Headin’ Back Down Thunder Road – A Chromed Up Review

Posted on June 16, 2023 by Mark Jackson

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

Posted on June 15, 2023 by Dale Yu

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

Posted on June 14, 2023 by Dale Yu

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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Patrick Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2023 (Part 3)

Posted on June 13, 2023 by pfbrennan

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.

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Legacy of Yu: Solo Review

Posted on June 8, 2023 by Mark Jackson

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!

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Dale Yu: Review of Star Wars: Rivals  (Expandable Game System)

Posted on June 7, 2023 by Dale Yu

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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