Game Night Report

by

Game Night Report #20

Game Night Report

During the last few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to play some great games! Some of them are classics that I’ve played many times like Tokaido, Stone Age and Say Anything, while some were new to me. As always I will focus on the new gaming experiences here.

Tides of Infamy

Photo from kickstarter.com

Photo from kickstarter.com

Wow! I back Tides of Infamy during its Kickstarter Campaign last year based solely on its aesthetic appeal, but I had no idea just how beautiful and well-crafted the game would be when it arrived. Tides of Infamy has some of the highest quality components I’ve ever seen: a sturdy, full art deck box simply for holding the game’s cards when not playing, plastic ships that hold game components during play, incredibly thick game tiles, and linen cards.
Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #19

Game Night Report

Even though I missed by FLGS’s board game night this week, I still managed to get a few games in! Trudi, Blake and I found the time to try one cooperative game that got a lot of buzz and one competitive game that just hit the shelves late last month.

The Grizzled

Photo from cmon.com

Photo from cmon.com

The Grizzled is a cooperative game that supports 2-5 players who take on the roles of WWI soldiers in the trenches of Europe. Through the careful balance of playing Threat cards from their hands the players attempt to navigate the horrors of the war without exposing themselves to too much of any single threat. The deck of cards in the game contains Trials Cards that are divided into Threat Cards and Hard Knock Cards. First, the Threat Cards:

Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #18

Game Night Report

I’ve actually had a little time to play some great games lately; trust me, no one is more surprised than me! To make up for a little lost time I’m including 4 games in this posting rather than the usual 2 or 3. All four of these games were a big hit with me and worthy of your time. Enjoy!

Small Star Empires

Photo from archonagames.com

Photo from archonagames.com

Archona Games was kind enough to send me a prototype copy of Small Star Empires to review and I recently had a chance to play it. In fact, I meant to play it only once at my FLGS’s board game night, but we enjoyed it so much that we played it twice! SSE is going to be launching on Kickstarter in just a few short weeks and I’ll post a link to the campaign when it does. I’ll also be shooting and uploading a video review of the game soon!

Trudi, Tim and I sat down to play SSE and instantly this eruo-style, space-themed game drew us in and we turned into cutthroat, scheming space barons, plotting against each other. We set up the modular board and began to expand our empires.

Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #17

Game Night Report

My time has been limited since Christmas, and unfortunately I haven’t been able to do as much gaming as I would like. However, I’ve still managed to get in a few games here and there. Here are a couple of the games I’ve played recently!

Lego Creationary

Photo from shop.lego.com

Photo from shop.lego.com

Recently Sergio, Tim, Jordan, Laura, Trudi, Cam, and myself sat down to play Creationary, a Lego building board game, and it was a blast! I grew up laying with Legos so it was a treat to once again make Lego creations with my friends. In Creationary players draw a card with 4 images on it, roll a custom D6, and then build the instructed animal/vehicle/tool/etc from their card. The other players try to guess what the creation is and if they’re correct then both the builder and the correct guesser get points.
Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #16

Game Night Report

I’ve played several new games lately and as per the usual I am sharing some of them with you! As always this article serves as a sort of mini-review for multiple games at once, and I hope you find the information within useful when considering what games to play/buy next!

Dice City

Photo from alderac.com

Photo from alderac.com

I had been looking forward to playing Dice City since I first heard about it way earlier in 2015, and I have been very happy with the game so far! Recently Sergio and I sat down to play it head to head as we built our cities, vying for control of the proud nation of Rolldovia! *music starts* “Hail! Hail, Rolldovia! A laaannndddd I didn’t make uuuupppp!!!” Also, if you get that joke then you’re awesome!
Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #15

Game Night Report

As always I share my recent gaming experiences with you and use this article as a sort of collection of mini-reviews of board and card games! I’ve played some great games over the last few weeks, some new to me and some old. One game in particular was very surprising to me and I hope if you get the chance to play it you will. We got a lot of laughs!

We Didn’t Playtest This at All

Photo from amazon.com

Photo from amazon.com

I had seen this game on the shelves of my Friendly Local Game Store and I have to admit that I wasn’t impressed… at all. The box looks bland and the name was slightly off-putting. I have played games that I suspect weren’t playtested properly and the idea that this one blatantly and openly announced that didn’t strike a chord with me. I didn’t think that this inexpensive, small-box game would appeal to me at all.

Boy, was I wrong…
Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #14

Game Night Report

2015 is quickly winding down, and what a great year for board games it has been! The past week has been filled with some great gaming experiences and as always I will share those with you now. 7 Wonders: Duel, Champions of Midgard and Mission: Red Planet are played!

7 Wonders: Duel

Photo from rprod.com

Photo from rprod.com

My friend, Laura, and I decided to go to war against each other while the others busy demoing Star Wars: X-wing for a new visitor to The Jester’s Court.  7 Wonders: Duel, for those unfamiliar, is the recent 2 player variant to the award-winning 7 Wonders by Repos Production. If you’ve played 7 Wonders there’s a good chance that you love the drafting mechanic in the game. 7 Wonders: Duel does away with drafting completely, except for each player’s available Wonders at the beginning of the game.
Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #12

Game Night Report

Too many games to play and not enough time! Most waking hours are spent feverishly working on our own game (currently entering public playtesting) and far too little time has been spent with all of the other fantastic board games in the world! Still, we manage to get in a few here and there!

Tokaido

tokaido fun forge

Photo from funforge.fr

The wonderful, zen-filled game Tokaido lets players recreate the journey from Kyoto to Edo along the eastern coast of Japan! Players take on the roles of unique travelers, each with their own talents; one might play the artist, the merchant or even the geisha! Tokaido is one of the most relaxing games I have ever played. Winning is not so much the priority as enjoying the journey, just the the trek that those centuries ago took on this storied road.

Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #11

Game Night Report

This week I got to play only 2 different games; 1 new game that I had never played before, and another which is an all-time favorite! It just goes to show that even weeks low on game quantity can still be high in game quality!

New Salem

Photo from boardgamegeek.com

Photo from boardgamegeek.com

I recently made a post saying that I really wanted to try this new hidden role game from Overworld Games, and I was able to acquire a copy recently. We gave it a try at The Jester’s Court on the last Board Game Night and I was not disappointed!
Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #10

Game Night Report

Between trying to keep up with the website, organizing and preparing for the Board Game Giveaway and everything else, my opportunities to play games recently has been temporarily diminished. I managed to sneak in a few games! Over the past week I got a chance to try 2 games I had never played before!

Codenames

Photo from boardgamegeek.com

Photo from boardgamegeek.com

Codenames is a team game where players divide into field operatives and a spymaster. The spymaster attempts to give clues to the field operatives about the available 25 word cards on the table; the words on said cards are representative of undercover agents, known only by their codenames.
Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #9

Game Night Report

Yet another group of gaming sessions that I had a great time at. This edition features The Jester’s Court (my local FLGS), Sergio’s House, and a new location, my wife’s school. My wife, Maile, teaches at a local school called Juniper Ridge that focuses on alternative learning styles. I bought 5 games for her class for them to keep, and I went in to teach them how to play. Lords of Scotland, Firefly: Shiny Dice and For Sale are also played!

Juniper Ridge

Machi Koro, Coup & Hanabi

Coup Machi Koro Hanabi

Photos from boardgamegeek.com

Since the school is new and this is my wife’s first year teaching there I bought some board games for her class room and recently went in to teach her kids how to play them. They’re 8th graders but they did an amazing job at learning the games and helping one another. I was pleasantly surprised!
Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #8

Game Night Report

I’ve had a great few game night recently, and I played the brand new expansion to one of my all-time favorite games! Though not full reviews, I hope that perhaps this article can direct a few gamers to some new games!

The Jester’s Court

Evolution: Flight

Evolution Flight Expansion

One of my very favorite games of all time, Evolution by North Star Games, released an expansion called Evolution: Flight. I backed the Kickstarter Campaign for this expansion, and I am so glad that I did! Not only is the expansion fantastic, but the promo cards from the campaign add some serious options and replay ability to the game. As the title suggests the expansion adds, among other things, the  ability to create an avian species. They are more expensive to create and to feed, but they have certain advantages to compensate for these costs.

Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #7

Game Night Report

The last few weeks have been filled with some great gaming for me, despite being incredibly busy at work! I got to play a game recently featured on Tabletop for the first time, a few classics, some all-time favorites, and a game that I have been looking forward to for a very, very long time! Here are a few of my gaming adventures from the very recent past!

The Jester’s Court

Ultimate Werewolf

UltimateWerewolf

My very good friends and owners of my FLGS, Sean and Trudy, asked if I’d be interested in helping out during a game night for a local Big Brothers Big Sisters organization called Partners. It was my day off so naturally I told them I’d be happy to!

Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #6

Game Night Report

My busy schedule has prevented me from taking part in many of my normal Game Nights, but as always I have managed to sneak in a game now and then. My coworkers humor me and play board games when time allows in the small hours of the morning, but even that time has become scarce. These are just a few of the games I have managed to sneak in during the last few weeks!

At Work

Machi Koro

machikoro

Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #5

Game Night Report

I’ve had another great couple of weeks of gaming, and here are some of the highlights!

Sergio’s House

My friend, Sergio, is another avid gamer and recently purchased Descent 2.0. We play a lot of different games, but our Descent campaign has been a blast.

Descent, 2nd Edition

Descent

Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #4

Game Night Report

As usual, GNR is a mixture of dates, times and locations. I will dispense with the dates entirely because I honestly can’t remember and I doubt anyone cares too much. This edition of Game Night Report is ignoring all of the games that I mention/play on a regular basis, and focuses instead on four games that I had never played before. I do not own three of them at this time (at this time being the operative phrase), but the last entry I DO own; there will be a review posted of it very soon!

The Jester’s Court

The first entry is from International Tabletop Day. The other entries from The Jester’s Court weren’t on Tabletop Day, but instead at various other times.

Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island

Robinson Crusoe

Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #3

Game Night Report

This Game Night Report is a long time coming, and I am picking and choosing some of my recent gaming experiences from the last couple of weeks. Also, since I have a memory of about 34.7 seconds tops I will be omitting dates; I will, however, include where I was at the time of playing. One of my ABSOLUTE favorite games of all time, The Resistance, is featured, as well as Star Wars: Armada!
Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #2

Game Night Report Another Game Night Report! Read about how I lose to a 10 year old in a game where I probably shouldn’t lose to a 10 year old, and much more! Yeah!!!! *Imaginary guitar solo!!!!*

Tuesday, March 10th, My House

Ayden, Dagon (my sons) and my wife, Maile, join me at the living room table for a cooperative game that we are way late to the party for! I am considering this game training for my kids for when the new Monolith Conan game arrives!

Mice and Mystics

MaM

Continue reading →

by

Game Night Report #1

Game Night Report

Game Night Report was an article I started on the previous website for FDR. Technically, this is not the first Game Night Report, but it is the first GNR on this website. So as to not confuse anyone in the future trying to find the first few GNRs by naming this one a number higher than 1, I am instead starting the article fresh! Make sense? Excellent!

This article is a look at any previous gaming sessions I have had in the very recent past. Through this article you will get to read about the games I play, and even thought it isn’t a full review it might be enough to get you interested in a new game. Hopefully it will provide a little humor along the way as well!

Let’s get started…
Continue reading →