So, where did I leave off.  Ahh, yes. Last I wrote we were all facing imminent extinction and my group had sloughed off to hide on Yucata and wait it out. In desperation for gaming newness, we might have inadvertently spent what may have been endtime gaming days (with the countdown clock ticking) on some of its, shall we say, less stellar attractions.

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(With the normal caveats that we always enjoy everything we play and that everyone in our gaming community is very grateful for the volunteers who develop these games, which have allowed a semblance of social normality in our lives over the last year. Thank you.)

Anyway, keeping that in mind, let’s get this motley crew out of the way in this instalment (perhaps one may think of it as a collated collection of games to be wary of, if one wishes) in preparation for upcoming goodness in later editions.

  Continue reading →

Royal Visit

• Designer: Reiner Knizia
• Publisher: IELLO
• Players: 2
• Age: 8+
• Time: 15-20 minutes
• Times played: 3 on newest version, at least a dozen of Times Square or  Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb zwei

Though I don’t wasn’t tracking my plays of games way back when, I’m guessing that I first played a version of this game in the summer of 2007, likely at Gulf Games or the Oasis of Fun, and likely with Stven Carlberg as my teacher/opponent.   I can still remember that Stven was enthralled by this game, and he would often carry it with him at game conventions, trying to spread the love of his current favorite game.  It’s one of those games that honestly takes longer to explain than to play…  And, if I remember correctly, it did not get a great initial welcome – probably because the game has so many rules for such a short gameplay.  Given that warning, I never gave up on the game, but it did take a number of years before I had played it enough to really appreciate it.  

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Hansa Teutonica Big Box

• Designer: Andreas Steding
• Publisher: Pegasus Spiele
• Players: 3-5
• Age: 12+
• Time: 45-90 minutes
• Review copy provided by Pegasus Spiele

Hansa Teutonica has always been a favorite game of mine, since its initial release back in 2009.  I know that I have reviewed the game in the past, but it appears to have been lost to the sands of time – as it was before the era of the Opinionated Gamers, and I cannot find it here on nor on the remnants of Boardgamenews.com.  In any event, I know that I liked it very much – the proof of which is the fact that I still have my copy of the twelve-year-old original version, having survived multiple moves and even more frequent gameroom purges.  It is a common complaint of Steding games that they can be dry and abstract.  Hansa Teutonica embraces both of those qualities – it is unapologetically a cube-pusher of yore.  Though it is twelve years old now, I still find it hitting the table every year or so (at least the base game).  My copies of the Eastern and Britannia expansion were lost in a basement flood a few years ago, so I’m happy to have another chance to play these.

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Carpe Diem, 2021 Edition (white box)

• Designer: Stefan Feld
• Publisher: alea/Ravensburger
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 60-75 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Ravensburger NA

In early 2021, Ravensburger re-released Carpe Diem, a game which released with a fair amount of fanfare but some grumbles about the graphic design…  Those issues were heard, and a re-vamped version of the game – now in a stark white box and upgraded graphics – has come out.  It has a number 5 on the side as part of the anniversary reprint series.

I was sent a new copy to review, and the gameplay has had some minor changes as well.  However, for the most part – the game plays the same, so I have taken Tery’s description from our previous review on 1/1/2019 and edited it. Continue reading →

The 1930’s were, of course, dominated by the Great Depression.  The statistics for that period are grim (unemployment hit as high as 23% in the U.S. and as high as 33% in other countries), but they probably still fall short of relating just how awful things were for those who lived through it.  Both of my parents were youngsters during those years and they have indelible memories of the hardships that had to be faced day to day.

But when times are toughest, forms of entertainment that allow the populace to escape their trevails for a brief period are often at their best.  In the movies, the 30’s gave us Shirley Temple, the Astaire-Rogers musicals, the Marx Brothers, the Busby Berkely extravaganzas, the great films of Frank Capra, and so much more.  Radio reached its peak during those years.  And boardgames were there as well to help a battered society pass the hours, including the most popular boardgame of all time, where a fortune in real estate could be won, if only the dice would cooperate…
   Larry

Battleship (1931)



Kids (and adults) have been playing the pencil and paper game of Battleship for a long time.  The origin of this game isn’t clear.  The Geek attributes it to a gentleman named Clifford Von Wickler, saying that he created the game in the early 1900’s, but never patented it.  This story is disputed by some.  Other people suggest it may have been invented by Russian soldiers during the latter years of World War I.  Regardless of its source, we do know that the first commercial version of the game was by a U.S. company called Starex, who released it as Salvo, a predrawn pad of pages that the game could be played on, in 1931.  The first boardgame version was by Milton Bradley in 1967 and those of us of a certain age well remember the game’s TV commercial, featuring the mournful cry of one of the participants, “You sunk my battleship!”.

I have to wonder:  do kids today still play pencil and paper versions of Battleship during study hall breaks at school or is this time spent staring at their phones?  A part of me hopes it’s still played this way, but given how mostly mindless the game is, I guess it wouldn’t break my heart if Battleship is one of the victims of our electronic age.
   Larry