Far away we sailed our knarr, with the help of the maps of misterra, aiming to settle along the moon river which feeds from okanagan, the valley of the lakes. We named this planet unknown “Rauha” … and then the robots ate our pizza.
FARAWAY (2023): Rank 723, Rating 7.6
The twist is that cards will be revealed for scoring in reverse order to which you play them. Meaning your first cards will want to be big scorers which typically have lots of requirements to be met (by cards played later but scored earlier), so then you work towards playing cards to meet those requirements. Each round, new cards are drawn in order from those who played the least valuable to the most valuable (Kingdomino style). You’re rewarded though if you play a more valuable card than last round, which is usually the opposite of that needed for scoring. It makes for nice decisions and an interesting game if you can accept that with only 8 rounds and only 8 plays the luck of the cards may be determinant, but this is fine in a game of this length. A more glowing review here
Rating: 7
KNARR (2023): Rank 837, Rating 7.5
Play a card onto your tableau. Get the resources on all the cards in that colour (ie you want to specialise) and collect a new card from the matching slot in the draft. Eventually you’ll trade your played cards in for VP-earning expeditions which also drives card choice decisions as these generally prefer generalisation (also, losing your resource generation capability too early hurts). This presents a litany of weighing-up-what’s-best decisions, all of which makes for a nice light-weight card collection game with easy rules and a nice flow. Review of Knarr
Rating: 7
MAPS OF MISTERRA (2023): Rank 7954, Rating 6.5
First play left us thinking maybe there’s something there, second play was nope, not for us. The main decision is whether to cover empty spaces on your board (removing -ve pts) or whether to double-play a terrain on the same space to lock it in on the central board. The more matches you have to the central board, the more you score as well. All the while trying to get terrain in formations that match your personal goals. It gets complicated by your meeple’s board position and action points and terrain effects, but it comes down to whether people muck up the central board on you or not and there’s not a lot you can do about it. A previous review here
Rating: 5
MOON RIVER (2023): Rank 5170, Rating 6.6 – Cathala / Servais
It’s uses the Kingdomino system to draft your tiles, and then you gradually pair your tiles up any way you like to create the dominoes which get placed into your tableau to form the typical terrain size times multiplier scoring thing. There’s another wibble with putting out cowboy meeples that move around your tiles for various effects. This abstracted genre is fine when the turns are pacey and the game quick, but interest doesn’t hold up when turns are double/triple the length while players try to work through all the possible tile combinations versus possible scoring spaces.
Rating: 6
OKANAGAN: VALLEY OF THE LAKES (2017): Rank 4505, Rating 6.6 – Ornella
Another souped up Carcassonne style game, where the tiles are loaded with ‘reward’ icons that are awarded when the terrain closes. The ‘meeples’ that you place are now ranked level 1 to 3 based on how many terrains they touch, and upon closure the players take resources in order of their ranking. These are used to complete VP set collections. Dependence on closure means your result is *really* dependent on placing carefully (which makes turns longer), drawing into tiles you need (which makes the game luckier) and attracting and then relying on other players to help close terrains. And with set scores being large and digital (either you get it or you don’t), there were too many things outside my control to enjoy the game as much as I thought I might. A review written by a non-Canadian here.
Rating: 6
PLANET UNKNOWN (2022): Rank 200, Rating 7.9
Polyomino tile placement ratcheted up to the next level. I liked the lazy susan idea – the first player spins the lazy susan to the tile piles they want to choose from, which then dictates the piles each other player chooses from. Meaning most turns you just have to do the best with what you get. This sums up the game. Your decisions are shaped by your private goals, the shared objectives you’re competing for, and the VP tracks you’re concentrating in to maximise tech advantages and points (all of which are needed and good). While the placement decision each turn is compelling and downtime is minimal (big ups), by the end of each game you find you’ve pretty much done most of everything you did the game before. The non-vanilla boards add enough variety for further experimentation though and we did play it quite a bit during the discovery phase. We still go back to it occasionally because, now we know it, it’s easy and you’re always busy.
Rating: 8
RAUHA (2023): Rank 3443, Rating 7.0
This tableau-builder had enough neat things to keep me interested. Each turn you pick a tile from a stack you share with a neighbour (so you have some knowledge of what may be available later and pick accordingly). Placing tiles into your 3×3 grid always seems to involve a compromised decision, be it playing for icons, short-term resource-gaining effects, long-term scoring combinations, and/or competing for god effects that move around when rows/columns are completed with identical icons. Play moves along quite quickly though because everyone plays simultaneously, and there’s a nice points/resource resolution each turn. It’s not a big game that demands it, but the different approaches on offer do invite replay.
Rating: 7
ROBOTS ATE OUR PIZZA (2021): Rank 25584, Rating 4.5
This co-op is better than its ranking (by only a handful of raters) would have you believe but it’s also fair that once you “get” it, there’s probably not too much more play in it. Each of the 4 rounds has a different objective (which might be to have the highest scorer score as high as possible, or players score the same, etc). To that end you pass cards 7 Wonders style to form poker type hands – 4 of a kind, triples, etc – for points which each player scores once all the cards have been taken. You’re trying to be mindful of what you’ve passed on previously, working out what cards your LH neighbour will want next while doing the best with your own hand. Sometimes the cards work out, sometimes they don’t. It was quickish and the early games were fun enough in the learning.
Rating: 6
Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:
Larry: More gaming goodness from the Land of Oz to comment on…
Faraway – I’ve only played this once, but I wasn’t all that impressed. The reverse scoring is its main feature, but that also implies a certain lack of control (since you can’t be sure what cards you will see in the future) which makes it less than an ideal fit for me. I’d try it again, but if every copy was taken Far Away from me, I wouldn’t be too sad about it. Rating: Neutral.
Knarr – This has proven to be a big hit in a variety of settings. Simple rules, but the decisions require some thought and judgment and it plays very fast. It’s billed as a Splendor Killer and I agree, as I think it’s a much more interesting game than Splendor. It’s an ideal closer when we have some time at the end of our game session. Rating: I like it.
Planet Unknown – It’s a likeable enough game. It’s best feature is that it effortlessly handles as many as 6 players. There’s a good deal of luck, but there’s a lot of scope for skill as well. I’m not particularly good at it, due to my poor spatial skills, but it’s a nice game to have around when you want something fairly easy to teach that can handle a big crowd. Not a game I’d ever suggest, but I’m happy enough to play it. Rating: I like it.
Mitchell:
I’ve played Faraway almost one hundred times. It is our perfect travel game. I enjoy the decisions, the brilliantly quirky reverse scoring mechanism, and the reasonably interesting card play. It is essential to start the game with five cards and a choice of three. Sure, sometimes the best laid plans are betrayed by luck, but there is more control here than first appears, especially in a two player game. It’s become a staple for us. Rating: I love it!
