Star Wars: Rivals 

• Designer: Prospero Hall
• Publisher: Funko Games
• Players: 2
• Age: 7+
• Time: 10-20 minutes per game
• Played with preview Premier Set Series 1 and 4 Character Booster Packs provided by Funko Games

From the publisher:

Star Wars: Rivals is an expandable card game in which the light and dark sides of the Force face off, with each player building a squadron from characters throughout different eras of the Star Wars universe. This set is playable on its own, but players can also create larger squadrons, whether for the light or dark side, by using new characters present in character booster packs.

Star Wars: Rivals – Series 1 – Premier Set includes four characters — Luke Skywalker and Commander Cody vs. Darth Vader and Asajj Ventress — 14 action cards, 18 tokens and markers, 12 location cards, and a prism die. Each character has three unique action cards, and players use their characters to try to claim location cards.

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Forest Shuffle

• Designer: Kosch
• Publisher: Lookout Games
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 60 minutes
• Constructed a PnP Deck with files provided by publisher

“Life is bustling in the local forest: Animals scurry around the clearings looking for edible plants and insects. Some prefer the dense treetops, others the lush undergrowth and only feel comfortable in the shelter of the trees.  In this game, you create an ecologically balanced habitat for flora and fauna.  You play tree cards from your hand, to which you can add different animals, plants and mushrooms.  To score a lot of points, you need to honor their preferences: some creatures require the presence of their fellow species; others prefer certain habitats or food sources.”

So, I was offered the chance to take a look at the new release from Lookout Games, Forest Shuffle.  It was from a designer who I thought I had never heard of before, Kosch – but then when I did my research, I discovered that I actually own his first design, FYFE.  I thought there were a lot of clever ideas in FYFE, and I was pretty excited to try out the new game.

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20 is a pretty big number.  If you do something 20 times, it’s something of an accomplishment.  It can be hard to do; there are a lot of games I really like that I haven’t managed to play 20 times.  So it’s kind of notable.  Which is why it’s crazy to realize that this is the twentieth Designer of the Year column I’ve written.  On the one hand, it’s sobering to realize I started this 20 years ago and I wasn’t exactly a kid when I began.  But the good news is I still enjoy the process and look forward to it every year, so there’s every reason to believe I’ll continue writing them for a good long while.

So that might be mildly interesting to those of you who have been steadily reading these articles of mine.  But if this is the first time for you, you’re probably wondering what the hell I’m talking about.  So let me (belatedly) explain.  The purpose behind the Designer of the Year (DotY) articles is the same today as it was 20 years ago.  After all, there are literally dozens of annual awards given out for the best game of the year, but there’s nothing that honors the talented individuals who design those games.  So way back when, I decided to start my own award to honor the designer who did the best job with the games they released during the previous calendar year.  They key thing is that this isn’t for the best single game, but for the designer who had the best overall body of work from last year.

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Nimalia

• Designer: William Liévin
• Publisher: Lucky Duck/La Boîte de Jeu
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Lucky Duck Games

Says the rules: “In Nimalia, you will create the most beautiful animal reserve, in which all the animals will live in harmony. But achieving such balance can be a massive headache, so you will have to be clever enough to design a reserve that best meets the needs of all the animals!”

I first got a chance to play this game at the recent Gathering of Friends, and then a review copy appeared in the post, and this little game has hit the table a number of times since then.   To start the game, you must first set up the objective cards; they come in 4 different colors, and you must choose one of each color to place next to the Round card.  The colored outlines on the Round Card tell you where to put each color card, and the lines on the card help you see which cards are scored in which rounds.  The objective cards are rated in difficulty from one to three leaves; so you can modify the challenge in your game by choosing different objectives.  You can also leave it up to luck and draw randomly!

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