I did manage to get some gaming in during the second half of the month. Surprisingly for me more than I thought I would. What follows below is a summary of what I played.

Netrunner: I think my recent posts say how I feel about this game. I introduced Dave to the game and he enjoyed it. Hopefully once things settle down for him after the new arrival arrives he’ll put together a deck or two using proxies.

The Gang: A co-op card game that uses poker as its main mechanic. Yep you heard that right. There is also a plot twist. You are not allowed to tell the other players what you have in your hand. Instead the only clues you get are via one of four poker chips that you claim to indicate how strong you think your hand is. You do this after each of the four stages of the poker hand. After the last round the aim is to have the hands win in the order indicated by the poker chip front of the player. Get this right three times you beat the game. But fail to do this three times before getting it right three times and the game wins. How much did I enjoy this? I have a copy, ordered when I got home that evening.

Machi Koro 2: Just good beginner gamer friendly fun. It’s light, has a little take that, introduces the concept of engine building, and probabilities. Plus it’s fairly quick to play and teach.

Origin Story: The latest from Stonemaier. A trick taking game with some engine building thrown in. The art work seems to be a bit polarising. However I really love the art work. At the start of the third round (it’s played over five) you turn over the top card of an event deck. This changes the rules in some way for that round. It’s obvious this has been influenced by Rebel Princess. And we all know how I feel about that game. It’s a shame that these events aren’t more frequent. I’m not sure why there is only one. Especially considering the size of the events deck. Did it live up to the hype, especially after the glowing Dice Tower review? I think so.

Rebel Princess: ‘nuff has been said about this classic trick taking game. We love it.

The Hobbit There and Back Again: I wasn’t expecting such a large and heavy box when this landed through the letterbox. Another roll and write or more draw and write that can be played as a campaign or one off adventures telling the major story points of the classic Tolkien book that introduced us to Middle Earth and hobbits, The Hobbit. We played the first two adventures. Covering the unexpected guests at Bagend and the journey to Rivendell and the trolls. Is it my favourite roll and write? No. Is it an enjoyable one? Most definitely.

Civolution: Not a civilisation game! If one of the major criticisms of Tapestry is that it doesn’t feel like a civilisation game (which I don’t agree with) then those haters should also be levelling that same comment about Civolution. For me this game did not feel like a civilisation game. We did play this at the new board game cafe The Dice Box in Kings Lynn. A really nice environment to play although I think the tables may not be ideal size wise for a few games, or even in the case of big games shape wise as well. Civolution is a bit of a table hog and the tables we were on was just big enough, but the oval shape not ideal. Prices were also edging on the expensive side for the food and beverages. The hot dog I had was ok, not great.

Deep Regrets: We played with the mini expansion Lamentable Tenticles. It’s an enjoyable game, but worth all the hype? That I don’t think it lives up to.

Emberheart: A worker placement game with bidding themed around taming dragons. This is another game that is played over a fixed number of rounds. Unlike Zapotec you did feel like you were achieving something each round. It was an enjoyable experience for sure.

Parks: I’m still impressed by the quality of this second edition.

Tokaido: I think this was the first time I’ve played Tokaido at the full player count of five players, and also with the expansions. For this game I also had the newly released play mat. Stonemaier has done a great job with the release of the expansions and mat. Both expansions for the price of one, great value. I love the play mat, who doesn’t love a good play mat? It was a very interesting experience playing at the full player count. A lot more crowded and slower moving along the route. The expansions add to the game experience and give an interesting choice at each spot on the board. Do you go the classic option or the new?

And that was the last half of October.

It’s that time once more to look at what games have been hitting the table so far this October. There have been some great games.

Mind MGMT: wow boy are we bad at finding the recruiter in this game. It’s still fun, especially seeing what new “toys” we get to help finally find the recruiter.

Rebel Princess: you know what I, nay the gaming group thinks of this game.

Deep Regrets: I really liked this once we got used to the flow. Yes it is limited to six rounds. But you are getting to do a lot in each round. Or it felt you were. For me a major decision is how long you stay at sea and fish, when you go to port, or even if you go to port. I liked having to think about the number of regrets you collected because this influenced the price of fish you sold and final scoring.

Zapotec: now this is one game that felt was too short. This is a strange game with hand management, drafting, resource management mechanics. The five rounds goes fast. With end of round scoring giving you possibly some focus on what to do that round. It was an ok game.

Discworld Ankh-Morpork: I’m not going to say that this game was a grail game. But it was most definitely one I’ve been curious about over the years. Especially as I have admitted in a previous post to being a Discworld and Pratchett fan. I had sleeved all the cards. A must do with an expensive out of print game. But what about the game? Well it’s good. I like that each player has a unique win condition, and part of the game is trying to work out what the other players objective is and blocking it while trying to achieve your own. I tried to make the others think I had a different objective than I actually had. The game has a little take that in it that is fun. Really glad I got this.

Survive Escape from Atlantis: I still find it hard to believe that this is meant to be a family game. It is sooo mean. But fun too. I didn’t get a single survivor to safety this game. There is a new edition of this game by a different publisher. They dropped the escape from Atlantis bit from the title. Changed the box art (and possibly the tile art), which I’m not a fan of. It looks more childish. Hopefully it will appeal to more families.

Parks (Second Edition): Finally my kickstarter summit edition arrived. I like what has been done to this edition. The player boards are new, and very cool. They make tracking stuff like resources, canteen items, reserved or visited parks much easier. Each player gets a unique objective to achieve that once complete either gives them an end of game bonus or an ongoing bonus.

The game also now includes some quality of life improvements that speed up setting up, and the reset between each season. The camping mechanic has now been included from an expansion (can’t remember which). The photograph mechanic has been replaced with the shutterbug. Plus we have new art work for all 63 US national parks, which still looks amazing.

Well that’s October so far.