-
Machi Koro
The game: Machi Koro by Masao Suganuma, published by Grounding in 2012. The name means something like “Dice town”. Elevator pitch: Catan resource production distilled into a 30-minute filler game. Roll dice to produce money, use money to buy your way to victory. What’s in the box? The smallish box contains cards, cardboard coins and two dice. Everything looks really…
-
Carcassonne: South Seas
The game: Carcassonne: South Seas, by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, published by Hans im Glück in 2013. Elevator pitch: First game in the Carcassonne Around the World series: an independent Carcassonne game set in the South Seas, featuring familiar Carcassonne game play with novel scoring system. What’s in the box? Usual Carcassonne-size box contains tiles, meeples, wooden resource tokens (clam shells, bananas,…
-
Nations
The game: Nations, by Rustan Håkansson, Nina Håkansson, Einar Rosén and Robert Rosén, published by Lautapelit.fi in 2013. Elevator pitch: Lead your nations from ancient times to industrial age, gaining glory and power while you’re at it. Through the Ages streamlined. What’s in the box? Large box has two central boards and player boards (thin cardboard, not actual boards), hundreds of cards…
-
Dragi Drache
The game: Dragi Drache, by Christoph Cantzler and Anja Wrede, published by Ravensburger in 2012. Elevator pitch: A ball floats in an air jet, and the goal is to blow it so it falls in the right place on the board. Most accurate blower wins. What’s in the box? The tall box contains a large battery-operated air…
-
Die kleinen Drachenritter
Another German children’s game, so far with no English edition and no attention whatsoever on BGG. The Finnish edition is called Junior Lancelot. The game: Die kleinen Drachenritter by Marco Teubner, published by Huch & Friends in 2012. Elevator pitch: A stacking game, where you try to climb a wall by piling cardboard objects on top of each…
-
Ab in die Tonne
There are at least three games named Ab in die Tonne. This is the one that was recently published in Finnish as Roskis. The game: Ab in die Tonne by Carlo A. Rossi, published by Abacus Spiele in 2013. Elevator pitch: A stacking and double-guessing game, where you play cards to place trash in garbage and avoid spilling out…
-
Skunk, Livingstone, Aeroplanes
Skunk must have taken the veteran game designer Haim Shafir less than five minutes to design. It’s basically a simplification of Hearts: basic trick-taker, where you must avoid skunks in cards (in nines of every suit and in every card of the red suit). Tremendously simple, but the cards look nice. But why buy this when you can take…
-
Viticulture
I got a review copy of Viticulture, and here’s what I think of it. I wasn’t a part of the wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, so I’m unbiased by that. The game: Viticulture by Jamey Stegmaier and Alan Stone, published by Stonemaier Games in 2013 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. Elevator pitch: A worker-placement game where you develop a…
-
Suburbia
The game: Suburbia by Ted Alspach, published by Bézier Games in 2012. Elevator pitch: Sim City board game. Manage an economic engine, draft tiles to build your borough, and try to have your tiles interact well with the other tiles in play. What’s in the box? Lots of hexagon tiles. The tiles look plain by themselves, but…
-
Rise of the Fellowship
Here are some essential notes of the games played between 19.4. and 15.5.2013. Enjoy. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Deck-building Game has been the biggest hit recently. I saw a session report on Google+, got interested and decided to buy the game. The fact that my son is a huge Lord of…