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?
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?!).
My youngest has returned to the nest for a bit after finishing pilot academy and before starting with Qantas. We’ve taken advantage of our time together to explore the hell out of Spirit Island, something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Playing once or twice a day, we gradually worked our way up through all the levels against the adversaries with a crescendo victory at Level 15 – thematic boards, an extra board, events, Habsburg Level 6. Then we started working through the scenarios. Suffice to say, we now have a pretty good feel for what power combinations work and what doesn’t and the game feels more thoroughly explored than ever. For the record, you just can’t play slow-building powers at higher levels – the game is lost by blight unless you can get control over the boards from the get-go. For the record, our go-to powers for the higher levels were Oceans, Sharp Fangs, Keepers, Lure. But all the powers are fun in their own right and can shine in the right situation. Well ok, Fractured Time mostly sucks, but apart from that. Anyway, that’s 68 plays and a 10 rating now for sure.
Let’s start with a trio of caveats and a bold summary statement:
Caveat #1: The good folks at Garphill Games describe Legacy of Yu as a “solo-only, fully-resettable, nonlinear campaign game in which you step into the role of the legendary hero of the Xia Dynasty, Yu the Great.” I’m hard-pressed to do a better job of summing up the nature or design of the game… but I’m certainly going to give it a try!
Caveat #2: I am not a scholar of Chinese history – so I’m not going to comment at any length on the debates about the historicity of the accounts of Yu the Great… though if you’re interested, they make for some fascinating reading.
Caveat #3: Our fearless leader here at the Opinionated Gamers (Dale Yu) has not yet required any of us to call him “Yu the Great” – but it may just be a matter of time. His legacy, however, is secure – he not only created the Opinionated Gamers website, but was also a key developer on Dominion, Suburbia, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, and the Agricola solo mode (to name a few).
Bold Summary Statement: Legacy of Yu is a well-designed and well-produced solo-only, fully resettable, nonlinear campaign game that I’m enjoying immensely.
With those out of the way, let’s get to the meat of my review!
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.
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.
