In Stamp Collection you will play the role of philatelists whose goal is to gather a collection of unique postage stamps from around the world! Each element of the collection must be placed in the stamp album in a thoughtful way to score as many points as possible.
Well, I’m not normally one for unboxing posts – in part because we deal with text here on the OG – but I just got my production copy of Let’s Go! to Japan – and man, it’s beautiful. Thought I’d repost the review of the game from March 2023 (see below). But first… some pictures of the new edition!
Simply put, a game system that has been dead for fourteen years is back from the dead… and this time, it looks like the publisher understands what made Heroscape so special.
When I last wrote about Renegade Game Studios beginning to work with Avalon Hill to take over the revival of the Heroscape game system in October 2023, there were still some pretty big questions that hadn’t been answered:
Well, the newest version of Renegade Con happened yesterday – and with it, the announcement of the new wave of Heroscape products to be released in August of this year (2024).
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While fans of wargaming have been playing both sides of a battle for decades, the idea of playing a boardgame solo has recently seen a large uptick in broader gaming circles. Many boardgames advertise a “solo mode”, allowing gamers to play even if, for whatever reason, they are unable to arrange for a meet-up to play a game. A few games, like Legacy of Yu, take things a step further and are designed solely for one player. Designed from the ground up as a solo game it has an advantage over other single-player options since it isn’t just an add-on option (perhaps an afterthought) to a multiplayer game. Legacy of Yu does a stellar job of providing an interesting solo experience that manages not to outstay its welcome through the use of an ongoing story arc that slightly adjusts the difficulty between games.
Legacy of Yu
Designer: Shem Phillips
Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
Players: 1
Ages: 12+
Time: 60min
(review copy provided by publisher)
What follows is my brief overview after playing all the way through the campaign. You can read our more detailed review from last summer if you want specifics, or you can just jump down to my verdict if you don’t want to sit through the overview. I have tried to avoid spoilers throughout and think I’ve mostly succeeded. (Know that you’re going to read story entries and you’re going to be adding and removing cards from all the appropriate decks… surprise!)
Class is now in session for Lab Notes! This roll-and-write game features the brain teaser challenge of putting together chemical bonds. Each round, a player rolls all the elemental dice for Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon, or a useful but dangerous Bunsen Burner. The rolling player chooses their element first, leaving the rest of the table to scratch their heads to fit the remainder within their lab notes.
Elements now in hand, the players choose where to keep their elements. They can notate in the research field or trash them for some added benefits, later. Combine elements based on the real rules of chemistry! Double and triple bonds are worth more, but you can only bond with elements near each other and as they’re written.
Don’t worry if you’re not sure about what bonds work where. There are handy-dandy notecards outlining real, actual chemicals you can make! Manage to make the chemical on the card? You get a bonus! Lab fires burn a slot within your lab notes, but maybe that will work out for you, who knows!
Back in the summer of 2011 – which, for those of you who don’t like to do math, was nearly thirteen years ago – I reviewed Z-Man Games’ “weird & wonderful cross between a dexterity game like Carabande or Catacombs and a space civilization game like Twilight Imperium or Starcraft: the Board Game.” (Yes, my exact words to describe the original edition of Ascending Empires.)
Unfortunately, the game went out of print pretty quickly – and it was relatively difficult to find. Meanwhile, I put Ascending Empires on my top 100 games list that I publish every couple of years… and it has sat somewhere between #23-#32 on every one of those lists – including the 2024 top 100 list which is coming later this spring. I really love the game.
So, when word began to spread that a new edition of Ascending Empires was on the way, I was, to say the least, a bit jazzed about it. Zev Shlasinger, the former head of the original publisher (Z-Man) moved from director of board games at WizKids to found his own company (Play to Z) – and the first thing out of their shop is Ascending Empires: Zenith Edition.
What follows is an odd blend of my original review and my personal examination of the new rulebook – because there is (in the words of Charlie Peacock) “a whole different, a whole lot the same.” *
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