Maui

• Designers: Gregoire Largey, Frank Crittin, Sebastien Pauchon
• Publisher: Next Move Games
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Next Move Games, 6 plays so far

Locals and tourists in Maui are heading to the beach for a chance to find a nice spot to lay their towels and enjoy the amazing view of the Hawaiian ocean. In Maui, you want to find and place beachgoers on your sand so that they create pleasing patterns, while also placing their towels close to the ocean or under the shade of trees or umbrellas to earn the most points. However, getting too close to either of these areas is risky and might ruin their plans!

Continue reading →

Mists over Carcassone

• Designer: Klaus-Jurgen Wrede
• Publisher: Hans im Gluck
• Players: 1-5
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by HiG at SPIEL 2022

The short blurb from the publisher: “Mists Over Carcassonne is a co-operative version of the well-known tile-laying game Carcassonne. Working together, you place tiles and score points while trying to stop the spread of ghosts, contain haunted ground in cemeteries, and use haunted castles to your advantage. If too many ghosts are loose on the ground or you’ve collected too few points when the tiles run out, you lose the game. If you do manage to survive three days, you can adjust the difficulty level of the game to increase the challenge. Mists Over Carcassonne includes 45 meeples in two new types and 60 tiles that match the graphics of the 2021 edition of Carcassonne, and this game includes rules for how to incorporate material in a regular competitive game of Carcassonne.”

Wait…. Cooperative Carcassonne?!  Yeah, that’s right. In this game, your team of players needs to appease the restless spirits that represent the souls of the Cathars.  Many of the rules are the same as the basic version of Carcassone.  If you are unfamiliar with the original game, it will not hinder your ability to enjoy this game, it might just take you a few more minutes to get all the rules.

Continue reading →

St Patrick

• Designer: Haig Tahta, Sacha Tahta Alexander
• Publisher: Matagot
• Players: 3-4
• Age: 14+
• Time: 25 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Matagot

St Patrick, first released as Salvage, is a simple trick-taking game that combines the fun of Hearts with the assessment of Oh Hell and the fairness of duplicate Bridge (according to the box). Everyone starts at 20 points and takes damage over the course of play. The game ends when one player reaches 0, at which time the player with the most points wins.  In the original Salvage game, an oil tanker is on fire, and you are part of a rescue team sent to deal with it. You will take damage as you put out the fires, but before the operation begins you can salvage oil as an insurance against the costs you expect to suffer.  In St Patrick, you now compete to retain the most life points by using relics to avoid snake bites.

Continue reading →

Sauscharf

• Designers: Wolfgang Kramer and Christian Stohr
• Publisher: AMIGO
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 minutes

In Sauscharf (loosely translated as Super Sharp), players collect cards to try to make the best chili sauces and win the competition at the Fuego Festival!  Given that this was a card game, chosen and published by AMIGO, designed by two SdJ winning designers – this was one of the games I was most anticipating from SPIEL 2022.

Continue reading →