Friday evening saw Jonathan, Diego, myself and the usual suspect meet up at a temporary gaming space to have a club gaming session.

Yes our regular hosts The Luxe are still going through the drawn out pains of their refit. So have no seated area for us to play in. I had during the afternoon, and on the way to the gaming session tried to get my gaming table from them, but they were shut. Which was a bit odd, because they were still showing films. It was also damn inconvenient. Although on my way home I did see a member of staff in the reception area.

Our first game of the evening was The River. A new game to me. Last September at the damp squib Tabletop Gaming Live I was able to get a play of it on one of the demo tables.

Jonathan picked this up second hand at the expo. I think it was even sealed! I’m glad he did.

So what do we have here with The River? Basically it boils down to two mechanics worker placement and engine building. Both mechanics I love.

Naturally the point of the game is to score the most points. And you do this by constructing buildings (that have a resource cost to build, and have a point value that’s scored at the end), which gives you a bonus token (worth points, unless you get a zero value one), have matching terrain tiles in a column, and the good ol’ swap resources for points. Some of the terrain tiles also give bonuses at the end, such as points for certain types of terrain. Or the one that helped me out, that made all bonus tokens worth one extra point (yep I didn’t mind zero point bonus tokens).

Those bonus tokens, are interesting as a mechanic. Only about half are worth any points, with half worth zero. The top of the pile is worth the most (6 points, and only one of those) then they decrease in value, until they are value less. Construct a building and take the top most token. So it pays to construct quickly to maximise the points you get for doing it. I had a really explosive first round and built a building and grabbed the 6 value token way before the rest were ready. I don’t think they built until round two.

The game also plays fairly quickly. Which is nice.

As your engine gets stronger I like how you lose workers at certain points. So like Wingspan, as certain actions get more powerful you get less of them to do.

This is a fun, solid intro style worker placement/engine building game.

For the record and the history books I won.

Our second game of the evening was Imperial Settlers: Roll and Write. Diego chose this one because he wanted to try it. Since I shared my thoughts about the game Portal Games have released rules so that the Adventure mode pads can be used in multiplayer games. You can read those rules here. It was kind of fitting that the history books will sing about Diego’s glorious empire. Yep he won.

We finished off the evening with another new game for me, Rhino Hero.

Mash UNO with a dexterity game and you have Rhino Hero. I think that says all you need to know about the game.

I enjoyed the game. Just as I did years ago my game of Exploding Kittens. I’d play it again. But it won’t find a home in my collection or list of games to add to the collection.

After going to extra time, and then penalties, Diego won.

It was a fun evening, great company. Great to try some new games. I think next time to balance things out, we should try and get games not played for a while to the table or something from our piles of shame.

Games Played: The River, Imperial Settlers: Roll and Write, Rhino Hero