Splendor, designed by Marc Andre, crashed into the boardgaming scene in 2014 as a fantastic gateway-level game that’s a straightforward engine-building race made extra appealing due to its poker-like chips. It is currently ranked 53rd as a family-weight game, and 243th overall on BGG. Though the base game plays well at 2-players, a Duel version […]
My Gathering comments on Azure — “Surprisingly good abstract filler that I’m still thinking about. Might buy, even though I dislike abstracts.”
And now it is bought, and after playing another game I ordered the expansion. “Filler” is always a crowded category, but most of my fillers are card games (R4TG used to be a filler, before Counterstrike). Azure reminds me of Marrakesh (the Joli Kansil backgammon-esque trick taker. Or trick-taking backgammon game). It takes a classic game and then restricts your moves based on cards. In Azure, each space has one or more benefits …. typically points, but also cards and playing on a space requires one card of the suit for each boon on it ….
…. less one card for every piece on it’s row or column.
First to 25 points wins, except that if you have to play a piece and can’t you lose (and there are limited pieces). Also there are mountains, which block connectivity across their space, and the first person to have two “influence1” on the mountain gets the benefit, but it can be lost if the other player gets more influence.
It’s a little brain burney, but because you start with random cards you can’t calculate everything in theory. (And the second player gets an extra card, so it’s not clear if the first or second player has an advantage, at least to me).
I’ve recently downsized my game bag2., but I’ll bring this for a while. I guess I like abstracts that have a bit of card-driven chance.
Rating — Suggest
Update — Clarified how to influence the mountain pieces, as per the comment below.
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You put down a bowl of soft food, and moments later, you hear the jingle of her collar. Here she comes! First, she pauses at the conservatory door and watches you for a while. You eagerly point at the wonderfully fresh food, enticing her to come in and eat. She turns away to look out into her domain, our back garden. Eventually, she strolls over - in her own time. Of course, whether she's ready for her lunch, when she eats, or indeed, where she eats, is all her own choice. As her pet dad, you just Take Cat by Gareth Edwards from Gibsons with art by Juliana Eigner.
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A review copy of Inkwell was kindly provided by Zatu Trade. Thoughts & opinions are my own. Inkwell is one of those games that makes you want to touch it. The soft closing of the magnetic clasp on the box. The cloth playmat. The satisfying heft of the little golden cubes. It’s a lovely thing. As far as draft and set-collection games go, it’s pretty decent. There’s a lot here to like…
Are you searching for something to watch in the doldrum days of summer reruns? Do you find yourself endlessly scrolling through the options on multiple streaming services looking for something that catches your eye? Do you then settle on a show that you’ve seen a hundred times already when the scrolling gets to be too […]
More new regiment boxes for Armoured Clash – Check them out!
Now you’ve seen the new Commonwealth and Crown heavy regiment boxes, allow me to show you two more, this time for the Enlightened and Union factions. Both small boxes contain some very tasty new units to beef up your armies. Enjoy!
A prototype copy of Eternal Sevens was kindly provided by Tricktakers Games. Thoughts and opinions are my own. How to buy: If you’re trying to buy a copy of Eternal Sevens, click here for information about ordering a copy. When your breakthrough hit is something like Eternal Decks, you have to do something special to follow it. In Eternal Sevens, Hiroken has managed to do just that.
Adrenaline pumping, high-speed races have never registered with me as something that could translate well into a board game, but when I had the opportunity to trade for Flamme Rouge, I decided to give it a try. It turned out to be a surprisingly fun and engaging game. It played quickly, and with the slipstreaming […]
Hegemony made a huge splash in the board gaming world with its 2023 debut, representing one of the most thematic politico-economic Eurogames ever released. Containing seven unique policies about which four asymmetric factions could push and pull levers to their class’s unique benefit, this creation was equal parts board game and government simulation. The main […]
Es gibt wenige Spiele, die einen so richtig überraschen – aber in diesem Jahrgang hat das ein Spiel bei mir geschafft. Es handelt sich um Carp City, bei dem sich viele streiten, ob es sich hierbei überhaupt um ein Spiel handelt. Aber ist nicht ein Spiel lt. Wikipedia-Definition „eine Tätigkeit, die zum Vergnügen, zur Entspannung aus […]
New releases for Armoured Clash – plus a solo adventure book!
As you all know by now Warcradle is a great supporter of the Esoteric Order, and I’m very happy to feature their products, because I think their games are excellent and they really care about them. Now that they’ve finished releasing big boxes for each of the 8 factions for Armoured Clash, they’re filling out the army choices with a series of smaller regiment boxes with a focus on heavier units. In this video I tell you about the new boxes for the Crown and Commonwealth factions. Also, out of left field they released a Choose-Your-Own -Adventure-style paperback set in the Dystopian Age called VALIANT. Check out all this new stuff in the video!
Es gibt Brettspiele, die erklären sich in fünf Minuten und fesseln einen dann für Monate. Am Goldenen Fluss von Keith Piggott und erschienen bei KOSMOS gehört für mich genau in diese Kategorie. Das Spiel schlägt einen ganz anderen Weg ein: keine komplexen Tableau-Mechaniken, kein stundenlanges Grübeln (außer natürlich bei den Mitspielenden), kein ständiges Nachschlagen in den Regeln und kein verpflichtender VHS-Abendkurs zur Ikonografie. Stattdessen eine Handvoll Regeln, ein goldfarbener Fluss und ein Würfel, der einem das Leben leicht oder schwer machen kann. Was Am Goldenen Fluss so besonders für mich macht, erfahrt ihr in dieser Review.
Viel Spaß beim Lesen!
Der Beitrag Review: Am Goldenen Fluss – Wenn ein Brettspiel endlos ist erschien zuerst auf Brettspiel Reviews, Empfehlungen und Podcasts von Brettspielerunde.
Ever play a game that you want to love, that you think you should love, but when you play it, you don’t, and you keep playing anyway, hoping you’ll fall in love with it? For me, that game is Smash Up by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG). On paper, the concept is fantastic. The “shufflebuilding” premise […]
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