I recently lifted my rating of Forest Shuffle to a 9. It’s now at 40+ plays and it continues to be requested on BGA on a lot of game nights. I’m noting this here because we tried out Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor for the first time recently (my thoughts below) and this iteration is bound to generate yet a ton more play as we tackle all the new card effects it brings to the system.
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New-to-me games played recently include …
Play travelers that deliver food across the kingdom. Splendor is a game of chip-collecting. On your turn, you may (1) collect chips (food), or (2) move forward on the paths. If you collect chips, you take either three different kinds of chips, two chips of the same kind or one joker chip, which you can use as any food.
If you move forward, you pay its price in chips and add it to your playing area. Some places on the board let you take food that you can use and reactivate, some places let you play again. Be the first to reach the Palace of Splendor and earn the Queen’s Medal!
Old friends and enemies meet in the streets of New York, and an epic battle of good vs. evil erupts: Who will prevail? Doctor Strange and Hulk, or Ultron and Loki?
In MARVEL: Skirmish! In New York, each player takes one side of the battlefield in New York City, using their unique deck of either heroes or villains to control the landscape. Play your cards wisely, exploit the weaknesses of your opponent’s cards, gather valuable artifacts, and seize strategically important locations.
 Legend has it that Tulikko, the fire fox, lives hidden among the animal spirits in the depths of the forests of the far north. On certain winter nights, he runs so fast that he produces sparks that rise into the sky to create the Northern Lights. Explore these mystical forests to discover the territories of the animal spirits and be the first to reveal their secrets! Tulikko is a game of tile-laying and optimization set in a dreamlike Scandinavian world!
Carefully choose the Forest tiles by sliding them of the central board and arrange them as best you can on your personal board to accommodate your Animal Spirits.
Complete objectives and trigger special powers and be the first to place all your tokens to win the game!
Since 2019, I’ve been a devoted fan (and playtester) for the Unmatched: Battle of Legends game system – and been part of epic face-offs between so many different heroes in so many diverse locations. (There are – if you’ve acquired every bit of the Unmatched output from Restoration Games – currently 34 different locations and 70 different heroes that can be set against each other.)
In the last few weeks, eight more heroes (well, actually seven, but I’ll explain that in more detail later) were added to the Unmatched multiverse. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) and their villainous adversaries appeared as a part of the second Unmatched Adventures set… as well as Bruce Lee vs. Muhammed Ali. Those two boxes each added two new maps – including (no surprise here) the Thrilla in Manila.
Unmatched for the Uninitiated
I’m well aware that some of you have not had the opportunity to play the wonderful goodness that is Unmatched – so, a short primer on how the game works is in order. (Yes, I know, some of you have played before. A lot. You can skip to the next heading.)
Unmatched is a skirmish battle game, driven by card play and fought on a variety of boards. On your turn, you get two actions:
You win by reducing your opponent’s hero to zero hit points.
If this sounds a lot like Star Wars: Epic Duels, you’re not wrong. That 2002 mass-market game is the forefather of this amazing combat system. (If you want more detail, I did a deep-dive into the differences in my original Unmatched review.)
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Take Time is a cooperative game where players either win or lose together.
To succeed, you must strategically play 12 cards facedown around a Clock, following specific rules for each Test. You can work together through a series of games to pass all 40 Tests available in the game.
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