 July 2025 Games I played for the first time this month, from worst to best, along with my ratings and comments.   ÂBosk – 5/10 Two years before Bosk was released, a game called Photosynthesis saw players placing cardboard trees onto a board in an attempt to control areas. It had the feel of an abstract strategy game, having no randomness, though players would have to account for an ever-changing sun in their calculations. Two years later, Bosk could be described in the exact same way, albeit replacing the word “sun” with “wind”. Bosk is by no means a ripoff from a mechanical standpoint, but it does make you wonder how many “tree abstracts” we really need, especially when Bosk is a worse game. The game takes place in two halves. The first half has players place their trees onto the intersections of the squares on the board. Each line is then assessed, with points awarded for the most valuable trees in each row. Were this the entirety of the game, it would be overly simple and boring. But in addition to considering control of each line, you need to also be setting up your trees for the second half of the game. In the second half of the game, each of your eight trees will drop its leaves. The leaves must move in a chain from the base of the tree in a given direction specified by the wind. The goal is to have the leaves fall onto sections of the board such that you have a majority in each section. This second half of the game makes placements near the middle of the board more valuable, as they can be useful regardless of the direction the wind blows. But it may be more prudent to take some outer edges as well since they are likely to be less in-demand, and thus easier to score the line control points for. At least upon a first play, the implications of your decisions are not very obvious. This is a strike against the game though, as the implications are also completely calculable if you stare at the board long enough. Unfortunately, the components themselves do no favors here as the board gets very busy to look at and the points on the trees cannot be viewed from all angles. Yet to the extent that any unpredictability is present, it’s purely player-created. A third or fourth player, which the game accommodates, will often do nothing but generate chaos that invalidates your careful calculations. Sometimes this even rises to the level of kingmaking, where a player must decide which of their opponents to award points to. Bosk is the kind of game that might well appeal to a certain type of gamer, one who shuns randomness yet enjoys cutthroat interactivity. But even for such people, I think better options exist. The saving grace here is that Bosk is fast-playing, easy to learn, and looks good on the table. I wouldn’t say no to playing again, but I’d certainly be suggesting other options first.  ÂHot Streak – 6/10 In 1936, a board game was published themed around horse racing. It featured six horses, each trying to be the first to move 18 spaces around the track board. Roll a die and move the horse whose lane you rolled. First number to be rolled 18 times wins. Pure chance, no player input whatsoever. And yet… you know as well as I do that The Horse Racing Game wasn’t totally devoid of entertainment value, and even dare I say it, thrills. After all, players exert just as much control here as they do at the actual racetrack, and this doesn’t stop people from betting the ponies. Nearly ninety years later, another racing board game has players shouting, laughing, and losing their ever-loving minds as they cheer for their preferred racer to just get across the stupid finish line already. That game is Hot Streak. But this game includes some more modern design sensibilities vis-à -vis the idea that players should have some degree of agency over the results of the race. The horses have been replaced with chunky plastic mascot figures, evoking Major League Baseball’s sausage and pierogi races and the like. Players will be unreasonably charmed by these figures and quickly develop favorites. Yet the prowess of each racer will vary from game to game. This is because their movement is controlled by cards rather than dice and each game uses just a random subset of all the possible cards. So some racers may move a lot, some less frequently, and still others may do very little but fall over or even run the wrong way. The players get to see this initial deck of cards, giving them some idea of how to prioritize betting on each racer. Additionally, before each race, players will each get to secretly add an extra card to the deck, giving an advantage or disadvantage to a particular racer. They will also get to place two bets. These bets will give you a payout so long as your racer finishes anywhere but last place. If you have high confidence in a first place finish, you can make a risky bet instead, increasing the payout if your racer wins, but lowering the payout if they don’t. In lieu of one of your bets on a racer, you can make a side bet on a particular occurrence, such as a racer being eliminated by going out of bounds or a racer finishing far ahead of the pack. Hot Streak has been a hit with everyone I’ve played it with. It’s hilarious to watch the mascots get so close to the finish line before promptly falling down, running into each other, or veering out of bounds. This is a big, boisterous party game with tons of table appeal. It doesn’t offer enough meaningful decisions to be a true favorite for me, but it certainly accomplishes what it sets out to do. Shut off your brain and enjoy the hijinks, but don’t expect much resembling actual strategy.   ÂRegicide – 7/10 ÂI have good news for you: you already own this game. This is because Regicide can be played with a standard deck of playing cards (including two jokers). It’s also a cooperative game, certainly the first such standard deck game I’ve tried. Even without purchasing a custom illustrated deck, the theme is surprisingly evocative. The face cards represent a corrupt monarchy that must be defeated, while the number cards represent warriors with the strength needed to do so. Number cards of the same value can be played together, so long as their total does not exceed 10, while the Aces represent “animal companions” that can tag along with any card regardless of its value. On your turn, you will deal damage to the monarch by playing a card (or cards) from your hand. Then, if the monarch remains undefeated, you will be dealt damage. Damage requires you to discard cards from your hand, so between attacking and taking damage, you can find your hand dwindling rapidly. If a player can’t discard enough cards to deal with the damage, all players lose. Fortunately, each suit also has an associated bonus. Diamonds represent treasure, allowing you to draw more cards to your hand. Hearts are healing, and will shuffle cards from the discard pile back into your deck (which too will rapidly dwindle otherwise). Clubs are weapons, and do double their printed value in damage. Spades, finally, are shields, preventing the evil monarchs from damaging you so badly. But in a final twist, each monarch is immune to the special ability of their own suit, which enables not just strategic challenge, but also more of that subtle flavor. Regicide is difficult to win. It’s easy to teach even to casual players, but if you welcome them in, they’re going to foul up your existing group’s tactics and conventions. Best to play and hone skills with the same group, much like Hanabi or The Crew. Even though games like this aren’t my favorite genre, I am very impressed by how balanced and clever this design is. It embraces the traits of a standard deck of cards rather than fighting against them, yet it still manages to feel unlike any standard-deck game I’ve ever played.   ÂPergola – 7/10 With the busyness of modern life, just sitting by a pergola watching the insects, smelling the flowers, and listening to the stream can feel like as much of a fantasy as slaying orcs. And for gamers who enjoy the aesthetics of games like Planted or Meadow, this theme is much more appealing as well. Pergola is an open drafting game in which players will each populate their own peaceful area in an attempt to score the most points. On your turn, you will choose one of the available tools. Each tool has a combination of a couple different items (e.g., a butterfly and a lily) that you will receive. Additionally, each tool is paired with an extra action you get to take, such has hopping your frog onto a lily pad or moving your insects around. Then the rest of the tools slide over, such that unchosen tools get paired with progressively more powerful actions. The rest of the rules are basically just understanding the way each flower and bug interact from a scoring perspective. Fortunately, the player aids are excellent; even first time players won’t face any confusion in terms of how things work. But that doesn’t mean the game is necessarily easy. Difficult decisions abound and there is just enough interactivity for another player to force you to slightly alter your course but not totally screw you over. Pergola doesn’t break a lot of new ground, but it’s a pleasant experience. There are tough choices and it avoids feeling like multiplayer solitaire while still allowing you a good deal of agency over your own tableau. The ratio of “structural rules” vs “scoring rules” is reminiscent of Ra, which makes learning the game possible for non-gamers while still providing enough interest for veterans. Especially if you find the theme appealing, this one is worth a look.  ÂChallengers: Beach Cup – 8/10 Challengers! Beach Cup is a sequel/expansion to the original Challengers!, a game I’ve never actually played. Yet from what I can tell, they are similar enough that I’m comfortable commenting on the system as a whole. And as mentioned, they do integrate with one another. Think Dominion and Dominion Intrigue. Actually, that comparison is apt in another way as well: this is a deckbuilding game. The gimmick is that gameplay occurs in mini 1v1 matches. You’ll play against each of your opponents at least once, but never against two at the same time. Then between each match, you get another opportunity to improve and modify your deck. This structure of the deckbuilding being a separate phase from playing with the deck is reminiscent of Millennium Blades, though Challengers is significantly shorter and less complex. Each mini match is a capture-the-flag contest. The start player flips a random card from their deck and that card starts with the flag. The opponent then flips cards from their deck until the total meets or exceeds the value of the card with the flag. This process continues back and forth until one player runs out of cards and loses or until a player fills up their “bench” where discarded characters go and loses. The fact that there are two different loss conditions means that players need to account for both in their deckbuilding decisions. Having more cards is better, since you’re less likely to run out of cards, but trimming the chaff so you have fewer cards makes you less likely to lose by filling up your bench. Along the same lines, keeping only your strongest cards means you’ll always have a card with a high number holding the flag, but your deck may run out before your opponent’s does. Balance and overall strategy are both important here. It’s worth noting that nearly all the strategy in the game comes during the deckbuilding portion. You don’t have a hand of cards, nor can you decide the order of cards in your deck. So the capture the flag portions of the game play out like an auto-battler. This can be thrilling and satisfying to see your plan in action, but I can see how it could also frustrate some players due to lack of control. Due to its structure, Challengers is really at its best when played with an even number of players. With an odd number, one player will be forced to battle against the AI deck each round, which is both unsatisfying to defeat and embarrassing to lose to. Nevertheless, I appreciate the niche it falls into as a gateway game that accommodates the player count of a party game. And I do love a good deckbuilder.   ÂKutna Hora: The City of Silver – 8/10 ÂThis mid-weight euro was released in 2023 but went completely under my radar. And that’s a shame, because Kutna Hora does a lot of interesting things that come together in a similarly interesting package, Your actions are driven by a fixed hand of six cards. In each round, you will only get to play five of these, skipping whichever one seems best to you. But each card has two action options, which creates some brutal choices. Even if you can determine which of the possible actions you’d like to take on your first turn, you’ll still have to decide which of your two cards that provides that action to use. In either case, you’ll be eliminating a future possible action: the other half of that card. But even once that is selected, most actions will immediately demand even more tough decisions. For example, if you choose to claim a plot of land, you’ll need to decide where on the board to stake that claim. If you decide to take the plans for a building, you’ll need to decide which building, weighing that decision against the fact that the building market is quite volatile. A building you forgo now could be much cheaper on your next turn. Or purchased by a shrewd opponent. I hope it’s clear that these decisions are not complex in terms of their rules baggage. The structure is quite intuitive; it’s the implications that are difficult to grasp. All of this leads to an experience where player choices are intuitive rather than calculable, a dynamic I personally adore. I mentioned the market volatility and that is definitely a key feature of the game. Players will increase their resource production through various actions, but the actual value of each resource can vary a lot. Moreover, each time a player increases their personal production of a particular resource, the value of that resource will be reduced. In this way, players are encouraged both to balance their production across all resources as well as to specialize in particular ones. What’s the correct mix? Intuitive, not calculable. There isn’t a lot here to complain about. Most people that don’t connect with Kutna Hora will cite things that are matters of preference rather than quality. If you prefer a mathier, more calculable experience, you may find the game too unpredictable. If you prefer strong theming and surprises, you may find the game too dull. But personally I think there is a lot here to like.  A highly recommended game that I have most certainly played prior to this month, probably many times.  ÂThe Estates – 9/10 ÂI am extremely impressed by how many difficult decisions this game packs into a relatively short time frame. Emergent gameplay and groupthink are be very prevalent here and a player trying an off-the-wall strategy could both meet with success as well as completely shake up the table’s rubrics for winning. On your turn, you will initiate an auction for a particular building piece. Starting to your left, each player gets a single bid. Then you have the option to either pay the high bidder to place the piece or else accept their money and let them place the piece. This reminds me a bit of Isle of Skye, but in reverse. Payments are handled with a closed economy (each player starts with 12 checks) which is reminiscent of Traumfabrik. However, this money is worthless at the end of the game, so, at the start of each turn, players have a chance to bank a check for a point. The most intriguing aspect is the setup of the building pieces themselves, which are arranged in a rectangle, with only the three pieces on each side available for bidding. As pieces are selected, new ones become exposed. Thus your selection of what to put up for bid will also be influenced by what piece you will expose to the next player. Moreover, not all of the pieces are used in a given game, meaning certain colors may be rarer or may have only higher or lower numbers associated with them. The first player to win a bid for a particular color is the only one who will score points for it, thus evaluating the entire array of potentially available building pieces is crucial from very early on. There are so many things to consider and so many choices that require thinking ahead several turns and predicting other player’s moves. Despite this, the game moves along very quickly, with decisions largely being intuitive rather than calculable until the very end of the game. Despite very low randomness, I have no idea the “right” way to play this game, and I love that. |
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Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 20)
After the Gathering of Friends finishes, I fly over to Salt Lake City. I take a day off after flying in with a cold on no sleep, no food, ending up with fevers and chills. But the next day I crawl off my death bed, not perfect but good enough to go. It’s a brilliantly blue warm sunny day, a smattering of clouds, and I’m driving south out of SLC for 40 minutes, the valley surrounded its whole length by steep snow-capped mountains. So, so pretty. When I commute at home, I always make a point of getting my head out of my book as the train crosses the Sydney Harbour Bridge to remind myself how lucky I am to live where I do – the harbour, the opera house, the ferries, a city alive. But commuting up the I-15 every day must be something special. There was a 5-mile long jam on the other side and I know exactly why. Somebody got awe-smacked by the majesty of it all and lost attention. And how do I know this? Well I can neither confirm nor deny whether I may or may not have directly or indirectly been a little awe-smacked myself a few times which may or may not have led to 3 separate pile-ups in my wake, but I was never there and any camera footage has clearly been faked. So say we all.
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