MicroMacro, Arnak, and Gloomhaven Jaws are Golden Geek’s 2020 Games of the Year

Posted on May 3, 2021 by huzonfirst

BoardGameGeek has announced the winners of the 2020 Golden Geeks. For the first time, there are three Game of the Year winners–one each for Light, Medium, and Heavy games. Here are the winners and the two runner ups in each of these categories:

Light GotY
Winner –  MicroMacro: Crime City
Runner Up – Project L
Runner Up – Santa Monica

Medium GotY
Winner – Lost Ruins of Arnak
Runner Up – Dune: Imperium
Runner Up – Calico

Heavy GotY
Winner – Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
Runner Up – On Mars
Runner Up – Viscounts of the West Kingdom

And here are the winners in the other voting categories.

2-Player Game – Undaunted: North Africa
Artwork Presentation – On Mars
Card Game – Dune: Imiperium
Cooperative Game – Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
Expansion – Wingspan: Oceania Expansion
Innovative – MicroMacro: Crime City
Print & Play – 7 Wonders Duel: Solo
Solo Game – Under Falling Skies
Thematic Game – Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
Wargame – Imperial Struggle
Zoomable Game – Forgotten Waters
Best Podcast – So Very Wrong About Games
Best Board Game App – Root (2020)

Congratulations to all the winners!

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Dale Yu: Review of Inspector Nose

Posted on May 3, 2021 by Dale Yu

Inspector Nose

  • Designer: Reinhard Staupe
  • Publisher: NSV
  • Players: 2-5
  • Age: 7+
  • Time: 15-20 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by NSV

inspector nose

Inspector Nose is a team game where players work together to solve cases.  One player is the Inspector, and his job is to give clues to the rest of the team – and they then discuss among themselves as to the actual meaning of the clue… 

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Solo Gaming 2021: The First Four Months

Posted on May 2, 2021 by Mark Jackson

I’ve written a good bit about my solo gaming over the last couple of years, both for the Opinionated Gamers and for my personal blog…

…so I decided that I’d continue that trend into 2021 by doing a solo gaming post every four months. What you’re reading is the first solo gaming post of this new year – which is, for all but the last week or so of March, before your intrepid writer got his first vaccine shot. 

Interestingly, there’s been a LOT more solo gameplay over the past 90 days – almost 45% of my gaming was solo. For comparison, the yearly total for 2020 was 19% and for 2019 was 6%. 

I’ll repeat my same caveat as each previous report:

I know, I know – there are plenty of board game apps on iOS and Steam… and I own many of them. But there’s something really satisfying about physically playing a game: shuffling cards, moving pieces, seeing it all spread out in front of you. 

So, what follows are my thoughts on a variety of solo games I’ve played over the past three months – ordered by number of solo plays. (Note: this is not necessarily how much I like a particular game for solo play – for example, I think Nemo’s War is a brilliant design but only played it two times this year… so far.)

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FREE escape room at home adventure available (quantities limited)

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Dale Yu

Hey, looking for something to do this weekend? Our friends at The Escape Game have teamed up with us to offer a great FREE experience. You can try the first episode in their at home escape room series:


Chasing Hahn: The Heist Volume 1

You’re a Special Agent, fresh out of training, who’s been assigned to the case of Vincent Hahn – an internationally infamous art thief. With the help of your Intelligence Agent, you must use your wits to uncover Hahn’s true identity, connect him to his past crimes, and track him down before another priceless piece goes missing!

We have played this one earlier and reviewed it here on the blog – the online version has all of the required components available online. You can even play it remotely with friends (that’s what we did) – using Zoom, Teams, Meet, Skype, or other videochat service, and sharing a screen as needed… or with our code, each player could download their own version…

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Dale Yu: Review of Cubitos

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Dale Yu

Cubitos

  • Designer: John D Clair
  • Publisher: AEG
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 14+
  • Time: ~45 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by AEG

cubitos

In the press release for Cubitos, it is described as a game with “exciting and engaging push-your-luck racing!  Who doesn’t love to chuck massive handfuls of dice?  Even better if you get to determine what your dice will do!”  As expected, that description got me instantly interested…  Then, the box arrives, and the cover image is a cube of yellow holey cheese (or maybe think Spongebob without eyes and a nose) with super hairy legs, wearing a pair of lederhosen.  And then, I wonder “What did I get myself into?”

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It’s An (Even More) Wonderful World: Expansions and Goodies

Posted on April 29, 2021 by Mark Jackson

Back in the day – after my first play of It’s A Wonderful World at a 2019 post-Essen gathering, here’s what I wrote:

A slightly more gamer-y 7 Wonders-ish card drafting game of civilization building. The major difference is that you’re drafting a set of cards that you then use as resources (discarding them) or construction (building them). We were just over 30 minutes with 2 players… but both Dan & I are “play by the seat of your pants” players. I saw other games with more players that lasted nearly an hour – which indicates that the game proceeds at the pace of the slowest player. Good news: it worked just fine with 2 players “out of the box”.

Now, with 36 more plays in the intervening 18 months, I’d call myself a fan.

Which leads me to all of the ways in which you can expand the Wonderful World…

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