These are the last of the games I played at the Gathering. It’s taken quite a while to get through them all but I hope you’ve found at least something of value along the way.
I upped my rating of the White Castle to a 9 recently, and played the Matcha expansion for the first time last week. It provides a fourth resource, a fourth avenue for actions, and a fourth action each round. While there are more options to consider, the feel remains unchanged – every action is still carefully weighed for its import. It’s one of those expansions which you’d probably always include if you owned it, but I’m not sure it’s needed because the purity of the original remains valued.
New-to-me games played recently include …
A MESSAGE FROM THE STARS (2024): Rank 2906, Rating 7.3
I’ve only played the co-op version where one player has secret letters in different categories they want the team to work out. The means to do that is by giving a word and declaring how many points the word is worth – the categories make letters be positive, negative, or multipliers. There are other frequency rules that can be applied as well so a well-chosen word will allow a ton of letter eliminations to be made. And then you feed back a word to the leader to get a score, which will help further, while also trying to provide clues back to the leader so they can eliminate 15 of the 18 words the team were given. Get everything right for the win. All of which makes for quite the secretive conversation on which is the best word to proceed with – they’re written, not spoken, until agreed. I’m not sure how much play is in it given how thinky and quiet it is, but I certainly enjoyed the novelty and cleverness enough to play again if it was on offer.
Rating: 7
BUFFET BOSS (2023): Rank 8776, Rating 6.5
It’s Tier Auf Tier but everyone has their own base (a rocking banana shape) and you can choose what animal, er fruit to add by picking from this round’s card selection. Hard shapes are worth more VPs. You also start with 2 VP objectives which are wildly variable and seem to mostly determine the winner so yeah, you kinda already have an idea who’s going to win from the start. But it’s not the type of game to care or emotionally invest, it’s just a bit of stacking fun for 10 minutes and it does its job well.
Rating: 6
ITO (2019): Rank 1744, Rating 7.3
A theme is provided (eg scary), each player draws a card between 1 and 100 and offers a (scary) scenario they feel matches their number (eg if you have a 10, something that’s not very scary, giving space for less scary stuff if someone has a lower number). If the group correctly guesses the rankings of everyone’s cards based, it’s a win. Any answer you give will have people poo-poohing where you ranked it. Some will say there’s charm in gaining understanding of different perspectives. I say it’s an argument about guesses that’s ok if you’re after a conversation triggering pastime, but not much of a game.
Rating: 5
JEWEL BOX (2024): Rank 13934, Rating 6.7
You’re building a 4×4 grid with different colour tiles, each with different scoring rules, just like Between Two Cities. Except here you’re drawing one tile per turn from the refreshed common display. There’s some luck obviously in what tiles are left you and what gets flipped for your turn to score well, but it’s a pleasing exercise in planning and in hope and the 20 minute length is perfect for what it is.
Rating: 7
S’MORES GALORE (2024): Rank N/a, Rating N/a
Collect all the cards (showing the 3 ingredients for s’mores) from a row/column in the common display and place them, in the same order, in your tableau aiming to repeat the order required by a contract for points. You get a little bit of manipulation each turn but it’s relatively straightforward, play in the hope that the contracts on offer match your tableau and the ingredients on offer. Repeat. With the cards being simple, I felt I’d explored it after a play.
Rating: 6
SUBJECTIVE (2023): Rank 11755, Rating 7.1
Picture Just One but here clues are revealed one at a time, the earlier you get the word, the more points. Each clue is provided substance by being related to a theme (eg name a movie associated with this word), and while there’s a wide range of themes to work with, I often found it hard come up with something, diminishing my enjoyment. Especially as some words were people I’d never heard of – I suspect it’s too America=centric to work well at home.
Rating: 5
WILD GARDENS (2024): Rank 4321, Rating 7.7
Move around the track to gather resources (each space offers a diff combination). Spend resources on techs to help with moving and gathering, and eventually on the recipes/contracts from the open display for VPs. Save up stuff for end of round benefits and repeat for 6 rounds. It’s got the usual “common display” drama – aim for a card that others can’t get before you, get the resources you need, spend, focus on the next card. But it’s too long at 2 hours – the game really only needs 3 or 4 rounds because once you have your techs you just repetitively gather and spend, without any type of story arc. I’m sure people will get all cutesy about the art though, and it’s still interesting enough to play.
Rating: 7
YRO (2024): Rank 4635, Rating 7.5
What a fun little 15 min game in the Castle Combo mould. But played in even fewer rounds. Do you play multiple cheap cards or wait a round and get out a big one? Do you invest heavily in fight value in your top row for right-now points, hoping for a quick win, or build up your gold and tech powers in the hope you’ll swamp the fighty players with even bigger points in the final round? And/or shoot for same-colour type bonuses across your cards? The choices are packed, and I like having more simultaneous build-play than Castle Combo. Fun.
Rating: 7
