Dale Yu: First Impressions of Zoom in Barcelona

Posted on December 3, 2019 by Dale Yu

Zoom in Barcelona

  • Designers: Nuria Casellas, Eloi Pujadas, Joaquim Vilalta
  • Publisher: Cucafera
  • Players: 2-6
  • Ages: 8+
  • Time: 30-45 min
  • Times played: 2, with review copy provided by Cucafera Games

Barcelona is a fantastic city which I’ve had the pleasure to visit a few times during my travels. I have many fond memories of walking along La Rambla and seeing the wonderful sights.  When I saw that there was a game coming at SPIEL 2019 themed around taking pictures of the wonderful sights in the city, I had to give it a try. In Zoom in Barcelona, players are competing in a photo contest where they are trying to take the best pictures – but they’ll have to travel around the city to get to the best pictures of city landmarks as well as views of the city skyline.

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Posted in Essen 2019, Reviews | 1 Comment

Ticket to Ride London (Game Review by Chris Wray)

Posted on December 2, 2019 by Chris Wray
  • Designer:  Alan R. Moon
  • Publisher:  Days of Wonder
  • Players:  2 – 4
  • Ages:  8 and Up
  • Time:  10-15 Minutes
  • Times Played:  > 5 

Ticket to Ride is doubtlessly the most famous of the train games.  Fifteen years after Alan Moon’s creation won the Spiel des Jahres, it is as popular as ever.  A new map — this time featuring London, baby! — was released at Gen Con.  The trains are gone, with buses taking center stage, and as with Ticket to Ride New York, the playtime is shortened.  

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ノコスダイス (Nokosu Dice)

Posted on December 2, 2019 by xitoliv

Designer: Yusuke Matsumoto
Artist: 別府さい (Sai Beppu)
Publisher: engames
Players: 3-4
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 30-45 minutes
Times Played: 5 with a review copy

Nokosu Dice was one of many trick-taking games released at Tokyo Game Market this fall. Rather, I should say, re-released. It was originally a 2016 release from Quoth Games, and one I wasn’t aware of until now.

The game has a number of interesting twists, each of which center around a pool of dice. Each player will have a few dice in front of them which act as an extension of their hand: a red die showing a 4 is the same as a red 4 card in your hand.

We’ll discuss it further below, but the key feature here, I think, is that you will bid for how many tricks you’ll win _after_ you play your hand of cards: you will play all of your cards, and all but one of your dice, with the face of the last die determining your bid.

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Rolled West (Game Review by Brandon Kempf)

Posted on December 1, 2019 by Brandon Kempf
  • Designer: Daniel Newman
  • Artists: Adam P. McIver & Ariel Seoane
  • Publisher: Tasty Minstrel Games
  • Players: 2-4
  • Time: 20-30 Minutes
  • Times Played: 2

“If you can’t say something nice, just don’t say anything at all”

                                                                                     -Probably my mother

Before we get too far, I love Gold West. It’s a favorite of mine, and recently survived “The Culling”. I love the thematic setting, I love the game play, and I love the look of it. I also love roll and writes. In fact, roll and writes have probably occupied the largest chunk of my gametime over the last year, just based on number of plays. So when I found out that TMG was publishing a roll and write based on Gold West, I was really excited and couldn’t wait to give it a play. What could go wrong?

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Dale Yu: First Impressions of Butterfly

Posted on November 30, 2019 by Dale Yu

Butterfly

  • Designer: Stephen Glenn
  • Publisher: Rio Grande Games
  • Players: 2-5
  • Ages: 9+
  • Time: 30-45 minutes
  • Game played on review copy provided by Rio Grande Games

Butterfly is the newest release from one of my oldest friends in gaming, Stephen Glenn.  Right when I was coming into the hobby, 1999 or so, I was playing Acquire games by Email – and one of the guys in that group was none other than Stephen Glenn.  He may be best known for his debut game, Balloon Cup, which was recommended for the Spiel des Jahres in 2003 – but he has had a number of designs published since then.

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Posted in Essen 2019, First Impressions | 6 Comments

Chris Wray: Quick Thoughts on 5 More Essen 2019 Games

Posted on November 29, 2019 by Chris Wray

We’re now a month past Spiel ’19, and on a recent visit to a local game store, I realized that many of the hottest games from the event have hit US shores. To help those who are holiday shopping (or shopping for their collections), I thought I’d offer thoughts on a few more games.

Earlier this month, I posted quick thoughts on 5 Essen 2019 games, including Babylonia, Maracaibo, Paranormal Detectives, Ticket to Ride Map Collection #7, and Vivaldi. This is a sequel article to that one, with 5 new Essen titles.

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Posted in Essen 2019, Reviews | 3 Comments