ve played it a lot, and I’ve beaten it and the Forgotten Circles expansion, I haven’t beaten Jaws of the Lion yet. What I love about Gloomhaven is just the large, sprawling story that it tells and the very Ameritrash feel, but also the Euro game sensibilities in the combat and combat cards come through, and no dice. Now, I like dice chucking, but I’ve found that I really like that tactical nature of the game play in Gloomhaven where it is much more buttoned down than a pure dice fest. This is a massive game with a massive rule book, but not that difficult when you get into it.

Gloomhaven and expansion Status: Played
Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion: To Be Played

Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

This is a game that I picked up in San Diego because I had a few hours to burn before seeing family and after I was out of my hotel, so of course I went to a game shop. This is one that I had seen played on Rodney Smith’s channel, Watch It Played, and that looks like it was a lot of fun. I’m glad I made the purchase as I’ve had fun with it, trying to time out things so that I can rocket forward by spending the right fuel as you try and get your spaceship to escape a black hole and get back to your own dimension. What makes this one fun is trying to read what the other players are going to be doing, you know half the cards they have, but what else might they have to power their ships, how fast will it go compared to yours will that move them closer or further from you. And I like how some fuels move you closer to the nearest object while others push you away or pull them all closer to you. It’s a clever idea that works well in a game.

Status: Played

The Grimm Masquerade

I almost missed this one, but you wouldn’t know that had I not said it. This game I like as a deduction/social deduction game. I think what works well is that it really is more deduction than anything else. In this game you are at a masquerade and you’re trying to guess what Grimm’s Fairly Tale characters everyone is. Now that should be obvious, Rumpelstiltskin and The Beast form Beauty and the Beast should be pretty obviously in why they are, but let’s say magic. What I really like about this game is the two cards you give or keep each turn. You draw one and you have the choice of giving it to someone or keeping it for yourself and they have an item on it that you might want, because if you collect enough of one, you can win, if it’s the right one for your character. The second card you do the opposite thing from the first one, so if I give it away, I have to keep the second card. But the downside is that you have a weakness and if you get enough cards of that type, you are out of the round and can’t get the rose which is worth a bunch of points. I like the push and pull of that as you have to consider, do I take something that’s just neutral for me because I know if I get another of a certain item I’ll be out? It’s just a really good and quick deduction game.

Status: Played

Hanabi

This is a weird game, in that you have a hand of cards and they don’t face you, so you can’t see your cards, but you can see everyone else’s cards. This is also a game about hold information in your head, not just for yourself but what clues other people have been given already about the cards in their hands. You’re trying to play down cards from 1 to 5 in different colors, but you are limited in how you can talk, and of course you can’t see your own cards. It’s a nice simple game, but one that has a lot going on when you really get down to it.

Status: Played

Hanamikoji

I was going to say that this probably my favorite game to play with two, but there is one that I like better, but it’s the best two player only game that I have. This game has you trying to win the favor of Geisha so that they will come to your restaurant, you do that by giving them gifts. But what works so well in this game is how you give the gifts, each player, per round, does four actions, put down two cards face down that won’t be used for gaining favor, one face down that will be used for gaining favor, giving your opponent the choice of 3 cards which they get one and you get two for gaining favor, or giving your opponent a choice between two sets of two cards for gaining favor. That’s it, and both of you can do those actions in any order, if you can figure out what your opponent might have, you can make them have some really hard choices as to what to take, but it’s always a bit of a risk. Great two player game.

Status: Played

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

This is Harry Potter in a deck building game, as you face off against the different bad guys from the books with the characters of Harry, Hermoine, Ron, and Neville. What is really interesting about this game is that as you start you’re playing through the first book, then they add more cards and of things from the second book and you get more, and then the third, fourth, and all the way up through the 7th. It’s basically a campaign game that takes you through the whole Harry Potter series Now that does mean that the first game is pretty simple but later ones are longer and more challenging, but you can do cooler and different things than before.

Status: Played (partially)

Hats

This was one of my most anticipated games from GenCon 2019 after seeing it played by Man vs Meeple. This is an interesting game with an Alice in Wonderland theme, but really it’s a unique card game. in this game your hand of cards are cards you’re playing onto the table in the middle of the game, the cards you take off the table are the ones that you use for scoring. And scoring is fun as well, because there are more suits than there are spots at the table, and the table might have brown in two different spots, not everything will be scored, so you need to push for some colors, sometimes, and then hold one or two back so you can play it down and that color will be scored. But a card on the Mad Hatters table can be replaced if someone plays the same color or a higher number over that card, so it’s a real balancing act and puzzle, great at two very thinky, fun at four, but much more random.

Status: Played

Hearts

Yes, I own a deck of cards. Hearts is a pretty fun trick taking card game. I don’t play it often, but I won’t say no to a game.

Status: Played

Heaven & Ale

This is a game that I talked about recently in a Point of Order post. It’s a euro game which normally isn’t my cup of tea, or pint of beer in this case. However, because of the beer theme, and a reviewer who I like their reviews and generally like their taste said it was one of their top games, and because it was deeply discounted for Black Friday, I grabbed it. This is a game that you can basically call a puzzle as you are putting out tiles, getting resources, trying to get the most victory points, I’m interested to try it when I can play with people in person again.

Status: To Be Played

Heroes of Terrinoth

There are some YouTube channels that you’ll see often on my posts, Rolling Solo is one of them. He highlighted this game a while back, and when I spotted it used at my FLGS, All Systems Go, I decided to grab it. In this game you are playing as heroes trying to defeat scenarios, which might be searching for something, going to different places and fighting monsters, and eventually dealing with a big boss. What I thought was interesting was how you had four abilities and you’d have to reset them at times, so it isn’t just about doing the same thing over and over again. Plus, you can upgrade those abilities, and how that lets you focus your character in a few different ways, just in the scenario itself.

Status: To Be Played

The Hobbit

I like Lord of the Rings a lot, so when The Hobbit game from Fantasy Flight was on sale, I decided to pick it up. This is a really interesting game as it’s almost semi-cooperative in nature. As a group you need to deal with a series of challenge points, and you can raise your stats to do that. But not one player will be able to deal with all of the challenges, so you need everyone to have raised their stats as well. To do this you are playing cards from your hand with numbers on them, the higher the number the further you’ll move in your group of travelers. But going the furthest doesn’t always mean you’ll get the best thing, but you also might not want to always get the best thing, because if someone is lagging behind too much in their stats, it’ll make it more likely that Smaug will move forward and everyone will lose the game. It’s a clever system that I enjoy.

Status: Played

Homebrewers

Have I mentioned that I like beer? Homebrewers is a game all about being a home brewer and in a home brew club where you are trying to brew the best beer to get points at Summerfest and Oktoberfest. You do this by getting ingredients, putting them on your beers, brewing those beers, and then each ingredient has some power of some sort, it might be you get $2, or you could move up another beer on how well you can brew it, it all depends on the ingredients that you have on the beer. So if you’re smart with how you do it, you can brew one beer to influence more or to make things easier. It’s a nice engine building game that gives you a lot of fun options and things you can do, and it also plays well at two players.

Status: Played

Hues and Cues

Final game for the letter H, Hues and Cues is a fun, new, party game from The Op, formerly USOpoloy. What I like about this game is that it’s a different kind of party game. In so many you are trying to make people laugh, or something like that by what you do or write, Hues and Cues challenges you to give good one word and then two word clues to get people as close as possible to the color you want. I like that you want people to guess right, but also for the players, guessing close works as well. But you can’t just say something like Sky Blue, as that tells you that the color is some shade of blue, but your one word clue could be sky, so what do people consider sky, or maybe you give a clue that has people going in the wrong way, you then can give another clue to get people closer again. It also works pretty well via Zoom, just everyone should be looking at a monitor to get the colors as close as possible to each other.

Status: Played

What’s your favorite game from the G’s and H’s? Is there one that stands out as one that you’d want to try or one that I should try that I don’t have in this letter range?

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In Marrying Mr. Darcy, you are trying to collect the correct set-up of wit, beauty, reputation and dowry to attract the best possible suitor. But beyond that, you are playing one of the Bennett sisters or one of the other characters, such as, Georgiana Darcy. Each of them has an preferred person to marry, but to do that, they need to get a right combination of those cards. On your turn, you draw a card and you do what it says, it might allow you to play down an attribute card, or maybe it’ll be party where it can help you draw more cards, or lose cards, and parties are done by the whole group. It’s a very simple game with mainly just a bunch of luck in it. The one thing to consider is that some cards can be used for cunning, which doesn’t help you get married, but means that you can attract your suitors earlier in the final phase of the game. So, if you are going to score the most points, as Elizabeth by marrying Mr Darcy, you might want to get ahead of someone else who might score some points by marrying him because maybe their attributes don’t match their ideal suitor.

The game play is very simple in this, turns consist of drawing a card and doing what it says. That simplicity helps it work for a more casual group, but it doesn’t offer too much in terms of tactical play, because you, when select a character, are locked into which suitor is going to be your ideal. So you’re really at the luck of the draw to see if you can get the right reputation, dowry, wit, and beauty to attract them. The pile of cards you’re drawing from is quite big as well, so while turns are very fast, the game can go on for a little while. Depending on how the game night is going or what plans there are for further games in the game night, you can play with less cards, and playing two players they tell you to play with about half the cards, because otherwise characters would have too many attributes, but with a full player count, you need all the cards.

Then in the final phase of the game, the proposal phase, you match your attributes, see whom you can court, and then going in a specific order, determined by the game, you choose to either roll or not roll a die for the suitor. This offers some push your luck, because the suitors further down the line are going to probably be more suitable for you and for scoring more points. But, if you fail, you can become an old maid, which hampers how many points you can get. This part of the game goes fast, which is good, because the first part can overstay it’s welcome.

What makes the game work is when you can get into the goofiness of the game. Jane Austen was very sarcastic and witty, and while the game doesn’t always perfectly emulate that on all the cards, it is that on a lot of them. So if you have a group that can enjoy the silliness of the game and lean into that, it helps make the game much more enjoyable. Otherwise, the game is going to be too simple and too long. And even as someone who can lean into the silliness of the game, the game does almost run too long for me. Turns are fast, but there are so many cards that it just takes a while, and eventually even the variety of cards tends to start to seem similar, because a party is still a party even if the flavor of the party is slightly different than the flavor text of the previous party. That’s why I mentioned taking out cards, because it’ll speed up the game with fewer cards in it, the issue with that is that for a full player count and the suitors who need more beauty, wit, dowry, and reputation to be married, you won’t be able to reach those numbers, or you’ll need to be lucky to reach those numbers. And I think for a lot of people because of the simplicity of the game and length of the game, it isn’t going to be an ideal game for them. It takes a group who likes the premise to really make it work.

I haven’t done this before, but I’m going to talk about the expansions. There are two possible expansions that you can add into the game, the first is the Emma expansion. This one just causes it to shift books over to Emma. It adds in a few more event cards so that the game is more thematic for Emma, but the biggest thing is that the characters change. There’s also an undead expansion, because of Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, so of course there needs to be one. This can cause one of the women or suitors to become undead which makes your odds of getting married or marrying them much lower. I think that this expansion adds some needed variety to the game, not because I love zombie games, but because it leans more into the silliness and helps pull people into the absurdity of the world of Pride and Prejudice.

Overall, this is a game that I’d recommend to people who love Jane Austen. Beyond that, though, the game is pretty simple and the game can overstay it’s welcome, so I’d recommend this as a pass. That said, I think that this could be a gateway sort of game for a non-board gamer who likes Jane Austen or at least like the movie, especially if you can help lead the silliness of the game for them. I wish that the game offered a few more meaningful decisions though.

Overall Grade: C
Gamer Grade: D
Casual Grade: C+

2-6 player game, 30-60 minutes (generally closer to 60), and ages 13+ (I’d say 10+)

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Draftosaurus is a game that the best way I can describe it is half way between Sushi Go! and a roll and write game. In Draftosaurus, you are building a dino park. To do this, you are grabbing 6 dino meeples (dineeples or deeples) as is everyone else. Then whomever is the first player rolls the die, this determines where you can place the dino meeple. It might be in the forest or the desert or on the restroom side or gift shop side of your dino park or in an empty pen or a pen without a T-Rex. But, if you’re the person who rolled the dice, you can place your dino where ever you want. You pass your dinos to the left and repeat the process with a new person being the first player. You do this until all 6 dino meeples have been drafted, and then you do it for another 6 dino meeples. Then you count up your score, which is based off of the pens. Some of the pens want pairs of dinos, you get points in other pens for having more different dinos or more dinos of the same type. And there are more ways to score on the board, plus the board is two sides which has even more ways to score.

This game is small and a lot of fun. The real star of the game is the dino meeples, they look amazing, and the T-Rex looks different than the Stegosaurus which looks different than any of the others. Just playing around with those is fun, though, this game which is light and easy enough to teach kids, the dino meeples are supposed to be hidden in your hand, so they are somewhat small, but with six of them, it might be harder for a younger kid to be able to hold them all. The game also says it is for 8+ because of the size of the meeples, I think that younger kids could play it, but the dino meeples are a choking hazard, so don’t let them use it unsupervised, if they like to stick things in their mouth.

Draftosaurus also plays extremely fast. You’d drafting a total of 12 dino meeples and then adding up a score. And because you’re drafting at the same time, it’s only twelve times of drafting no matter how many people you have. They say on the box that the game takes 15 minutes, and I think that is on the longer end of how fast the game should go. Maybe if you have a really tough decision it’ll make a pick take a little bit longer, but generally you pick, reveal and place, and pass, and you can do that in 30-45 seconds. That means that when you do play Draftosaurus, you can play again, and in fact, the rule book suggests that you play the summer side and then the winter side to get an overall score to determine who can build the best park.

Let’s talk a little bit about the scoring. I wish that this game came with score sheets. The scoring isn’t complex, but you’re having to hold multiple numbers in your head, adding them together, and if you get distracted, like I can, then you have to start over again. Or if someone asks a question about scoring when you’re doing your scoring. With a score pad and a pencil, you’d be able to make the scoring go a whole lot faster, and it would make the game a little bit easier. Then, even a younger kid would be able to do the scoring, holding the numbers in your head, keeping track of which pens of yours you’ve scored, that could be a bit much. I might actually spend time designing a score sheet if there isn’t one already on Board Game Geek, that I can print off an laminate in order to make scoring easier and I think scoring a pen at a time makes it more exciting at the end. That’s a minor quibble to how the game works and one that I can adjust myself. The actual ways that the pens score is interesting and it doesn’t feel like there is really an overpowered method for scoring and you have to adjust depending on what dino meeples you are getting.

Overall, this is a really good game. It’s a good fast filler and has a lot of replayability. The choices are good enough for a gamer, but it is definitely for that mind clearing filler that can be played with kids, played with family, or played at a game night. I do think that the game works best over two players, I played at two players the first time, but it isn’t bad at two players either, it’s just better at more. I haven’t played the two sides back to back, but I think that would even be the best, around 20 minutes, get a quick filler in and it mitigates a bit of the luck from scoring, just because it is so random. But you really need to pay some attention to stuff being passed and be ready to pivot when you need to.

Overall Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A-

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Let’s start by talking about some Kickstarters that I will have coming in. I’m counting reprints/second editions with this, so the first one is:

Middara – This game rivals Gloomhaven in terms of size and is bigger in terms of story. There has been so much put into it, and the first kickstarter took forever to fulfill. However, I’m just backing what came out in that Kickstarter so I expect to get mine next year, and projected date places it the middle of next year. In Middara, you are in an anime-esque world and fighting through a massive story with lots of different dungeons and interactions. You make decisions that might change up things in the future, and you upgrade your characters with interesting skills and weapons. This game looks amazing, when I’ll play it, who knows, but I’m excited for it.

Village Attacks – Another reprint, I played it at GenCon last year, got a scenario and a few bits for it, found out that it was impossible to find, but then they kickstarted an expansion for it, which I backed so I could use my GenCon scenario. In this game, it’s tower defense, but you’re the bad guys who are keeping those pesky villagers with their torches and pitchforks from running you at of your house. It’s fully cooperative which I like, and the theme is just a lot of fun. I’m excited for this one to get it back to the table and properly deal with those villagers again. The scenarios are a lot of fun, and depending on what villagers come out when, the game will feel different playing the same scenario.

Dice Throne Adventures – I’ve talked about how much I like Dice Throne. This Yahtzee/King of Tokyo style game where you are fighting a character against another character. You’re part of a massive tournament that the evil emperor has set-up that isn’t at all like Mortal Kombat or anything like that. But in Dice Throne Adventures, you are fighting your way through the evil emperors lands, leveling up your characters, and playing cooperative against the game with whatever characters you want from Season One or Two of Dice Throne. It sounds like a campaign dungeon crawl, and while it does have some of that feel, it’s shorter in terms of campaign so you can get through it and play again without the time commitment like you need for bigger dungeon crawls.

Shadows of Kilforth – I blame Rolling Solo Youtube Channel for getting me into this game, the original, Gloom of Killforth is a one shot adventure game where you are in a world where things are going poorly and you as an adventurer are leveling up, exploring locations, fighting monsters, hoping to get strong enough to be able to take down whatever monster is blighting the land. The original game had a fantasy feel, and while this maintains the fantasy, it also has an eastern feel to it as well, which is cool. This game is also a smaller footprint game as you’re not setting up massive dungeons and needing a million tiles to play it.

Those are ones that I’ve kickstarted already that I’m really excited for. There are two that I know I want to kickstart in 2020, so let’s talk about those.

Frosthaven – Sequel to my #1 game of all time, no brainer I want this. I expect to get it sometime in 2021, but it kickstarts in March of 2020, so I’ll have paid for it then. It builds off of Gloomhaven and the Forgotten Circle expansion to tell you a whole new story set in the same world. But unlike in Gloomhaven where you start out of a set city, in Frosthaven, it adds in some city building and you have to worry about defending the town as well as going out on adventures. The out of the box characters seem a bit more challenging but also seem amazing to play. I’m curious to see how this game differs from Gloomhaven, but I hope it keeps a ton of the same feel.

ISS-Vanguard – A story game from Awaken Realms, sign me up. I have Tainted Grail that I’m dying to play (I’m going to try and play it over my time off around Christmas), but ISS-Vanguard is supposed to be more of an open world sort of game (or open worlds since you’re in space). You can go to different planets in different orders and experience the story that way. The art work that came in the Tainted Grail surprise box is amazing and I really love the style. I’m going to be curious to see how an open world game with a story comes together, but I like the idea of a non-fantasy big story exploration game.

Roll Player Adventure – Now, I don’t like the base game, but I got to play an early prototype of this at GenCon, and this is very different than a game where you’re rolling up your character like Roll Player is. In this, it’s a campaign game, but as compared to some games with campaigns, like from Awaken Realms or Gloomhaven, it isn’t nearly as heavy. The story is a little bit sillier, but the mechanics are fun. Can you manipulate the dice to be able to get through all the story and encounters that you run across. The mechanics were cool, and the game at GenCon, even in an early form, was a ton of fun. Helped that I might have been a power hungry sorcerer.

And, finally, and these aren’t last or least, but there are a few games that are coming out in other ways that I’m definitely interested in. Might just be normal publisher, but also might be kickstarter, I haven’t researched enough.

Deranged – Wait, you’re saying, it doesn’t say 2020, but for it coming to the US, it’s coming in 2020. I played this at GenCon and it was amazing. The game play was smart and simple, the world building of the game was really cool. While it’s not story driven, there is a lot going on, and the card play is really really fun in the game. I like the light horror theming as you’re trying to avoid monsters, get rid of your curses and not become deranged. But it’s very possible that you will or that you’ll die, and then you’ll need to get rid of more curses. It seems like a cooperative game where you’re trying to escape this town with no curses, but it’s competitive, and only one person can escape, so if someone gets too close, time to get kill them and give them another curse. Can someone win in all that fighting, who knows.

Time of Legends: Destinies – I almost kickstarted this game, then I decided I wanted Oathsworn instead. But this one seems really interesting. Each character has secrets that they are trying to solve as well as solve the story that is happening in this game that is set in the same world as Time of Legends: Joan of Arc. But in this one they combined with Lucky Duck games that did Chronicles of Crime, so there’s app integration. And there is a scenario builder that people can use to create more, since out of the box it seemed to come only with a few. For me, I really want to try this one next year, and hopefully if I can make it to GenCon it’ll be there for demoing.

Pandemic Legacy Season 3 – Some of my best gaming experiences have been playing through the first two season. I’m so excited for the 3rd season and last season. I don’t know anything about the game, I just know that I want it and I’m going to be ready to play it the second that I get it. No official release date yet for it, but it sounds like it should be a 2020 release and I’m guessing first half of 2020. That’s about it that I know about it, but it’s an instant buy for me.

There’s so many games coming out and with my proclivity for campaign games, I need to get cracking on the ones that I already have. I need to figure out a more consistent time to play them on Malts and Meeples, but we’ll talk about that in a future article about New Years Nerdsolutions.

What games are you looking forward to, is there a game coming out or to kickstarter that you just need to play?

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In Point Salad you are going to take turns either drafting vegetables to make your salad or taking cards that are going to tell you how to score. The trick is that you need to take the best scoring cards for you, but when you take a card for scoring, you only take a single card, but if you take vegetables, you take two on the turn. So can you figure what is the best scoring option for you and draft cards so that you can out score your opponents. The game is really that simple, once all the cards have been drafted, then each person scores their salad based off of the scoring cards that they have. The person with the most points wins.

There are a few things that I really enjoy about this game. The first being that the play is really simple. You’re either taking two vegetables or you’re taking a card that is going to allow you to score. People who have played games like Ticket to Ride will have some idea as to how this works because you can either take two normal train cars or a wild train car. So it’s a common concept which is good, because how the scoring works is a bit more unique.

The thing about scoring cards is that it’s the base side of the vegetable cards. So if you don’t take a scoring card from the top of the stack, there’s a chance that it’ll flip down and become a vegetable before you can take it on your next turn. It’s a really nice way to give interesting decisions. In fact, sometimes you have to make the tough decision to take a vegetable instead of a scoring card causing that scoring card to turn into a vegetable. But, even with that decision point, it’s not that hard to make it and turns still move by pretty quickly. For me, this is a really clever way to do the scoring, because everyone is going to have different scoring so you might not overlap on what vegetables that you want, but everyone might want different vegetables.

Another thing is that when you are drafting cards, you put them on the table in front of you creating a tableau. That means that I can see what the person to my left is wanting, and the person to my right can see what I want. Maybe on a turn there’s only one vegetable that I want and no scoring that I want. I can then draft that one vegetable and possibly draft something that the person to my left might want. Now, that’s not always the best strategy, but you can get an idea of what people might want. In fact, the better reason to draft a card might be that taking a certain vegetable will cause a scoring card the person to your left might want to turn into a vegetable, and once it’s a vegetable, it can’t be used for scoring again. So if there are three tomatoes and I want to take two of them, I might take the ones that will get rid of scoring that the person to the left of me wants. So it’s a simple, subtle little thing that can add more into the game. But it’s not a massive part of the game being mean to people, because if you do that, you won’t score as well.

I do have one negative about the game. The cards a little bit flimsy, thankfully the game is cheap so you can play it a couple dozen times and replace it if you want. The other solution would be to get card sleeves, which I might, but because you need to see both sides of the cards, that means that the sleeves have to be clear, which you can find, but those sleeves are often a bit flimsier as well. The box is also about twice as big as it needs to be, but I don’t mind that, because I have space for it. But if space is at a premium for your gaming collection, I could see it being annoying.

Finally, let’s talk about the name. Probably something that I could have lead off with, I’ve been talking about how you are drafting vegetables, and it’s all vegetables that you’d live in a salad, so you get points for your vegetables and they are a salad vegetables, hence point salad. While that is true, point salad is something that is used in board gaming. In board gaming it describes a game that you can get points in a ton of different ways. So point, and how does salad fit in, think about a buffet. At a buffet, you can make a salad and you have 20 different toppings, 8 different dressings, and a few different types of lettuce. So like you can get points in a ton of ways, you can make your salad at a buffet in a ton of different ways. So the name, Point Salad, plays off of this idea of basically everything you do gives you points. And while it doesn’t score you as many points as some point salad games do, if you draft well, basically every card should give you some points.

So, is this a good game? I definitely have more positive things about it then negative. For me, Point Salad is a great filler game, even with a higher player count, the game plays quite fast, and you can play a two player game in 15 minutes. I like the tongue in cheek nature of the game as well with the naming and the vegetables. I also like this game for newer gamers because it’s introduces tableau building and drafting, two things that show up in a lot of games. I think for a gaming group of very seasoned gamers who like heavy games, this won’t be a hit, but for most groups it’ll be good fun.

Overall Score: B+
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A

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In Say Bye to the Villains, you are a team of Samurai who are seeking to stop a number of villains equal to the number of players. Each villain has a number of face down cards that are going to influence their scores for speed, health, and attack. As players you are trying to build up your own skill sets in those three areas so that you can take on one of the villains and defeat them. Each player has to defeat a villain and every villain must be defeated to win the game. However, you have a limited amount of time, 10 days. And you have cards that you can play down that allow you to increase your stats, look at the villains face down cards and possible turn them face up, and figure out what Samurai should go up against what villain, because, when you run out of time, you have to pick your villain.

Now, this is a very tough game, because you are never completely sure what the villains skills are going to be, and while you might be able to figure out some of them, others are going to be unknown so you hope you set it up right. When you face off against a villain whomever is faster attacks first. If Samurai or villain who attacks first deals more damage than their opponent’s health, they win. If not, their opponent gets to hit back. But, if at the end of a fight both are still up, it’s a draw and the players lose the game because of that. So you have multiple strategies. You might want to be extremely fast and deal a lot of damage while not having much health because you’re goal is to get the kill before the villain can even go. Or maybe you want to have a lot of health and hit hard so that you can take the blow from the villain and then strike back. That doesn’t seem so bad, however, the villains can have cards that say you need to draw with them, because maybe they weren’t actually a villain. So, when you are looking at the cards that the villains have, you hope to find that one so that you know what is going on and don’t accidentally send someone who will kill that villain and cause you to lose the game.

I mentioned earlier that you have 10 days to complete your training and research on the villains. This is not enough time, basically in any game that I’ve played. We’ve had most of the villains scouted and planned, and we know who is going to face whom, but there is almost always a single villain remaining who we just don’t know about. And as we saw above, if they are going to need you to draw against them, you might have come in with too much power and your attack will kill them and then you lose the game. Or, maybe you do get a very good idea of what every villain has, now that means you might not have enough time left to be able to train your characters up enough so that you can actually get enough speed or damage out. But, thankfully, there are some cards that give you time back, unfortunately, villains can also spend your time, sometimes, by giving you false leads. In Say By to the Villains, it’s a constant struggle determining what you need to do for your time and figuring out what information is the most important for you to get or what training is the best to do.

I really enjoy those different things, but they make the game extremely tough. You always feel like you maybe made the wrong decision, but there’s probably no right decision. One decision that you get to make at the start of the game that will influence how you play, though, is what character you take. Each character has unique abilities and starting stats, so that can really determine what you are wanting to do. Some of the characters are helped by discarding cards face down, which can often let you help give cards to other players or to look at what skills villains might have. Whereas other characters are good at removing cards from villains or flipping over cards to see what they are. You can really tailor how you want to play the game by what villain you select, and some villains actually combo together fairly well. However, basically everything is costing you time, and the more powerful an ability, the more time it’s going to cost you, and you only have ten days.

Say Bye to the Villains is a game that I really like, however, I think it has a limited spot on the table. It’s a very difficult game, and because of that, it can be a bit much for some people. It’s also a very collaborative game, so unless you’re involved and paying attention to what is going on closely, you might not be in the collaboration as much as you should be. It also isn’t that fast a game for being a small card game. The play time for 45 minutes seems right because of all the collaboration that happens in the game. And I’m not sure with fewer players that is really makes it that much faster. It probably makes it a little bit faster, but there is a lot going on and to think about with any player count.

Overall, I think that this is a good game. I just don’t know that for a lot of people it’s going to be what they want in a small box card game and I think it can be overwhelming or discouraging if you don’t know going into it that you probably won’t win the game the first time or possibly even the first ten times. Often, I look at it as basically a win if we can take out all but one of the villains, that’s how difficult this game is. For me, that’s some of the draw of the game, however, I want to beat the game, and I want to try a slightly different strategy to see if that will make a difference the next time that I play.

Overall Grade: B-
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: C-

Now, you might notice if you go to my collection, I rate this game way higher. My grades here are meant to be a balance focused as much on how I think others will perceive the game and how it will work to get back to the table with any group, versus something that is purely my thoughts on it. And because of the difficult cooperative nature and the length of the game, I graded it out lower here than what I think of it.

Cat Cafe, as I said, is a roll and write game where you are trying to build up your best cat tree(s) so that you can attract the most cats possible. On every turn you roll a die for each player, plus one. Going in a circle, you draft dice until there is only one left. Then, you pick which die you want to use for drawing a symbol and which die you want to use to determining the placement on a cat free for that symbol. These symbols are things like food dishes, cat beds, toy mice, etc. You get points in the game for complete cat trees, but also for placing the certain cat items in a particular pattern, depending on what you’re drawing, on the cat trees.

I haven’t played this game a ton yet, but when I have, I’ve gone for a different strategy than the other person (oh, I should say this game plays up to four people). They went for the strategy of building up their cat trees as fast as possible, because once one person completes three cat trees that ends the game. I, on the other hand, went for building combos. The food dish wants to be surrounded by different items, so the more unique items, the more points you get, the mouse toys want to be a in connected path, so the more of those, the more points you get. I think that I messed up the strategy and wasn’t as efficient as I could have been for scoring points, but in the end, I lost a close game. I was kind of doing this intentionally because I wanted to see how balanced the game seemed. And while I do think you need to complete some cat towers to really have a chance, I don’t think it’s a race to completing the towers.

Aesthetically, I think that this is a pretty good looking game. The sheets are actually very nicely laid out to add to the puzzle aspect. But the dice in the game are bad. I have a picture on this page from Board Game Geek, those are not the dice you get with the game. The dice you get with the game look like someone took some old six sided dice (D6) and painted them again to be D6. So you can see the old pips underneath them and it makes no sense. I also wish that the score tallying area was a little bit larger. I do want to point out, though, that their pencils come with erasers, which is amazing. I really wish that more roll and write games did that.

Overall, Cat Cafe is a fun roll and write game. I wasn’t expecting anything too thinky, but Cat Cafe gives you some interesting choices to make. And with the drafting of the dice, I can see a lot of interesting choices coming up in the game. It’s definitely a roll and write that is a bit more than something like Second Chance, but probably around the same weight as Welcome To… in terms of the decision making, however, Cat Cafe is a smaller package. If you like roll and write games and are looking for another to try, I think that Cat Cafe could scratch that itch.

Overall Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: A-

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