While we normally contribute more to full reviews, in the heady weeks just after SPIEL, everyone is playing as many games as possible – and frankly, spending more time playing games than writing!  Our writers have been contributing to a document where they give anonymous small reports on the new games that they’re playing.

These blurbs are meant to be anonymous; in part because given the rapid nature of these things, many of the games may have only been played once; and all comments below should be read with that important caveat.   Players will have changing reactions to games after multiple plays, and it certainly wouldn’t be fair to a game to write a review based on such small experience.

Of course, there is also benefit to see what some other gamers have thought about the games that they have already tried – and thus, we stick to this anonymous format of small first takes.  We will try to do another one in 2-3 weeks – and then there will likely be a final one after the major November conventions finish up (where many of our writers will be playing games!)

This year, we’ll try to organize the games in alphabetical order:

For part 1 of the recap, click here

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1902 Méliès – works OK but rather random and without a lot of interesting decisions. Does a decent job with the theme.

Academy is an interesting tt, but sort of miniSkat. Each player has a role, Captain, Mastermind, and Team Player. With 4p, you add the Rebel.  The deck with 3p is 3 suits 1-9, adding a 4th suit with 4p. Each card also has a ‘rule’ on it. The game’s goal is to ‘win’ three hands and have the purple 7 in a trick you won. If you are the Captain and Team Member, you are trying to get more tricks combined than the Mastermind. As the Mastermind, you are trying to get at least as many tricks as the Captain and Team Member.  Before the round starts, the Captain deals # of cards = # of players to the Mastermind (excluding the purple 7). The mastermind may choose one of the cards as the trump suit for the rule. Rules all benefit the mastermind in some way. The Team Player then chooses the trump if the Mastermind chose the rule, or vice versa. You then play a normal must-follow tt and allocate medals. If you play 4p, the Rebel is trying to get at least three of the four suits in the tricks they won. I enjoyed it, but some hands are clearly better than others and the rules are in German on the cards, so it might be nice to wait for an English deck to avoid constant rules consultations.

Almost Innocent – a deduction game where each of you is trying to solve for your own portion of a shared grid.  Players each get a turn where they ask a question, and then all players give an answer for the player on their left.  If you like logic puzzles that are cooperative games, it’s good for that group.  If you don’t, well it’s a logic puzzle.

Alpujarras – a nice time-track fruit harvesting and selling game with a fairly abstract base, I am not sure there is more to see on subsequent plays, as it is quite tactical. Pretty pieces that are almost as nice as those in Finca.

Ancient knowledge – I love it. Do you like combo tastic card games? I do and I like this one a lot.   Have a hand of cards, play them using other cards in your hand to pay for them.  Cards to the top of the board where that move towards your scoring pile one space per round. 

Art Gallery – some neat ideas here with set collection and an interesting currency redistribution plan; though I maybe think it would have been interesting if the order of distribution had been reversed.  As it is, it’s always better to arrive at a location first, and the game becomes more of a race or taking advantage of turn order.  Unclear whether the best strategy is to just buy tiles all the time; i thought so at first, but then the actual results voted against it 🙂

Art Society – A neat spatial puzzle of gaining art in a closed fist auction and then making it all fit on your wall, trying to abide by the placement restrictions.  Game might be fragile as the flow of the game is largely dependent on the players who get to decide what goes up for auction each round.

Bamboo – Totally a Devir game in the vein of Red Cathedral and White Castle, like White Castle, virtually impossible to fit back in the box. We only got a round or two in and it was fun if not a wowser, feeling like Pirates of Maracaibo and White Castle in that they are shorter crunchier games that all fill the same slot for me.

Belladone Bluff – a little card game from France that has players building three rows on the table, kind of like 6 nimmt.  When a row gets its 7th card, the player who played the last card collects the row and then scores it.  Cards vary from negative 6 to positive 6, and they are played in alternating face up and face down order (hence the bluff in the title).  It works fine as a filler.

Boomerang usa – a surprisingly delightful roll and write. Probably my favorite Scott Almes game? The sort of game where you’re scoring five different things at once, and it works really well. There are a couple different games in the series so you can pick what country you want to explore.

Daybreak – a cooperative game themed around reducing global warming.  No idea why the German version is called E-Mission.  I mean, I can sort of see the pun, but the title is what you’re trying to avoid?  Anyways, I like cooperative games where you’re constantly interacting with your partners, trying to find the best way as a group to play the hand of cards that you’re dealt each round.

Deductio – a competitive deduction game. Each player has a secret number from a deck of 1-20. There are three statements in the middle of the table, ranging from ‘Not 9 and Not 19’ to ‘Even’ to ‘Less than 7’. When it is your turn, you have two options, either choose a rule and place it in front of yourself so that the rule is true, or guess someone else’s number. The goal of the game is to successfully guess 2 numbers from other players.  If you guess and are right, you get that card as a trophy and don’t need to play a rule on yourself that turn. Unfortunately, if you are wrong, you must place two rules in front of yourself. As the game goes, people are narrowing down what you have and you are trying to keep them from guessing your number for as long as possible. If all the rules are false and it is your turn, you must take them all and place them horizontally in front of you. There is more to it, but that is the gist and it was fun and quick. Almost every deduction game wants a grid and this one does too, but does not offer one, so lots of people can spend time recalculating just to remember that your card is either a 13 or a 16.  Since trophies are kept face up, you gain more information as the game progresses. In addition, some cards shuffled into the clue deck reveal more number cards, which can suddenly make a 50/50 into a 100%.

Dogfight – a 2p game of an aerial duel. A little bit of a read my mind game that takes ten minutes, so it’s just fine for me because I’m generally not a fan of 2p games

Dragonkeepers – the new Menzel release from Kosmos. Really wants to target the family / SdJ audience, and the gameplay itself does well with that.  The setup is a bit fiddly, and i’m not sure if that represents a barrier or not.  Would happily play again.

Evacuation – felt good with 3p – might be tighter with 4p, as we could not find scaling on the new planet. If you like logistics and a medium-heavy game, give it a whirl.  It did not excite me, but I appreciated the challenge of evacuating a planet using three colors of cubes. Also, the game would have been 33% longer with 4p for no benefit. We all played different strategies and ended up with scores of 37-37-36, so not sure if everyone will always be close.  One cool feature is that there are four different sets of tech tiles that are used to make a 3×3 grid. Because they are placed randomly, the tech trees are different even if you have the same set of tiles.

Faraway – remains one of my favorite games from the year.  My ability to score points is improving with each successive play; there is definitely a learning curve in figuring out which cards can score.  Really feels like knowing what cards to try to throw down early work; and then getting lucky near the end to find an 8th card that can still score (usually using the extra cards you’ve been able to collect)

Garden Guests – a nice abstract game, previously known as Lumis, now for up to 6 players.  Honestly, still the same abstract connection game. If you like Twixt, you’ll like this one.  The art is…. Polarizing. I kind of liked it, one of my opponents said it was too cluttered and confusing.  It is a bit spicy with 3 players, and I like the way that you have to watch for attacks from multiple directions

Havalandi – I played this at Lobster Trap. Another remarkable Knizian semi-abstract dressed up in floating balloons. I played it at both 3 and 4 players, preferring 3 as it’s easier to grasp what your opponents are doing. I think this will work well at 2 as the board is smaller and it becomes a more direct zero-sum game, but 3 may well be the sweet spot. I’ll definitely pick this up when it’s available. 

Havalandi – Two players is probably not the ideal player count for this one, but it worked. I enjoyed the tension of deciding to launch not quite optimal balloons now or hoping the balloon arrived at a spot where it would be useful…before my opponent nabbed the connecting spot. Perfectly harmless Knizia that I’d put somewhere above average in his output. I do want to play with three or four, though!

Infiltraitors – a deduction game where you try to identify suspect cards by using other cards as clues, saying they are related if they share a color and/or a number (which can be a factor or multiple).  If you like logic puzzles that are cooperative games, it’s good for that group. If you don’t, well it’s a logic puzzle.

Jurassic Park: Digger – a game which is sort of a rolling trick game, sort of a trick taker.  Five suited deck, and after everyone has played a valid combination (or passed), the highest valued card from each of the 5 suits is kept as a scoring card; all others are discarded.  At the end of the round, the most points in each color gets a token.  Goal is to get a token of each color.  Some interesting ideas here, but it didn’t quite click.  Also, we ran into a situation where the cards ran out before the round did.

Lata – with three there can be a severe fallaway trailer problem (and obviously with four as well). It probably plays better with two.

MLEM – many have compared it to Cloud 9/Celestia. The comparison is fair, but there are some twists that make it worth playing if you like the genre. The lack of cards and special powers of the catstronauts are amusing. 

Monster hide and seek – a memory game that uses two sided cards. If you like memory games, it’s one.  A bit spicier due to having to remember both sides of the card, and surprisingly, having the different colored backs really got me confused more than usual with the memory part.

Monumental. Played with two players. For me this is likely going to be optimal. Turns were long! Gameplay was pretty good. Rules were kind of a disaster. The lack of a manifest in the rules made first game setup take fifteen minutes longer than it had to. Would definitely play again now that I know how to set it up because I know the game terminology for all the bits.  I’m actually glad I have the retail version and not the super blingy KS version as the molded pieces make the board super crowded (at least in the pics I have seen)

Moon River – this is a game that proved to be almost exactly what I expected – a slightly more involved Kingdomino that is equally pleasant.  I’d be as happy to play it as Kingdomino.

Mycelia – the starter level deck building game from ravensburger. Here you use your card actions to move gems off of your board. It’s actually not as much deck building as I wanted but overall lots of fun. 

Namiji – the followup game to Tokaido.  Unlike the original, I don’t think you can simply go to the closest space and do whatever; there is slightly more decision making as not every space guarantees points.  Also, the bonus abilities tend to create different wants; and this makes it more interesting.  I’d say that you only need to own this or Tokaido, not both.

Nirvana – Portland Game Collective recently released this somewhat older game. I’m not a big fan of roll and writes but I love the idea of dice rolls generating your deck of cards for a quick shedding game. It was a lot of fun at 3, I look forward to trying it at 2. It’s a neat change of pace and undoubtedly a fine travel game. If you like the idea of manipulating numbers in service of forming an ephemeral hand of cards, you will enjoy this. I did and I look forward to many more plays. 

On the Road – family style game which is a bit push your luck and a bit of communal bag management; you score points when you draw your own color stars out of the communal bag. Not as dry as what you might expect from a Colovini?

PASS – a SCOUT! clone that performs far worse. The superpowers provided by the token are too powerful, the climbing rules too restrictive, and the “sorry you didn’t play cards this go round” consolation a token rather than a decision.

Path of civilization – I thought I might hate it from setup, but the game is remarkably streamlined. Nine fairly quick turns for a civ game. Would definitely play again.  Each round you have 5 cards, each with a production side and a track bump side.  You play 4 of them each round, having to choose 2 for production and 2 for track bumps.  The fifth is trashed from the game!  Do the things on the cards and then buy a card at the end to bring your hand back to 5.  There is an event each round which you have to contend with as well.  Do this nine times.  Pretty neat decision making around which cards to play and which to trash.

Pocket farm. A deceivingly complex game made for kids. Each round draft a card and add it to your tableau covering icons to pay for it. The unchosen card each round increases scoring for that type. Twelve rounds takes ten minutes. Probably a keeper for me 

Robot Quest Arena – deck building meets arena death match. Not as much deck building but the fighting robots on the board part is fun.  Each robot has a unique ability; I haven’t played enough to know if they’re balanced, but I also don’t know if I care.  This is one of those games where it’s just fun to make a deck and go bash everyone else.

Secret Number – A quirky game about guessing the missing number from a 12-card deck with 0-0-1-1-2-2-3-3-4-4-5-5. It involved dealing out the two cards of the deck to each player when playing 5p, then revealing one of the two remaining ones. It is a bit convoluted and I did not find it that much fun, but again, it is a game without note-taking where we all wanted to be taking notes because your clue is that you display a number which could be the sum, difference, product, or quotient of the two numbers you have. Then you either disclose one of your two numbers or which process (+/-/x/division) you used. Then you disclose the product or one of your cards, which ever you did not do at step 2. Between each disclosure, players may guess what the hidden number is. More points for earlier guesses. Some other scoring stuff. Fun to see it and try a round or two.

Sunrise Lane – The production has taken some heat (deservedly) for the challenge of distinguishing red and purple on the player board, so make sure you play this with a strong, direct light! It’s an improvement on Rondo because of the end game scoring conditions. I played it 3 times at Lobster Trap with player counts of 3 and 4, both being fine. I then played it at 2 with my wife, and it was fun and quick, but not quite as interesting as 3 or 4. I enjoy this game and will probably wind up playing it quite a bit as it’s so easy to start, teach, and play. It flows well, the card play requires some planning, and it’s fun. I think Havalandi is the more interesting game with longer legs, but I like this very much as well. 

Surfosaurus MAX – one of the surprises of SPIEL 2023 so far.  Essentially, construct poker hands on the table both cooperatively and competitively.  A clever design.  The artwork is pretty rad as well

Tequila – I’m not typically a fan of roll and writes because they’re usually a solo experience played in the vicinity of others. This is no exception. There were a ton of rules questions that the rulebook only answered in most cases. The resource management and converting was interesting, but without it being played on a common board I was not as interested. I was eyeing a copy of Arabella the whole time.

Terraforming mars the dice game. Almost not for me. Just barely. Weirdly I can’t say why other than the whole time we were playing I just kept asking why the game existed. Why not base T. M. Or T. M. the card game? 

The A.R.T. Project – a really tight cooperative game, maybe prone to quarterbacking as it’s a group decision path as opposed to players each choosing their own path – but still fun.  I have played it both group and solo, and actually like it better solo; but that’s probably a reflection of my feelings on coop games in general

Tipperary – this is a decent game on the simpler side. It has garnered a lot of comparisons to Planet Unknown (since in both the players are each choosing one of two polyominoes to place each round) and honestly I might prefer Tipperary as I am not sure the additional time spent to play Planet Unknown gives me enough additional enjoyment.

Tipperary – Yet another tile laying game with lots of game mechanics we’ve seen before. However, it is very enjoyable as the scoring possibilities make for a neat puzzle, the tile selection process is cool, and you can play a game in 20 minutes. It is, for sure, more of a heads-down puzzle, with minimal player interaction—a sign of the times unfortunately. It’s a good solid game and I enjoyed spending time with it. 

Tucana Builders – a really crunchy puzzle game where you place path tiles; trying to connect animals to their respective scoring huts via road.  As with many tile games, luck of the draw has a huge role to play; especially since it’s a blind draw every turn.

Tucana Builders – I want to like it more but I find it very hard to track which animals are connected where. It would be much easier to play online (assuming an implementation that displayed that information).

Zero hero – a small card game from piatnik. Buy pairs of cards from a market. You’ll score points for having one or three cards in a suit.  A few cards allow some manipulation of the cards, but it’s trying to have the right amount of money to buy the cards you want when they are available.