Dale Yu: Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West

Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West

  • Designers: Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock, Alan R. Moon
  • Publisher: Days of Wonder
  • Players: 2-5
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 20-90 minutes (per the box)
  • Played with review copy provided by Days of Wonder
  • Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3MmRYiQ

As part of our buildup to the announcement of the Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres this weekend, we are looking at the 3 nominees for each award again.

Well, it’s really hard to review a legacy game – well, difficult if you want to do it and not give away any spoilers about the campaign.  As you likely know, the joy in a legacy game are the surprising twists and turns that you discover as the story unfolds.  If you read a review that tells you what happens, there might not be any reason to play the game!  For this game, we’ll probably write a few things about it.  For this initial piece, I will talk about only the first game (and still leave out any possible spoilers that might come out at the end of the first game).  

The goal here is to help you see what the first game is like, and this might help you make a decision if you want to invest in the game and get involved in a multi-game campaign.  Just about all of the information here comes from the rulebook – and this can be downloaded online, so no secrets there…  And, since the game comes out today – it seems like the perfect time to talk about the game!

So, the story from the publisher:

In Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West, players embark on twelve journeys across North America as 19th century pioneers. The campaign begins on the East Coast, with players working their way to the West from one adventure to the next, meeting challenges along the way. As in Ticket to Ride, completing your tickets will remain your primary goal, but you will need to develop other skills if you hope to overcome the unexpected events and your resourceful rivals. Game after game, route after route, you will continuously fill your vault with earnings. As the story progresses, you will open frontier boxes that unlock new rules, content, and many more surprises.

In the Legacy style, Legends of the West is a unique experience molded by player choices. Each player has their own role to play, allowing them to change the way the story unfolds around them. Combined with evolving mechanisms that change as the game progresses, players will have a new experience every time they gather around the board. At the end of the twelve games in this legacy campaign, you will have transformed your game into a unique copy that you can continue playing for a lifetime.

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Dale Yu: Review of Daybreak (eMission)

Daybreak

  • Designers: Matt Leacock + Matteo Menapace
  • Publisher: CMYK
  • Age: 10+
  • Players: 1 – 4
  • Time 60-90 minutes
  • Played with copy provided by publisher

As part of our buildup to the announcement of the Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres this weekend, we are looking at the 3 nominees for each award again.

Daybreak (aka eMission in Germany) is a co-operative game about climate action. Each player controls a world power, deploying policies and technologies to both dismantle the engine of global heating and to build resilient societies that protect people from life-threatening crises.

If the global temperature gets too high, or if too many people from any world power are in crisis, everyone loses. But if you work together to draw down global emissions to net-zero, you all win!

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Dale Yu: Review of Orichalcum

Orichalcum

  • Designers: Bruno Cathala & Johannes Goupy
  • Publisher: Pandasaurus (Catch Up)
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 12+
  • Time: 45 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by Pandasaurus

Says the publisher: “Orichalcum is a tense and fast-pace strategy game – similar to a short 4X. Each player has their own Island board to explore and develop. On each turn, they choose a set of one Exploration tile and one Action : recruit hoplites, produce precious orichalcum (a legendary metal from Greek mythology), construct buildings granting powerful bonuses, or try to get rid of Monsters infesting your island (and preventing you to build new building). To prevail, you will need to erect majestic temples, forge orichalcum tokens or win the favors of titans (by creating areas of their favorite landscapes. The first to get to 5 victory points while clearing their Island of all Monsters wins the game.”

Orichalcum is a race… against your opponents. Whoever will be first to have collected 5 Victory points above their board and eliminated all the Creatures on their island will be the winner! There are three ways to earn victory points: draw the attention of Titans, erect Temples and forge precious Orichalcum medallions – that legendary metal that only the Atlanteans know how to extract.

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Dale Yu: Review of Paper App Dungeon

Paper App Dungeon

  • Designer: Tom Brinton
  • Publisher: Lucky Duck Games
  • Players: 1
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 15-20 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

A solo dungeon delve game where you adventure through a series of printed dungeons with you hero with the aid of a pencil and a die.  Encounter monsters, obstacles, and collect coins. Venture far and deep in this solo dungeon delve, roll and write, adventure.

The basics:

Each book is unique, because:
Each page is randomly generated
Play wherever, whenever

Gameplay is simple but entertaining: you roll a 6-sided die to determine how far you’ll move each turn. Then pick a direction, draw a line, and interact with anything on that line, be it a monster (ouch!) some treasure (nice!) or a teleporter (cool!).   

Customize your character, roll your way through each floor, and get items at the shops sprinkled throughout the game. There’s even a page in the back to track stats like how many times you died — so if you die, don’t worry! It’s all part of the adventure.

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Dale Yu: Review of Distilled

Distilled

  • Designer: Dave Beck
  • Publisher: Paverson Games
  • Players: 1-5
  • Age: 14+
  • Time: 30min/player
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Distilled is a highly thematic strategy card game about crafting spirits in a distillery, with resource management and push-your-luck elements. In the game, you have inherited a distillery and are hoping to someday achieve the title of master distiller through purchasing goods, building up your distillery, and creating the world’s most renowned spirits. Use cards to purchase new ingredients and invest in upgrades to your distillery, all while eventually distilling the spirit and sending it to the warehouse. Once in the warehouse, age your spirit to enhance its flavor and bottle it to sell it for major profits! Achieve the title of Master Distiller by having the most victory points at the end of the game. Points are obtained by distilling and selling spirits.

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Dale Yu: Review of Flip Circus

Flip Circus

  • Designer: Julien Gerard
  • Publisher: IELLO
  • Players: 2
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 15 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by distributor, Flat River Games

In Flip Circus, the artists amaze the crowd as they move about the stage, but you have a larger goal in mind: using their special powers — and your recollection of which artists are where on each side of the tokens — to line up three artists of the same type. Do that, and you collect their portrait from the poster.

Collect three of the five portraits and you win — or maybe you’ll find the five clowns to let you honk your way to the victory circle…

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