I wrote earlier in the year about how one member of my regular boardgaming group had been named Lemon Curd champion of Otley. Subsequently one of the others has been crowned Fruit Scone king of Addingham. What a talented bunch they are. I'm pleased to say that when we are not stuffing our faces with their baked goods we are still able to find time to play a few games. Here are some of them:
Azul: A very good game, which I have played remarkably few times.
Bomb Busters: I really enjoyed this cooperative deduction game in which players seek to collectively defuse a bomb by 'cutting' various wires using mechanisms that are a bit Hanabi meets Trio. I've only played a couple of the training scenarios, but apparently there are 66 in all. It's much less frenetic than the similarly themed Fuse. Do you know, I might actually have to put my hand in my pocket and buy this one.
Calico: A tile laying game where the aim is to lay out patterns and colours in certain combinations in order to create a quilt which cats can lay on. Like many such games it gets really annoying when the right piece doesn't turn up at the right time and I spent the game thinking that it was all luck However, the two players who had played before absolutely thrashed the two who hadn't, leading me to believe that there must be some strategy in it. I'd certainly play again.
Canvas: A drafting game in which what the cards drafted are mostly transparent, but with a small amount of screen printing. Three of these are combined in a special sleeve with a background card to create a 'painting'. It's a gimmick in search of a game, but plays very quickly so doesn't particularly outstay its welcome.
Distilled: Highly thematic and way too complicated game about making various types of spirits. There are something like half a dozen rounds. As we completed scoring for the first of these the person teaching the game gently told me that I had misunderstood what I was supposed to do and had in fact ended up with nul points. "Never mind" I thought, I understand it properly now. However, the same thing happened again at the end of the second round when I once more didn't trouble the scorers. I did manage to break my duck later in the game, but ended up being so far behind the eventual winner that, despite my being teetotal, I was sorely tempted to turn to one of the drinks we had been distilling.
Flamme Rouge: Astonishingly it had been eight years since I last played this excellent cycle racing game, although I have played the closely related Heat: Pedal to the Metal many times since. Nothing about my performance had improved and once again both my riders failed to cross the finish line.
The Gang: A cooperative version of poker. Just think about that for a moment. It's as terrible as you would imagine. The worst game I've played in a long time.
Lancaster: I had to teach this again, and once again that wasn't ideal. Still, this time it had only been 18 months rather than ten years. It's a good game, but I need to find someone who owns the expansion. Apparently that introduces a mechanism which can penalise those players who don't do their duty and fight the French.
Let's Make a Bus Route: The Dice Game: I've never played the original, so can't say whether this matches my usual rule of thumb: dice/card versions of games are usually worse than the game they are based on. I thought that this was over-complicated, but possibly repeated playing would make things clearer. There are two maps to choose from. One is a random city (in which every tourist attraction is the Eiffel Tower) and the other is Mars. Odd,
Mountain Goats: A perfectly fine filler about climbing up mountains and pushing other goats off the top.
Northwest Passage Adventure: Clever enough game about racing through snow and ice. The rule book is terrible so I'm not clear how correctly we were playing it.
Prey Another Day: Eat or be eaten in a sort of Citadels combined with Love Letter. Quick and fun.
Project L: A polyomino tile layer where you get to choose difficulty level of the puzzles you try to solve. It was OK.
Scythe: I had a disastrous first game of this a couple of years ago and it's taken this long for me to be persuaded to try it again. It went much better, but I still don't see why it is so highly rated.
War of the 3 Sanchos: When I mentioned this last year I said that, while obscure and probably hard to find a copy, many wargamers would enjoy it. I still think so. Hopefully it won't be as long before El Cid rides out again in Otley.
Western Legends: Another game that might appeal to wargamers is this one. Take on the character of a famous figure of the old west and swan around either rustling cattle, robbing banks and shooting people or alternatively arresting those who do so. Add in prospecting for gold, playing poker and visiting the bordello and you have all the ingredients for a lot of fun. I got arrested more times than I would have wished by the NPC sheriff, but perhaps I'm just not cut out to be a black hat. Great fun.
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