Gameblog

Category: More about games

  • Lancaster

    This week’s game was Lancaster, ordered from Germany back in September, now finally here. Took a while, but hey, it’s a Queen game. At least it wasn’t as badly delayed as German Railways or, ahem, the Samarkand expansion… Hannu bought the game, mostly because it’s by Matthias Cramer, the designer of Glen More, and because…

  • Tactic games

    I got a bunch of review copies from Tactic. They are probably the biggest board game publisher in Finland and as far as I know a fairly big in European level as well — certainly bigger than many of the hobby publishers we cherish, like Hans im Glück. Their games are fairly mass-market, with occasional…

  • Recent new games

    Looks like my game reporting is lagging a bit, again. Two weeks ago I introduced Attika to my Monday game opponent. This classic is still fun and an interesting challenge. Barons is a very ugly game (as can be expected) from Cambridge Game Factory. Too bad is nowhere near as interesting as Glory to Rome.…

  • RightGames, part 2

    Today I was able to test the other two games from the Russian board game publisher RightGames (see part 1 for the other two). Evolution: The Origin of Species is a fun card game, where players evolve animals by adding traits to them. Survival is of the essence: each winter the animals must eat. It…

  • RightGames, part 1

    The Russian game company RightGames sent review copies to just about everybody, it seems. I got a set, and I’ve now played half of the games. So far I’m somewhat impressed. Potion-making: Practice is a fun game, where cards are both alchemiy ingredients and formulas that combine two or more ingredients into a potion. Cards…

  • Recent games

    Some notes on recent games. First some new games I’ve tried. Schatz der Drachen (Knizia / Winning Moves) is a nice twist on a memory game. Works well and I enjoyed it. My son didn’t enjoy it quite as much, though. Excape (Knizia / Filosofia) is a horrible, frustrating game. It’s a simple die game…

  • Nile DeLuxor

    I was offered a review copy of Nile DeLuxor from Minion Games. Since I really like the original Nile, I was quick to take the offer. This new edition takes a good game and makes it even better. What’s different? Proper box. Nothing too large, but the cards fit in, even sleeved. Good insert. Proper…

  • Winning 1856

    We just finished a six-player game of 1856, played with Rails. It was interesting and not least because I won the game. I had to do some analysis to figure out why I won… Here’s a spreadsheet of player net worth throughout the game. I was steadily in the competition throughout the game, I never…

  • 18xx map and tile generator

    I’ve been thinking about doing a new 18xx map and tile generator to assist in playing PBEM games. There are currently two good solutions I know of, but both have flaws. Rails Rails is a popular and easy to use program, that handles everything: map, tiles, shares, money. Rails also knows the rules and can…

  • Harzbahn 1873 summary

    I studied the rules of 1873 Harzbahn. Here’s a summary I created. It’s based on the July 5th 2011 version of the rules available at the Geek. Start Auction Round first bid for first purchase right high bidder goes first, rest in the reverse order of passing high bid is Start Premium first bidder must…