Category: Board games
Consimworld 2022: Wargaming in the desert

Consimworld 2022: Wargaming in the desert

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A week before Consimworld, I had mentioned on Twitter that I was excited for the con, and someone had asked if there were any games I was looking forward to playing, and friends, I didn’t have an answer. I felt a little disconnected from the wargaming community this past year, and me not being able to answer that question created a little bit of anxiety, with various thoughts swirling around in my head, the loudest one that said, “do I belong here at this convention?”

Well five days of nonstop gaming in Tempe from Aug. 27-31 shut down my fears about that and I ended up having a wonderful time! There are so many different games you can play in the wargaming sphere, from megagames that last multiple days (something I hope to get into next year!) to 2P card-driven games that can be played in under an hour. Plus, a small highlight of attending an Arizona con during the summer is hearing Midwesterners say, “Oh, 100 degrees isn’t so bad!” when we’re walking to dinner. That #desertlife!

The main room at Consimworld at the Tempe Mission Palms hotel.

My buddy and game designer Dan Bullock arrived on the Friday the day before the con so we did some pre-gaming with a 2P game of Squaring Circleville. I really like the rondel mechanism of this game! My husband usually teaches this game, so I was a little unprepared for teaching it but we got through another enjoyable game of it. 

We’ve succeeded in Squaring Circleville, a real town in Ohio that the game is based on.

Aug. 27

This was the first day of Consimworld! Here’s Dan and me arriving bright and early for gaming!

Dan and I are ready for all the gaming! This was taken before temps hit 110 degrees. It was a hot week!

We started the con with a 3P game of Passtally. This quick filler is such a brain burner! I finally own a copy of it, after playing it at BGG Con Spring eons ago! This is a tile-laying game in which you’re building routes to connect to your markers. You can also build on top of other tiles, which elevates this cute game into super crunchy puzzle. For each turn, you get VPs based on how many tiles your route goes through — horizontally and vertically! 

Passtally is so pretty yet will probably melt your brain.

I then busted out my new copy of Twin Palms, a game I first played at Dice Tower West 2022. I backed the game on Kickstarter and it arrived the day before Consimworld. What luck! Twin Palms is a neat trick-taking card game, where you play pairs of cards and there are only 1-3 suits in the game, depending on player count. The highest pair of cards are determined by a hierarchy of pairs and/or suits, and you may bet before each turn how many tricks you’ll be able to take. It’s a neat twist on an otherwise very familiar mechanism. 

I love the cool retro artwork for this trick-taking game with a twist.

Next up was Pax Pamir. This is a game we play at every single Consimworld, but I am still not very good at it. Players are purchasing cards and creating their tableaus, while trying to gain control of territories at the right moment.  Every game I’ve played is so different. I’m hoping to get my copy from their Kickstarter soon, so maybe there’s a chance for me yet to improve my game! 

Pax Pamir never disappoints! I can never get enough of these components and linen map.

We then played A Study in Emerald, a grail game that’s, for the lack of a better word, insane. The Great Old Ones have taken over the world, and historical figures from the 19th century are either Restorationists fighting against the creatures or Loyalists attempting to defend the status quo. There’s a giant map of Europe, and players are depositing influence into various locations to attack monsters and/or gain cards. There’s hidden roles, deck-building, area control, and possibly zombies! Paranoia is at an all-time high, and when certain markers hit the end of their tracks, the teams compare scores and the side with the lowest score automatically loses. It is quite the experience, and I’m still not sure I’m describing the game correctly! 

A Study in Emerald is quite the experience! And sometimes there are zombies.

The last game on Saturday night was Crescent Moon. This is a new asymmetric area-control game set in the 10th century Middle East, which is laid out in a very small hexagonal-tile map. There are five different factions, and each faction takes 4 actions over the course of 3 rounds, making it a total of 12 actions total. There just aren’t enough actions to do everything you want to do. Each faction has a very clear objective, and the player guides clearly explain what that is and how to best go about your relationship with other factions. And while there are some similarities to Root, there’s a lot more wheeling and dealing to negotiate with your neighbors while you work toward your win conditions. 

A lot happens on this small map for Crescent Moon.

Aug. 28

Sunday began with an epic game of Dune! It was my very first game of this, and we had a complete game with 6 players. I played as the Harkonnen, which excels at treachery, so basically the complete opposite of me in real life. The game plays out over 10 rounds, unless a win condition is triggered (controlling a certain number of strongholds) beforehand. The Dune planet is represented on the main board as a giant circle separated into sectors. At the start of each round, the storm moves, spice shows up on the board and the sandworm can appear to wreak havoc on players’ troops. There’s also battles, which players set up secretly with cards and leaders in their hand and discs showing the number of troops they want to commit. There are also traitor cards, which allow you to activate an opponent’s leaders to immediately lose your conflict. This game is so fun! 

The spice must flow! But watch out for the storm and sandworm — they’re both pretty treacherous.

I would totally love to play this again, especially because I nearly won and lost in the same round! During Round 8, I had a traitor leader card of my opponent I was battling, and I had a 50/50 shot of him using that leader. Unfortunately he didn’t! And I almost lost b/c if I had won that battle, the Bene Gesserit would’ve stolen my victory from me because they had made the prediction (at the beginning of the game per their faction power) that the Harkonnen would’ve won in Round 8. 

We then played La Belle Epoque, a euro-ey cube-pushing wargame. In this game, Central Empires, France, Great Britain and Russia compete with each other to gain control of countries across Europe during the time between the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the start of World War I. The game continues for 9 turns, separated by 3 eras, in which the game could end anytime during the 3rd era with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

We all were learning La Belle Epoque together. It’s a cube-pushing euro-y wargame.

We then ran into Bobby Factor, and it was such a pleasure meeting him in person and gaming all week! He has so many hilarious stories, ones that he’ll love sharing if you ever end up at a convention with him.

These fun guys! From left, Dan, me, Cory Graham, Bobby Factor and Sobhi Youssef.

Aug. 29

Monday began with a game of Dominant Species: Marine. I love, love this game, and I think I played my best game yet! (I came in second, fyi, as the reptiles. Please cheer for me.) I love the worker-placement mechanism of this game, with the limitation that you can only place your worker on a space after your last one on the board, meaning you can’t take an action you’ve already passively skipped. But once dominate in an element, you take a special white pawn that allows you to break some of the worker-placement and unlock some extra action spaces, but most importantly, it allows you to take an extra action before you spend your turn recalling your workers off the board. 

I love the Dominant Species: Marine’s board and color scheme.

I then played a prototype of Vijayanagara: The Deccan Empires of Medieval India 1290-1398. One of the designers Cory Graham is local, and I had a great time gaming with him all week. This COIN-inspired game is so, so good, and I think will usher in a new wave of more accessible wargames. The game is currently on GMT’s P500, and it’s the first game of their new Irregular Conflict Series. Vijayanagara is a 3P game that plays out in about 2 hours, with little downtime for everyone. Players take on the roles of the Delhi Sultanate, the Bahmani Kingdom and the Vijayanagara Empire, and like a COIN game, there’s a deck of cards that determine which two factions can take a turn. But unlike a COIN, the third faction can take a limited command and is still eligible for the next turn. Plus, a good number of events on the cards make it appealing to take the event instead of a full command because it allows your faction to stay eligible, a new twist to other COINs. I can’t wait until this game comes out. 

I really enjoyed playing Vijayanagara: The Deccan Empires of Medieval India 1290-1398. I can’t wait until it’s out!

Aug. 30

Tuesday began with a quick game of Dan’s card game Bowie where you’re playing as four different David Bowie personas trying to stay alive while earning points for recording music. Meanwhile various threats, dark princes and figures of the occult going after them. If any of the Bowies die, everyone loses. 

The Bowies must work together so one of them doesn’t get killed.

We then played Dan’s prototype of Blood and Treasure, a game about the U.S.-Afghan War and the contractors who would profit from it. Players are secretly bidding for market contracts but the trick is you want to bid lower than your opponents but enough so that you’ll receive the cash from your bid. That money can then be used to bid on other contracts but also gain extra pawns to take more actions. Your company will also need to diversify in various industries so that you can collect more contracts and put cubes on them so that when it’s inspection time, you won’t get penalized for non-activity on the contract. It’s an unflattering look at the U.S. government, a unique departure from your usual wargame themes. 

I played a 3P game of Blood and Treasure, a game about American contractors during the U.S.-Afghan war.

Next up was Flashpoint: South China Sea. Harold Buchanan designed this game in the GMT Lunchtime Game series (games that can be played under an hour for two players). I had a chance to playtest this years ago at a previous Consimworld, and I’m so happy to see his design here on table! It’s another accessible wargame that borrows the card-driven game mechanism for its gameplay. Players take on the role of China vs. the U.S., and the game begins with secretly bidding VPs to go first. Players then place economic and diplomatic influence across various regions and countries in the South China Sea to score for VPs each round. I’ll be doing a more in-depth review of this game soon! 

Flashpoint: South China Sea is 2P game that simulates the complex geopolitical contest currently taking place in the South China Sea.

I then played a quick game of Watergate. This is such a tense 2P game, also one that plays in under an hour. One player plays the side of a Washington Post Editor trying to connect Nixon to his informers, while Nixon is trying to hang onto his presidency and not be forced to resign. The cat-and-mouse feel of this game makes this game so good and enjoyable to play. 

Watergate is so tense! Every small move could have giant consequences in this game.

Lastly, I ran a game of Battlestar Galactica, a tradition for Consimworld. This is my absolute favorite game and each game is so much fun, even if us humans lose! So say we all! 

It was such a joy gaming with Harold Buchanan (left) and Bobby! My buddy Mark (back left) joined us for this game.

Aug. 31

On Wednesday, we played a game of Angola. I first learned this game last year (and it was one of my top games that I played in 2021) and have been looking forward to playing another game of it at this con.

Playing Angola a second time, I had a much better grasp on the game. But we still got outmaneuvered!

I played as the FNLA this time around, and it was nice not having to use the blank cards during your turn. I started out strong, getting lucky with the random start of most of my troops being in the north, but then I just got closed in on by FAPLA and by a few turns in, our side had lost the game. Still a great experience (it took most of late-morning to early evening), and I learned a thing or two about clipping chits. 

A similar photo like this got roasted on Twitter because some of the chits were not clipped! The horror!

I then played the working prototype of Forward Ever by designer Sobhi Youssef. This game is set during the U.S. invasion of Grenada, and it’s a trick-taking game where you’re placing influence on the board.. We got through a couple rounds of the game before Sobhi took some notes from some of the players’ feedback. 

We played Sobhi’s prototype for Forward Ever.

Sobhi is also designing After the Last Sky, set during first Palestinian Intifada from 1987-1993. I, unfortunately, didn’t get a chance to play his prototype. Hopefully I’ll get a chance next time we all meet again. There’s been talks to meet up at Harold’s convention in San Diego in November: San Diego Historical Con! I’ve already purchased my ticket for it. Looking forward to more wargaming then! I’ve only ever attended the convention online during the pandemic.

I’m hoping to get a chance to play After the Last Sky next time Sobhi and I are at the same convention.

By then, it was Wednesday evening. We all then thought we were going to do more gaming but instead winded down at a local Mexican place across the street from the hotel, partaking in food, drinks and great conversation. And that was a great ending to my time at Consimworld.

Cheers, Dan! We took a celebratory shot in honor of Dan’s birthday!

During the con, I played 16 games, 17 if you count Squaring Circleville the night before. The convention continued until the following Saturday, but I couldn’t stay the whole week because I had to get ready for another convention. (That post will also be coming down the pike). The only game I purchased during the convention was The Chase of the Bismark, designed by VUCA Simulations, which had a booth at the con.

There was a demo copy of this game during the con. It just looked so awesome!

I enjoyed playing all kinds of games: some new, some old, some under an hour and others that lasted a big chunk of my day. I met some lovely gamers and game designers, and learned more about design and the publishing process during my week with them. Thanks, Consimworld, for having me this year! It’s been a blast! See you next year!
Friendship Con 2022: Phoenix

Friendship Con 2022: Phoenix

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It’s July and the summer is halfway over! The heat in Phoenix is getting to be unbearable (112 degree days, anyone?), and one way to combat the heat is by staying inside and playing board games. During the last week of June, my two friends flew to Phoenix to visit my friend and me so that we could host this year’s Friendship Con! I look forward to this week every year so that I can disconnect from work and just hang out and play games with friends for five days! 

We love good swag here at Friendship Con. We got water canteens for everyone, plus a variety of stickers.

Wednesday

We kicked off gaming with QE! This has been my go-to short-ish game of late. The game is just bonkers because it’s essentially no-limit betting! Nations are secretly bidding on industry tokens, which are worth VPs and other points for set collection purposes, and the winner is the one with the most VPs. But if you’re the person who bid the most during the game, you’re immediately ineligible to win, despite possibly having the most VPs. It also has an element of hidden information because only the starting bidder on each turn can see everyone’s bid.

QE is a delightful game of no-limit bidding!

We then played a game of Container. I can never quite wrap my head around this economic simulation game, in which you’re building factories, producing goods, selling goods, storing goods, auctioning off goods and storing them on your island, but I always have a good time playing it! The trick is that you can’t really do any single of these things from your port (except build factories and produce goods), but instead they have to come from other player’s supply chains and warehouses. I also enjoy the auction element of this game: bidding on ships that get to the island, ships that you don’t always completely full of goods. The final score is also calculated based on a personalized secret objective card where goods are worth different points, but the goods that you have the most of are removed from scoring. 

Shipping and bidding on goods in Container. Dang, those supply chain issues just get to you!

Wingspan was next. From its superb components (don’t you just want to chomp on those eggs like they’re filled with chocolate?) and engine-building game play, Wingspan never disappoints. And while I haven’t deluxified my game (other than a giant 3D printed bird that I use as the first-player marker), the game just feels so lux and fun to play with. There’s also something super satisfying about the combos and activating your birds, while learning all about them. I also enjoy that as the rounds progress, you’re left with fewer real actions, yet with the birds you have laid out in your tableau, it feels like you’re doing even more with each turn. 

All the pretty birds — and some murder birds — in Wingspan.

We decided to continue the nature theme with a game of Cascadia. This puzzly tile-laying drafting game is always such a delight to play, even if the player to your right keeps taking your salmon tokens! It was one of the top 10 games I played in 2021, and every game is slightly different based on the random animal goals that are selected for each game. It’s gorgeous and easy to teach, and I can’t stop recommending this game to people!

The beauty of the Pacific Northwest is evident in the artwork of Cascadia.

We then took a quick break for dinner. I cooked a giant pot of chicken adobo. Yay! I’ve been trying to learn more Filipino recipes, so I’m glad everyone enjoyed this dish. We ate this over rice and had plenty for leftovers the next day.

Chicken adobo is a Filipino dish made chicken, garlic, soy sauce and vinegar, and served over rice. It’s yummy!

After dinner, we busted out Hello Kitty Monopoly. There is something super Boss Lady about asking your husband and three male gamer friends to play this adorable version of Monopoly, which actually ended up being really cut-throat because we played with the real rules. None of this Free Parking cash collection nonsense. I remarked during the game that its second half felt like the wheeling and dealing chaos of Sidereal Confluence, because we needed to make those monopolies to start bleeding our opponents dry. I loved the metal Hello Kitty character tokens, but for those who aren’t familiar with Sanrio, it was a little difficult to figure which piece was yours. Overall, the game was intense and it did eventually end (not like those games during childhood where everyone just got bored because it went on too long), but I was disappointed that I was never able to buy Hello Kitty’s Hotel (aka Boardwalk).

Hello Kitty Monopoly — all the characters may look cute but they will cut you for your property.

Thursday

Thursday was our D&D day. My friend has worked so hard at painting minis of our individual characters and setting up a game for us as DM. He also gave us sparkly dice to play with! My character was a monk tiefling named Sevi Olum, and she kicked so much butt!

Friendship Con swag also included these sparkly dice for each player for our D&D game.

Our group was Earth’s last hope against an alien invasion, and we worked hard to complete some adventures in a tavern, cave and the sinewy tendrils of a giant eyeball. Ewww! Despite my aversion to eyeballs in general (and not being familiar with too many D&D campaigns), I had a good time with my friends!

The minis are painted, and ready for battle and to save the planet!

We ended our Friday with Just One. Last year, we played a lot of Just One, and I was especially amused that a lot of our inside jokes carried over from those games. It’s truly one of the best party games I’ve ever encountered, and it plays up to seven people. 

Just One is a guaranteed good time!

Friday

We started Friday morning by playing Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition, but changed it up by adding the Prophecy of Kings expansion. Since we had never played this expansion before, we dealt out three characters from the expansion to each person and chose one to play. This expansion adds mech leaders with some special abilities. I chose the Naaz-Rokha Alliance, which basically looked like space cats with monkey aliens on their backs. 

These space cats look so intimidating!

Our game lasted about 7 hours, which is quite speedy! The game randomly ended though during Agenda, which gave one player 1 VP to put him at 10! We all got thrown off by the agenda card, but the game was close anyway between him and another guy. 

The most epic of board games: Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition!

After dinner, we played Battlestar Galactica, one of my absolute favorite games ever! I will only play the base game and with 5P, so we enlisted our friend to come over to run the game. I can’t tell you how much I love this game: the paranoia, the semi-cooperativeness, and the fear of secretly being activated halfway in sleeper phase to become a cylon. It’s always such a great experience, no matter if you win or lose, and especially if I get to play as Helo (which I did!). Unfortunately, us humans did not win this time!

Sadly, us humans could not fight off the cylons. But my man Helo is still looking fine.

We ended Friday night with a 3P game of Dune: Imperium. I’ve been enjoying this worker-placement deck builder the most I play it and wish that more games have this combination of mechanisms. The Lost Ruins of Arnak is the only other game that feels similar to this one! Are there other deck builder worker placements that you can think of?

The more times I play Dune: Imperium, the more I’m liking it!

Saturday

We started Saturday with Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile. I love, love the adorable artwork and quality components of this game but honestly, something about the chaos of a game in which you need to hang on to your win condition until the start of the next round drives me bonkers. I do enjoy the exploration of the action spaces of the game and moving around the board, but I’ve come to accept that Oath is just not for me. And that’s totally fine! We like what we like!

The gorgeous board and world-building in Oath is top-notch.

I then taught a game of Project L. If you want to learn more about Project L, check out my latest segment on The Five By Episode 123. Project L is a neat engine-builder puzzle where you’re using Tetris pieces to complete cards with puzzles on it for VPs and/or more puzzle pieces. The more cards you solve, the more pieces you’ll have to tackle even bigger puzzles that are worth more points. 

In Project L, you complete the puzzle cards in order to gain VPs and even more pieces.

I then learned how to play Tranquility, a cooperative card game where you work together by putting a card down so that cards fall in ascending order — in silence! This was such a neat yet mildly stressful game because you have to figure out which cards you need to save in your hand to play, or which ones you can discard. If you discard the wrong cards, you and everyone else will get backed into a corner in the display and will be unable to complete the objective. What a fun filler! We actually played this twice because we did badly the first go-around, and we won in our second game!

Tranquility: a silent game of card-counting.

Next, we played Shipwreck Arcana, a deduction and logic game in which players are trying to figure out which fates (numbered chits 1-7) are in your hand while placing drawn fates onto logic cards that can help others figure out which fates are in your hand. I liked the dedication aspect of this game, which reminds me of those logic puzzles growing up.

This logic game relies on placing the correct fates under a card so others can guess which fates you have.

After that, we played Long Shot: The Dice Game. This roll-and-write captures the chaos and excitement of a day at the races. Horses move along the track with each dice roll, and players can choose to bet on horses, buy horses, or collect bonuses. It’s seriously a lot of fun, and even though it’s not your turn, you’re still highly invested in how the race is going and making decisions to win the most money. 

Which horse will cross the finish line first? It’s anyone’s guess in Long Shot: The Dice Game.

For dinner, we ordered some Korean corn dogs for dinner from Two Hands, since these things aren’t readily available on the East Coast. Behold!

Korean corndogs have some crazy combinations such as spicy dogs and potato dogs.

The last game of the night was Alea Iacta Est, a dice worker placement game. I honestly hadn’t heard of this game before, and, despite its goofy 2000s Roman art, I really enjoyed this! Alea Iacta Est is Latin for “The Die is Cast,” and players are using their dice to conquer new provinces and recruit patricians for those provinces. I also thought it was hilarious that unused dice end up in the latrina. 

The artwork on this game just takes me back to the 2000s in board gaming.

Saturday night was the last night we were all together gaming. One guy had to fly back home on Sunday, while the fourth guy was flying back on Monday. Here we are very chipper after long days of gaming!

These guys are the best! One guy from Atlanta couldn’t make it this year. Hopefully he’ll join us in 2023.

Sunday

We began Sunday with a quick 2P game of The Field of the Cloth of Gold. It’s incredibly tense, and the passive-aggressive gift-gifting is just so amusing to me! The game plays in about 20 minutes, and it’s perfect to bust out when you have a small pocket of time.

A gift for me means a gift for you!

My friend who was still in town and I did some thrifting looking for board game deals and books at various second-hand stores throughout the Valley. My big scores for the day were Pipeline, Kraftwagen and Star Cartel. I’m very excited to try out Pipeline next game day! 

My friend also wanted to try Sonoran hot dogs, something of a specialty here in Arizona. A Sonoran hot dog is a hot dog that is wrapped in bacon and grilled, topped with pinto beans, onions, tomatoes, and a variety of additional condiments, often including mayonnaise, mustard, and jalapeño salsa.

You can’t see it underneath the sauce but those hot dogs are indeed wrapped in bacon.

After that, we drove to my friend’s house to play Alien Frontiers, another dice worker-placement game! It’s a game of resource management and planetary development, where you roll your dice and place them on various action spots on the board. You can unlock new technologies as you control locations on the planet as well as by gaining technology cards. This was the first time I had played this game, and I actually won! But I think I got some practice the night before from learning Alea Iacta Est. Apparently, manipulating dice pips to take action spots is my jam! 

It was my first time playing Alien Frontiers, and I won!

In true Friendship Con fashion, we then played a game of Glory to Rome, with Imperium rules, and our game was so ruthless! I built the forum, which required me to have every type of card in my clientele for a victory, and my alleged friend kept preventing me from doing that. Good times though! 

Rome demands all the things!

And lastly, the final game of Friendship Con was another play of Dune Imperium. It was really nice ending our convention with a game I’m very familiar with.

And just like that, five days came and went so quickly! Thanks for making it all the way down here. I played a total of 20 games, sprinkled in with endless snacks, mostly home-cooked meals, and lots of catching up with my dear friends. Last year’s Friendship Con was in Atlanta, and I hope they had as great of a time coming out here to the Valley of the Sun as I did going there in 2021. And with that, we sail into the second half of summer, hoping the weather will cool down, even just a wee bit. Like seriously, I will gladly take 105 degrees here in Phoenix. What are some of your summer plans?
Trailblazer: The John Muir Trail

Trailblazer: The John Muir Trail

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Growing up, my family and I would go camping at Yosemite every summer. We’d have a blast swimming in the river, enjoying the outdoors and hiking up waterfalls. While I haven’t been to Yosemite since my late-teens, I’d always wanted to eventually make it back and try some of the more difficult trails. 

The John Muir Trail, which begins in Yosemite, is a trail that runs through the Sierra Nevada for 211 miles and passes through several national parks in northern California. Instead of taking weeks to hike the strenuous yet picturesque trail, you can traverse it in the comfort of your own home by playing Trailblazer: The John Muir Trail, a game available on Kickstarter by Mariposa Games. 

(Full disclosure: Mariposa Games provided this review prototype copy, and I received compensation for proofreading services for its rulebook.)

The artwork in this game is just gorgeous!

In Trailblazer, players have 10 days to hike the John Muir Trail — rain or shine! Players must have enough supplies in their backpacks to make the trek, while also gathering resources to collect Field Guide Cards and Destination Cards, which go toward end-game goals and victory points.

Each player has a player board that represents their backpacks, which fill up with up to 12 items and also has space for a limited number of natural and personal resources. These resources are vital to making your trip across the trail, as represented on the main playing board. 

Each player has a board that holds their supplies and equipment.

Each day has three phases: sunrise, daytime and sunset. During sunrise, players draw and play a Trail Card, which will allow you to place items into your pack or “activate” them. Activation comes into play later for increasing your elevation. When you complete a row of items in your backpack, you collect the bonus depicted on the board. The sunrise phase also determines the weather everyone is having that day. Sunny skies mean no extra resources are needed to move on the trail, but other weather conditions require something extra. 

Each day, the weather dictates whether you’ll need more supplies to make your journey. For a more family friendly version, the game can last 12 days instead of 10.

During daytime, players use their Tracks Tokens to take an action on the main board. Players start out with 3 Tracks Tokens but can gain up to 2 more as the game progresses. One action is hiking, moving at most one space per day if they fulfill the hiking requirements on their map pack, as well as weather and trail conditions, if any. Each player has a different map pack at the start of the game, a booklet of the same resource requirements but in a different order. 

These two map packs require different resources for the first leg of the trail.

Another action is acquiring natural resources: water, earth, wind and fire. Placing your Tracks Token on these locations on the board will net you a specific number of tiles based on the resource. You then place them in your pack if you have room for them. 

A third action you can do is discover Field Card Guides. These require various natural resources based on their location on the board, and when you pay those resources for them, they give you a backpack item, which you can place in your backpack or active if it’s already there, and some kind of reward. These cards also come in five varieties, which score points based on each unique set you have at the end of the game. 

Field Guide cards picture the native flora and fauna of the John Muir trail.

A fourth action is exploring destination cards. These cards require you to trade in natural and personal resources to receive backpack items and victory points. The cards are also one of four types, and when you receive the first card of a type, you can activate a one-time bonus on your player board. As hikers move along the John Muir Trail, the destination card decks will substitute out for harder cards that are worth higher point values. Both the destination cards and Field Card Guides could also go for end-game bonuses if you acquire a matching type of Journey Bonus Arrowheads. 

Destination cards feature the picturesque scenery along the trail.

Lastly, you can also use your Tracks Token to visit the High Sierra Lodge to resupply personal items, but only if you’ve filled your backpack up with 9 items. Personal items are food, a water bottle, Zzzs and condition. 

If a card pictures a backpack item you already have in your pack, you can choose to activate it. When you activate it, you move your tent along the elevation track on the main board. Moving up this track will give you bonuses, as well as your fourth and fifth Tracks Token, and the chance to collect Bonus Arrowheads for more victory points. At the start of the game, the Arrowheads are placed in three piles, with the top tile flipped over for everyone to see. There’s also one Arrowhead placed in the center of the board that everyone can score at the end of the game. When you collect a personal Arrowhead, only you can score it. The person who reaches the end of the Elevation Chart gains 7 points, and the rest will score fewer points. 

As you increase your elevation, more bonuses and Tracks Token become available. I love the elevation info on these peaks.

The last two locations on the board are the Mountain Pass Trail Cards, where you can draw cards and collect rewards without receiving the benefit of the backpack item, and the First Light location, which enables you to become first player the next round. If no one takes that action, the first-player marker moves left and a water tile is added to this location to make it more enticing as an action. 

The last phase of each day is sunset. Players must turn in one food and one water bottle (which players can trade in two water tiles at any time to gain a water bottle). Players also take their Tracks Tokens from the board and pass the first-player marker to the person who took the First Light action or the next player to the left. 

As you continue along the John Muir Trail, more resources or equipment are needed to continue.

The most important part of this game is that hikers need to get to the end of the John Muir Trail. Anyone who doesn’t make it to the end of 10 days is ineligible to win. And naturally, the players who get there first will get more points than the rest. This kind of deadline forces you to plan ahead and move so that you’ll finish the trail. You can always move without having resources but you’ll gain a Hardship Token for each missing resource, and the more of those you have, the more negative points you’ll have at the end of the game. But you can also stop by the High Sierra Lodge to get rid of them, if you have access to the lodge. 

Trailblazer: The John Muir Trail will appeal to both nature lovers and board gamers of all levels. It comes with gorgeous artwork and quality components (I especially liked the tent and hiker meeples, and sturdy player boards for my prototype). Games last about 1-2 hours, with each journey unique based on the weather conditions, map packs and trail requirements. The requirement to finish the trail for a chance to win adds some weighty strategy to this game. Overall, it’s a fun experience without having to load up your pack and dust off those hiking shoes. If Trailblazer sounds right up your alley, check out its Kickstarter page or visit the Mariposa Games website. 
Arizona Game Fair 2022: Our local convention is back!

Arizona Game Fair 2022: Our local convention is back!

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It’s been over three years since the last Arizona Game Fair. The previous one had been scheduled for March 2020, but we all know what happened two years ago. This year, the Arizona Game Fair came back in full force, and it was just awesome to see so many familiar faces again in person!

The convention was held on March 10-13, 2022, but I ended up attending just that Friday through Sunday. The previous week, I had been at Dice Tower West and was unable to take that many days off again. Nonetheless, I got lots of gaming in — old games and new ones! 

Friday

I opened my new copy of Sidereal Confluence and dusted out my giant tweezers for the occasion.

An Arizona convention wouldn’t be complete without a game of Sidereal Confluence. I dusted off my giant tweezers to run a 7P game of space trading and bartering on Friday morning. I love this game so much, even if I never do well in it! It’s the perfect con game, where a large group of folks can dedicate a few hours respectfully yelling at each other. 

I wanted to take a photo before the trading madness began!

After the game, I took a break for lunch and then played a series of shorter games while waiting for friends to finish up their game. First up was No Thanks! Always a fun filler and a quick teach!

In No Thanks, each card is worth the number that’s printed on it, and you’re trying to have the lowest score in the game. If you have a chip, you can refuse a card. If not, you’ll end up taking it.

Next up was Favelas, a game I’ve always wanted to play. This cute tile-laying game is based on the iconic buildings in Rio de Janeiro. You’re stacking tiles onto your player board and each round, you score for the color majorities, which are dictated by dice rolled at the start of each round. During your turn though, you can also increase or decrease the pips on a die so that one color can be more or less valuable during scoring. So colorful and puzzly!

Favelas was surprisingly a crunchy puzzle!

Then I taught a game of Seikatsu. I just adore the components of this game! My version, and the Arizona Game Fair library version, has these acrylic poker chips that are used during this tile-laying game. I heard that newer editions aren’t like this? You draw chips from a bag and place it onto the center board. You can either score groups of birds now, or score sets of flowers at the end of the game, based on your perspective from the garden. This visual mechanism to the game is pretty clever!

I love the poker chip pieces in Seikatsu.

I then learned a solitaire game called Orchard. What a neat game! I normally don’t play solo games but I liked playing this. It’s a good quick game to play if you’re waiting for someone at a bar or restaurant, and it’s about the size of a deck of playing cards. In Orchard, you’re laying 9 down cards and overlapping them in order to grow your fruit harvest, and you have mini dice to keep track of your crop size. The game comes with 18 cards, so after you finish your quick 10-minute game, you’re all set to play another with the 9 other cards you separated out. 

The Orchard is a delightful solo game where you’re building up your orchards by overlaying cards of the same exact crop.

The next game I played was Khora. Khora is a civilization-building game set in ancient Greece whose main action turn is similar to that of Twilight Imperium 4 or Puerto Rico. You pick two action tiles to play, and they resolve in the order of the actions, and you spend the whole game working to increase military, economy and culture. Also, the player boards in this game were top-notch. 

Lots of different tracks in Khora. The dual-layer player boards made it easy to track your progress.

I then played Match Me! This co-op game was so much fun! Players are given an identical hand of cards that are essentially color swatches. Each player is given one category on their turn and gives players a clue so that they can play one of their color cards that they think best matches the clue. As the round continues, players are left with fewer cards, making it harder to give a good clue! For example, if the category was fast food, the clue giver would say McDonald’s, and hopefully everyone will play the yellow color face down. 

Match Me is such a fun party game! I wonder if I’ll be able to ever find a copy.

We ended Friday night of the convention with a game of Squaring Circleville, a game I had also played at Dice Tower West.

Friday night fun in Circleville!

Again, I love the historical background of Squaring Circleville, and I enjoy teaching it to folks — especially those who love the rondel mechanism! It’s so satisfying putting the giant cardboard pieces out to show which sections are upgraded.

The Ohio town of Circleville has been officially squared!

Saturday

We started Saturday with a game of Dune: Imperium. I’m enjoying this game more and more with each play. I’m not a huge fan of deckbuilders in general, but this game is the perfect blend of that and worker placement. The game ramps up with each round and it clocks in at under two hours.

The spice must flow in Dune: Imperium.

I then learned Era: Medieval Age, which is an interesting twist on a roll and write. Instead of filling out player boards, you’re using the dice rolls to build out your little kingdom. I enjoyed the puzzle aspect of this, while the resource management for building things and not get attacked. My only complaint was that the player board was a bright yellow and hard to see the different phases and symbols on it. 

If I owned a copy of this game, I’d paint the board so I can see the resources.

We then played a 5P game of Macaron. This cute trick-taking game involves two types of betting — both on the number of bids you think you’ll take as well as which suit, or flavor, is trump. You can also win tricks using some of the cards’ special abilities. Definitely a must-have for fans of trick-taking games. Made me want to get some macarons after the game!

Trying to win tricks and fulfill orders in Macaron.

After dinner, I played a game of Vivid Memories, which I didn’t enjoy. We pored through the rulebook on the spot, and it felt like the most important mechanism of this game was just an afterthought based on how the rulebook was written. The game, while gorgeous, is essentially a drafting game where you’re trying to collect memory cards and fragments in order to thread them on your player board and score. I think the rulebook should’ve stressed the importance of threading more, instead of the drafting, because by the time we realized how the game was supposed to play, we were halfway through round 2. And the game only goes to 3 rounds. 

This is your brain in Vivid Memories, where you’re threading fragments and creating memories.

We ended Saturday night with a game of Dog Lover. I love the artwork on this one, and it’s quickly becoming my go-to 30-45 minute game at the last few gaming events I’ve been to! Who can say no to these doggies?

Look at all these good doggos learning tricks and going on walks.

Sunday

Clinic was right up my alley! There’s just so many crunchy decisions you have to make!

Sunday morning was for Clinic! This was the game I was hoping to play at this convention, and I was so happy that Brian was able to teach it to me! In Clinic, players are building a medical clinic, which requires building rooms; hiring doctors, nurses and orderlies, and getting patients — all the while making sure everyone has a parking space! And the more efficient your clinic is, meaning fewer steps each person has to take to get treated, the better it will be for your bottom line! I also like the spatial element to this game when you’re building rooms, as you can build up and out. 

The car supply situation on the main board is getting out of hand, much like the parking situation on your player board!

While I was helping clean up Clinic, two ladies came by and asked if I was Filipino. And I said yes. They then got super excited about seeing another Filipino lady, and immediately called over another Filipino lady so that we could take a group photo. It just warmed my heart that they got so excited over seeing another person like them at a convention, and just reminds me how important representation is in these gaming spaces. We all got to know each other a bit and exchanged information to schedule a game day sometime! 

These super nice Filipino ladies all introduced themselves to me!

I then played Juicy Fruits, a darling fruit-drafting with chunky wooden pieces! In this game, you’re collecting fruit pieces to fulfill orders and build buildings.

These wooden pieces are so chunky and satisfying to hold!

It reminds me of those childhood puzzle games where you’re moving number pieces to put them back in order, but in this game, you’re moving fruit tiles on your player board, and the farther they move, the more pieces of fruit you collect. Then you can trade your fruit in to fulfill orders or buy buildings for victory points. As you fulfill your orders, your player board opens up and the game can really escalate quickly to the end condition.

Juice Fruits is similar to those childhood puzzle games where you’re moving numbered pieces.

The last game I played at Arizona Game Fair was Long Shot: The Dice Game. It’s also roll-and-write game where you use your dice rolls to fill out your player sheet to buy horses, place bets, influence race movement and use special abilities. And on each roll, at least one horse will move, so you can strategically purchase the horse, or even bet on it. It’s such a riot!  

We’re off at the races! Will your horse win? Who knows!?

And that concludes all the gaming I did at Arizona Game Fair. Thanks for having me! The convention was so chill, and, while it got really busy on Saturday afternoon, there was always a place to game and people to game with. I can’t describe how awesome it felt to do some nonstop convention gaming again, though I don’t recommend doing back to back conventions! As much as I will deny it, I am not a young person anymore! But it does inspire me to attend more conventions this year. Let’s see where 2022 takes us!

Dice Tower West 2022: Board games in Las Vegas

Dice Tower West 2022: Board games in Las Vegas

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My husband and I were going back and forth on attending Dice Tower West last weekend as it would be the first major convention we’d attend since the start of the pandemic. I had previously attended Consimworld in person last summer, but that was only about 200 gamers — Dice Tower West is probably nearly 10 times that amount. We decided to take a road trip to Las Vegas and had a fabulous time!

Thursday

We drove from Phoenix and arrived in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, and after a lovely dinner at one of my favorite restaurants ever — Firefly Tapas Kitchen and Bar — we checked into the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, where Dice Tower West is being held. Since my formerly-East Coaster husband, Chris, had never been to Las Vegas, I wanted to give him a tour of the town before we dove into board games. 

Firefly Tapas Kitchen + Bar is one of my favorite restaurants! I celebrated my 30th birthday there a lifetime ago!

We went to see O at the Bellagio, my favorite Cirque du Soleil show, and bought third-row seats. It was pretty epic sitting so close! I could feel the cold air when the water came down and the heat when the fires were ablazing. After the show, we meandered a small section of the Strip and ended up getting Secret Pizza at the Cosmopolitan. 

O by Cirque du Soleil is such an impressive show, a visual spectacle!

Friday

On Friday morning, we checked into the convention and scoped out the place. The Rio convention area is ginormous! I had last attended Dice Tower West in 2019, and this was much, much bigger and spread out, which made me feel safe to game with friends.

Me checking in at Dice Tower West. I accidentally matched the sign.

There were two main gaming rooms (one was mask optional and the other was mask required, where we stayed through the whole con.) The exhibitor hall was located in the mask-required room.

The convention area was so large and had many different rooms spread out at the Rio Hotel.

The convention area had the Dice Tower West library, panel rooms, lounge rooms, food rooms and breakaway rooms for gaming in a smaller space. There was no shortage of finding space or moving over to a quieter area.

The Dice Tower West library. They even had tables in the library!

The first game I played was Dog Lover. Such an adorable game! It’s the sequel to Cat Lover, a game I reviewed on Episode 117 of The Five By, and it introduces new elements such as Tricks and Traits to change up the card drafting. Players are rescuing dogs to feed them and can score even more points if the doggos become trained, go on walks and collect their favorite things. 

I just adore the artwork in Dog Lover!

Next up, I played Honey Buzz, which I purchased after talking with GameFreekGeekGirl at the Elf Creek Games booth. The awesome components drew me in, but the puzzly aspect of the game is what sold me! Honey Buzz is a bee worker placement game, where you place your beeples on a central board to expand your beehive, produce nectar and make honey. Expanding your beehive requires you to collect honeycomb tiles, which you then place into your area, and how you configure them will produce resources to complete objectives. There’s also a “bear market” where you can sell nectar, which are these semi-squishy beads in various shapes and sizes to correspond with different honey types. 

The beeples and components in Honey Buzz are cute!

I then attended a Twitch streamer event and met these wonderful ladies!

All these hard-working ladies are making such a positive impact in the board-gaming community: Amanda Panda, Beneeta and Monique, from Before You Play!

I then ran into Ta-Te Wu, the designer of Art Decko, originally released as Promenade, and beloved cat games like Cat Sudoku and Cat Rescue.

I finally got to meet Ta-Te Wu in person!

I then had a chance to playtest a new game he’s working on! Players are using cards from their hands to take control of a suit and place their meeple on it. It’s a neat bluffing, majority control card game that doesn’t have an official theme on it but I’m excited to see where this goes as all of Ta-Te’s games have such cute artwork on it. 

Chris and I got to playtest one of the games Ta-Te is working on.

I then got a chance to play So Clover! Uhh, this game is bonkers! Players are dealt cards with words on its four sides, and you randomly place it onto your plastic clover. You then write one word so that other players can guess which two words from the cards belong on that side of the clover. When it’s your turn, you remove the cards from the clover and are dealt a fifth dummy card, which then you place into the center of the board with the clover so that other players can choose which cards to place on which clover side. I can see how this is a fun party game, but man, the addition of the fifth card after you write your clues seemed to derail all of our games!

This game is bonkers! It still doesn’t beat my current party game at the moment, Just One, but it’s still fun!

I then played Floating Floors, a ninja dexterity game where you’re moving your piece across floating floorboards that you or your opponent have placed. Each turn, you roll three dice to determine which small shapes you’ll take and place them on the cards and add a floor on top of it. Ninjas then make their way across the matching squares in order to pick up bansen seals. 

Our ninjas precariously balancing on floating tiles.

Dice Tower West had plenty of events throughout the con. We took a break and watched Paula Deming’s live show. She sang, did some improv and chatted with the audience, and showcased her videos. It was a nearly full house! 

Lots of people came out to Paula Deming’s live show.

Amanda Panda then taught us Project L! This game is so neat! It’s a puzzly engine-builder game with polyominos where you collect objective tiles to place your puzzle pieces on it and as a prize, you receive another puzzle piece. The more puzzles you complete, the more pieces you’ll have to complete high-value tiles. The components and the square box are top-notch! It’s like a more brain-burnery NMBR9.  

Project L combines engine building and puzzle-building!

I finished Friday night with two quick games of Seasons. My buddy and I always fall back to this game because neither one of us owns it, and it’s a fast-paced game since we both know how to play. Plus, chonky dice! 

Seasons, an oldie and a goodie! I always love rolling these dice.

Saturday

I randomly caught the start of the Flea Market, which was hopping! We purchased an Oink game Mr. Face and Quixo, a wooden game that belongs to a series of games that my husband loves. 

Tic-Tac-Toe-ing our way around this wooden puzzle.

I then played Squaring Circleville. Love this game! I first played this game as a prototype back in BGG Con 2019 (which seems like a lifetime ago!), and the Kickstarter finally delivered this game earlier this year. I love the historical background of this game, where Circleville, Ohio, which was built in a circle, razed down structures to square off its town into a modern grid. Plus, it’s got a cool rondel action mechanism. 

I’ve been waiting for Squaring Circleville to be released, and it did not disappoint!

We then played Twin Palms with Greg and Stephanie, a very cool trick-taking game with only two suits and retro beach artwork that’s currently on Kickstarter. This game was so enjoyable, with such a clever twist on trick-taking! The Kickstarter is ending very soon, so if this is up your alley, I highly recommend backing it!

I love the artwork on Twin Palms! Plus, the unique trick-taking mechanism makes it easy for new gamers to join.

Next up was a party game prototype that my buddy Treg has been working on: My Soundtrack. I haven’t seen Treg for many years since we first met at GMT Weekend, so I was happy to run into him and his wife here. In the style of Apples to Apples, this music party game is all about building your life soundtrack. 

My husband played this winning card for this song on the soundtrack of my life. LOL

There are two stacks of cards: soundtrack cards and cards with song names and the artist on it. If it’s your turn, you draw two theme cards and pick one. The next two people to your left will each play a song card, and you have to pick which song is best. The winner of that duel has to compete one by one with everyone else at the table to pick the better matching song. The owner of the winning song gets a guitar pick! I like how in this game you aren’t competing with the entire table, but one by one, and even if you don’t know the songs, the game still makes hilarious gameplays based on the title alone. The person with three guitar picks wins the game, and there’s one final round where players get to choose who has the best soundtrack!

Fun times gaming with Treg; his wife, Jenny (right); and Maddy!

We also then all played Meeple Party, a cooperative puzzle-solving game, where players are moving meeples into and around a house party. Each player has photo conditions they need to complete, such as having two purple meeples and one yellow in the Dining Room, but also disaster cards, in which the meeples get all stressed if you don’t avoid it. It was quite challenging throwing a successful party to last until midnight! 

I haven’t been a house party this hectic since college!

After a lovely dinner off strip, I got a chance to finally play Merv, a game I purchased last summer but finally just pulled off my Shelf of Opportunity. I love the spatial puzzle of this game with the tile activations, and how in reality, you’re only taking 12 turns in the entire game, but each turn is so crunchy! Players are collecting resources to travel and trade along the Silk Road, as well as gain influence and power within the city walls. At the end of Year 2 and Year 3, there are Mongol hordes that will burn down your city, unless city walls are built or soldiers are placed at sites. Really enjoyed this one, and I can’t wait to play it again! 

And that concluded two days of gaming and events! Since it was the first large-ish convention I’ve attended since the pandemic, I took a more laid-back approach to gaming instead of trying to squeeze every single minute with an activity. It was so fun to enjoy Vegas being the con, get some gaming in, and see old friends and make new ones.

The West Coast contingent of the Five By podcast: (from left) Ruel Gaviola, Jose Chavez and John Gonzalez.

I think next time Chris and I will want to stay for a longer time. And with back-to-back conventions, next up is Arizona Game Fair this weekend, I feel like the world is slowly starting to return to the Before Times. And that makes me so joyful.

Hope to see you in 2023, Dice Tower West!
Red Cathedral: Building church walls in Russia

Red Cathedral: Building church walls in Russia

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This review of Red Cathedral was featured on Episode 118 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Lost Ruins of Arnak, Cat Sudoku, Dice Miner and Dale of Merchants.

In 2020, an unassuming board game that came in a box about the size of a medium hardcover book was released and it quickly became one of my top 10 board games I played for the first time in 2021. Red Cathedral, published by Devir Games and designed by Isra C. and Shel S., packs quite a punch with its medium-weight euro and dice rondel, two mechanisms I enjoy in my board games. 

The Red Cathedral box is much smaller than most other euros.

Players take on the role of architects charged with building the Red Cathedral. Each player will build different portions of the monument, and using your influence with the clergy and guilds, you’ll attempt to earn the Tsar Ivan the Terrible’s favor. 

The setup of the cathedral depends on how many players are playing, and you can randomly choose one of the building plan cards the game comes with, which tells you how to build out the cathedral, complete with tower heights that consist of at least one base and one dome, and variable sections in between. For each section of the cathedral, a random workshop tile is placed on it (and I’ll explain what these do later in the game). 

Each game comes with multiple cards to set up your cathedral based on number of players.

Each player has their own player board and matching banners. These boards represent how many materials and resources you can hold in order to build sections of the cathedral. The more banners you get out onto the cathedral walls, the more storage you’ll have. Each player also starts with 3, 4 or 5 rubles depending on if they’re first, second, etc. 

Lastly, a majority of the game also involves the market board, where five different colored dice sit in a rondel wheel separated by four groups: the craftsmen’s guild, the teamsters’ guild, the merchants’ guild and the clergy. Before we begin, points in this game are calculated by Recognition and Prestige. Initially, it takes five recognition points to get to 1 prestige, but as you score more in the game, this gap eventually becomes one to one. You can score either point through various actions in the game. 

This setup seems like a lot, but in reality, setup goes fairly quick and the cathedral wall cards are small cards, so this game is not a table hog by any means. There’s a lot of variability in setup as well as there are multiple cards you can choose from for each of the different guilds for each game. 

Here’s a random setup for a three-player game.

On your turn, you carry out one of three actions: Claim a cathedral section, build sections of the cathedral, or acquire resources from the market. 

When you claim a cathedral section, you remove one of your banners from your player board and place it on an available cathedral card. You then take the workshop tile that’s on the cathedral card and place it on an empty workshop space on your player board and pay the rubles cost printed on this space. If you have no rubles available or simply don’t want to pay, you can place the workshop tile face down into that space, but the tile will not give you bonuses when you use the space later.

Each player gets their own board, which holds all your resources.

A face-up workshop tile will give you a benefit when you later use the market action to acquire resources. Strategically picking which sections you want to build comes into play at the end of the game, where majority control will net you more points. 

When you build sections of the cathedral, you take up to three resources from your player board and place them on cathedral cards. Each card has requirements for its completion, and if a player delivers all those items, they collect the recognition points and/or rubles. That cathedral card is then flipped over to represent it being complete, removing the resources that were sitting on it to place back into the bank, while leaving the player’s banner to show who finished the section. 

Once a section is complete, a player can then decorate that section by delivering jewels on their turn, and not necessarily to a section that they themselves finished. Decorating the cathedral will net prestige points. 

The last action is acquiring resources from the market. This is my favorite thing about this game, as it requires using strategy and timing to collect what you want! Pick one die to use on the wheel, move that die however many spaces around each section of the wheel based on the pips showing and where they land, they may perform any market actions in that space. A die cannot land on a space where there are three dice already so that limits which one you’ll choose. 

The market rondel is my favorite mechanism of Red Cathedral.

When you land, you obtain resources from that spot multiplied by the number of pips on the die used. A player can additionally use influence or activate a workshop tile. To use influence, you look at the guild card that’s in that quadrant and use one of its two actions. To activate a workshop tile, you look on your player board to see if the die you used has a workshop tile on it. If it does, you gain resources based on where the die in the workshop tile is sitting on the wheel. At the end of your market turn, you roll all the dice in the section you landed on and end your turn. 

The game ends when six cathedral cards are completed, and the player gains 3 prestige points for triggering the end. Then all other players have one last turn. Everyone then moves their score counters back to the closest prestige point and scores 1 point for every 5 leftover materials, Now comes the cathedral scoring. Each section completed is 2 points, plus 1 point for each ornamentation on it. This number comes into play for scoring the majority for each tower. Each player then counts the number of banners and ornamentation in each tower, and if they have the most, they score the full value of that tower. The second receives half, and the third receives half of that. 

The person with the most prestige points wins the game. Calculating tower majorities might get a little unwieldy at the end but overall the game is a solid tight euro that allows for a lot of variability in later games. Red Cathedral isn’t too tough to teach as there are really three main actions on your turn, and the iconography on the cards is easy to understand. Plus, the market rondel is such a clever mechanism that I don’t see too often in euros, and most importantly, the box is so small compared to other euros of the same caliber. I’ve had a lot of fun playing this throughout 2021. 

And that’s Red Cathedral! This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening. Bye! 
Top 10 games I played for the first time in 2021

Top 10 games I played for the first time in 2021

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We’ve made it to the end of 2021. Give yourselves a big pat on the back! 2021 was by far not an easy year for many, but I was thankfully able to play more games this year in person with close friends and family. Here are the top 10 games that I played for the first time in 2021.

10. Red Cathedral

The resource wheel in Red Cathedral, where you can pick up jewels, bricks and other materials.

Players in Red Cathedral are working to construct portions of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. They claim sections of the wall, and then later deliver goods to complete construction. Players can also decorate theirs and other player’s sections with decorations, in an attempt to gain area control majorities along each column of the cathedral. The mechanism that I adore about this game is the resource wheel where you collect resources based on where the die’s pips on the wheel. It’s a neat puzzly addition to your typical resource collection and delivery. Plus, it comes in a box half the size of your typical euro game. 

9. Villagers

Villagers is a chill drafting game where you’re building out your village.

This darling card drafting game had been on my radar for a while but I never got a chance to play it until this past year. In Villagers, you are refugees who have survived the Great Plague working to start your own village again. You get to decide who can come set up in your village, whether crafts people, tradespeople, etc. The artwork is just so adorable, and it’s a chill low-stakes game of city building and manufacturing VPs. The game plays 1-5 players, which fulfills many game-night player combinations. 

8. Angola

I got a chance to play Angola! this past summer at Consimworld.

Angola! is probably one of the most unique wargames I’ve ever played — it’s played in teams and you pre-program your commands, one of which must be a dummy command. Bonkers! Two factions are backed from the U.S. (FNLA and UNITA), and the other two are backed by the Soviets (FAPLA and MPLA). It’s a neat element I have not encountered. Also, if more wargames were team-based, I can see people being less intimated to jump into these types of games.

7. Beyond the Sun

I’ve only played Beyond the Sun on Board Game Arena, but it totally made my top 10 list.

Tech tree — the game! It kind of floors me that somehow a game designer managed to make a board game with a space theme that is incredibly dry, and I should know because I’ve played my fair share of crunchy yet incredibly dry eurogames. Most of the space games I’ve played are dripping with thematic epicness, and this game manages to turn that theme into cube-pushing in space. But, Beyond the Sun is oh, it’s so much fun! There’s something really satisfying about moving up the research tracks and managing your resources as you unlock portions of your player board. And sure, you’re “exploring” and “colonizing” in space over on this side of the board, it all just comes down to how many more ships do you have than the other player to collect these resources. Full disclosure though, I’ve only played this game on Board Game Arena.

6. Unfathomable

In Unfathomable, you’re on a cruise ship trying to survive the Deep Ones and all sorts of bad stuff.

Nope, this will never replace my beloved No. 1 game of all time Battlestar Galactica, but this reskin is worthy enough to hit my top 10 this year. Unfathomable is now set in the horror mythos world of Cthulhu and H.P. Lovecraft, with characters sailing across the Atlantic on the SS Atlantica. The game is immediately out to get you, and you don’t know which of your fellow boatmates have been turned into Deep One hybrids. While this game does not streamline the original BSG game (as some gamers had hoped for before Unfathomable was released), it’s still an immersive and haunting experience worth playing. 

5. Mercado de Lisboa

Mercado de Lisboa is like Lisboa without a million steps in between action.

Lisboa is one of my absolute favorite games, but sometimes you just do not have the bandwidth to play such a long and complex game. Enter Mercado de Lisboa, a short puzzly brain-burner that clocks in at about 30-45 minutes, co-designed by Vital Lacerda himself. Players are building stalls and restaurants in order to bring in customers looking to pay for those goods. And like the storefront building portion of the original game, you’re trying to open in a location that will score up to three times. 

4. Cascadia

The wooden tokens and hexagon terrain tiles make Cascadia such a gorgeous game.

This game was a surprise hit for me this year. Cascadia is just absolutely gorgeous, a tapestry of the Pacific Northwest. Players are building out their habitats and placing animals on hexagonal tiles in order to score objectives, either for the animal and/or largest continuous habitat. The dual drafting of the tiles and animals (players one of the four sets) adds strategy and depth to an otherwise basic tile-laying game. And its artwork is sure to lure nature lovers in for a game. 

3. Dominant Species: Marine

We’re under the sea in Dominant Species: Marine.

I had been anticipating this sequel to the original GMT game and it did not disappoint. Dominant Species: Marine is a more streamlined game than the original, and while gameplay is also similar, a big difference is that your special abilities are not tied to your species (there are only four in this game), and they can be replaced as cards come into play. I also like the special action pawn spots that players can accumulate when they’re dominating in a habitat. Calculating domination is easier to do in this game, making the game less fiddly than the original, and the striking artwork makes this game a draw to the table. 

2. The Field of the Cloth of Gold

You get a gift, I get a gift, everyone gets a gift in The Field of the Cloth of Gold!

Quite absolutely my favorite 2-player game of this year, The Field of the Cloth of Gold is simple to learn and quick to play, yet completely agonizing and just plain maddening! Every time you take a turn, you present a gift to your opponent, the random tile that’s placed on that action spot. This very thing creates an unbelievably high tension between you two, a strategic dance to avoid giving your opponent the tile they need, which often sits on the action you truly want to take. It’s an absurd gift-giving mechanism that forces you to hand over a gift while you smile through gritted teeth. It’s so unbelievably good. 

1. Praga Caput Regni

Yes, this game looks super busy, but eurogamers will catch on quickly in this game.

Here we are at the top of the list! Praga Caput Regni was an instant love from the first play at Consimworld back in September. Not enough euros incorporate a timing element to game play (Tzolk’in is one of the few that come to mind), and this game does not disappoint. Various actions that players take on their turn cost more money or hand out victory points, depending on their point in time on the Action Crane, which rotates every turn. It’s very clever! In Praga, players are working to improve New Prague City by building city walls, bridges, the cathedral or other civic projects. 

And just like that, we’ve reached the end of 2021. Where exactly did 2020 and 2021 go? It simultaneously feels like a blur and an eternity all at the same time. I feel fortunate for having been able to play a lot of new games this year, enough to craft a top 10 list. And for those who aren’t on social media, I also celebrated a personal milestone this past fall and married this wonderful gent. 

We are now Mr. and Ms. Meeple Lady. 🙂

Here’s to a wonderful 2022! May we all be safe and healthy, and play a bunch more games! What are some of your favorites of the past year?
Consimworld 2021: Attending A Convention Again

Consimworld 2021: Attending A Convention Again

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A few weeks ago, on Aug. 28-Sept. 4, Consimworld held its annual convention in Tempe, and it was my first in-person convention since late 2019 because of the pandemic. My friends and I were going back and forth about attending something like this in person, and after attending the first day, we felt safe enough to attend during the week. 

The convention was capped at 200 people, a group smaller than the usual amount, but in all honesty, even on the busiest day (the weekends), it did not feel like that many people were in attendance all at once. The convention kept the same space as previous years and tables were placed more spread apart. While masks were optional per Arizona rules, there were people masked up. I also didn’t mingle as much during the con and instead played with my usual groups. All these things helped calm my nerves about the whole situation, and I had such a great time gaming nonstop for many, many days. 

The entrance to the ballroom for Consimworld. I mostly gamed on tables in the foyer, which was close to the outside doors.

The night before the convention, my buddy Dan Bullock flew into town, and I taught him two of my favorite Hollandspieles. We played The Field of the Cloth of Gold and Brave Little Belgium. 

Hollandspiele’s The Field of the Cloth of Gold is a perfect filler game.

Aug. 28

Dan and I arrived bright and early on Saturday morning to game. And like by early, I mean around 10 a.m. I am not a morning person.

We are ready to play games! As you can see, it wasn’t too crowded when we arrived Saturday morning.

We started this day by playing Red Cathedral as a 2P. I really enjoyed this game — I think its resource wheel is such a great game mechanism — but the scoring for two players threw me for a loop. The person with the second majority for a cathedral tower only gets one-third of the points. I think I will stick to 3-4P for this game. 

I just love this resource wheel in Red Cathedral.

We then played what’s becoming to be our annual game of Maria. This 3P game based on the War of Austrian Succession is so good — and since we’ve been playing it every year, we’ve gotten much better at playing it. 

Let’s go Prussia, Saxony and Pragmatic Army! I was holding my own until one of my armies transferred ownership.

Next up was a 3P game of Iberian Gauge. So this first game was such a learning experience, and we learned the hard way that the three people playing should not have started railroad companies far away from each other on the map! Our company stock prices were so low! Despite that — and the endless money exchanging that can bog down the game a bit — I already enjoy this game much better than its predecessor Irish Gauge. 

Our first ill-fated game where us three did not start near each other.

We ended our day with Mexica, one of the meanest but most gorgeous games out there. Look at all those chonky, fun pyramids! *Making grabby hands gesture* This game is very cut-throat. Mean people will take over your district and block you from coming in. And by mean people, I mean me.

Mexica is such a gorgeous game. I adore these resin pyramids.

Aug. 29

On Sunday, Dan taught us Cuba Libre, a game I actually own but had never got on table. This is one of the shortest COIN games, clocked in at 3 hours, and a smaller deck with four propaganda cards. For those unfamiliar, propaganda cards are shuffled into the deck at certain intervals, and when one of those cards comes up, the table checks if one faction has achieved their objective and wins the game. We lost so badly to Dan.

First time playing Cuba Libre! This is one of the shortest COIN games out there.

Next up was Underwater Cities. My gaming group and I have been playing this game a lot online and it was a little chaotic to play in real life after being used to the program doing everything for you. There are just so many bits and pieces! Nonetheless, I enjoyed this game and won for the first time ever. 

In Underwater Cities, I like how your hand of cards affects which actions you’ll take.

I then played another game of The Field of the Cloth of Gold. Seriously, best filler game ever. Including the teach, this game is probably about 20 minutes long. Easy peasy, and yet so agonizing! 

I ended the day with a game of Meltwater. And while I feel like I’ve played games where the game board is disappearing on you (i.e. Survive: Escape from Atlantis), the bleakness of this game is just so brutal. Humanity is dealing with the effects of nuclear fallout, and the only habitable place on earth is Antarctica, which is slowly being polluted with radiation. My people did not survive.

The world is ending, and Antarctica is the only place that’s habitable for humans.

Aug. 30

I started the day with an in-person demo from Dan, co-designer of In the Shadows. I enjoyed the card play of this game, which involves suits, initiatives and action points, and how certain outcomes are resolved through its own deck. I like that much better than rolling a die. This game is on GMT’s P500 as part of the company’s Lunchtime Games series, games that run about 20-60 minutes.

We busted out Dan’s prototype of In The Shadows.

We then played Tigris and Euphrates. It’s my first time playing this Renier Knezia classic. We didn’t build many temples during the game, except for me, and that made a world of difference in my winning score. That said, I had no idea what I was doing the entire game. Beginner’s luck I guess, but would definitely play this again. 

This temple ended up being the only one built in this game.

Monday nights are Consimworld’s welcome ceremony. I popped in for a minute to take this photo but didn’t want to spend too much time in a smaller room as it felt a little crowded to me. Nonetheless, the crowd was much smaller this year because of the attendance cap, for which I’m grateful for. 

This room is usually super packed, but it’s a much smaller crowd this year. At left is John Kranz, convention organizer.

The last big game of the evening was Barrage. Dang, this game is so crunchy! I have only played it once two years ago at Consimworld 2019 (a prototype, no less!), but I knew back then that this brain-burner of a game would totally be up my alley. We played with the expansion, giving players asymmetrical powers. I love the game’s brutality, but also how everyone knows when all the water will flow so that you can plan accordingly. 

Please send water. I love this deluxified version of this game with its 3D board.

We winded down the day with a game of Mandala. Along with The Field of the Cloth of Gold, Mandala is another recent favorite 2P game.

Once all six colors are represented, the mandala scores and cards are added to your cup for set collection.

Players are placing cards into their fields or mountains, and when all the colors are represented, the mandala is scored. Part area control, hand management and set collection, Mandala is a tense abstract in which you get to choose how your set collections will score. Pretty neat, and it has a gorgeous cloth mat that accompanies the game. 

Aug. 31

During the course of the convention, Angola! was one of the games sitting on our table, which prompted a considerable number of people stopping by and commenting on the game. “This is such a good game!” they’d comment, which completely piqued my interest in getting it on table during the con, but we ended up scrambling to find a fourth player. At the 11th hour, like literally 9:59 a.m., we had found someone available to play at our 10 a.m. game. Success!

We wargaming with plexi and everything! What a fun experience!

Angola! is probably one of the most unique wargames I’ve ever played — it’s played in teams and you pre-program your commands. Wuuut!! Two factions are backed from the U.S. (FNLA and UNITA), and the other two are backed by the Soviets (FAPLA and MPLA). It’s a neat element I have not encountered. Also, if more wargames were team-based, I can see people being less intimated to jump into these types of games.

My deck of cards, which you preprogram for each turn. As the game progresses, you have more of your deck to choose from.

At the start of each turn, players program their cards, which represent chit stacks on the board, including the card that’s a blank bluffing card, and one by one, each player plays a card and takes an action. As the game progresses, your hand of cards gets bigger while the win condition thresholds get lower for the different teams. There’s also a mechanism for if your team is falling behind: you’ll be able to draw random cards from the foreign aid deck for reinforcement. 

During the game, you assign column chits to your troops on the board. When you play the matching card, you activate the stack.

Next up was Pax Pamir 2, my top game of 2019 . So sleek, so entrenched in history, and so approachable, one that I can see getting on table often once I get my copy. (Which I hope is soon from the Kickstarter late last year!)

Lots of armies on the map!

The last game of the night was a four-player game of Iberian Gauge. Since this was a second play for most of us playing, we did make the error of starting too far away from each other. That combined with another player made our company stocks skyrocket, which made for a very different game than the last. 

Sept. 2

Thursday of the convention was my last day gaming. I had been looking forward to a game of Dominant Species: Marine all week. I had only played the original one time many years ago, but I remember really enjoying it but also getting crushed by the glaciers. Also, that game was very long. Marine, however, is a 4P game, instead of the original 6P, and this immensely helps with the playtime. Alas, there are no more cones in the game.

Isn’t this gorgeous? Players also receive their own play board, where you keep your ability card and which elements you can survive in.

A big difference in this game is that each species doesn’t have base abilities; you get ability cards to choose at the start of the game that give you a special power. Also, when you put a pawn on an action location, it resolves immediately, instead of waiting for everyone to place their pawns and resolving the actions down the action board. Similar to the old game, once you take an action, you can’t take an action above where you’re just placed, unless you reset and take all your pawns back. I enjoyed the few times I had a special pawn (which is gained from when you dominate in an element), which unlocks special actions on the board only available to special pawns and can also bump regular pawns. 

Dominant Species: Marine — where are all the cones? The removal of cones, and the streamlining of game play, makes this games shine.

Lastly, I got to play Praga Caput Regni. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to play this game. Instant love! It’s a crunchy euro that adds a timing element. Players are working to improve New Prague City by building city walls, bridges, the cathedral or other civic projects. On your turn, you take an action that’s depicted on the Action Crane, which moves every turn. Sometimes the action costs money if it’s too early in the wheel, while other times, the action will give you VPs because nobody has taken that action in a while. Very clever! Plus, the king loves eggs. (Those are worth VPs at the end, too).

This looks like a very busy board, and it is, in the most euro way possible.

And that was Consimworld 2021! Thank you for making it down to the bottom of this post. I took extra days off after this convention so I could isolate and take a COVID-19 test, which came back negative, just to make sure I don’t get others sick. Overall, I had a great time. Everyone seemed respectful of keeping their distance, and the Tempe Mission Palms, where the convention was held made sure tables were spread out and that regular sanitizing occurred. Thanks Consimworld for having me! And hope to see you all there next year! 

Congrats! You’ve completed your bridge building. Now give me all the eggs!
Friendship Con 2021: Atlanta

Friendship Con 2021: Atlanta

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My buddies and I try to meet up every year for our mini-convention affectionally dubbed Friendship Con. I couldn’t make it in 2019, and, for obvious reasons, a 2020 convention didn’t happen. Earlier this month though, we did manage to make plans and meet in Atlanta, where one attendee lives, and game together for nearly five days. And dear readers, after being cooped up in our homes and not playing in person for a very, very long time, the time in Atlanta was glorious. 

Driving in Atlanta after picking up some dinner.

I flew into Atlanta and arrived early Wednesday evening, and after a quick dinner stop at Hattie B’s for hot chicken — I love all things spicy — we kicked off our convention by hanging out and playing Glory to Rome. This game was the first of many Glory to Rome games during our time here, and it was great to get re-familiar with this game as well as trying it out at different player counts and petitions (either Republica Romana or Imperium Romanum). 

The sweetest part for me was that my friends surprised me with bachelorette party festivities that included matching pink and gold meeple T-shirts, cupcakes and balloons. I was so touched and super surprised! (Insert crying emoji here)

My friends are absolutely the best. Aren’t these T-shirts adorable?

Thursday

We then began Thursday morning with a game of Glory to Rome. If I remember correctly, I won this game, taking advantage of my Temple building, which expanded my hand size to 9 cards, vital to being able to follow others’ actions and/or spending cards to be able to do so. 

I then taught Fort, which started a little clunky because I had misread the rule on cards in your Lookout, but after that snag, the game went swimmingly, and we even played Fort again a few days later. I was excited to play it as a 4P, after only playing it as a 2P last year. Time between turns at 4P didn’t seem long, as the game keeps you actively engaged by following the leader’s action. 

I love the artwork in Fort!

My one friend loves to bake, so he made a bunch of yummy baked goods all weekend. These loaves were great with just butter or in a sandwich. We ate a lot of baked goods in Atlanta.

Fresh-baked bread! Warning, there are many food photos in this post.

Next, we played Rajas of the Ganges. This game is a great blend of dice rolling and worker placement. You have to manage your dice supply, which I failed to do, so you can take a majority of the actions, and I spent a couple turns collecting more dice to use on future turns. It also has a neat end-game trigger where you’re racing to have your opposite resources cross each other on the tracks around the board. 

Rajas of the Ganges is so colorful and gorgeous board.

The last game we played on Thursday was Xia: Legends of a Drift System. One guy taught us an intro scenario, with the game ending at 6 points. I knew nothing about Xia before this game, but I’m always down to try epic space games, and Xia certainly fits into that criteria.

I particularly enjoyed that players can upgrade and modify their ships however they want (provided it fits onto your ships with polyomino ship part tiles), providing a unique gaming experience for all players. Heck, even blind-jumping into a black hole didn’t end up being too bad. FYI, it was not me; I’m so risk-averse to that type of exploration. 

Exploring space and picking up cargo in Xia.

Friday

On Friday morning, I made a Filipino breakfast with chicken longganisa (sausage), garlic fried rice, dried fish and egg — also known as a longsilog. And the breakfast was complete with banana sauce to tie everything together. Sarap! (That’s yummy in Tagalog.)

A hearty breakfast to start off the Friday of Friendship Con.

After a quick morning game of Glory to Rome, I taught a game of Abandon All Artichokes. This is a quick card game that introduces the game mechanism of deck building. The artwork is just adorable, and the goal of the game is, by building out your deck each round, to eventually draw a hand of cards without any artichokes in them on your turn. 

Such a neat game! I’ve been playing this a lot on Board Game Arena.

The next game was one highlight of my weekend: Battlestar Galactica! It’s my absolute favorite game! I got a chance to play as Helo, my favorite character and was human for most of the game, until the one cylon revealed himself and gave his second cylon loyalty card to me because I was currently the admiral. We then scrambled to make the humans lose, and we succeeded in doing so. Fun times! #SoSayWeAll

I was totally human in this game until near the end when I got activated.

Next, we played Wavelength — a game I had only played on Twitter with the game account, and it was a lot of fun trying to figure out clues that would lead players to guess the range correctly. My favorite example was Bad Actor Vs Good Actor, and I was the clue giver. I had blindly spun the range, and it landed in the middle. You then cover it up and make others move the needle to the area on the spectrum where the range was. My clue was: Nic Cage.

There was a great deal of discussion between whether he was a good actor or a bad one, and people ultimately decided he was somewhere in the middle. They then moved the needle to the middle, and we scored 4 points! Such a fun party game. 

Wavelength is a fun party game!

I then jumped into a 6-player game of Acquire. This game is a classic, but at 6P, it’s quite bonkers. It’s very hard to plan your next move as any company can be created or fold before it gets back to your turn, so you just have to roll with it and hope that you get those majority payouts when someone merges with the casino chain you have stocks for. 

A classic version of the classic game of Acquire.

After dinner, I played a game of Dune: Imperium, a game I had been excited to check out. It’s a deck builder/worker placement, set in the world of Dune, and it actually features actors in the upcoming movie. Oscar Isaac, anyone? Yes, please!

While playing the game, I found it really difficult to get water, which thematically makes sense, but had an abundance of spice that I regularly sold to the market. The game has such good production quality, but in terms of recent deckbuilder worker-placement hybrid games, I enjoyed Lost Ruins of Arnak a wee bit more, a game we’ve been playing frequently online. But, I would definitely play Dune again if someone local had a copy.

Building my deck, and searching for water and spices in Dune: Imperium.

I then learned Fantastic Factories. This is also a dice rolling/worker placement game where your workers are the dice. You’re constructing buildings and factories that produce goods and/or victory points. I really liked the artwork on this, and there’s something very satisfying about getting the right rolls for maximum output on your cards. When I returned to Phoenix after Atlanta, I saw that Game Nerdz had this game as its Deal of the Day for $22, and I currently now own a copy. 

Enjoyed Fantastic Factories, a dice engine builder!

Friday’s epic game day ended with an equally epic dessert that my baking friend had made completely from scratch: a tarte tropézienne. The brioche took about a day to make, and the cream middle was just heavenly. It was the first time I had ever heard of this dessert, much less tried it.

The airy, sugary goodness of a tarte tropezienne.

Saturday

Saturday began with brioche French toast for breakfast, part of the same brioche batch from the dessert the night before. It was excellent. 

Yes to more brioche! This time in French toast form.

We then played a few games of Just One, one of my absolute favorite party games ever. It’s seriously so fun and easy for all types of gamers to play. I’ve introduced Just One to many different sets of friends, and hilarity always ensues.

Players write down one word to help the clue-guesser guess the clue, but if they write down the same word as another player, they don’t get to show the clue-guesser their word. Sometimes it gets really hard (in a good, funny way) when as the clue guesser you’re left with one or two random words that have no context to each other. Also, I think everyone really enjoys writing with dry-erase markers on the plastic nameplate.

Next up was Chronology. This is a chill filler where you’re placing event cards along a timeline in front of you. It’s good for trivia and history buffs alike, but it’s forgiving enough where you can kind of guess when these events in history took place if your timeline is very spaced out in terms of its dates. If all your cards are dated close together, well, good luck!

I then got a chance to play BSG again. Such a treat! Sadly, I ignored the cardinal rule of this game by Executive Ordering the person on my left, who I totally thought was human. He then did a Brig check to get himself out of the Brig, and then revealed he was a cylon. The person on his left was also a cylon, and us humans didn’t stand a chance after that, and they eventually wiped out our population to zero. Womp womp. 

All the human resources were in the red, and the humans eventually lost.

Next up was the Crew. So full disclosure: I played all 50 missions of The Crew on Board Game Arena earlier this year, and since it was all virtual, it added extra obstacles that you don’t normally run into when you’re playing the game in person. For example, remembering, sorta, what’s already been played during that mission, and asking simple yes/no questions that would take a minute in person but would take the course of one day online.

To be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of the Crew, but I played a few missions to see if I’d like it better. It’s still OK, but I appreciate how innovative it is in using trick-taking as a mechanism of game play, and not just the game play itself. And I can see how people familiar with trick-taking card games would enjoy this challenge. 

Completing missions via trick taking in The Crew.

We then busted out Metro X, a short flip-and-fill. You’re trying to fill in train stations on a Japanese transit map using cards that are flipped over one at a time. Completing train routes will net VPs, and empty spots will be negative points at the end of the game. I like how you can write on these plastic cards, instead of using paper sheets for each game. 

You can see that I did not full out all of my train stations. Alas.

After a few more games of Fort and Glory to Rome, which now everyone enjoys playing when there’s an hour in between games to end, we decided to play a 4-player game of Irish Gauge. At previous conventions, we usually play Chicago Express, and Irish Gauge has similar elements to the game, but as my one buddy put it, “It’s Chicago Express on crack.” Good times. 

Sunday

On Sunday, we again began our morning playing a game of Glory to Rome. And then we busted out one of my absolute favorite games: Lisboa. I taught a three-player game of this, and it was a success. I ended up winning my first game of this. Just because I play this a lot and teach it at conventions doesn’t necessarily mean I win games. 

Lisboa is one of my favorite games, even if your brain melts a little every time you play it.

We then parted ways on Sunday night to fly back to Phoenix. I packed up my stuff and games, including the neat swag bag my friend got all of us. I checked in my bag because I was unsure if TSA would allow me to fly with mega-tweezers, and I did not want my fantastic gift to get confiscated. My giant-tweezer collection grows! 

If you made it all the way down here, thanks for reading! Thanks million to my amazing friends who made Friendship Con 2021 in Atlanta memorable. I think Phoenix will be the location of next year’s convention. And in case you were wondering, we’re already talking about our plans for it.

Pusheen Purrfect Pick board game
Pusheen Purrfect Pick: Perfect game for new gamers

Pusheen Purrfect Pick: Perfect game for new gamers

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This review of Pusheen Purrfect Pick was featured on Episode 108 of The Five By.  Check out the rest of the episode, which also features aco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, Lucky Numbers, Ginkgopolis and Burgle Bros 2.

The American Tabletop Awards recently announced their top games for 2020 in four categories: Early Gamers, Casual Games, Strategy Games, and Complex Games. Soon after, a discussion launched off on Twitter regarding the naming convention, and how the word “early” is a much better alternative for what many would call “filler” or “gateway” games. The group members said they selected that term because they wanted to be respectful without being reductive. 

And as we know, as gamers dive deeper into the hobby, the term “gateway” is thrown around toward such games as Ticket to Ride, Catan, etc. to signify which game got them into the hobby. But we forget that these aforementioned games can be difficult for someone who has had no previous gaming experience whatsoever. And that high barrier to entry can be a turnoff from diving into our wonderful world. 

So what makes a good game for early gamers — those completely new to modern board games? The consensus seems to be a game that’s fun and can be taught very quickly and easily. Pusheen Purrfect Pick fits that criteria, along with its delightful artwork that makes it easy to draw new gamers in. The card game from Ravensburger, designed by Steve Warner, was published in 2021 plays 2 to 5 players and takes about 30 minutes to play, and comes with a nice glossy double-sided board, two decks of cards and a Pusheen figurine made of a study rubber material that’s used as a first-player marker. 

For those unacquainted, Pusheen is a cartoon cat, a rotund, adorable gray feline with little feets that’s an internet sensation. Her cuteness is directly translated in this board game, which includes her house, friends and yummy treats, a perfect game for new gamers and for experienced gamers who want something completely chill with the potential for a little playful meanness. 

The game comes a sturdy, glossy game board that’s double sided. This is the side with Pusheen’s house.

To set up the game, pick one of the board’s sides — either the setting for inside Pusheen’s house or outside at the park — and place 12 random essentials cards face up on each space marked with a dotted line. Then randomly place 4 Snapshot cards face up next to the game board. Give the Pusheen figure to the player who most recently fed a cat as they’ll go first. This, sadly, will never be me as I’m deathly allergic to cats and will only play with cats in board games. 

This side of the game board is set in the park. Essentials cards are placed in the dotted lines.

The game is played over a series of rounds, in which the active player places the Pusheen figurine on a paw space on the board. These paw spaces are situated in between four essentials cards, and the active player selects one of the cards to put into their hand. They then check to see if they satisfy any of the requirements from one of the face-up Snapshot cards, and if they do, discard the Essential cards for it, take the Snapshot card and place it in front of them. Each Snapshot card has victory points on it as indicated by the star symbols on it.

Then the rest of the players in clockwise order do the same exact thing: choose one of the remaining cards surrounding Pusheen — or draw a random one from the Essentials deck — to put it into their hand, and then score any of the Snapshot cards remaining. 

The Snapshot cards have requirements printed on them to score their victory points, as indicated by the number of stars on the card.

Game play continues until one player has 10 or more stars. If no one has 10 or more stars yet, then the Pusheen figurine passes to the player on the left, and a new round begins. 

Easy peasy, right? Describing how to play the game took less than a minute to explain. It’s purrfect for early gamers. (See what I did there?)

So what’s on an Essentials card? There are three types: friends, items and actions. Friends and items cards provide the items necessary to fulfill Snapshot cards. They include charming things like other fluffy cats, rainbows, diamonds and the like. Action cards require the play to do them immediately as soon as they pick up the card. Some actions include removing Essentials Cards from the board or choosing any layer to give you a card of their choice. Actions to mix up the game. 

The artwork in this game is just so adorable. But of course it is because Pusheen herself is very adorable.

For more experienced gamers, this game’s drafting mechanism for the gamed as if you see that an opponent needs a specific Essentials card to fulfill a high-value Snapshot card, you can place Pusheen away from any of those cards. It can be a little mean, especially at high player counts, because then it’ll be four turns until you get to place Pusheen where you want her. Again, the game is light enough that it’s just playful meanness. 

But in the grand scheme of gaming, this meanness is a small possibility as most new gamers will probably not be playing like this.The game’s sturdy, high-gloss components mean this game can be played just about anymore. And it’s very portable — the box size is a small square, like those 2-player games you’ve seen from Patchwork or Targi. 

Pusheen Purrfect Pick board game
This is seriously the more adorable first-player marker ever.

Pusheen Purrfect Pick is 100 percent a light game. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s anything other than that. But for what type of game it is, it’s just delightful and something that is purrfect for early gamers and those who love adorableness. 

And that’s Pusheen Purrfect Pick! This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening! Bye!