Restorers: Rob Daviau, Brian Neff, Noah Cohen, Justin D. Jacobsen
Publisher: Restoration Games / Eagle-Gryphon Games
Players: 2-5
Age: 7+
Time: 10-20 minutes
Sid Sackson is one of the greatest designers of all time – His first game was called High Spirits with Calvin and the Colonel; based on an animated TV show in 1962 – published by Milton Bradley. While the TV show ended, the game lived on, being reprinted in 1992 as Das Super-Blatt, now using tabloid journalism as the theme (Who has the biggest hits?). Seven years later, the game was given a pirate theme and called Buried Treasure (It’s time to deal the cards and divvy up the loot). Nearly 25 years after that, the game gets another makeover, now punnily called Berried Treasure (Swipe the sweets or get stuck with the crumbs), and you guessed it, the theme is about berries.
Times played: 5, with review copy provided by Libellud/Asmodee NA
Stella is the newest game set in the Dixit universe; all games that require players to examine exquisitely illustrated cards and find common themes to match the other players. To start, I should probably make clear that I haven’t been the biggest fan of Dixit games in the past – as many of them have felt more like activities rather than games. My viewpoint may be unpopular, as the original game is a deserving winner of the 2010 Spiel Des Jahres, so there are plenty more people that feel opposite me…
In this game, each player gets their own player board and a marker. The board shows a diagram of what you will set up on the table – a little scoreboard next to a 3×5 array of large picture cards, dealt from a deck of 84 cards. FWIW, the cards have the Dixit logo on the back, and you can freely exchange these cards with any other Dixit cards you happen to have lying around.
Played with review copy provided by Pegasus Spiele
Micro Macro was one of my hits of 2021, and it was well acclaimed by others as it won the 2021 Spiel des Jahres. The game was quite a success, and Pegasus is reporting worldwide sales in excess of 500,000 copies thus far. Given those numbers, it is not surprising that a sequel was quickly put out; and I was thrilled to get a copy of it to play.
Treeceratops is a newer company, and we have played their previous release, Darwin’s Choice, a few years back. Their most recent game is called P’achakuna – set in the Andes Mountains. You and your opponent are traders, and you are trying to deliver wool and dyes to the far flung villages in the mountains. The goal is to the first to deliver to all seven villages, collecting yarn of a different color at each, and thus be able to create your own colorful costume!
they haunt this dusty beach roadin the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets
Ways that we know that I am officially old:
I learned to drive in a ‘69 T-bird with a 429 engine under the hood.
My goatee is now completely white/grey.
Spotify continually tries to get me to listen to playlists that reference the ‘80s in some manner.
I actually was a regular poster on the Usenet group rec.games.board.
I can remember buying Metagaming Microgames and Steve Jackson Pocketbox games from the local game store… including Wizard, Warp War, Fury of the Norsemen, Illuminati… and, most importantly for our purposes, Car Wars.
Ah, yes, Car Wars – originally packaged in a ziplock baggie in 1981 and featuring vehicular combat in the Mad Max/Road Warrior vein. Let’s be clear – while the game system spawned a BUNCH of expansions and multiple editions, I always found it to be similar in enjoyment to Star Fleet Battles. In other words, it was more fun to design the cars (or spaceship) than it was to play the game.
But the idea of vehicular combat is pretty appealing to a kid who grew crashing Hot Wheels cars into each other… so when Games Workshop published the massive coffin-sized box of Dark Future in 1988, I plunked down a substantial amount of hard-earned cash to acquire it. Once again, the idea of the game was more fun than playing it… as was retrofitting Matchbox vehicles with guns & such.
The late seventies saw the introduction of two games that were not only popular, but which each launched an entirely new genre. That’s pretty rare and the fact that both debuted in the same year is remarkable. The decade also laid the seeds for modern boardgaming, with the first publication from one of the hobby’s greatest designers and the introduction of its most celebrated award.   Larry
Dungeons & Dragons; Creation of Roleplaying Games (1974) The story behind D&D is fairly well known. Dave Arneson, a young miniatures wargame fan, began running a fantasy-based campaign in which the participants played individual characters. He based the combat on a game called Chainmail, which was co-created by Gary Gygax, but Arneson added many other elements, including the critical concept of character improvement through experience. After running this successfully for a couple of years, Arneson showed the game to Gygax and the two decided to publish it. Gygax wrote up the rules and added some modifications of his own. The result was Dungeons & Dragons, which, despite its roughness, sold far better than either of its co-designers imagined it would. It really was a new kind of gaming. Roleplaying could be found in earlier recreational pastimes, but the type of play acting that players could indulge in with D&D was brand new and proved to be immensely popular. Just as appealing to players was the identification with a fictional character of your own devising whose abilities would grow over time. Many competing RPG systems arose following the release of D&D and, within a decade, it was a thriving branch of gaming that wound up having immense influence (both positive and negative) on society.
I was introduced to D&D in 1980 by a co-worker, soon after the first hardbound rulebooks of the game (referred to as Advanced D&D) were released. I fell for it hard and loved being both a player and a referee. I continued roleplaying with various systems for the next 20 years and it was a huge part of my life for most of that time. Even though I eventually switched to Eurogaming as my principal recreational activity, some of my best gaming memories came from my roleplaying days. The sort of gaming I participated in required a huge investment in time, but when it worked, it was incredibly enjoyable and satisfying. I’m very happy I discovered it when I did.   LarryContinue reading →
