I’ve been gradually working thru a backlog of games but this is where I start covering the games I played at the Gathering of Friends back in April. I played 89 new-to-me games there, which will take the next 11 or so articles to work through, so I’m going to stretch out the side commentary a little to match.

I spent a week prior to the Gathering in New England, which I’ve never visited before. I flew into Boston, drove north up to Acadia NP in Maine, and then across New Hampshire, Vermont and upper New York to get to Niagara Falls. Along the way I was chatting to my fellow OG’ers about my experiences and here are a few snippets:

–          While I wasn’t expecting it exactly to be balmy in Ogunquit, Maine, my first port of call, I’ll just call out that holy mother of all holies, it is SOOOO COLDDDD! I mean I packed some warms because I’m not totally stupid, but my god, I wasn’t expecting a polar fleece, full balaclava, insulated gloves style Arctic inquisition. I may have under-packed a little. I swear, if those GoF games rooms aren’t tasty warm, I’ll be lighting fires and using every game of Flip 7 as kindling.

And the next day

–          IT’S SNOWING!!! Oh no, it’s not that cold, you poor little Aussie girl. Suck it up. It’s April. Yes, but … IT’S SNOWING!!! Oh, I bet you all think this is so funny. I packed mini-skirts dammit. But here’s the upside. IT’S SNOWING!!! So cool. I mean, I’m in a real-life snowfall that’s not on a ski slope! I have this beautiful view out onto a forest, and I opened my blinds this morning … and it was a winter wonderland, snowing softly, settling on the trees, so cool. The smile hasn’t left my face all morning. I keep expecting Calvin and Hobbes to zoom past on their toboggan, it’s that kind of pretty.

Things I’ve learned so far:

1. Let’s start with the obvious. Maine’s winter really does last 8 months. Reading about it is different from experiencing it. This is why we travel.
2. All the houses really are like we see in the movies, that timbery weatherboardy look (not sure what it’s called). You imagine movie houses are picked out for being pretty, and I’m sure they are, but it feels like every house is a movie house. So pretty. Even the mansion style houses I stumbled into around Kennebunkport have the same look, super nice. We don’t have anything like it.
3. Patriotic visibility is still strong. I saw more American flags on my first day than I’ve seen Australian flags in my whole life. I’m not sure if it’s a law or a marketing requirement but every tavern and funeral house it seems must fly the flag. There’s no doubting what country I’m in.
4. I checked out the beaches at Hampton and ways north. Yeah, sorry, I understand you’ve got to love what you’ve got, but flat-sand lap-lap no-wave seasides do not a beach make. I think I understand now why boardwalks are so much talked about in the culture (as in, if the beach doesn’t cut it, what else can we do). Come to Australia, I’ll show you a beach.
5. I love the Maine accent, and everyone has bent over backwards to help out on my travels. So friendly. All you hear re America back home are the big things, the division, the lack of tolerance to gender diversity, etc, and people back home were genuinely worried for me, several asking me to re-consider travelling. But that big picture hasn’t translated to people level at all. And because I’m travelling alone, I’m starting up chats with everyone along the way (where should I visit, etc) so I’m feeling the friendly.
6. Lastly, don’t pick up half-price asian salad in Maine and expect anything other than technicolour yawns. *sigh*

New-to-me games played recently include …

HOUSE OF CATS (2023): Rank 6885, Rating 6.8 – Attia / Ostby

Roll-and-write where you must write the 3 dice values onto your sheet contiguously trying to form groups equal to the value’s size (2 x 2, 3 x 3, etc) in a mechanic we’ve seen a few times recently. What elevates this is trying to score well while being mindful of carving out your remaining space in lots of 3 (to avoid wasted dice takes), competing with the drive to score groups asap to earn the different bonuses for each dice value. There are different boards/challenges but I’ve only played the first, which I enjoyed well enough to be happy to play further if brought to the table.

Rating: 7

HUANG (2024): Rank 2260, Rating 8.0 – Knizia

This is the next re-make of Euphrat & Tigris (post Yellow & Yangtze), a game I’ve historically adored and rated nostalgically highly. This plays well and provides the same decision process – continually scanning the board for opportunities to make clever plays that will change the board position to your advantage in the colours you’re short in. It uses the 3-hex temple/pagoda system from Y&Y and these sources of VP income frequently move between the players. There’s a 5th colour, wild, always popular. Blue river tiles have a life of their own – play as many as you want in one action or throw in a pair to destroy a tile on the board. All of which makes for a dynamic feel. Killing off leaders is much the same but wars are watered down, just one-off battles using red tiles (always) that only give points for leaders removed. And it takes 5 players, which makes for quite the chaotically changing board by the time it gets back to you. It’s a variant I’m happy to whirl around when a more casual fling is sought over its more staid and studious grandfather.

Rating: 8

MOUNTAIN GOATS (2010): Rank 1625, Rating 6.8

A variation on Can’t Stop where you only get one roll (which loses the egg-on vibe but makes it faster) and you can use your 4 dice in any combinations (singles or add 2-4 dice together to produce a number you want) so you can move upwards in up to 4 columns with a miracle roll. Getting to a top spot earns you a VPs chip, and each round you stay there gets you another. You want to be knocking people off asap and start earning yourself. I liked the pace, it didn’t feel mean, not a lot of substance but lots of luck to enjoy.

Rating: 7

SCHOLARS OF THE SOUTH TIGRIS (2023): Rank 592, Rating 8.0 – Macdonald / Phillips

South Tigris games are where all the icons go to hangout. Sheesh. Use the trademark coloured meeples to turn dice into the number or colour you want. There are only a few processes and each is restricted in some way by dice number/colour – move up research tracks, move VP cards to conversion spots, buy converter cards, and buy VP cards using your converter cards. Sub-processes allow you to acquire resources, reserve cards, add to area-majority spots. But wow, so many icons on cards – the constant referral to player aids added an extra hour to the first play. The game provided a nice challenge to get the most out of your dice and your available action slots (you do a few actions and then rest to free up your action slots, get new dice, earn stuff from the resource tracks) and this made it interesting enough for people to want to play again to see if downtime diminishes enough with familiarity to make it worthwhile. However, score cards that suit what you’ve collected may never appear, and if they do, your dice simply may not co-operate to allow you to get them so it seemed to be a case of take what the dice allow and hope it’s enough.

Rating: 7

SO CLOVER (2021): Rank 290, Rating 7.6

It really is. It’s like a co-op Codenames / Just One with that same ‘could they be thinking this?’ feel. Each tile has a random word on each edge. Put 4 tiles in a square, making one bigger square, leaving 2 words on each square edge. Along each square edge. write 1 word linking its 2 words. And then shuffle all the tiles, add a random tile, and the other players have to work out exactly how your tiles were originally placed using only your 4 written words as clues. It’s so cool when the guessers work it out, but agonising when they had it right and change … you know, all those same feelings Codenames generates. It’s just a really simple enjoyable pastime type game.

Rating: 8

UP OR DOWN? (2024): Rank 11641, Rating 6.4 – Kiesling / Kramer

It’s like a competitive version of The Game: Play … As Long As You Can. Pick cards (numbered 1-102 for 4p) from the display to play on your 3 columns, each going either eponymously up or down in number order, your call. A column scores its total number of cards times the number of cards in the biggest colour set in that column (minus 1). If you can’t legally play, scrap a column and start again, so aim to keep things alive while collecting same colours if you can. But you’re so limited by what you can pick up (there’s a funky mechanism for it) that, even if a colour/number card you want is right there for the taking, you likely won’t be able to pick it up anyway, so it all felt like a crapshoot that went too long without a lot of cleverness involved.

Rating: 6

WELCOME TO THE MOON (2021): Rank 201, Rating 7.9

The third of the Welcome To series which I didn’t know even existed until it popped up on BGA and then, oh wow, look at that BGG ranking! How did I miss that? It’s perhaps an inflated ranking because, being the third, only Welcome To lovers are going to play and rate it however it does feel like the best of the three. It’s a campaign, with each of the 8 adventures featuring a different board, different rules, different approaches, but all (afaik) with the same flip 3 cards, write a number mechanic. If you’re going to buy one this would clearly be it (given it provides 8 different versions in one box) but … it’s still roll-and-write. The decision-feel is similar in weight and scope to its progenitors so it gets the same rating. I’ll likely play it once through, enjoy it, but feel no need to re-do.

Rating: 7

THE WOLVES (2022): Rank 1043, Rating 7.3

It’s an area majority game where your actions are cleverly limited by your terrain tiles. You move to or build on terrains that match your tiles and then they flip to show different terrain for your next action. Which generates interesting sequencing option trees. There are a number of ways to earn VPs and the game ends before you explore them all so you need to work out when to shift from low-scoring huts that improve your actions to higher scoring elements. I’m not a fan of whacking other players for points (especially in a multi-player game) but it isn’t a major element, just another option to get things out without too much loss for the loser. Years ago I would have rated this higher but there are no mission cards, no goals, no effect powers, no asynchrony – it’s just an abstract map that doesn’t change much. It’s a game which hangs its shingle out on the simple premise of ‘do better faster’ with your terrain tile flipping decisions and that’s not quite enough for me anymore, especially at ~90 mins.

Rating: 6

Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:

Larry:  It was great seeing you at the Gathering, Alison, getting in a few games with you, and getting to know you better.  One of the best things about our hobby is it makes it easier to get together with old friends.  As for the games in your report:

House of Cats – One of my favorite roll and write games.  Nothing spectacular, just very clever and well designed and the different sheets give it a good deal of variety.

Mountain Goats – I’ve played this once and it’s pretty good, but it’s no Can’t Stop.

So Clover – For some reason, everytime I’ve played this, there’s a lot of carping about the clues people give, which gives it a very negative feel.  No one else reports this, so I may just have had some bad games, but right now, it’s a game I avoid.

Fraser: Up or Down?  I played this for the first time the same night as I played Flip 7 for the first time.  This is the one I would be asking for again.

Tery:  I am definitely mostly over the roll and write genre, but I do love House of Cats. It’s well-designed and simple to reach, but there is a lot of strategy to what you do it. It scales well to any number of players, and I am always happy to play it, unlike So Clover. My experiences mirror Larry’s, and I just don’t get why people like this game.