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Terra Nova
Review of Terra Nova in Finnish. Terra Nova is a fairly abstract game of fence-building. Players try to move their men on the board and fence off as much land for themselves as possible. If the land features just one landscape, it’s even better. The game reminds me a lot of Amazonas, but there are…
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Board game club: Terra Nova, Viva Topo!
Board game club was a big hit yesterday, with almost a record crowd of over 20 gamers. I made a quick visit and had time for just a few games. I’ve wanted to play Terra Nova to get it off my system. Now I tried the game with four players and found out my expectations…
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Einfach Genial with Johanna
Johanna wanted to play something, so I offered Einfach Genial. I know she doesn’t like abstracts, but instead prefers more imaginative, theme-rich games, but I thought this could work… and it did! It’s not one of her favourites, but she enjoyed it. Of course, Einfach Genial is far from the world of serious high-skill abstracts,…
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Finnish Game of the Year awards
Finnish Game of the Year awards for 2006 are out now, and what a huge disappointment they are! Best children’s game is Build-a-Burger (I would’ve given the award to Das kleine Gespenst, but I don’t know anything about Build-a-Burger). Best family game is Quackle, which seems to be a clone of Snorta!, or at least…
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New Age of Steam maps
Like I need more temptations: Bézier Games has published two new Age of Steam maps: London and Sun. Both are designed by JC Lawrence, one of the more interesting people in the web board game scene. The maps seem fabulous, both offering tough, challenging games. Looks like there might an Essen courier available to avoid…
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Hacienda
Another review up: Hacienda. Hacienda is a solo work from Wolfgang Kramer, published by Hans im Glück. That’s quite a combo: one of the esteemed professional designers and one of the most appreciated publishers known for quality games. This definitely sets up the expectations. While Hacienda isn’t a particularly great game, it’s good. What Kramer…
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Children’s games — Das kleine Gespenst and Geisterwäldchen
I tried some children’s games with Johanna. These are always pretty hard to evaluate when you don’t have children to try them with. Both games are not very good for adult use, so they’ll end up in storage, waiting for Nooa to grow up. Das kleine Gespenst is based on a classic children’s book by…
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Geocaching card game
I wouldn’t post this, but I know I have a geocacher or two in my audience, who might be interested… First to Find! is a trick-taking game about geocaching. Game homepage has some artwork. The cards look nice, but actually it’s a regular deck of cards with new art. The game, it seems, is a…
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Finnish Players’ Picks 2006 voting is open
Finnish Players’ Picks 2006 voting is now open and remains so until end of September. If you are Finnish or live in Finland, feel free to list five to seven of your favourite games from the last year (1.9.2005 — 31.8.2006). Remember: the voting isn’t about your all-time favourites or the best games released in…
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Hacienda at SpielByWeb
We played a game of Hacienda at SpielByWeb. It was a pleasantly quick match, just a week. You can see the final results. I won, but it was a bit of a surprise. I was the only player to try the massive land chain -strategy, so perhaps that was it? I made a mistake, though:…