Dale Yu: Preview of Waypoints

Waypoints

Well, veteran readers of the blog will know that I’m still a fan of the Roll and Write genre, and I’ve been a big fan of Postmark Games releases in the past.  This small company specializes in print-and-play RAWs, offering them up on Kickstarter.  Previous releases include Voyages and Aquamarine.  Aquamarine was actually just recently named the 2022 print and play game of the year in the BoardGameGeek awards, so I know that I’m not the only one who really enjoys these pen and paper challenges from Postmark.

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Essen Hall Chaos?

This is a Google Translation of  https://www.spiel-essen.de/de/aktuelles

NEW AND IMPROVED HALL PLAN FOR THE SPIEL

DEAR BOARD GAME FANS,

SPIEL Essen has grown steadily in the 40 years of its existence and has also continued to expand in the halls of Messe Essen. It has now been held in Halls 1 to 6 and in the gallery for many years. While the area and the number of exhibitors continued to grow, the clarity and orientation for the visitors became a little smaller. In which hall is this family game stand? Where were the booths with miniature games again? We want to structure this growing distribution of stands for the upcoming SPIEL Essen in a clearer and simpler way.

It’s no secret that we want to change the hall layout. We addressed the issue in various videos and posts and said that we want to improve orientation for everyone and help them find the stalls they are looking for faster. At the same time, we want to make it easier to discover new games. We had planned the major renovation for 2024. This year, Hall 6 was to be redesigned first to start the topic. Due to the conversion of one hall, however, it turned out that it made sense to tackle the entire hall concept now.

The new hall planning envisages that all halls will have thematic focuses and that the stands in the halls will primarily present the corresponding games. There will be a large area for simple to sophisticated family games, children’s games and easy to medium expert games. Another segment is aimed at tabletops, miniature games, role-playing games and trading card games. Finally, there are areas for connoisseur and expert games. We distribute the other stands, for example from dealers or suppliers of accessories, to the appropriate areas. Our goal is to create the best possible trade fair experience for everyone.

We don’t allocate the stands at whim. We talk to the exhibitors, look at their range and, as a team, are familiar with many games ourselves. With this combination of feedback and experience, we set up the halls in such a way that everyone at SPIEL Essen 23 feels comfortable, can find their way around and enjoy their favorite hobby.

We are working hard to finalize the plans. Please be patient, give us the time and trust so that everyone can have an excellent and unforgettable SPIEL Essen 23 at the end.

Warm and playful greetings,
Your SPIEL team

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2022 Meeples Choice Awards Nominations Announced

Every year, the voters for the Meeples Choice Awards choose their three favorite games from the previous calendar year.  The awards have been around since 1995, making it one of the oldest annual awards in the hobby.  The list of nominated games have just been announced.  Here are the 28 nominated games, in alphabetical order, together with their designers and publishers:

  • Akropolis (Jules Messaud) – Gigamic
  • Atiwa (Uwe Rosenberg) – Lookout
  • Carnegie (Xavier Georges) – Quined Games
  • Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition (Muneyuki Yokouchi) – Bezier Games
  • Challengers! (Johannes Krenner, Markus Slawitscheck) – 1 More Time Games
  • Clank!: Catacombs (Paul Dennen) – Dire Wolf
  • Dead Reckoning (John D. Clair) – Alderac
  • Dice Realms (Tom Lehmann) – Rio Grande
  • Findorff (Friedemann Friese) – 2F-Spiele
  • Great Western Trail: Argentina (Alexander Pfister) – eggertspiele
  • Heat: Pedal to the Metal (Asger Granerud, Daniel Pedersen) – Days of Wonder
  • Marrakesh (Stefan Feld) – Queen
  • Mosiac (Glenn Drover) – Forbidden Games
  • Next Station: London (Matthew Dunstan) – Blue Orange Games
  • Planet Unknown (Ryan Lambert, Adam Rehberg) – Adam’s Apple Games
  • Ready Set Bet (John D. Clair) – Alderac
  • Return to Dark Tower (Rob Daviau, Justin Jacobson, Brian Neff, Isaac Childres, Noah Cohen, Tim Burrell-Saward) – Restoration Games
  • Revive (Kristian Ostby, Eilif Svensson, Helge Meissner, Anna Wermlund) – Aporta Games
  • San Francisco (Reiner Knizia) – Rebel Studio
  • Space Station Phoenix (Gabriel Cohn) – Rio Grande
  • Splendor Duel (Bruno Cathala, Marc Andre) – Space Cowboys
  • Starship Captains (Peter Hoffgaard) – Czech Games Edition
  • The Green Fivura (Taiki Shinzawa) – Kentaiki
  • The Guild of Merchant Explorers (Matthew Dunstan, Brett Gilbert) – Alderac
  • Tiletum (Simone Luciani, Daniele Tascini) – Board&Dice
  • Turing Machine (Fabien Gridel, Yoann Levet) – Le Scorpion Masque
  • Wonderland’s War (Tim Eisner, Ben Eisner, Ian Moss) – Druid City Games
  • Woodcraft (Vladimir Suchy, Ross Arnold) – Delicious Games

The only designers with multiple nominated games are Matthew Dunstan and John D. Clair, while the only publishers with more than one game on the list are Alderac (3) and Rio Grande (2).  It’s the sixth consecutive year in which Reiner Knizia has at least one nominated game, as the Reinerssance continues; remarkably, San Francisco is the 51st game of his to receive an MCA nomination.  Alexander Pfister’s recent MCA success is almost as good, as he has received nominations in the last 5 years and 8 of the last 9.

There will now be a second round of voting and the three winning games will be announced in a week.  Congratulations to the nominated designers and publishers!

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Headin’ Back Down Thunder Road – A Chromed Up Review

18 months ago, I wrote a preview of a Kickstarter with just a “deep dive in the rulebook(s)”… and now that it’s here, it’s time to check out whether I was right or not. (Spoiler: I was. Totally.)

What follows is a re-examination of my original preview of Restoration Games’ Thunder Road: Vendetta… now with 8 plays under my belt with all of the various player counts. In it, I’ll let you know more about the components, the gameplay, and the very few quibbles I have with the game.

New paragraphs added to the preview/review will be in this lovely shade of blue, so those of you who only want my most recent observations can skip the parts you’ve seen before. 

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Dale Yu: Review of Lacuna

Lacuna

  • Designer: Mark Gerrits
  • Publisher: CMYK
  • Players: 2
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 5-10 mins
  • Played with review copy provided by CMYK, played conservatively 50+ times with homemade version since 2018

So, normally I reserve my comments on a game until the end – but here, I’ll start with this statement.  I love this game. I’ve loved it since January 21, 2018.  It’s one of my all-time favorite 2p games, and one that I’ve made at least a half dozen copies of.  Wait, what?  The game isn’t even available for sale yet (though pre-orders can be done at https://www.cmyk.games/products/lacuna), but yet I’ve loved it for 5 years?!  How does that even work?

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Dale Yu: Review of Siliconvania

Siliconvania

  • Designer: J.B. Howell
  • Publisher: Wizkids
  • Players: 2-5
  • Age: 14+
  • Time: 45-90 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Says the publisher: “The Vampire Council is looking to hire a new city planner to turn Transylvania, the most legendary vampire town in the world, into the world’s newest tech haven! You and your rivals are competing to land a job that will ask you to create a diverse cityscape for vampire and animal life, provide plenty of blood banks for your citizens, secure contracts, and bring aboard the best specialists in the industry. The race is on to present to the Vampire Council the most organized plans for the city to renovate Transylvania into Siliconvania!”

Before you can play this uniquely themed game, there is a small bit of setup.  The Council board is placed in the middle of the table; there are two tracks here (Survival and Innovation) that move in opposite directions – many of the spaces in these two tracks have bonuses printed on them. The deck of cards and all the tile stacks are customized for player count.  Each player gets their own City Planning board, a hand of bidding cards, a different hand of Specialist cards, and 2 ghost-shaped Vampire meeples (shouldn’t they be Vamples?!).

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