All the Meeples of the Rainbow.

Recommend

There was No Context to the Glom Magic Trick

Posted by Steph

Weekly Update

02 Jun 2023

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

Don't forget to pick up my Awesome Gaming Calendar 2023! https://stephsshop.ecwid.com/

I was super excited to get a copy of Magic Trick! I wanted to play it right away at game night!

Magic Trick is a trick-taking game that requires 3-5 players to play. I first learned this a month ago and have been thinking about it a bunch.

You need min 3 players since you will know and arrange the cards of the player to your left before each hand. In your hand you know the suits of each card since the backs are color-coded. You will also know the high end of the cards in your hand. From there you might be able to deduce what cards you might have from what you learned about your neighbor's hand of cards that you arranged.

What makes this game super fun besides playing from your hand totally blind, is that you have to bet on how many tricks you are taking this hand with one of your cards. You only have to decide which card you will use for bidding the number of tricks at some point during the round. So, you have time to try and see what your cards have in store first. It is fun because even if you think you know what card you will flip, it might not be what you expect, and is a shockingly funny surprise to see a 5 when you think it is a 3. You know what I mean.

There is always a surprise element at some point during the hand, and it is great to see that happen. This game puts a smile on your face!

I love trick-taking games and this one feels unique, which is hard to do in the genre.

I know Chris is currently looking for a publisher for the game so it is no longer available on GameCrafter, but I hope it will have a second chance and show up again in the future for more people to acquire it. I think most trick-taking fans will find this game super fun. I look forward to many more plays. It will definitely be a keeper for me.

Microbadge: All the Meeples of the Rainbow blog

Since we were having a game night we got to play a few party-type games as well including Mr. Lovenstein Presents: No Context. New to me!

I hadn't heard of this comic before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect going into this game. Spoiler alert - I was pleasantly surprised!

No Context is a party game where you are wanting people to guess your card in a Dixit/Similo type of fashion. Everyone has their own card to clue in and players will take turns giving clues using other picture cards. The picture cards have a green "like" side and a red "not like" side.

Everyone will want to guess each other player's card at some point. The faster you guess the better possibility for more points if you are correct.

You will clue 3 times in the round and at the end everyone should have guessed something on your row. Ideally, you will want only one person to guess correctly since you and they will gain points. If another player guesses correctly they will also gain a point but you don't get anything extra.

It is sort of like Dixit meets Similo in a way. It is an easy game to pick up and play since the rules are simple. This definitely falls in the party game category and will draw people in with the colorful artwork.

I like that everyone has to give clues for their own card simultaneously and that everyone is guessing on their own. I haven't read the comic but I understand that it walks a line of dirty and not and I found the same with this game, so it felt really thematic. If you enjoy the comic, you would definitely enjoy this game. It is solid.

This is a party game I would gladly play again. You kind of know what you are getting into by the bo cover, but it was more enjoyable than the typical party IP game. I am glad I got to check it out!

Since we needed a bunch of players for Glom that hit the table next! New to me!

While I write a blog, I am not the best with word/sentence creation games. Glom is a game about rewording and being clever with words.

Each round you are presented with a phrase that you have to rephrase/write a new sentence with a similar concept but you have to follow specific guidelines and try to hit the goal more than anyone else to win the round.

Each round will have a new rule and a new goal. A rule might be all 4 letter words have to start with the same letter. The goal might be to have the most words end in the letters "ly".

You can see my chicken scratch in the images below and I think I captured Michael's sentence for one round too.

Michael was the grand master at this game. He is a writer and can creatively think of really great responses. I realllllly struggled with this. I am too narrow in my thinking and just can't see the possibilities. We had the simple sentence "eat your veggies" and I didn't think to list out all of the vegetables where James, Susan, and Michael all had a list of vegetables. I just didn't think of it.

This is a game that will definitely work with the right group, but I am not sure I will ever be part of the right group. It is just too hard for me. I would try again, but it is a struggle.

We played 6 rounds or so and it wasn't a surprise that I didn't win any of the rounds. I was just happy if I formed a cohesive sentence that reflected the original saying. That was a success enough for me.

Not really the type of game that I would want to play again. It is always interesting to play word games though so I am glad I tried it.

Thanks to Dfube, I now have a chance to sell some cool All the Meeples of the Rainbow shirts!
If you enjoy the blog and want to support me and my good friend Dfube you can check them out here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

New to the Collection:

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

2 Comments

Fri Jun 2, 2023 11:00 am

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

Recommend

The Books of Time featured Indiana Jones as the best Horticulturist

Posted by Steph

Weekly Update

24 May 2023

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

Don't forget to pick up my Awesome Gaming Calendar 2023! https://stephsshop.ecwid.com/

New Vid!
Votes for Women

With new the Indiana Jones movie hitting theaters soon, Funko was ON IT with the different Indiana Jones-themed games coming out. Indiana Jones: Cryptic – A Puzzles and Pathways Adventure is one that I haven't yet started but hope to soon, and the other is Indiana Jones: Sands of Adventure that Susan requested we play at a recent game night! New to me!

I just want to put it out there that I haven't seen the series in a VERYYYYY very long time. I started rewatching the first movie and I remember a lot of it simply because I had seen the Live Action show at the amusement park so many times. I couldn't remember the frying pan though.

So, while I am a fan of the series, I am not a die-hard fan. This new Sands of Adventure game is simply perfect for the fans and for the cooperative gamers out there.

It is obvious that the huge spinning sand timer is a gimmick, but it is just so much fun and if you were walking by you would want to know what the heck was going on. It is eye candy and the game has a toy-like feeling. That makes Sands of Adventure a perfect family game too.

The game is played over 3 rounds. Each round you are faced with a new villain you will want to defeat. If you don't beat the first two that is okay, but you must beat the final villain to win the game.

The rounds are broken into 2 phases. The first phase is not real-time and players will take turns moving to new locations and taking action. After their turn, they will have to roll the villain's die and see what the penalty might be. Sometimes the villain's die will result in the villain moving. If he lands on your location, then you have to do something bad depending on the round.

Most of the time will be a gem result. If you roll a gem you will have to add that gem size to the sand timer bucket. If the bucket is ever too heavy and knocks the sand timer over, well you are now immediately into phase 2 of the round. There is a bit of a dexterity element to the game since you don't want the timer to turn if you can manage it.

Phase 2, as you might imagine, is in real-time. You have until the timer runs out to try and defeat the bad guy or there will be a penalty going into the next round.

Through phases 1 and 2 you will want to try and damage the villain. Where in phase one you are taking action to get cards and powerups, you won't be doing any of that in phase 2. Phase two you will play cards quickly and always draw a card at the end of your turn. You need fight cards to fight the villain. If you draw a snake, you have to deal with it by rolling a die. Why'd it have to be snakes?

I think this game is great. We had a fantastic time playing with 4 players and with 2 players on the Livestream (below). It is a hard game to win if those pesky snakes keep popping up. You might not get the cards you need or choose the right actions to add in the later rounds. You do have control over which actions you select, so you have to be smart about it.

I love the choices. The game feels thematic and it is an all-around fun game. I know people will totally dig the theme and have a great time playing this one. The rules are easy to understand and the game is a beauty. This is one that I would be happy to pull out and play. Make sure to play the soundtrack when you play too, it just adds to the thematic gaming experience. I definitely recommend checking this one out.

Last Summer I had the pleasure of working with Board&Dice at GenCon and when we were there we all bunked in an Air BnB house! At the time Filip had a working prototype of Books of Time. I didn't get to play it, but I saw it and it looked awesome. Since then, I have been anxiously waiting for the arrival and this week it showed up and I had to play it! New to me!

First of all, How freaking cute are these bookbinders that come in the game. You are actually crafting books during the game and creating a sequence of pages to mean something and provide actions and bonuses. The whole concept is pretty cool and will catch a lot of people's eye.

The game is played over about 15 turns and you will want to have the most points when it is all said and done.

Each turn you will perform one main action and you can also perform one of the 2 special actions from the chronicle.

Everyone will start the game with each of the starting books. Those books each have 2 pages already. The Chronicle will have a certain number of pages that are randomly determined. Not all of those pages will be used each game so you don't really know what the options might be, and when.

At the heart, Books of Time is really a resource management game where you will want to be very efficient in the actions you take. The more resources you can acquire, the better the next action might be. Since you will need resources to advance on tracks and add pages to your books. When you take those specific actions you can do each of them as many times as you can, provided you have the resources to do so.

Each different book will score differently from one another. You will want to add specific page types to each book and in one case, you will want to have the pages in a specific order. Knowing all of that, you will have to plan your moves carefully and figure out the actions you will want to take and when. I love planning stuff like this. When you add pages to your book, that will suddenly change the actions available to you, so you don't want to add pages willy-nilly, since you will have to work with them later.

Everyone loves some combing, well, you will have a little bit of that here. When you add pages to your books you will gain an instant reward. That reward might allow you to add another page, and so on. It is not always clear in the first play, but I am sure it will become clear with more plays how important those small benefits will be.

It wouldn't be a B&D game without tracks, amirite? We all love some good tracks. The higher you get the better the reward, so you will want to advance those tracks whenever possible. They help unlock better end-game goal tiles and gain you a bunch of victory points at the end of the game. You can't forget about the tracks if you want to score well.

This is a beautiful game. I was instantly drawn to it when I opened the box. I love the idea of crafting your own books. This hits a lot of the features I really enjoy in a game. I love optimizing my turns and figuring out the best course of action.

Michael found the game to be a bit all over the place. He felt like there was no rhyme or reason to do one thing over another. he didn't feel like each book had a theme or a direction. What you can do in the green book was the same as in the yellow book. He wanted more focus.

This didn't bother me as much as it did for him. I can see his point, but I was just focused on getting the symbols and the pages I wanted. I didn't care as much about the actual actions or benefits on the page. Since it won me the game, it kinda makes it seems like the actions on the pages aren't as important as maybe they should be. It is hard to say since we only played one game.

No, I don't think this game will be for everyone. I certainly enjoyed it and am looking forward to another play in the coming weeks. I think I might bring it to game night and see what they think. I do actually think this game might be best as a 2-player experience since adding more people might just add to the downtime between turns. Hard to say at this point though.

Super happy to get the chance to play it and I am sure we will be streaming it in the near future.

There is always time for a quick roll-n-write game so Michael and I tried out Horticulture. New to me!

Horticulture is a flip-and-write game where you are trying to plant the best garden. If you can score the most points you will win!

Each turn the active player will draw two cards and choose one of the options. One card will be discarded and the other will be used for all players. The cards show 2 symbols and everyone will get to draw both of those symbols on their board.

Depending on the symbols you will want to have groups of them in certain counts. The tree will want individual groups of 1. The grapes are like groups of 6. If you have a group with more of that type you gain no additional points. On top of the normal scoring, you will also have to choose certain symbols at the start of the game to gain additional points. Picking one symbol type to be on the outer edge of the map, or along the path. You will get to customize this before the game begins.

Horticulture is a really easy game to play and will accommodate really any number of players since people are playing off of the same card information. You only need to change up some starting card situations and how the path is laid out, but it is easy to manage.

Michael and I have played a few times now including on the Livestream. Since you never really know what cards will be in play, it is hard to judge what a good strategy will be. It is kind of random, I suppose. I still enjoyed my plays and would gladly play again. I don't think it really replaces any other flip and writes for me, and I am not sure it offers enough to stand out in a crowded space of roll n writes. That said, it will be fun for those who enjoy the theme and just want a quick filler game that will handle a lot of players.

Glad to check it out.

Thanks to Dfube, I now have a chance to sell some cool All the Meeples of the Rainbow shirts!
If you enjoy the blog and want to support me and my good friend Dfube you can check them out here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

New to the Collection:
(went to a flea market...)
To Court the King
Micro Macro Crime City
Twlight Inscription
Blitzkrieg Lightning Warefare
Dead of Winter
Just One
The Crew
Twilight Struggle Red Sea Conflict
Long Shot Dice Game
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
Mr. Jack
Castles of Burgundy
Tribes Dawn of Mankind
Star wars Talisman
Bitoku
Lacrimosa
Inis
Challengers 2 Prototype
Eclipse
hamlet

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

4 Comments

Wed May 24, 2023 11:00 am

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

Recommend

The Votes For Women in My City were Clever 4Ever!

Posted by Steph

Weekly Update

22 May 2023

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

Don't forget to pick up my Awesome Gaming Calendar 2023! https://stephsshop.ecwid.com/

New Vids!

Mille Fiori

Gosu X

Rome in a Day

Michael and I were able to try out Votes for Women. New to me!

This is a game that plays 1-4 players so we went to try it on game night but learned pretty quickly that it is really best as a 2-player game so we put it off until Michael and I could just play.

Votes for Women is an area influence game that is card-driven. One player is playing as the Opposition side and the other plays as the Suffragist side. Depending on the side you are fighting for you will want the 19th amendment to pass or not.

The game is played over 6 rounds and in each round both sides will get to play 6 cards to try and sway the different states in their favor. The Suffragist player will need to sway Congress to pass the bill for the votes to actually happen. If they can't make that happen then the Opposition side will automatically win. If they do pass it then the states will have to go to a vote. The opposition side will only need 13 states to reject it to win, but if they don't get those then the Suffragist side will win.

Votes for Women is a smooth game with really interesting card play. The sides have different benefits and abilities so it is asymmetrical and each has its own challenges to face.

I think if you enjoy other games like Twilight Struggle, then you will find this one very interesting and easy to get into. The flow is nice and there is always something to think about. You have to play the defensive and take the opportunities to strike when you can.

While this isn't really my try of the game, I can see why people would absolutely love the game. It is one I would be happy to play again. Having played the game twice now, I am starting to see how the card play and strategies would change over time. Knowing the deck and what cards will arise will definitely change things for future games. It is an elegant game.

I didn't care for the fact that the play came down to die rolls for majorities in each state. I didn't stand a chance since I just can't roll the dice well. You can mitigate that with button tokens and possible cards, but there is still so much luck with the dice. besides all that dice rolling at the end of the game, I liked the actual gameplay a lot more.

Michael absolutely loved the game and will likely rank this one very high for this month of gaming. For me, I am definitely happy to have tried it and I am very likely to play it again in the future. It works well for the theme and the mechanics. I would recommend trying Votes for Women to see if it is a good fit for your shelves.

Ever since I got this delivered I have been anxious to get My City: Roll & Build to the table. New to me!

I have played through My City 3 times so far and I still want to play through it more and more! My City is one of my favorite games to come out in recent years.

I have always loved roll-n-write games so when I heard My City was also roll n write game I was super thrilled!

This new game is also broken down into chapters and episodes. You can play one episode and continue later or play the 3 episodes and finish the chapter. As you play through the game, you will unlock new rules and different ways to score points, and new obstacles to overcome.

Michael and I haven't really gotten too deep into the game so I can't speak for the full experience. But even after one game, I know this is a game I am going to love. I don't see why I wouldn't love it more and more as the game continues, just like the big game.

They include enough paper to play many different times. If you enjoy one level you can play it a bunch.

I will likely laminate all the levels eventually, but that is a lot of paper. It is a game I know I will want to revisit a bunch. This has everything I love.

My City: Roll and Build is a game I would highly recommend. This is a game that is fun for everyone!

I was feeling like we should play some more roll-n-write games and I just got in Clever 4Ever!

This is a game I was able to learn in April and just loved it! I was so happy to see that Stronghold is coming out with it any day now!

As you might expect, this is the 4th game in the Clever series. If you enjoy the series then this will be an easy addition to your collection.

4Ever offers a new board while you still use the same mechanics when using the dice. Each area is a new challenge. I particularly like the new grey region that you need to fill in different areas to score the points.

It is seriously difficult to collect those foxes. I have only managed to collect 3 of them in the games I have played and generally, that makes for a low score.

Michael learned the game when we played and he totally beat me! As expected he really enjoyed it too.

I do like this 4th game in the series better than the 3rd one. But I still prefer the second Clever game best. In any case, I will keep 4 next to my other games in the series on the shelf! Always a good time to get this to the table! I look forward to playing on stream soon!

Thanks to Dfube, I now have a chance to sell some cool All the Meeples of the Rainbow shirts!
If you enjoy the blog and want to support me and my good friend Dfube you can check them out here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

New to the Collection:
Magic trick
Glom
Darwins Journey
No Context
Books of Time
Wingspan Oceania

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

0 Comments

Mon May 22, 2023 11:00 am

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

Recommend

There was a Galaxy Rush that the Gosu was starting from Ierusalem

Posted by Steph

Weekly Update

17 May 2023

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

Don't forget to pick up my Awesome Gaming Calendar 2023! https://stephsshop.ecwid.com/

Got an order of more shirts!! I love my maroon one best

You can order them here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

I got this very heavy box from Devir Games and I just knew it would be a crunchy Eruo inside! Michael and I were looking forward to checking out Ierusalem: Anno Domini. New to me!

Ierusalem is a highly thematic game where we are mere followers who want to see and be close to Jesus at the Last Supper. As we try to get all of our followers to the table we want to be close to the apostles and Jesus himself. The closer you can be the more points you will get.

Ierusalem is a game about managing your resources in order to put followers into the fields to help you gain more resources and eventually, you will want to send them over to the Last Supper.

This is a very high-scoring game, and if you can score the most points at the end of the game you will win.

During the game, there are a lot of possible actions that might happen on your turn. It all depends on the cards you play and the actions you are able to activate. With every card, you will find the main action and then a secondary action or actions. the game is very icon heavy since it is meant for many languages. Once you figure out the icons, the flow is easier to grasp and it moves along nicely.

Generally, you will just play one card and carry out all the actions. Several actions will give you follow-up bonuses or trigger other effects, so you have to be aware of the chain effect that might take place.

The final thing you can do on your turn is to spend 2 coins to buy a new card from the display or on top of the deck. The cards you buy will get added to your hand, but they are one-time use and will generally be a better card than any of your starting cards. it is a high cost, but the reward card is better.

You are limited on space in your warehouse so you want to try and remove all your followers from there as soon as possible to open up more space for resources and bird tokens. The resources are what you need in order to go to the supper. You have to bring an offering to get a seat at the table.

Timing is everything. If you can play your cards in the appropriate order, you will be able to trigger an apostle. You will get to move the associated apostle and seat him at the table. You will also gain his one-time bonus, which is always really great. They range from 4-6 points and if you are sitting closest to the 6-point apostle you will gain 6 points at the end of the game. you want to place them wisely so you gain the most points.

Since I have only played the 2-player game, we ended up playing with the helping followers that are set up at the beginning of the game already in the Last Supper area. You can claim them during the game and place them in groups to score points during the game. These followers aren't there during the 3-4 player game and instead, you will have favors you provide to other players.

Let's just say there is a lot to do and timing is important.

Learning the game was a bit of a beast since there is so much iconography. Once we got past all that and actually played the game it seemed to be a nicely flowing game. It will be long with any player count though. Since you will want to be most efficient with your turns and to do that you will have to wait to see how other players take their turns.

Michael and I were doing completely different things all game. He was ahead for almost all of the game and collecting the story tiles. I had to take some drastic measures toward the end of the game to get in every point I could. I took a seat in front of Judas so I could then swap out his meeple with mine and he would have to take the hit. it was rude but necessary.

Image after all that, we ended up tied with 237 points each. The tie-breaker and second tie-breaker rules didn't apply and we ended up sharing victory. ouch!

Aside from the one mechanic I really don't like, I think the game is really solid. I don't like the one mechanic that allows you to swap two meeples at the dinner. I would have just removed that from the game and found another possible action instead.

Besides that, there are so many great things to enjoy about this game. The way the cards are played and all the different paths you will want to try and shoot for. It is really hard to pick and choose since you will want to do everything all at once. This is a really nice game and I think all fans of med-heavy Euro-style games will really really enjoy this one. I would highly recommend checking it out if you think you would enjoy such a game.

I look forward to playing Ierusalem again really soon on the Livestream and with a bigger group of people to see how the higher player counts change the game up a bit. Should be fun!

Michael and I wanted to check out a fast game called Galaxy Rush next! New to me!

Galaxy Rush is a new 2-player set collection and drafting game that plays in about 20 minutes. If after 4 rounds you have scored the most points you will win! We already did a video for it found below if you want to see a playthrough!

In Galaxy Rush, each round you will get to draft up to 6 cards. There are two rows of 6 cards each and the player in the first row will get to choose which card they would like to take. The second player can choose to take the leftover card or jump to the next selection and choose one from that mix instead.

There are several types of cards and when you take a card you can take it for whatever it shows, or you can flip it over and use it for distance traveled.

Some cards are set collections, some are resources, and others are heroics that just gain you points. The resources are used to make discoveries and each round those discoveries will want more and more resources in order to claim them, but they give more and more points too.

At the end of the round, you will evaluate who traveled the furthest distance and make a prediction. Predictions will be like "have the least amount of discoveries". All of the predictions will be evaluated at the end of the game and you can place your prediction on either player.

After just 4 rounds the game will end and you will tally all of your points from all of the different cards you have collected and the medals you won and predictions you made.

The first game was definitely a learning game for me. I did all the things poorly. I didn't collect resources early enough, I traveled much too far and ended up losing by a lot. I turned my gameplay around for the second play and ended up doing much better! At least that play is on the Livestream video!

It all comes together very nicely and works perfectly for a 20-minute game. It is easy to learn and play.

Michael had a breeze learning the game and then playing the few times we have already played. I know this is going to work well for couples who enjoy a quick 20-minute game. It is super solid and one worth checking out!

Michael and I tried out the new edition of Gosu called Gosu X. New to me!

I haven't played Gosu at all before this newest edition so I can't really speak to what the changes are.

In Gosu X, players will draft 3 different clans to mix together to form a deck of cards. The game is played in several bouts or if one player can achieve an instant win, they will win the game by that method.

This game is designed for 2-players so you are going head-to-head against your opponent. Each clan will have its strengths to help you combo your way to victory.

On your turn, you have only a few options as to what to do and the most common action will be to play a card from your hand to your tableau and trigger its ability. You are trying to build up your army when you play cards to the tableau. You have the typical army cards that are the baby cards then you have heroes that are slightly more powerful and the best cards in your deck are the immortals which will have the best powers of all.

In order to play the best cards you will have to have the matching suit in the army row and hero row to play an immortal.

The game is fairly straightforward and easy to grasp. The difficult part I find with any card game is the terms and how everything on the cards aligns and triggers.

it is always fun to draft clans and see how you can combo cool effects from the different cards.

What I like about the game besides the amazingly beautiful artwork, is how they have clan cards that tell you what each clan's strength is. If you want to go into more drawing of the cards choose blue. If you want to destroy cards then choose silver, etc. You get to craft your gameplay from the start of the game when you draft the clans.

There are tons of strategies since there are so many ways to win the game. I have only played the once and I can see how any number of those ways could be a viable strategy.

In our first game, we had a bunch of questions as you normally would with various cards. We could find most of the answers from the forums and past games, but I am sure there will be more questions as we play it.

Michael completely crushed me, as expected. I couldn't keep up with his display of cards and he would win all the epic battles at the end of each round.

I think the game is fairly good and I want to give it another go. Definitely a game for the fans of duel-style games. I see the appeal 100%. Is it a game I would return to frequently play, no it isn't really my type of game, but I would play again. It is a solid game and worth a look. I am told that Gosu is on BGA so maybe I should give it a go sometime.

Thanks to Dfube, I now have a chance to sell some cool All the Meeples of the Rainbow shirts!
If you enjoy the blog and want to support me and my good friend Dfube you can check them out here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

New to the Collection:

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

8 Comments

Wed May 17, 2023 11:00 am

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

Recommend

The Chroma Mix in the Galileo Project had the Mother of Frankenstein dazzled

Posted by Steph

Weekly Update

15 May 2023

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

Don't forget to pick up my Awesome Gaming Calendar 2023! https://stephsshop.ecwid.com/

New Vids!
Stack'n Stuff: A Patchwork Game

Papageno

Big Boggle

It was game night and I asked Susan what she wanted to try and she pulled the most beautiful game off the couch called Galileo Project. New to me!

I knew Galileo Project was a MUST-PLAY for me simply because of the cover art which is stunning. I honestly didn't know much about the gameplay so was looking forward to trying this one to see what it was all about.

In Galileo Project, you will have to recruit people and robots to obtain influence, mega credits, energy, track advancements, and more that will help you score the most victory points at the end of the game. The end of the game will trigger when either a player has 10 robots, or the deck of people cards has depleted.

Each turn, you will choose 1 of 3 possible actions. You can spend influence to gain a robot, hire a person, or claim a technology.

One of the best features of this game is the influence track. When you are on the track you have either influence for Mars or Earth. Depending on the side you are on you can only claim robots from that particular site, or when you recruit a person you will gain only the appropriate benefit. At the start of your turn you can pay a precious mega credit to change sides so you can take the turn you actually want from the correct location.

The people cards have an instant effect or an end-of-game scoring condition. No matter what, if you claim a person as your action you will gain the influence they have. You are limited to the number of people you have collected for the end-of-game points, so you have to pick and choose carefully for your strategy.

When you take a robot card, you will gain a bunch of things. The level of the robot will advance your track that many spaces. If the bot has two moons, you will first have to decide which moon to place him on then advance that corresponding track. When you take a bot you will also get to activate the bot's ability. There are 4 bot types and each bot will gain a reward based on how many of that bot type you already have in play. The more the better. The higher the track levels the better the abilities of the tracks. MORE IS BETTER!

Technologies are hard to come by since they require precious energy to obtain them. They are super powerful if you can claim though and will often give a one-time bonus like a level 7 modifier to put on a robot. Love that!

At the end of each of your turns you can claim an achievement if you meet the conditions. The first one to claim will gain the most points. Up to 3 players can claim each award.

The game is actually not too complicated. Once you get past the symbols and can build a strategy the flow is quick and exciting. As with any engine builder, you will see paths you will want to follow and try to exploit what you can.

We found the 4-player game to be a bit longer but we were all learning. When Michael and I played on the Livestream it was snappy and we could play the game in an hour.

Michael and I both really love the game. There are plenty of strategies to try and everything is well balanced so you can never really tell who might end up winning the game. It has been close in both of our plays and I was surprised with BOTH results once we scored.

The technologies are double-sided for added replay and there are a few other setup changes to make to keep it just slightly different each time. This game was a huge hit that Susan also went out and picked up a copy for her family when we were done.

We all adored it and want to play it more! This is a definite keeper and one of the best games of the year! Highly recommend checking out Galileo Project!

Michael and I had Vol 1 to try of the new game called Mother of Frankenstein. New to me!

Mother of Frankenstein is an Escape the room type of game where you will need to complete a series of puzzles in order to win. One puzzle before the next to help unlock the hidden codes.

There are three volumes that complete the entire series. I believe this was on KS as one big game, and Arcane Wonders picked it up and separated it into 3 volumes.

What I played was just the first volume. Inside Volume 1 there are a series of puzzles to work through. They are divided into 4 sections Poetry, Astronomy, Music, and the Letters (finale).

The theme is Mary's love affair with Percy Shelley. You will have to figure out the symbols and order from the various writings and puzzles.

Once you figure out the rings of symbols there is one massive puzzle at the end of the game involving the written letters between Mary and Percy.

Without getting into too much detail, I will say I think the game started out fairly poorly. We really hated the first poetry puzzle and found it lazy. We continued on to Astrology and found that to be slightly more interesting.

From Astrology we opened the Music envelope and this was also fairly interesting. The one major comment Michael had with this envelope is that none of the music notes relate to actual music names. They were just calling the notes by one beat and two beats etc. Why not use the actual names? It confused Michael more when figuring out the actual puzzle. The puzzle was actually okay though.

The final letters challenge was good too.

In general, I am glad we made it through the entire volume and didn't quit after the first envelope that was actually disappointing. It was worth plaything through the rest to solve it all. Turned out to be a positive experience.

While the theme doesn't pull me in, I do think fans of Mary Shelley would find the contents of this game very interesting. I also think fans of puzzle games like this will enjoy it as well. I would be curious as to what Volume 2 has in store so we will see where the story leads. Definitely worth checking out.

Just in case you don't want to see the images I put them in a spoiler. Michael and I also recorded a review video to tell you more about the game.

Spoiler (click to reveal)

Everyone knows I love color so any new game about color is one I will want to try! I was approached to check out a new game called Chroma Mix. New to me!

Chroma Mix is heading to KS on June 1 so what you see in the photos is a prototype copy of the game.

In Chroma Mix, you are racing to reach one of three possible victories before the other players. There is also a solo mode to check out.

On your turn, you will have options for what you want to do. You can play a card in your hand to your tableau area to gain the benefit on the card, you can choose two cards in your hand to mix into a new color and claim that card from the display and add it to your hand, or you can pick up any number of cards from your tableau and add them to your hand.

The game plays out fairly quickly since it is a race you don't want to dilly-dally with your strategy. You want to pick a way and go the best path you can to get there.

There is a display of cards that you can claim by mixing two cards together. There is a light deck-building element in this one, but when you mix cards you are actually discarding the ones used to make the new card. So you have to be mindful of the new cards you are claiming since you want to always be able to gain the basic colors if you need to.

The basic colors are level one, but you can mix two basic colors to get a level 2. You can mix a level 2 and a level 1 to make a level 3 color or you can mix level 3 and 1 / 2x2 to make a level 4.

The level 4 colors will offer ways to score the game. If you have the ruby you can play that card down to win if you have both the Emerald and Sapphire cards as well. The Sapphire card will win you the game if you have 16 cards in hand. The Emerald card won't win the game but will help to win the game since you can also win by having 17 points in your tableau.

This game is about finding the best combos and exploiting them to get ahead and gain a lead to getting those level 4 cards. It is an efficiency engine and will feel like programmed turns if you plan everything out properly.

We played as a 4 player game at game night and once we got past the iconography, everything seemed to flow nicely.

While I am not the biggest fan of race to the end games, this was fine. I think I will like it better as a 2-player game, but I am glad we were able to play before the Kickstarter happened. I had a good time playing. Michael felt it was a bit too programmed for his liking. I like the optimization puzzle though.

If you think you might enjoy this one, be sure to check out the Kickstarter on June 1!

Thanks to Dfube, I now have a chance to sell some cool All the Meeples of the Rainbow shirts!
If you enjoy the blog and want to support me and my good friend Dfube you can check them out here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

New to the Collection:
Horticulture
Galaxy Rush
Blob Party
Custom Heroes
Eight Minute Empires Legends

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

4 Comments

Mon May 15, 2023 11:00 am

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

Recommend

Etariya had a Boo-ty Call with the Magic Rabbit

Posted by Steph

Weekly Update

12 May 2023

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

Don't forget to pick up my Awesome Gaming Calendar 2023! https://stephsshop.ecwid.com/

New Vids!

Sobek: 2 Players – Treasures of the Pharaoh

Tinderblox

Pick-a-Dog

Michael and I wanted a quick game and this Magic Rabbit game has a timer on the box that says 2:30! New to me!

Magic Rabbit is a real-time cooperative game where you want to get all the hats in order from 1-9 with all of the corresponding rabbits inside. You will have pesky doves get in your way to help slow down the process. You have 2 minutes and 30 seconds to work it all out.

Each turn the active player can swap two hats (without doves), swap the entire hat stacks including the rabbit under it, or look at a stack so you can see the bunny inside the hat. Only you know the rabbit information if you look at a stack since you can't communicate with other players. Once you finish your turn you can move a dove to a new stack if you want.

The game is pure chaos and so much fun!

Michael and I played our first game and lost with a few wrong hats in the line-up. When we played on stream we were on fire! We managed to get a perfect game.

Inside the game box, there are 3 envelopes that unlock harder and harder levels to accomplish. I was already amazed that we were able to win the basic level after our first debacle. After we showed off a tease of envelope 1 in the video below we cut the video. From there we continued to play through all of envelope one! There are 4 new rules you can include to make the game slightly harder. It was nuts! I have no idea how we will be able to win the level 2 challenges, but I look forward to seeing what they are and trying them out.

Such a cute game and a lot of fun to pull out and play when you have a few minutes.

Michael and I were looking for a 2-player game and we had an early prototype of Etariya to check out. New to me!

Etariya is heading to KS any day now! so be sure to check out the get notified page.

Etariya is a 2-player abstract game where you are trying to gain control of the different colors. If you can collect 4 of the colored tokens before the other player you will win.

The game comes with several clear cards that will be placed randomly to make up the playing field in each game. Each player will start with 3 discs in front of themselves. On their turn they will play those 3 discs then draw 3 new discs.

The discs will be played onto the field and if it is a new color then it can go anywhere on the board except a corner. If there is already a matching color on the board then you must place the new disc adjacent to at least one of that matching color.

If 4 matching colored discs are on your land type either light or dark, then you will win the token associated with that color.

When you go to place a disc on the board if there is no legal space, because it has all been blocked off, then you will add the new disc to an area with that same color. You will then have a stack of 2 on one terrain type.

There is a strategy in how you place the discs because you want to create barriers and give yourself an advantage whenever possible. If you know you will lose a region, just make it so all of those discs are added to your opponent's land which will leave open all of your land for future placements.

It is an easy game and quick game that I have now played twice. The rules are easy and the game is gorgeous. This will work for casual gamers who just want to play something before dinner or something that isn't so deep.

In the rules, there are also variants to try out for different ways of drafting the discs and optional turns with a 4th disc. I love that there are different ways to check out.

This is a nice game and I think many will enjoy it once the KS launches. happy I got to try it out.

It was game night and I had a game that needed 3+ players to play so I suggested we try out the new Boo-ty Call. New to me!

This isn't a game I would usually be drawn to since the name is really risqué. It usually leads to awkward situations with the wrong group.

Thankfully the cards were hilarious and it was easy to brush the theme to the side and roll with it.

The game is sort of like Similo in a sense. There is the active ghost player who knows which ghost card is the correct one. The player to their left will have to draw 2 clue cards and choose one to give to the ghost. On the card might be something like Charades, or sound effects, etc. Then the ghost player has to try and clue in the card.

All other players will get the chance to guess the card that is being clued in. If it is correct then both the ghost player and the correct guessing player will get a point. The first player to 5 points will win the game.

The cards are hilarious and so funny. The artwork is spot-on for this type of game.

Who knew that James would be king of Boo-ty Call?! Hahah not exactly a game for all situations but it was better than the average game with this type of theme. You can tell the target audience for the game and I think it will work for those groups.

This is a game I would certainly play again, but probably not suggest. It is also a game I didn't want to stream since I have a stream I would want kid-friendly and I don't think this is a kid-friendly game.

I am glad we were able to try it.

Thanks to Dfube, I now have a chance to sell some cool All the Meeples of the Rainbow shirts!
If you enjoy the blog and want to support me and my good friend Dfube you can check them out here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

New to the Collection:
Riftforce
Watergate
Ierusalem Anno Domini
Earth
Illiterati

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

2 Comments

Fri May 12, 2023 11:00 am

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

Recommend

The Discovery of Rome in a Day was the Foundation for all the great Food!

Posted by Steph

Weekly Update

08 May 2023

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

Don't forget to pick up my Awesome Gaming Calendar 2023! https://stephsshop.ecwid.com/

New Vids!
Meadow: Downstream

Taiwan Night Market

In the Footsteps of Darwin

Jonathan has been asking to play Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition with the expansions and since he had a massive game day we were able to get that to the table!! We played with Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – Discovery and Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – Foundations. New to me expansions!

There were 3 recent expansions all for Ares Expedition. Foundations and Discoveries all add in so much content that Ares players will really enjoy. While I haven't gotten to try Crisis yet, I am SUPER excited to play because I love cooperative games. I can't speak to what else is in Crisis, but I will report back when I do.

Foundations adds in the ability to play with up to 6 players and a larger scoreboard. There is also a 4th track to complete called the Infrastructure. There are cards that go with the Infrastructure track so you can choose to play with it or not.

In Discoveries, there are a lot of cool new features like the chance to upgrade your phase cards for better benefits. There are now Milestones and Awards like you find in the original TM. Since there are so many new cards, they also included cards with a wild suit that you will get to assign when you play the card.

If you were to ask me which expansion is best, I couldn't tell you because they all add in something totally different that every Ares fan would want.

I love the huge pile of unique cards. It means I know that every game will flow in a different way. How can you best combo your cards?

I love the simultaneous card play in Ares so I was very much looking forward to playing with these new expansions.

Even with 2-players, Michael and I chose to include the Infrastructure track, though it suggests you remove it for under 5-player games. It just makes for a longer game, but that is okay by us!

I loved getting the chance to play with 3 players too, that was a rare treat. It really works with all player counts since everyone will simultaneously do the phases together and it is also more likely that more phases will be activated so it will likely keep the game relatively the same length.

Always happy to get this to the table and I will be sure to get Crisis to the table soon! Such a pleasure!

Michael and I decided to build Rome in a Day! New to me!

I have a soft spot for I Split You Choose! This game only has 4 rounds and in just 4 rounds you will split and choose tiles for your city.

The tiles are terrain types and you will want to have the corresponding building to help score points for those terrains.

In each round, the players will divide the 5 terrain types they flipped up, 2 of which have buildings on them that were randomly assigned. The division will have a smaller group and the smaller group will have a bonus of one gem, supplied by the player. There is a set collection element for the gems.

Once the players reveal their screens they will select which set they want from the other player (in a 2-player game). At the same time, they reveal and acquire the tiles taking whatever tiles remain from their split as well.

When you claim the tiles you have to start building your city. You want clumps of the same terrain since it makes it easier to score at the end, but you can just place the terrains next to the builds and not have them adjoin to still score points.

It is actually a very simple and nice game. Michael and I were able to play in just 15 minutes. We had a great time!

This is a great game that up to 5 players can play in just a short filler timeframe. It works perfectly. Maybe I am a sucker for the I Split You Choose mechanic, but it works perfectly here and there is always something to think about.

This is a game I hope more people will get to try as I think it will be a hit. It is simple but works so well! Definitely recommended.

I was looking forward to checking out Linkto Food. New to me!

So at the recent game night, we were able to get this to the table!

Linkto is a cooperative game where you have to make links to different food items with the clues you are given.

In the box you will find 5 levels of difficulty and thus 5 games you can play.

Each level will have one food that does not have a question assigned to it and the goal is to find that food. You have a few chances if you missed the first guess. You will also get points for the correct links you make. The most points you can get is 100 points each game.

The first game in the box is pretty much a gimme, and the questions are very easy - even I might know most of them and I am certainly no foodie. As we played through the rest of the games I knew less and less - because I am no foodie.

I wanted to play this game with James and Susan since I know that Susan and James like to cook and definitely know more about food than I do. If it were just me and Michael playing, we wouldn't have scored as high as we did.

We did very well in the first 2 games and got perfect scores. Then we proceeded to go to 86,85,84. So all in all it was pretty good, but there were definitely some hiccups.

We had a fantastic time playing through the 5 games! I am so excited to check out the other Linkto games and I have the Travel edition on deck. If you aren't a foodie, then maybe you check out one of the other themes!

This will be an instant hit with all types of gamers. I had a great time and definitely recommend it!

Thanks to Dfube, I now have a chance to sell some cool All the Meeples of the Rainbow shirts!
If you enjoy the blog and want to support me and my good friend Dfube you can check them out here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

New to the Collection:
My City Roll n Write
Indiana Jones Cryptic
Indiana Jones Sands of Time
Chroma Mix (proto)

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

11 Comments

Mon May 8, 2023 11:00 am

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

Recommend

The Star Fighters went into the Quixo where they discovered the Affril

Posted by Steph

Weekly Update

20 Apr 2023

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

Don't forget to pick up my Awesome Gaming Calendar 2023! https://stephsshop.ecwid.com/

New vid!
Tapestry: Fantasies & Futures

During a recent game day with James and Susan, we played Star Fighters: Rapid Fire. New to me!

In Star Fighters, you are trying to take out your opponent/s with some rapid-fire dice rolling. If you can destroy another ship you will win the game.

The game is primarily a 2-player game, but it can be played solo, or in teams of 2.

The game is played over several rounds, and in each round, everyone will roll dice and allocate dice to their boards. Certain colors have to go in certain places. There are several areas on the board that do different things. Each area can only be used if you have a command die to use the area. As you can imagine, the command dice need to match the color of the zone it is activating.

Red dice are primarily used for attacking, and blue dice are primarily used for moving around the board.

You can also use a combination of the dice to repair a damaged ship (which I always needed to use).

Since you are rolling dice and allocating dice in real-time. When someone is done they say stop and all players have to hold the rolls. Any unused dice can be saved for the next round to the side.

Players then take turns activating one section at a time provided there are command dice and dice to use in an area.

If you called stop then you get to take the first action. You don't have all of your dice placed to call stop. It can be a tactical move to call a stop to try and throw your opponents through a loop when they aren't ready for it.

Since we were playing as a 4 player game I was selected to team up with James since he is across from me. Per normal, I become a target and start taking damage right away. I was doing a very poor job at moving and thus, I was an easy target.

Eventually, I couldn't manage a repair action in time and my ship was taken out. Poor James, I am a terrible teammate!

Since they can simply target me, James had a pristine ship with no damage on it. Of course, it didn't help that every time I tried to fire on the opponents, I would roll blanks. #mistakesweremade

It is supposed to be a lighthearted attack game with a bunch of dice chucking. I think the game accomplishes that and will appeal to the gamers who enjoy that. I love the look of the game (reminds me of Star Fox).

It is probably better with 2 players since you really have to focus and get some lucky hits. I might have a better idea of what needs to happen. It is a cool game that I am happy I got to check out. It might be a bit too much attacking for me to want to pull out and play, but I would certainly play again.

We had an abstract game to try and Michael is always willing to play them but generally doesn't care for them. Regardless, we pulled out Quixo. New to me!

So many great abstract games from Gigamic, and you can tell this is from them by the white box. They are very distinct in presentation. They also have a wonderful wooden board and cool chunky bits.

In Quixo, you have a bunch of wooden cubes. One side with an X and one side with an O. The rest are blanks.

When you set up the board you will have only blank sides up. Your goal is to get five in a row of your symbol.

Each turn you will take a blank block or a block with your symbol from the outside and then push it in from the opposite side but make sure to turn the block to show your symbol if it was blank.

As you play out the game blocks will be moving all around and you need to position yourself to be pushing into optimal places to make the 5 in a row happen.

Of course in the game that I played with Michael, I thought I was being clever. I stopped him from getting five in a row a few times! I was also trying to position myself for the win. But, alas, I didn't see a possible win condition for him and he beat me!

The game is so quick and simple. All of Gigamic's titles are perfect coffee table games for any casual gamer to enjoy. The rules are simple and the gameplay is quick. I really enjoy the series and will continue to play them with willing opponents.

I think you know if you like abstracts, but if you do then you should check out Quixo!

It was Tuesday night game night and we were looking for a short game. It has been super awesome getting to play all of the new maps for Cartographers. I was excited to check out Cartographers: Map Pack 2 – Affril: Plane of Knowledge! New to me Expansion!

The rules for this map are pretty easy. It comes with 3 new scoring conditions and one of those cards will replace one from the general game.

The map consists of several islands and in order to make a connection from one island to another you have to spend one of your coins otherwise you won't be able to play on those islands.

The only real complaint I have with the map is that the spaces are smaller than normal because they have to try and fit everything in the pictures. It makes sense, and I didn't have a problem with it, but I can see others might have an issue with that.

It was a weird game for sure. We didn't see one monster the whole time. We had almost the bare minimum of cards as well.

So while the game wasn't all that exciting, I still really enjoyed the choices on the maps and trying to figure out when it is best to expand.

Super loving the different map packs and I definitely recommend checking them out when you get the chance!

Thanks to Dfube, I now have a chance to sell some cool All the Meeples of the Rainbow shirts!
If you enjoy the blog and want to support me and my good friend Dfube you can check them out here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

New to the Collection:

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

0 Comments

Thu Apr 20, 2023 11:00 am

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

Recommend

Keep on Trucking while shooting the B-Movie in Mille Fiori

Posted by Steph

Weekly Update

17 Apr 2023

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

Don't forget to pick up my Awesome Gaming Calendar 2023! https://stephsshop.ecwid.com/

Continuing with MOAR expansions! Michael and I decided to try out the new expansion for Roll Camera!: The Filmmaking Board Game called Roll Camera!: The B-Movie Expansion! New to me Expansion!

Michael and I first played Roll Camera a few years back when it came out and really enjoyed it. It was almost the same time when they were getting ready for the B-Movie expansion on Kickstarter! Now the expansion has been released and it was motivation to get this awesome game back to the table!

If you are familiar with the game, it is a cooperative dice game where you need to stage and shoot a film. You want to make a great movie or a so-bad-its-good movie.

The quality of this game in general is just so awesome. I have a box that is like a clapper board and it is so cool.

I was pleased that I was able to fit all of the new expansion bits into the main box with the cool reel case.

In the B-Movie pack, there are some new cards to include for your script to have a middle section. You will also have genre tokens. The new script cards include the theme/genre tokens you need to also collect during the game. You will also gain a bunch of new roles for players to check out!

I think everything meshed together seamlessly. Michael and I had no issues incorporating the new content and it all seemed to fit as it was supposed to.

During our game, we got some great idea cards that helped us get the script cards that worked best for what we were doing. We managed to make a movie that was solely focused on Robots and Cowboys and it was such a drama!

It wasn't an easy game for us, I thought we were doomed when we were running out of funds and days, but with some brainstorming, we managed to make it all work and we had a total blockbuster of a movie by the end of it.

Maybe Michael and I should get into the filmmaking business. Seems like Robots and Cowboys are a good mix.

Fantastic expansion for a great game. I would definitely recommend checking out this expansion and base game if you haven't already.

MOAR EXPANSIONS! Well this time during gameday, Susan was willing to give Galaxy Trucker: Keep on Trucking a go in order to please James, who LOVES the game! New to me expansion!

When I play Galaxy Trucker I am usually teaching new players, so I don't often get to include the expansion, but I was super excited to see what Keep on Trucking had to offer.

This is an expansion for the new edition of Galaxy Trucker that came out in 2021. If you are familiar with the older version of Galaxy Trucker you will recognize a lot of the extra added content that is included with this game. There are a bunch of modules that you can choose to play with or not.

Many will recall the Rough Road cards to help balance the game for those who are excellent vs those who are just starting and need a handicap.

There are a whole bunch of new tiles that you can mix into the tile pool that will give you boosters, a new alien type, armored plating, duel-purpose tiles, and more!

There are some new titles to mix in and they are awesome!

You can use new shipboards that all have special rules and making it so much harder to make it back in one piece. I like the added challenges along with the new ship parts to make it extra challenging.

I haven't ever really been good at Galaxy Trucker, but I like to have a perfect ship. I am the kind of gamer that wants to make it back with no wreckage. I hateeeeeeeeeee losing a piece of my ship since I know it will ultimately mean destruction. I am the player that usually owes money, in the end, or has 1/6th the amount the leader has.

My problem is that I try to finish quickly and start out in the lead, but that often ends in my demise. I need someone else to take the lead. There is a balancing act that I haven't yet mastered. Oh, and I also don't look ahead at the cards to come out. It is so stressful! So yeah, I should look at those cards, but forget to. I am so caught up in trying to make that ship perfect.

Regardless of all my missteps, I always have a great time playing the game. We played on stream and we also played with James and Susan and I had a great time in both games. The added stress with more players is real. The game is so hard! I do like the chaotic nature of a 4 player game though. It is fun to see how everything shakes out.

Highly recommend this Keep on Trucking Expansion for Galaxy Trucker! Worth checking out if you love the game as much as I do. Super fun!

I had been wanting to play Mille Fiori again for a long time. I first learned it at BGG Con 2021 and simply loved it!

So excited to see it get released in the US and glad to see it getting so much love. This is the kind of game that goes over well with most groups! It doesn't hurt that the game is GORGEOUS too. Oh man, so pretty!

If you aren't familiar with Mille Fiori, it is a new Knizia game. If you're a fan of drafting games then I think you will enjoy this one. If you enjoy several mini-games to work on, then you will enjoy this game. If you like lots of ways to score points, then you will enjoy this game.

Each area on the board acts a little differently and there is always a way to gain extra bonus points for activating an area "completely". Ideally, you can work on each area and gain that bonus as fast as you can for each area.

The whole game is gauging the cards in your hand and how they can help you and seeing what other people are doing so you can either try to stop them or beat them to a bonus.

For each of the regions, there is a bit of a race element and an area control element since you want to gain prominent spaces. But, timing is everything.

In the game I played with James and Susan, I managed to get a string of residents. Those points add up, and you can't just let someone run away in any given area. I racked up a lot of points. I was far in the lead for most of the game because I got some early bonuses. Michael and James managed to catch up at different intervals, but no one could pass me by the end.

This game is so super solid! I love the drafting mechanic in general and this one is just perfect! I do think it plays great with 4 players. I haven't yet tried with 2 players, but feel it might be a little open with 2. I am super happy we were able to share this game with James and Susan, I think they enjoyed it too.

Happy to add this to the collection! Here's to more plays!

Thanks to Dfube, I now have a chance to sell some cool All the Meeples of the Rainbow shirts!
If you enjoy the blog and want to support me and my good friend Dfube you can check them out here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

New to the Collection:
Etariya
Linkto Travel
Linkto Food
Zero to 100
Gosu X
Miller Zoo
In the Footsteps of Darwin
Galileo Project
Turing Machine

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

12 Comments

Mon Apr 17, 2023 11:00 am

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

Recommend

The Pharaoh and the Dungeon Scrawlers love Peanut Butter Belly Time!

Posted by Steph

Weekly Update

14 Apr 2023

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

Don't forget to pick up my Awesome Gaming Calendar 2023! https://stephsshop.ecwid.com/

Oh hey! Check me out! I am on the BGG Homepage for Content Spotlight! How cool! Thanks to everyone who watched the videos and checks out my blog posts!

Last April we checked out a prototype that got published recently called Peanut Butter Belly Time.

Nerdy Nuts is a Peanut Butter company and they wanted to make a Peanut Butter game!

Peanut Butter Belly Time is a drafting set collection game. It is perfect for new and casual gamers, but it works for card players and just anyone who loves drafting games.

The game lasts 3 rounds and in each round, you will draft 6 cards. When you draft a card you can either start a new jar, add ingredients to an existing jar or change out the jar for an existing jar. All of the jars have scoring conditions for the types of ingredients included in that single jar.

If you play a card that has a rainbow banner you will get a mystery ingredient and have to add that token to a jar. Most of the tokens are salt tokens and if your jar has 2 or more salt tokens then you will score 0 points for the jar.

After 3 rounds whoever has the most points in their jars will win!

Since the game is very simple for the average gamer, we were able to include the advanced cards to help with a different goal for the jars. These golden cards will score points on them if the ingredients match and that card replaced the jar for the points at the end of the game. It is easy enough to include and you don't have to try for them if you don't want to.

I got to play this with the Tuesday night crowd and then again I played it with Michael on the Livestream recently. See video below!

Since it is a card drafting game, it generally plays better with more people, but I certainly still had a good time playing as a 2player game on stream. When I got to play it at game night it was a 3-player game. Even still, it works well since it is so simple and quick.

I remember playing the prototype with maybe 6 people and that is always fun to see all the displays of cards everywhere.

Great theme for me since I love peanut butter. It makes me curious to try Nerdy Nuts and all the wacky flavors they might have. I have had fun with this one and I hope others can try it out if they enjoy a cute theme and easy gameplay.

Michael and I continued learning some new expansions and this time for a smaller game called Sobek: 2 Players. We learned Sobek: 2 Players – Treasures of the Pharaoh. New to me Expansion!

Sobek 2-player is a game I first learned on BGA last year and really enjoyed it. For a short set-collection game, this one is interesting and just really works!

The Treasures of the Pharaoh expansion adds in some pharaoh tiles that are goods tiles but have a choice of which good instead of the normal one good per tile. The catch is that you have to draw a random corruption token that has a range from 1-6 when you take that pharaoh tile from the board. These tiles are worth 2 scarabs as well, so they are very valuable.

The expansion also includes 2 new Characters tiles and 2 new Pirogue tokens!

Michael and I learned and played quickly, but we weren't really interested in the Pharaoh tiles as much. We didn't want to risk corruption! I ended up picking up one because I was already so deep in corruption, it seemed, so I figured it wouldn't matter. Michael also forced me to take one of the tiles with a pirogue tile, so we weren't sure if I had to take corruption or not, but we assumed I did, and that wasn't great.

Turned out we both had the same amount of corruption by the end of the game, but I had no idea!! I really like the hidden information with those tiles.

Because of the tied corruption, I managed to edge out the win. We had an abrupt ending since most of the tiles were still on the board. I was lucky enough to get all of my tiles played so I didn't have any remaining in my hand. It all sort of came together for me.

It is a small but mighty expansion and if you are a fan of the base game, it would be a no-brainer to include this expansion in your collection. I really enjoyed the new pharaoh tiles and added characters and pirogue tokens. Definitely worth checking out this game if you haven't before and you enjoy 2-player games!!

I was super excited to check out Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Scrawlers – Heroes of Waterdeep because I really enjoyed the first one in the series called Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Scrawlers – Heroes of Undermountain. New to me!

Heroes of Waterdeep is a new standalone game that plays basically the same as the first game, but with new characters and some new mini-dungeons, and other features like collecting coins, that were not in the first game.

The game is simple to learn and fun to play. You can choose to play one map or you can play the standard 3 maps per game. Each player will take o the role of the class of your choice and you will gain a special ability for the game.

On each map, there are different obstacles to overcome. I love that in Waterdeep you will encounter your own personal mini-dungeon when you reach that part of the map. It makes everyone's game slightly different from one another.

The game usually ends once one person has defeated the big baddie at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes there are other conditions and each map is different!

For whatever reason, I am pretty dang good at this game. I am pleased to say, I am undefeated. Maybe my pen is just magic. Well, I know that I generally just go balls to the wall - lookout here I come. I don't really plan or think I just do it and I do it fast. Maybe that is the artist in me, it doesn't have to be pretty it just has to be accurate. I don't know how I win by a lot of points.

In the first game, I got to be the ranger and that role gave extra points for wildflowers so that was automatically helping, and I thought the role might be too good. But I won against Michael on the Livestream too without the power.

I suppose I have found my new calling. Dungeon Scrawler Pro, maybe I can compete.

I am just kidding, but I totally have fun with it. I am glad we were able to stream the game and have some fun. We ended up streaming levels 4-6 so if you were curious about those levels be sure to check out the video below!

A great new game that I hope to play more of. I am really enjoying this series of scrawling through dungeons!

Thanks to Dfube, I now have a chance to sell some cool All the Meeples of the Rainbow shirts!
If you enjoy the blog and want to support me and my good friend Dfube you can check them out here: https://itsyourroll.games/collections/all-the-meeples-of-the...

New to the Collection:
Mother of Frankenstein vol 1

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

0 Comments

Fri Apr 14, 2023 11:00 am

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

All the Meeples of the Rainbow.

Archive for Weekly Update

There was No Context to the Glom Magic Trick

The Books of Time featured Indiana Jones as the best Horticulturist

The Votes For Women in My City were Clever 4Ever!

There was a Galaxy Rush that the Gosu was starting from Ierusalem

The Chroma Mix in the Galileo Project had the Mother of Frankenstein dazzled

Etariya had a Boo-ty Call with the Magic Rabbit

The Discovery of Rome in a Day was the Foundation for all the great Food!

The Star Fighters went into the Quixo where they discovered the Affril

Keep on Trucking while shooting the B-Movie in Mille Fiori

The Pharaoh and the Dungeon Scrawlers love Peanut Butter Belly Time!

Search

Subscribe

Categories

Contributors