New-to-me games played recently include …

ALUBARI: A NICE CUP OF TEA (2019): Rank 2478, Rating 7.2

It probably doesn’t take a reading of the tea leaves to know that a remake of Snowdonia features worker placement to do everything – get resources, spend them on rail etc – and that there’s a weather system that adjusts how powerful various actions are thru the game which you tactically plan around. Getting contracts to give you direction as to what buildings to focus on is important as they provide an unfairly high chunk of scoring – and hugely unsatisfactory if you miss out because of weird stuff. Like the game-end mechanism indicating the game is 25% done and 5 minutes later the game is over because the weather was sunny and three people built 4 rail each. What the …? Strategy schmategy. I also disliked how anything other than first spot at an action was a gamble because players going before you have the ability to ramp up what they take with bonus powers – will they use them or not? I’m happy to leave this in my wake.

Rating: 6

BIDDLE (2025): Rank 11544, Rating 7.0

Fun quick dice-rolling game. In each of the 10 rounds, turn over a goal card which shows some combination of 6 dice (eg three 1’s plus three other different numbers). The first player declares how many turns they think they will take to meet the goal and, in turn order, players either agree with the bid, or make a lower bid, or declare there’s no way you’ll do in that few turns. The bid keeps getting lowered until everyone has decided if they’re on board with the lowest bid or declared nup, no way. And then there’s a bunch of cheers and groans as the attempt is made because everyone has invested in the result, with points gained by the players who were right. It doesn’t matter that the odds are calculatable – you’re only ever one bad roll away from doom or one great roll away from glory. With 10 rounds playing essentially the same game it’s not ever going to be in high rotation, but we had a lot of fun with it.

Rating: 7

CHEMICAL OVERLOAD (2025): Rank 8452, Rating 6.8

Think Dominion. 10 stacks of potions from which to build for various effects. Building costs are combinations of 3 different resources though rather than straight gold. The earlier game is slower, spending turns getting upgraded resource cards – this is the only way to build the big potions later on which require 4+ resources (and you ‘re only drawing 5 cards). I like how you get 2 actions a turn to build multiple potions or gather resources, and how everything you buy goes top of deck – no pesky waiting for it to cycle through. The ability to hold back cards from your hand allows you to ensure you have the right resource combination next turn (together with the resources you just gathered and top-decked) which is nice. There’s replay in all the different combo’s of potion stacks you can play with. It might rate higher if I hadn’t played Dominion to death over the years. It does go a little long for what it is but we enjoyed it still.

Rating: 7

FLAMECRAFT (2022): Rank 347, Rating 7.4

Mid-weight game where you move to a location, boost it with a card, and gather the resources it now offers. Later you’ll spend resources at a location to fulfil a contract from the common display for VPs, and then execute all the card powers at the location. The locations quickly generate lots of love, and even move powerful locations gradually come into play. The hardest part is working out, of all the options, are there more points on offer by executing a new location’s power or by actually fulfilling contracts. Or you can just romp thru having fun doing the easy stuff, gathering and fulfilling. A common display of contracts usually induces some race tension but if one disappears, just collect more resources and do a different contract next turn, no probs, it’ll all work out. The cutesy artwork adds to the quick turns fun vibe but it does feel like each game may play much the same.

Rating: 7

FLIPTOONS (2025): Rank 2420, Rating 7.2

It’s like Challengers on speed, but an all-in version rather than duels. Draw cards until your 6 slots are filled. Your cards have different ways to get points – stacking, adjacency, etc. Anyway, spend your points on better cards and on thinning your deck (like, um, Challengers). Each round your deck gets better, you’ll get more points. When someone cracks 30 do a final round (like, uhm, Challengers) and whoever scores the most in that final round wins. Your deck plays itself (Challengers) and you’re very dependent on what’s randomly available when it’s your turn to buy … but it’s still fun to gradually build your deck and see how it plays out given it’s a short timeframe that suits the randomness.

Rating: 7

MARVEL: AGE OF HEROES (2023): Rank 8294, Rating 6.9

It’s about racing to the best worker placement spots to get resources, and to claim turn order to build the most valuable contracts at the end of the round once everyone’s juiced up. You can play out cards as new improved action spots (where you get reward each time someone else uses it) making each game a little different. If you love the theme you’ll rate it higher but I became less enamoured with each passing round.as they all felt much the same – get resources, claim end-of-round build order, play a card or 2 out maybe, and then build contracts for points (which is another way of saying wounding the boss monster for VPs).

Rating: 6

SALTON SEA (2024): Rank 1735, Rating 7.4

The hook is that you can use cards to provide action boosts and discounts, but they’re also your money. You’ll need to spend your cards to do the action sequences to earn better cards.  After a few action cycles you’ll eventually have some cards you can keep just for souped up actions with enough left over to do the spending on better cards and VP actions. At this point, things accelerate and improve. It’s an engaging enough struggle working out how to get to a card action engine you can sustain, but it’s a very dry business type theme (despite the name) which is utterly non-enticing. And it’s processional throughout – very much a 2 steps forward, 1 step back grind for 2 hours.

Rating: 6

STEAM POWER (2025): Rank 3291, Rating 7.4 – Wallace

Age of Steam at turbo-speed. Turns are so fast. There’s tension to build your track asap to connect towns. There’s tension to load cities with your factories (which put goods on the board). Instead of deliveries, there’s a race to use up goods on the board to fulfil contracts (cards in hand), no matter who built them. Pretty much everything earns points so every turn seems progressive no matter what you do, which is nice. You probably need to invest in expansion maps to keep the replay going but I can totally see it being a 30 min staple for many groups. This one might have rated higher back in the day but I’ve played so many Steam variants over the decades that my preferences lean elsewhere now.

Rating: 7

Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:

Larry:  I thought Snowdonia was decent, but not really worth playing a second time.  Sounds like Alubari shares the same bones and, since I don’t share most Brit’s fascination with tea, this looks like a title I can skip.

I’ve played half a game of Salton Sea, which had to be aborted because we screwed up a rule.  But the central mechanism of cards doubling as currency and actions was an interesting one.  I really need to try to get it back to the table, to see if I’ll like it more than Alison does.

Steam Power is a solid middleweight train game.  As Alison says, it plays very fast and even though there’s a reasonable amount of luck, there’s also a good deal of skill which can be employed.  Even though it isn’t very deep, I still think it would be an excellent choice for gamers who like the idea of train games, but don’t want something as heavy as Age of Steam.  I want my train games to be heavier, so this isn’t something I’ll suggest, but I’d be happy to play it if the rest of the group wanted to.

Mark Jackson: I really enjoyed my one play of Biddle – it does some of the same things as the old Last Chance dice game but does them better.