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Games & Llamas: You Will Know What I Played Last Summer Part 2

Posted by Isra C.

Weekly log

11 Sep 2018

Isra C.

(israperrillo)

Spain
Valdemoro, Madrid

Previously on ‘You Will Know What I Played Last Summer’ …

Belfort
Long time ago, we played this game with 2 and 4 players and we loved it. With the pass of the time, the 2 player version, even being clever, I don’t like it that much. It’s a pity because I like all of the aspects of the game. Will play again with more players or finally will trade it to rest in a shelf that will appreciate it.

Bellz!
Silly toy game with a powerful magnet and metal jingle bells of the color of the players. You have to take all the bells from your color before every player. Silly but really fun.!

Bora Bora
This is one masterpiece of Stefan Feld and I love it. I still prefer CoB or Aquasphere but Bora Bora is one of the greatest. The mechanic of suffering every round to do a lot of things in order to not screw the final scoring is delightful.

Bunny Kingdom
This is Kingdom Builder on steroids. We played it at 2:00 a.m. and probably this affected my opinion but I didn’t like it at all. It is pretty, has a great production and it seems that hasn’t many luck factor due to the drafting. But for me was a little bit boring.

Carson City with Carson City: Horses & Heroes
We hadn’t play this in a while (like, in 2 years) and it is as great as always. BUT. The last time I played with 4 people and I loved it more. Will trade the first expansion and keep Horses & Heroes because the horses give to the base game a really nice touch.

Cheeky Monkey
If there’s a family reunion, there are nephews. If there are nephews, there is Cheeky Monkey. It’s a winner in this kind of situations.

Clans of Caledonia
This was the first time I played with 4 players. And it was AWESOME. I loved CoC but this time I enjoyed the suffering of being isolated on a corner in the map. This is one of the greatest games in 2017 so far. If there will be an expansion I’m in.

The Colonists
Our 4 full eras of the year. Once a year Shei & I go to her parent’s village and spent a full day playing this masterpiece. We relish this eurogame as a gourmet meal during all day. Taking breaks for lunch or even coffee while discussing things between eras. I mean. I won’t play this more often than a couple of games per year but, this one or two, are like a tradition to spent a full day with my wife playing a thing.

Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia
This was the last game of Stegmaier that I have to try and… didn’t like it that much. The luck factor losing workers all the time gave me a sensation of chaos that I don’t like in a resource management. And this is another race to get rid of something. No, this gameis not for me but at least wasn’t an awful experience.

Familienbande
This is a homemade copy of this game for giving as a present to a friend. His nickname is “Vander” so I remake all the cards and box and stuff to call it “FamilienVander”. And also I improved the scoring track (stacking discs are waaaaay better). Finally I experienced the bad luck of not drawing the cards your trait needs. Anyway, the game is pretty fun and it gets played quickly. Hopefully I’ll find a copy in Essen Spiel.

Five Tribes
I cannot say anything more about one of my top-3? top-5? games. To me is one of the greatest in our collection and never get tired to play it. Yeah, I know that it could be very frustrating with AP-prone players but, the 80% of the games I play with 2 so there’s not so much AP there. (It helps that Shei and I don’t overthink our decisions)

Food Chain Magnate
I can admit that this is not a “only 1 play” board game. I can admit that despite having an ugly artwork is pretty functional. I can admit that not having a back cover the box is irrelevant. But I cannot admit the ultra-hype with this one.
Yes! Is good! But I cannot say (to me) that is one of the greatest of the decade, or, one in a million. I liked it but it went quite down on my wish list. And I won’t pay 75€ for this, obviously.

Glory to Rome
After a couple (or three, I cannot remember) years without playing it, we finally play it again. This was one of our first games and it aged well. Probably will play soon in order to play the expansion or even play with the building actions (yes, we didn’t played with the abilities of the buildings before)

Grand Austria Hotel
As I said about Five Tribes, this is one of my top too. The way this game makes my brain work is awesome. We only have played with two but I think that it could be nice with more players (but with the variant of sequential turn order, not catan-like turn order).

The Rich and the Good
Another impossible-to-find game. I loved how the information is shared between players and the aspect of giving too much money or not. I liked overall but, to me, has a horrible design failure. For many people, being eliminated from the final scoring if you have been the greedier player, is a rule that they love but to me, is the worse. The feeling of “whoah! I’ve spent an hour or so for actually doing nothing” doesn’t work for me. It was a different feeling if the player participates in the final scoring but only with the half of the money. Yes, it is ‘practically’ the same but the same feeling. Anyway the game is pretty cool to me despite that annoying rule.

Hanamikoji
Hanamikoji is one of the greatest discovering from 2017 and I love to played it with Shei. It is one of the cleverest games I know. The possibilities of this little gem when you play the cards are amazing. Do you remember the feeling of playing Love Letter for the first time? This is something similar to me.

'Tiger' Jenga
We bought this non-branded version of Jenga in a shop called Tiger (people from Europe will know) because of the wooden blocks for prototyping purposes. But, as always we do when we bought a cheap game for materials, we give it a try and that was fun. It’s a Jenga anyway

This is the second part of You Will Know What I Played Last Summer and there are 2 more to go! I hope to finish them before Essen Spiel because I want to do a Spiel report from there!!

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Tue Sep 11, 2018 8:30 am

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Games & Llamas: You Will Know What I Played Last Summer

Posted by Isra C.

Weekly log

04 Sep 2018

Isra C.

(israperrillo)

Spain
Valdemoro, Madrid

Whoah… what a summer!

Now, with September started, I think that I should talk about all the games I’ve tried since the end of June, where my last Games & Llamas post didn’t warned that I’ll take a break from writing in English. I didn’t take it from writing in Spanish (since it is waaaay easier for me) and I owe you one (or several) large post.

The total amount of games played between the last post and TODAY is this:

(86)

I don’t know how I’m going to do this so, let’s try! I’m going to try to say something about all of them in number of plays order (just because BGG sorted it this way). So I’m thinking that I’m going to write in rounds of 20ish different games per post since I have 86 different games in that picture (and I’m not counting different prototypes!)

Unpublished Prototype
We had played A LOT of prototypes but certainly more games of Special 14, a That's Pretty Clever! like game of roll and write that we have the proud to tell you that will be published by Ludonova in Q1 /Q2 of 2019.

We played several games of Ramen that will be released at Spiel18 and we’re ultra-excited to see if the people will like it or not. It’s frightening but it is awesome every time a game from us is published. You can show some love for the game in the Essen Spiel Preview (We’re still in the first page of hotness) and in its BGG page.

We started more designs but, since Ramen will be on Spiel 18 and we’re finishing the games that are actually signed with publishers, we had to stop creating new ones. That’s a lot of work!

Unusual Suspects
Or as we called it: “The Racists Detector” hahahah It is awesome how the people’s (and your own) prejudges blend with a mechanic of guessing. I enjoyed it but 7 games in a row was too much and I won’t will play it again in a while.

Avenue
We bought this game during our vacation in Lisbon and we’re quite happy with it. It is quick and it gets played smoothly. Probably will trade it because there’s no variation in the sheet and because we tried “Welcome to…” and we loved it with just one game.

Isis & Osiris
An old abstract game with a memory component that I really like it and it works awesomely well with kids that are learning basic math. It is possible that will be traded in a future but I have to admit that I had some invaluable memories with my nephews.

Azul
No, I’m not going to say anything more about the best game of 2017. We even played our handmade travel version and it gets awesome in every game of it. It is perfect. I don’t know how to think about the new version of Sintra glasses but surely I’ll check it out at Spiel.

Fuji Flush
I like more Abluxxen but Fuji Flush had become one of my favorites when we are more than 4 players playing card games. The first games of it wasn’t good for me but with more plays it gets better more and more.

Lowlands
This is a nice euro-sheep-game with workers with a certainly amount of action points. I liked the part of the dike but I don’t know… there’s something that doesn’t fit in my taste. Nevertheless I enjoy playing it trying to optimize the board to fit more and more sheep on it. And I have to admit that if it this game has the artwork of Klemens Franz it would be nicer to me. BUT, it is pretty anyway.

Pikoko
One of the best trick-taking card games I’ve ever played. And it is absolutely lovely! I don’t know when but surely it will be widely available soon! It is soo good! It is a kind of trick taking game but playing in the way of Hanabi and trying to guess how many tricks a player can win in the round. It is awesome.

Pocket Mars
A really decent filler about Mars (but it could have any other theme, you know) that it gets played superfast with multipurpose cards. I mean, this is not the greatest game of the world but I do like it a lot! I have to try its solitaire mode because sounds good.

Santorini
I’m a beast at this game. I usually win despite the god I have dealt. A lot of replayability and awesome production. I’m glad it gets widely available because it is an abstract game with a theme I’d love to play.

Team Play
A lovely surprise! We bought this hidden gem in Frankfurt last December because it was really cheap. It is a team game about doing collections of cards with no theme but its gameplay is really cool. You can pass cards to your teammate in order to help him/her to complete the general collection target or his/her hidden personal collection. Really nice.

X nimmt!
The advanced version of 6 Nimmt! that it is better for 2 players to 4 players. 6 Nimmt! with two or three players isn’t good but this is. Try it if you can because I love it! I don’t know why it is not so popular than 6 Nimmt!.

Flowar
This two games of Aalsmeer has been the best so far. I was playing and I wasn’t thinking all the time “this game is a game designed by you and Shei, you know the game and you know everything of it”. I enjoyed this two games like it was a game from another designer. I think that is the best feeling in the designing world

It will be published by Ediciones Primigenio for their 2019 Spiel Release (At least, that was they told us)

Caverna: Cave vs Cave
A game that I always wanted to play. It is the best 2 player version that Caverna could ever have. The way you took the actions and the way you develop your cave is something that I love. Really looking for the expansion this year!!

That's Pretty Clever!
It has become one of my favourites Roll and Write games. I’m really excited for trying the new scoresheet for the next year!

Ginkgopolis
If you take out the theme of it (It could have any other more interesting theme) and get familiarized with the iconography, this is an awesome game. I hope that it gets a reprint because it is impossible to find now. To me, is even better than Carson City.

Heaven & Ale
I played this game again with only 2 players and it gets played really quickly. I prefer to play it with more players (it gets more interesting) but overall I love the mechanism of deciding when to score or when to earn money.

Hive Pocket
The only game we played in our vacation in Portugal. We played it in the apartment while having coffee after breakfast. It is always packed in our suitcase when we travel.

Labyrinth: The Card Game
Awful. We bought it from a sale and it goes directly to the For Trade list.

The Oracle of Delphi
We played this the last year at 4 players and we liked it but it wasn’t an insta-love. But we found a copy at a bargain price and we had to try it again. I liked it more with more plays. I think that the luck factor is really high in this one and if you cannot get the right rolls you could be out of the game pretty soon. We’ll play it a little bit more before decide if it will go to the trade list or not.

Orc-lympics
It is a card drafting-fighting game with some nice ideas in it. We only played it with two players but it seems not to be its best player count. Will try with more players.

Patchwork
A game that is always enjoyable. I understand the new express version (for kids and elder people, not for casual gamers). This game is one of the greatest gateway game to introduce new people into the hobby and it has to be in every collection.

Race for the Galaxy
It is amazing how the years pass and this game remains fresh. It is that good that it doesn’t seem that it is 11 years old. Despite the awful iconography, the gameplay is awesome.

San Juan
This is the Race for the Galaxy for people that are scared to play RftG. It is kinder for non-core gamers but for core gamers could be a little bit soft. I like it anyway and I would play it when I’m in the mood for light games.

Zero!: The Rise and Fall of The Imperial Japanese Air Force Dec 1941 - June 1942
This was the first game I liked of Knizia and we play it anytime we can. It is super-random because if you don’t have the cards, the only thing you can do is trying to get rid of them but it is a game I love so much. And it was bought in a special store and played once with special people

Take 5
The best game you can play for 5-6 people. If you’re more than 6 I’d choose Fuji Flush but it is one of the greatest games ever.

And with these 30 games, the first part of “You Will Know What I Played Last Summer” is over. There will be 3 more (You now, I trid to make a trilogy for the history is so long and it must to have a 4th part).

See you later!

PS: Anyone of you will attend Essen SPIEL??

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Tue Sep 4, 2018 12:15 pm

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Back from vacation!

Posted by Isra C.

20 Aug 2018

Isra C.

(israperrillo)

Spain
Valdemoro, Madrid

Hi everyone!

I had an awesome summer (that is weird to me saying this since it is currently summer) and I disconnected with my duties of post here the games I played since June. And you don't deserve that!

A lot of things happened to me (practically all good) and I don't know if I should report week by week until catch up or just a big damn report with all the games I played.

What do you say? 6 splitted reports or just a huge one with an absurd long game list?

Picture related:

Cheers!

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Mon Aug 20, 2018 8:00 am

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Waffle Hassle ready for download!

Posted by Isra C.

Design Diaries

29 Jun 2018

Isra C.

(israperrillo)

Spain
Valdemoro, Madrid

Hi everybody!

Well, the wait is over! You can download the final version (or, at least, the version we're going to present to the GenCan't contest) of Waffle Hassle

If you spot something that you don't understand or any errata just tell us and we'll try to correct it as soon as possible.

Shei and I hope that you like it and have a great fun with it. Enjoy it!

Download Waffle Hassle here!

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Fri Jun 29, 2018 7:45 am

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Week 25: From Monza to Biosphere

Posted by Isra C.

Weekly log

28 Jun 2018

Isra C.

(israperrillo)

Spain
Valdemoro, Madrid

Hi everyone!
I’m not that busy this week and I can brought you the weekly report a little bit earlier than the last week!

Thursday

As I said last week, we’re going to participate this year in the GenCan’t contest with Waffle Hassle, a card-drafting game of 18 cards about making a waffle

We think that is ready to be submitted to the contest!

Saturday

Big day here! We started playing our prototypes in our home because we want to have it ready for Spiel (and for a prototype convention in Valencia in a couple of weeks). The mid-weight eurogame we’re designing flows and plays well but if we’re honest with our work, we’re not close to have a version to show to players. Keep working!

And more tests of Waffle Hassle (in solitaire mode too) to start writing the rules, the print and play files and all the things to put it online for you.

We finished the prototype session early (that what it happens when you only have to test a big game) so we played the last (of the frist three) Exit game we have: Exit: The Game – The Abandoned Cabin. And it was amazing as usual. We love this series and we’re going to buy anything that our beloved Markus & Inka do.

We travel to the Madrid mountains to play until Sunday with our friends Ana & Jorge (and a friend of them, Paloma and their lovely daughter J). Because J wanted to play with us, she decided to play Isle of Monsters. An easy “combat and resource management” game for kids (although I think that there are a few rules not so trivial for kids) The art is outstanding and I want a game illustrated by Kwanchai Moriya for one of our games (someday...in our dreams...) I liked it despite all the randomness, but I think that is pretty cool for youngsters.

Before dinner a couple of card games that I really wanted to try someday. We started with Herbalism, and I realized that is a deduction game... and I don’t like deduction games! I feel stupid when I play those games (despite enjoying them a little bit if I’m honest) The artwork is amazing and the game I have to admit is pretty cool but... It’s not my cup of tea

Finally I try High Society, the new edition illustrated by the Medusa Dollmaker a.k.a Fallera Mayor of the illustrators. I liked a lot the game but it is really tough! In Modern Art you get income from cards and you can be playing the game the whole time but in this one... if you spend too much, better not spend more if you won’t get out of the game. Anyway I can recommend it as an alternative to Modern Art.

After dinner, we played one full game of 1920 Wall Street, one game of the 19xx series from Looping games! I love this tiny boxed but awesomely good designed games. The next one will be 1906 San Francisco(rebuilding the city after the earthquake) and the next one... 1988 Dover Calais!

In this game you’re buying shares from primary products before the bombing of Wall Street in 1920. With a kinda-mancala-moving system that I love. If you have the chance to buy it (it cost only 20€) do it and you won’t regret it.

And then the heaviest game of the night: Biosphere. An area control game with dice that acts like markers that has “expiry date” and dies in a determined number of turns. I liked it very much but it was a brain burner for me. In this kind of games I prefer El Grande for simplicity but this one was really great.

Ana & Jorge have a huge board game collection (over 800) and they have weird games like this Zendo that I didn’t heard of it before. It is a clever guessing game that made me feel stupid in the same way like deduction games hahaha. It is cool but it requires a lot of games to get the point.

When everyone went to bed at 4:00a.m Jorge and I played a couple of games more. We played Space Race: The Card Game because Ia have it in my pile of shame and the rulebook is a little bit messy for me (now I played, the rulebook is nice, but at a first approach is not that easy). I liked the game a lot because (mainly) the theme. I’m a enthusiast of everything about the space race and modern spaces programs (I cried a little with the Falcon Heavy launch

). The game is a kind of Race for the Galaxy in which you select a card to play a phase and get cards from the center of the table and try to combine their actions. RftG is a better game for sure but in this one I can say that Valentina Tereshkova is in my team!

And one game of NMBR 9 after going to bed because is an amazing game that I can play it forever and it could be played in 10’.

Sunday

When I woke up, J had put in the table Penguin Trap and I played with her this incredibly funny game. We’re looking to get a copy to play it with our nephews.

Then, J wanted to play Leo and so did we. Is a funny memory cooperative game that (for me) it isn’t easy to beat. We won but it wasn’t easy! I liked it.

And finally I play Monza! A game that I really wanted to play because my youngest nephew love cars and races (but not so much bard games) and this one could be the game that hooks him up

We say goodby to our friends and return to home. Since I played Space Race: The Card Game but Shei didn’t, I taughted her the rules (as I said, now is easy to teach) and play one quick game. The game is played in only 7 rounds and the cards you get can tell a history at the end of the game. I think that we’ll play it a lot this summer.

And the game of the week is...

See you tomorrow because we’re going to release Waffle Hassle to blind playtesting here!

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Thu Jun 28, 2018 6:47 am

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Week 24: Waffles in Arle

Posted by Isra C.

Weekly log

22 Jun 2018

Isra C.

(israperrillo)

Spain
Valdemoro, Madrid

So, with a little delay, here’s the post for the 24th week of the year!

Monday

I said that Pulsar 2849 will hit the table more often and I wasn’t wrong. Another game of this gem that, in my opinion has be underlooked in the past Spiel. If you like games like Grand Austria Hotel, The Voyages of Marco Polo or Lorenzo il Magnifico is a really good addition to your collection. I love how the elements interconnect between them.

Wednesday

As a few of you know, we’re going to participate in the GenCan’t contest again this year. The last year we design a Roll & Write game about Terraforming Mars (and you can download it and play it here!) and this year the contest is a little bit different: Is organized by ButtonShy games too and the winner will be published by them. So we’ve design a 18-card game about making waffles! We called it Waffle Hassle and we think that it has all the ingredients (you got it?) to be a decent microgame!

Friday

We finally started a proper session of gaming with Signorie, because we wanted this weekend to play a lot of games that we haven’t played in a while (almost a year!). The game is fantastic but after a few plays with two and with four I prefer it with more players. Anyway, this is more or less the seal of quality of What's Your Game?: Good even with a lower player count.

After that, a game of Blueprints! We haven’t played it in almost 2 years! And it is gorgeous! I prefer it too with more players but you have a decent game with only two. The only thing that I dislike about Blueprints is its cloth bag. Too many loose blue threads in the table after every game hahaha

To end, one of the greatest games of Stefan Feld: AquaSphere: A beast of optimization and planning. I could say that The Castles of Burgundy is the best game of him but probably I’d say that AquaSphere is the second.

Saturday

After a busy morning, we keep playing games that we haven’t played for a long time. This time: Fields of Arle, a big game of Uwe Rosenberg that is slightly different from the other games of him. We have played only 3 times but I feel that it isn’t as replayable as the other games of agriculture. I don’t know, probably we won’t play it again in a while so replayability won’t be a problem hahah

A quick game of one of the best card game I’ve ever played: Honshū. I love this little game and the middle-draft of every hand. And I only lose once in all of my games

Another game of Azul, because a week without Azul seems a wasted week. I’m trying to be creative with the pictures of Azul because we played it that often that my phone is full of the more or less the same pictures hahah

Sunday

Working day in another game we’re designing, a middle weight eurogame of resource management, dice/worker placement, action selection and area control. We’ll see what we get from it but the first run of it were good enough to have a good start! And the final game of Special 14 in order to test the last tweak. The game is ready to show to people!

So, as I said the last week, the game of the week has to be…

See you next week!

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Fri Jun 22, 2018 10:07 am

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Week 23: Raccoons and Ginkgos

Posted by Isra C.

Weekly log

14 Jun 2018

Isra C.

(israperrillo)

Spain
Valdemoro, Madrid

Since I’m synchronized with the Spanish posts on llamadice.com I want to keep this here! So let’s see how our gaming week number 23 was!

Tuesday

There’s a new game Spanish game line about a series of mini games about a mystery called Q. We played Sherlock: Last Call. There are 3 in the market but there are several more announced. It came as a small deck of cards and you throw “clues” to the investigation or discard fake trails. Then, there’s a resolution of the mystery and you can check your guessing level with a scoring. Not a game for us and I got bored a little bit. I’m not the target but I can see an awesome selling rate. This is a good social game for casual players.

Wednesday

I wanted to play something but Shei was too tired for anything, so I played one game of Finished! and I almost achieve it! I see certain patterns in cards that worked better than others. I always try the combo of put the 48th card under the deck without passing to the past area in order to not to discard coffee. I’ll try till get it!

Saturday

If you spend the whole week taking decisions in your prototypes instead of playing them or playing games there’s no so much to say about the gaming week. Fortunately, we spent a lovely evening with our friends Javi & Patri.

We started with one of the forgotten games of What’s your Game (along with Reef Encounter, Fairy Tale or OddVille, that is pretty good that game!): Asgard. This is a game that you can’t judge with only one game but... I think that the 7 games that I have of this publisher are better than this one. I mean, this is not a bad game at all but it hasn’t a mechanism that keeps me wanting to playing again and again. But finally I played it! And I enjoyed so it was nice!

Then we tortured our friends a little bit with our prototypes Rawr! and Special 14 and they worked awesomely well. Particularly Special 14 that was its first try at 4 players. I think that we can have it ready for Spiel 18!

And then, a game that we didn’t played it since March ’16 because we were lazy about learning the rules again but this is one of the greatest games that we have in our collection: Ginkgopolis. This is a huge abstract game with a “city building” theme in disguise. When you play ths game for the first time you think: “Yeah, ok, I’ll do this with no reason but I’ll try...” and when the game is over, you see how good is. It should be published again because is awesome (But its theme doesn’t help to bring it to the table)

And two light games for ending the evening. First one game of Perudo that actually I enjoyed a lot (I was the first kicked out the game but I still liked it) I can craft a copy of it since we have a lot of dice for prototyping but I’ll get a copy when I see it at a good price.

And the last game was another game of the Q series: Sherlock: Death on the 4th of July and same result with more people: I got bored but I think that the idea of the game is pretty good and it will sell very very well.

Sunday

And finally we played our first game of Pulsar 2849 and it was AMAZING! Despite the theme (I don’t know why, but with eurogames of dice placement and so I dislike space theme) 8 rounds to do whatever you can. The dice drafting mechanism is quite good and it adds a layer of depth in just “Take the best dice and deal with it”. I can recommend this game to anyone that enjoys Marco Polo, Grand Austria Hotel or Lorenzo Il Magnifico. I think that it will hit the table very often.

Then a quick game of Pueblo with the gyratory stand from Ikea. This should be included in the game because is sooooo cool to play spinning the board trying to get the best position for your pieces.

And another game of Ginkgopolis that actually work pretty well with 2 players! But I think that its best number is 4. We had to play trying to get the rules in our minds and playing it again soon. This is a master piece!

And to ending the week playing a game unplayed from our shelves: Dale of Merchants, game that we played the last year a couple of times and I didn’t liked so much... but we saw it on Amazon at a awesome price and we couldn’t resist. This time was better BUT I won’t play with the raccoons again. My eurogamer soul cannot accept that someone can steal you a good card just because he or she can.

And because I know that Pulsar 2849 will be in our tables the next week the award of the week goes to...

See you next week!

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Thu Jun 14, 2018 9:15 am

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Week 22: Concordia big and small

Posted by Isra C.

Weekly log

08 Jun 2018

Isra C.

(israperrillo)

Spain
Valdemoro, Madrid

Yes I said on Monday but I speed up the things a little and here's the write up of the 22th week of the year!

Tuesday
Sometimes, when we start a new prototype, I want to try it out as soon as possible to see if it worth spend more time on it. So I brought the first version to my job to play it with my boss. It worked well but there is some work to do though!

By the afternoon Shei and I played a game that I love: Village. I like the simplicity of the gameplay. But the simplicity you get when you already know the game because it has a lot of things to take into account for newbies.

Wednesday

Polished some edges, we played a couple of times the new prototype that we call it “Special 14” (Don’t ask why) and it worked pretty well. Nevertheless, some modifications will be done aiming more simplicity and better flowing.

Friday

Not every day your country politicians give you good news. To celebrate the destitution of our awful commander in chief we played a game that summarize the feeling: Genial (like Cool! In English) And I also celebrate it with a proper gin & tonic (Please Mr O’Connor, I only have two gin bottles in my bar: The good one and the regular one and this time was the good)

And after that, a game of Azul because, you know, I could play this forever.

Saturday

Did I mention that I love to play light games while having coffee? Ganz Schön Clever & Portuguese expresso (pingado for a proper definition) is one of the best combinations I could have.

We’re considering to trade First Class but before trade it, we want to try all the modules. We played E+D and I’m not sure if we will play C (Orient Express module). I don’t like the chance of not getting any point in the whole game. I don’t know why we thought on trading it because I like this game a lot.

We played (with permission of Castles of Burgundy) on of our top 5 games: Concordia. We love Mac Gerdts for making such a deep game so simple. We played with the expansion Creta and it was a nice variation! I like a lot the island region that allow you to take the bonus you want.

One of the acquisitions in Club DA2 was Finished! I liked a lot Friday so I wanted to try this one. I cannot believe that the guy with the green hair sold me a game about sorting a deck of cards. And I wanted to sort them!! A little bit fiddly in the order you move the cards and so, but is nice for a half an hour.

Sunday
We spent the whole Sunday morning working on our prototypes. One of those moments that you want to play but if you want to get published, you have to work! I can see a “demoable” version of Special 14 soon. It is being fun to develop it! We are polishing Rawr! to reduce the frustration feeling a little bit more. I think that we get it!

Yes, I like to play light games while having coffee but sometimes I want to play something meatier! So we played one game of Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small. But Since we have the first expansion, we always play with it. Without it... you won’t feel any feel of replayability. Nice game when you don’t have the enough time (or space) to play its big brother.

Nothing more for this week! and if you payed attention to the text, you won’t be surprised that the game of week is...

See you the next week! Finally, I'm up to date!! Yay!!

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Fri Jun 8, 2018 7:38 am

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Week 21: Sagrada Maria

Posted by Isra C.

Weekly log

07 Jun 2018

Isra C.

(israperrillo)

Spain
Valdemoro, Madrid

Hi everybody!
Again, our prototype duties had trampled me and I couldn’t make the post for the week 21. Now I’m trying to write them up at once and post it in two separate posts because I REALLY WANT to catch up with you. I think that the post for the 22th week will be posted on Monday.

The 21th week was quite special for us since that weekend was the anniversary of one of the greatest gaming clubs in Madrid: Club DA2. Typically we go there to test prototypes with core gamers and non-core gamers but this year, we only brought with us Rawr! and Fondue! just in case the feeling of the gamers were propitious. We went there for gaming!

Wednesday

It isn’t usual having a free day in the midweek but this time, we played one of the greatest Kickstarters we have backed: Clans of Caledonia. This time Shei smashed me with a quite fine optimization of the money and acquiring the right contracts in the right time. This games is a blast and I hope to meet Juma at Spiel this year!

Saturday

Finally the big day! We went to the club and started to play two games that I really eager to try!
We play one game of Sagrada and I loved it. Despite playing with strangers I enjoyed the game a lot. Sometimes, when I take my first turn in a game, I already know if I’ll like it or not. This was one of these times. I wonder when it will be available in our country or if I have to wait till Spiel 18.

Then another game from Spiel 17 that I really wanted to try Meeple Circus. I like this kind of dexterity games despite being an eurogamer and my expectations met. At the end, your scoring doesn’t matter, you have had great silly fun. I still prefer Junk Art but this one is pretty good.

Prototype time! Manu Palau taught us his new version of his successful Spoilers and also we played Rawr! with them (Still need to adjust the frustration) and then go to lunch!

When we came back to the club we played one prototype of one of the members that was quite good for being his first game. Then more Rawr! and for popular request we played one game of Ramen (former Fondue!) with 5 players (its maximum) and it worked awesome.

Finally, we played on of the hyped games on my wish list: Santa Maria. And I was a little bit disappointed. It is not a bad game at all. It is good and the mechanics blends so well, but I got that hyped with this one that the expectations in this case didn’t met. Anyway, I got a really good time playing with those strangers and I’ll play it again when I have the chance!

More Rawr! test with different people applying the changes from the other tests. Still a little bit frustrating.

And for ending a perfect day another hyped game: Clank! In! Space! And it was really good. While the owner was tauhting us the game I said a lot of times: “Like –Star Realms/Ascension/Trains/Dominion- right?” Because it has all the good things about those deck builders but well blended. A little bit long for what I expect from a DB but probably because we are all newbies and spent too much time on the board. I want to try the non-space version.

Sunday

While breakfast, Shei told to me that se need to rise her monthly h-index playing one game of Hanamikoji so... voila! This is one of the simplest and meatiest game for 2 players that I know.

One of the things I like the most is playing light games while having a proper Portuguese expresso. Ganz Schön Clever has become one of the perfect games for this purpose.

We saw on Twitter our friends playing The Castles of Burgundy and we wanted to do the same so... we played it! My favorite. I hope someday Alea publish a deluxe edition of it with thicker tiles and absurdly big dice or whatever. They have my money on advance

To ending the week, one game of Torres but this time interiorizing the rules of the king (if you don’t pay attention to the location of the king in every round, you probably will lose. At least with 2 players) I want to play it with more players because it will be better with more players.

But Shei said... Do you want to play an Azul? So Torres wasn’t the last game of the week. I cannot say no to a game of Azul. If it won’t win the SdJ award it will win in my heart.

The game of the week, because met all the expectations is...

See you on Monday!

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Thu Jun 7, 2018 7:04 am

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Week 20: The "I don't" Mind

Posted by Isra C.

Weekly log

30 May 2018

Isra C.

(israperrillo)

Spain
Valdemoro, Madrid

Hi again!! Two post in a week! Let's see how was our gaming week number 20!

Monday
As many of you may know, 14th is our anniversary

So we decided to celebrate it playing one of our favorite games: Agricola. This time we played with the K deck that resulted in a mess with small acquisitions and not following a straight path. But it is so tense that is delightful. Probably we’ll still having Agricola in our shelves despite of having Caverna too, but if I have to choose only one, I’ll choose Caverna: The Cave Farmers because of the freedom of choices (not always thinking about feeding your workers)

Then one quick game of Azul that should be the winner of the Spiel des Jahres (with permission of Luxor) because we tried this week The Mind and… well, wait for it.

For a proper ending, one game of Pueblo that we’ve been playing it a lot lately. It is a master piece that should be re-printed again!

Wednesday

When we were on NYC we bought two Pack-o-games in a Barnes & Noble for $2 each. RUM & SOW and this night we played RUM and… well, I appreciate the effort of shrink a game in 30 cards (with an awkward shape) but the game is pretty bad. Not liked a lot and I do not want to try the others (unless a friend have cribbed before the whole packages).

Friday

Finally a sort-of heavy afternoon! With all the prototypes, contracts, and work with our games, we haven’t a whole spare afternoon just for playing! We started the session with Lorenzo il Magnifico that have been in the shelf for a while. I really like this game and I’m looking forward the expansion (not when it was released because I didn’t felt the need of it). Damn I love the worker placement system!

Then another game that we didn’t play it for a long time: Yamataï. This was a feast of coins and fans. I still prefer Five Tribes despite not being the same game but… it has reminiscences of it. Anyway, the game is pretty clever and it’s THAT beautiful that it is a pitty to put it back to the box.

After dinner, we wanted to play anything else so we played one game of Oh My Goods!, because we want to play the expansion soon. The game is quite random and if you’re expecting a quite strategic game, this is not. You get/discard cards in order to –sometimes- put your factories running… but not always you’ll achieve that. Anyway, I like this game that is played in 20’ because, ok, there’s no strategy but I still having fun.

We played a couple of games of Hanamikoji after going to bed! This was the first time I win in the first round! We always go to the third round and then do the scoring. It is a gem that everybody that regularly plays with two must have.

Saturday

Yes. Too much work with prototypes but we cannot contain ourselves. This is a new mid-weight eurogame that worked awesomely well in its first try (for a first try, the game failed everywhere hahahha). We expect to have it ready for showing to people in a month or two. This short amount of time is due because we dismiss a lot of cool mechanics in The Red Cathedral that we applied them to this design.

A couple of friends came by and we played one game of Raiders of the North Sea, that is a winner with people that do not want a heavy euro but a straight forward game. It was a little bit long for me but we having great fun.

They were on Germany a couple of weeks ago and they brought us The Mind and That's Pretty Clever! (before they were nominated!) and we wanted to finally try The Mind. And… we had fun, yeah, but… is this even a game? I mean, when people told me that you start “reading” the mind of your friends I was expecting another thing. Oh boy, I hope Azul gets the SdJ or I’ll be very disappointed.

Sunday

We didn’t give up that early (I believe in second –or third chances) with The Mind so we played it only the two of us, twice. I liked the most with more people (because it got harder) and I still looking for the special effect of the game.

But we try That's Pretty Clever! and this was pretty well! Not sure if deserves a SdJ nomination but the game is cool. Like a Qwixx on steroids with more decisions. Two games in a row and I think that it will hit the table very often.

By afternoon we played one game of Riverboat that we wanted to play something euro but not too much. So I think that it was a good choice. I like this game but I don’t know if it will be always in our shelves because sometimes it gets too obvious with the decisions… I don’t know! I have to play it more.

And another try! Same result. Insipid game that the only “fun” is not talking at all and expecting not to screw the sequence. All the concept of “synchronizing minds” and stuff now sounds to me like homeopathy, Reiki and Illuminati.

And, for a proper ending of the week, one game new to us: Torres. I liked it a lot, but I see that it will shine more with more players. I love this kind of abstracts that at the end you have a beautiful figure.