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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Autumn game season roundup
It’s the season for new games. Here’s a quick run-through of some recent titles. The long-awaited Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Deck-Building Game arrived, I translated the cards and we just played our first game. Interesting! Different enough from the new games, and the fans of the first game will like this just for the…
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EuroRails and Terra Mystica
Finally some EuroRails! I’ve been wanting to play this game for quite a while now, but it’s not very good choice for our game group. We have limited time, so a four-player game at an hour per player just won’t do. Having less than four players is rare, and having more than five so could split…
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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…
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Ropecon 2013
Ropecon, the largest non-profit roleplaying convention in Europe, was this weekend. I went there, again, as it’s part of my standard yearly con circuit, but this time I took my seven-year-old son with me. That meant less board games, but more other programme and a new view on things. It was fun! The highlight for…
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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…