Some things haven’t changed in this new year’s series, like the proclivity to find games that should come with an ‘approach with caution’ warning over the rarer halo’d games we jump at.
If every game was a halo’d game though, halos would be meaningless.
AFTER US (2023): Rank 2353, Rating 6.8
Draw 4 cards from your personal deck and arrange them left to right to complete as many useful icon boxes as possible (they’re down the left and right edges of the cards). These give you the resources to buy better cards, trade in for VPs, etc. Keep playing rounds, keep improving your deck, aim to hit 80 points before everyone else. You’d get decent enough play out of it if you owned it but we also haven’t felt the need to go back to the well when we don’t. (Dale’s review here)
Rating: 6
CANOPY (2021): Rank 1069, Rating 7.3
This card set collection game is designed as a 2p but I’ve only played the 3p variant. Its main feature of interest is the card collection mechanic, where you look at the pile shared with your LH neighbour and either take the whole pile or add a card to it and move on, doing the same with the pile you share with your RH neighbour. If you don’t like those, do the same with the common pile in the middle and if you don’t like that, draw a random card. There are lots of different small sets so its random if you find cards to complete sets. There are negative cards which pollute decks. There are valuable cards that you’re on the hunt for to build your canopy. All of which makes the result pretty random and the point swings wild (for the 3p version anyway).
Rating: 6
COLORADO (2023): Rank 6319, Rating 7.0
Basically we’re playing cards to tick off locations on our personal maps to complete regions faster than other players for VPs. The point of interest is the convoluted card request (Go Fish style) and play system where actions (tick offs, draw cards, etc) end up depending on colour and nugget numbers and it’s all too hard to even remember let alone explain. It was ok once we got into the swing of it but there was only ever the one play so that probably sums it up.
Rating: 6
FOREST SHUFFLE (2023): Rank 417, Rating 7.6
Your turn is either draw cards (from the deck or the draft) or spend cards to play cards from your hand San Juan style into your personal tableau, finding good scoring combinations and attempting to max them. Standard mechanic, sure, but it’s grown on me (ahem) with each game. I love that each card comes with two different scoring options, and there are a ton of cards with different scoring combination possibilities. I like the theme, the art, the playing of animals amongst the trees, but the thing I’ve enjoyed most is exploring how many different ways there are to score game-winning points. Once people start building and know what they’re looking for, the game moves along at a tidy clip as well. Nicely done and it’s seeing significant replay as a friendly set collection game. (Dale’s Preview here)
Rating: 8
FREE RIDE (2021): Rank 3276, Rating 7.1
Most of your turns are spent building track to link two cities for points, and the rest of the game is spent hoping that the next set of city connections available in the draft when you need them will suit your track and are easy to build. In Ticket To Ride, long track connections earn big points, short connections fewer, but here they’re worth much the same – which is either a feature or an issue depending on your view. It rolls along pleasantly as this genre usually does, especially if hoping to get lucky is part of your expected game experience. In this space, Orient Express is more thoughtful but has the downside of going longer so I’m not sure which I prefer. Ticket To Ride probably. (A previous review of Free Ride here)
Rating: 7
PENDULUM (2020): Rank 3396, Rating 6.4
Think of a straight-forward Euro of gathering resources and doing conversions into VPs but where the meeples are sand-timers with different run-out times that you re-use within each round. The real-time rounds are interspersed with resolution and then planning what you want to achieve next and how. In the early rounds it’s a challenge to wrap your head around the on/off mechanic and be efficient with the sand-timers, but your familiarity and concentration improves and it gets easier. It was good to spread the gaming wings a little and it was satisfying when it clicked, but not enough to compensate for the dry-ness underneath. (A similar review here)
Rating: 6
RIFT VALLEY RESERVE (2023): Rank 25392, Rating 4.7
The aim is to draw lines (hiking trails) on scenic maps that are as long as possible and pass by scenic spots (lions et al drawn on the map) for max pts. The feature (?) of the game is you draw one thing (either a stop or a line or a tent) and then pass the board on to the next player, so it takes 3 times around the table to build a trail (made of 2 stops and a line connecting them). When playing with gamers you’ll find that by the time it gets to you the third time, that line you wanted to draw between your stops is now blocked by someone else’s stop, which makes for a game of finding routes that are not in other people’s interest to block (hmm) or go the blocking route yourself. Which makes for ongoing bouts of hope and denial which mostly ends in frustration.
Rating: 5
TIMELINE TWIST (2023): Rank 12108, Rating 5.9
I’ve only played the co-op mode of this Twist version and I didn’t mind it because I like Timeline, dates, history, etc. You each draw cards and the idea is to grow the timeline left and right, looking around at everyone’s cards to ensure they’re played in such an order so as to minimise the number of times the next card in sequence isn’t playable at either end of the timeline on the next person’s go. And then you draw into cards that stuff it up anyway because turn order dictates the order in which they must be played. The only non-alpha play is to collectively decide the date on the back of each card. That bit is social and likeable. There are only so many cards so you’ll eventually know where everything goes and then, with competent play, your score will be a function of random draw.
Rating: 6
Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:
Larry: I don’t know, Patrick. I do my best to only play games I think I’ll like (halo’d games, as you put it), and it every I played was a halo’d game, I think it would be awesome! But let’s talk about a couple of the games from your report, only one of which comes with a golden ring over its head. And it isn’t the one you seem to favor…
Forest Shuffle – I’ve only played this once, but it didn’t impress me. You seem to like all the scoring combinations, but for me, it just muddies the design and makes it feel as if it’s impossible to achieve anything close to optimal play. I felt it was pretty loose, similar to another ecologically-themed game I’ve played that features a bunch of scoring opportunities, Earth. I’m not opposed to trying Forest Shuffle again, but if it got lost in the shuffle of other new games, it wouldn’t break my heart. Rating: Neutral.
Free Ride – With the playability issues of the original Free Ride fixed in the USA version of the game, I’m now quite a fan of this. Yes, there’s a bit of luck, but making thoughtful, careful plays and getting the timing of them right is more important, I feel. Plus, it plays quickly and is just fun to play. I think this is a superior middleweight and, given the simple rules, is an impressive design achievement from Friedemann Friese. Rating: I really like it.
Patrick Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2024 (Part 2)
Some things haven’t changed in this new year’s series, like the proclivity to find games that should come with an ‘approach with caution’ warning over the rarer halo’d games we jump at.
If every game was a halo’d game though, halos would be meaningless.
AFTER US (2023): Rank 2353, Rating 6.8
Draw 4 cards from your personal deck and arrange them left to right to complete as many useful icon boxes as possible (they’re down the left and right edges of the cards). These give you the resources to buy better cards, trade in for VPs, etc. Keep playing rounds, keep improving your deck, aim to hit 80 points before everyone else. You’d get decent enough play out of it if you owned it but we also haven’t felt the need to go back to the well when we don’t. (Dale’s review here)
Rating: 6
CANOPY (2021): Rank 1069, Rating 7.3
This card set collection game is designed as a 2p but I’ve only played the 3p variant. Its main feature of interest is the card collection mechanic, where you look at the pile shared with your LH neighbour and either take the whole pile or add a card to it and move on, doing the same with the pile you share with your RH neighbour. If you don’t like those, do the same with the common pile in the middle and if you don’t like that, draw a random card. There are lots of different small sets so its random if you find cards to complete sets. There are negative cards which pollute decks. There are valuable cards that you’re on the hunt for to build your canopy. All of which makes the result pretty random and the point swings wild (for the 3p version anyway).
Rating: 6
COLORADO (2023): Rank 6319, Rating 7.0
Basically we’re playing cards to tick off locations on our personal maps to complete regions faster than other players for VPs. The point of interest is the convoluted card request (Go Fish style) and play system where actions (tick offs, draw cards, etc) end up depending on colour and nugget numbers and it’s all too hard to even remember let alone explain. It was ok once we got into the swing of it but there was only ever the one play so that probably sums it up.
Rating: 6
FOREST SHUFFLE (2023): Rank 417, Rating 7.6
Your turn is either draw cards (from the deck or the draft) or spend cards to play cards from your hand San Juan style into your personal tableau, finding good scoring combinations and attempting to max them. Standard mechanic, sure, but it’s grown on me (ahem) with each game. I love that each card comes with two different scoring options, and there are a ton of cards with different scoring combination possibilities. I like the theme, the art, the playing of animals amongst the trees, but the thing I’ve enjoyed most is exploring how many different ways there are to score game-winning points. Once people start building and know what they’re looking for, the game moves along at a tidy clip as well. Nicely done and it’s seeing significant replay as a friendly set collection game. (Dale’s Preview here)
Rating: 8
FREE RIDE (2021): Rank 3276, Rating 7.1
Most of your turns are spent building track to link two cities for points, and the rest of the game is spent hoping that the next set of city connections available in the draft when you need them will suit your track and are easy to build. In Ticket To Ride, long track connections earn big points, short connections fewer, but here they’re worth much the same – which is either a feature or an issue depending on your view. It rolls along pleasantly as this genre usually does, especially if hoping to get lucky is part of your expected game experience. In this space, Orient Express is more thoughtful but has the downside of going longer so I’m not sure which I prefer. Ticket To Ride probably. (A previous review of Free Ride here)
Rating: 7
PENDULUM (2020): Rank 3396, Rating 6.4
Think of a straight-forward Euro of gathering resources and doing conversions into VPs but where the meeples are sand-timers with different run-out times that you re-use within each round. The real-time rounds are interspersed with resolution and then planning what you want to achieve next and how. In the early rounds it’s a challenge to wrap your head around the on/off mechanic and be efficient with the sand-timers, but your familiarity and concentration improves and it gets easier. It was good to spread the gaming wings a little and it was satisfying when it clicked, but not enough to compensate for the dry-ness underneath. (A similar review here)
Rating: 6
RIFT VALLEY RESERVE (2023): Rank 25392, Rating 4.7
The aim is to draw lines (hiking trails) on scenic maps that are as long as possible and pass by scenic spots (lions et al drawn on the map) for max pts. The feature (?) of the game is you draw one thing (either a stop or a line or a tent) and then pass the board on to the next player, so it takes 3 times around the table to build a trail (made of 2 stops and a line connecting them). When playing with gamers you’ll find that by the time it gets to you the third time, that line you wanted to draw between your stops is now blocked by someone else’s stop, which makes for a game of finding routes that are not in other people’s interest to block (hmm) or go the blocking route yourself. Which makes for ongoing bouts of hope and denial which mostly ends in frustration.
Rating: 5
TIMELINE TWIST (2023): Rank 12108, Rating 5.9
I’ve only played the co-op mode of this Twist version and I didn’t mind it because I like Timeline, dates, history, etc. You each draw cards and the idea is to grow the timeline left and right, looking around at everyone’s cards to ensure they’re played in such an order so as to minimise the number of times the next card in sequence isn’t playable at either end of the timeline on the next person’s go. And then you draw into cards that stuff it up anyway because turn order dictates the order in which they must be played. The only non-alpha play is to collectively decide the date on the back of each card. That bit is social and likeable. There are only so many cards so you’ll eventually know where everything goes and then, with competent play, your score will be a function of random draw.
Rating: 6
Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:
Larry: I don’t know, Patrick. I do my best to only play games I think I’ll like (halo’d games, as you put it), and it every I played was a halo’d game, I think it would be awesome! But let’s talk about a couple of the games from your report, only one of which comes with a golden ring over its head. And it isn’t the one you seem to favor…
Forest Shuffle – I’ve only played this once, but it didn’t impress me. You seem to like all the scoring combinations, but for me, it just muddies the design and makes it feel as if it’s impossible to achieve anything close to optimal play. I felt it was pretty loose, similar to another ecologically-themed game I’ve played that features a bunch of scoring opportunities, Earth. I’m not opposed to trying Forest Shuffle again, but if it got lost in the shuffle of other new games, it wouldn’t break my heart. Rating: Neutral.
Free Ride – With the playability issues of the original Free Ride fixed in the USA version of the game, I’m now quite a fan of this. Yes, there’s a bit of luck, but making thoughtful, careful plays and getting the timing of them right is more important, I feel. Plus, it plays quickly and is just fun to play. I think this is a superior middleweight and, given the simple rules, is an impressive design achievement from Friedemann Friese. Rating: I really like it.
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About Dale Yu
Dale Yu is the Editor of the Opinionated Gamers. He can occasionally be found working as a volunteer administrator for BoardGameGeek, and he previously wrote for BoardGame News.