Time: 1 hour on box, 37 minutes in reality for me playing solo
Times played: 1, with review copy provided by Think Fun
In this game, you play the role of a police officer, who is looking though an unsolved case from the past, a “cold case.” As it happened more than 30 years ago, your only source of information is the file folder filled with the records, interview transcripts and other evidence that was collected back when the crime occured. You are tasked to examine the evidence in the file and see whether or not you can solve the mystery…
Played with PnP copy from files sent from publisher
Sky Towers is a game created for the 2021 54-card game design contest (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2495300/2021-54-card-game-design-contest) and I do try to peek at contests such as these to see if anything there catches my eye. In this case, the game came and found me, and the designer contacted me to see if he could send me a copy (From Japan) to try. I figured it would be easier to make a PnP copy, to save both time and postage, so we had a copy to try in short order. My local group is always looking for new card games to play; and this game was sold to me a a light family oriented game – and I’m hoping to have more time with my non-game playing niece and nephews in the upcoming months.
Another hero game online has been Die Crew. It features an amazing increase in the signal-to-noise ratio. Finished a mission? You’ve already started the next mission. No shuffling, no sorting out of tasks. Add Mystic Vale to this list as well, no longer having to deal with the pain-in-the-butt intra-game card sleeving (and shuffling et al). We’ve played both of these a *lot* online.
As a reminder of 2020 when there was a week or so that people could enter the country, well at least if they were from New Zealand
For the longer games, porting successfully online is a more difficult proposition. Playing Lost Ruins of Arnak online this week brought this to mind. It just didn’t have the same va-va-voom that we’ve felt playing it in our (few) face-to-face sessions this year. In fact I can’t think of an example that plays better online than it does face-to-face. (Through The Ages maybe?)
Jekyll vs Hyde was a game that I was excited to try when I learned about it. It belongs to one of the two genres that I am always excited to try but rarely satisfied after playing – that is the 2-player trick taking game (the other is soccer simulations, FWIW). In this game, each player takes on the role of one half of this famous duo, and each has a different way of achieving the goal of winning the game.
In recent years, NSV and Herr Benndorf have been a pretty reliable combination – they are teaming up to be one of the stronger teams in the roll-and-write genre. This spring’s entry into the genre is called Everything on 1 Card – the german name is Alles Auf 1 Karte. This game is played on 30 erasable cards and 5 special dice.
To start the game, the deck of cards is shuffled and each player is dealt two cards. Each card has five of the six possible colors shown on it (yellow circles, green octagons, red hexagons, orange pentagons, purple squares and blue triangles), and the total number of spaces on the card is always 20. Each row on the card is worth a number of points equal to number of icons on it, and two of the rows have a starburst symbol to the right of the row. These rows will score an extra 2 points if completed, and an extra 5 points if they are both completed.
Someday, I’ll actually get to England and see Hadrian’s Wall for myself… but until that point, I’m stuck with surfing the Web to find pictures. For the uninformed, many parts of what remains of the Wall look like overly thick decorative walls – in some places as tall as nine feet (3 meters), but much of the Wall is substantially shorter. (Many of the stones that made up Hadrian’s Wall were carted off over the years to be used in other projects… kind of like a 19th century version of your standard HGTV renovation show.)
Playing the new flip & write game – Hadrian’s Wall – does not require me to “cross the pond” but instead cross off a number of boxes and symbols on my way to doing my duty as a Roman general, building a milecastle and the bordering wall. While the basic game mechanics are simple and straightforward…
Flip and resolve some cards
Take resources based on your decisions
Use those resources to train your troops and build structures
Face the onslaught of the Picts
…the game itself involves a myriad of decisions in how to best utilize what you’ve been given to accomplish your mission.
From here on out, I’ll be focusing on how the game plays as a solo exercise. Near the end, I’ll offer my completely uninformed opinion about Hadrian’s Wall as a multiplayer game as well.
