DESIGNER: Alexander Kneepkens, Inge van Dasselaar

PUBLISHER: Jolly Dutch Productions

PLAYERS: 2

AGES: 10+

TIME: 30 – 45 minutes

TIMES PLAYED: 4, with a copy I purchased

t’s great being quarantined with a spouse who is a gamer; I mean, it’s not great being quarantined, of course, but I appreciate that I have the opportunity to get some physical games to an actual table. So many games turn out to work well for two players. However, one genre that is nearly impossible to do with 2 is trick-taking; with the exception of Fox in the Forest,  I haven’t been much of a fan of the 2 player trick-taking games I’ve tried over the years. Hope springs eternal, though, and when I came across this Kickstarter a few months ago I decided to give it a shot, and I was happy to see it arrive on my doorstep. We broke it out almost immediately.

Herrloff is set in the time of Vikings, and you and your opponent are fighting for the right to be king. Your goal is to be the first player to 50 points.

Designer: Martino Chiacchiera, Silvano Sorrentino
Artist: Alberto Bontempi
Publisher: dV Giochi
Players: 1-6
Ages: 12+
Times Played: 1, on a copy I borrowed from Dale

The Deckscape line from dV Giochi are a series of “puzzle” games and reside in the orbit of “escape room” games.  These sorts of things come in many varieties -some require apps and others physically can’t be played again because there are destructive or consumable elements- but what I have liked about the Deckscape series is the relative straightforwardness of the puzzles, a little dabbling in riddles, and the sense of adventure.  They insert you into a narrative and the illustrations of the cards carry you along.

Let’s look at how the Deckscape series plays.

Deckscape: Escape from Alcatraz

• Designers: Martino Chiacchiera and Silvano Sorrentino
• Players: 1-6
• Ages: 12+
• Time: ~60 minutes
• Times played: 1, with review copy provided by dv Giochi

The puzzle game genre has been rapidly growing over the last few years – there have been many entries in this field over that time period.  Likewise, we’ve done our best here to seek out as many of them as we can to try.  Many of the initial forays into the puzzle area have been big-box affairs, some with electronic solving devices – allowing for multiple expansions that use the same hardware.  The catch with most of these games are that they can really only be played once – because once you know the solution to the puzzle, you can’t really experience the solving of the same puzzle again…  The Deckscape series goes a different route, instead focusing on the portability aspect.

We have looked at a number of these in the past Continue reading →