The Opinionated Gamers Prognosticate the Spiel des Jahres Lists

The Opinionated Gamers Prognosticate the Spiel des Jahres Lists

Each year since 2011, the OG writers have tried to sit in the seats of the SdJ jury and choose which games we think that will be on the lists.  The actual unveiling of the lists will happen this coming Monday in Germany – so now seems like a good time for us to talk about our guesses.  As our habit, we will do this in two parts.  This first survey is done prior to the actual release of the lists, and just about any game was open for consideration.  Once the lists are out, we will then do a second round of voting – this time limited to only the games on the list.

Last year, the group did moderately well.   

We managed to correctly predict Colt Express as the winner of the Spiel des Jahres, and our second place game – Machi Koro – was one of the two nominated games.  However, we did fall a bit short with the other nominated game – The Game – which we didn’t even mention.  Our next three games were three of the six recommended games (Kakao, Loony Quest and Patchwork), but then we completely missed the other three recommended games (Abraca-wha?, Ugo!, and One Night Ultimate Werewolf). Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | 14 Comments

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival (Game Review by Chris Wray)

  • Designer: Christopher Chung
  • Publisher:  Renegade Game Studios, Foxtrot Games, Pegasus Spiele
  • Players:  2 – 4
  • Ages:  8 and Up
  • Time:  30 Minutes
  • Times Played:  > 5 (On the Renegade/Foxtrot Edition)

Lanterns

I first played Lanterns: The Harvest Festival at Gen Con 2015.  I was impressed, calling it one of my hits of the conventions and a possible Spiel des Jahres (SdJ) contender.  With the SdJ nominations and recommendations coming in the next few days, it is once again generating some buzz, so I wanted to do a quick review of the game.

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Dale Yu: Review of the Rose King

The Rose King

  • Designer: Dirk Henn
  • Publisher: Thames & Kosmos
  • Players: 2
  • Ages: 10+
  • Time: ~30 minutes
  • Times played: probably >50 all-time, 4 with the new version (a review copy provided by Thames & Kosmos)

Rose King

The Rose King is a recent re-release of a classic two player game. As I mentioned in an earlier review of Tally Ho!, Thames & Kosmos is working on reviving the old Kosmos 2p game line for American release. Originally known as  Rosenkönig, this a is tense game by Dirk Henn where the players try to score more points by creating larger areas of interconnected markers of your own color. The theme here is the English War of the Roses with the House of York represented by a white rose and the House of Lancaster with its red rose. (For you game historians out there, before Rosenkönig the game was known as Texas, a release from Dirk Henn’s own db-Spiele.)

The board here is a simple 9×9 grid. There are some castles and English town names in the background – but you really just need the grid to play. There is a nice yellow wooden crown which starts in the center of the board. There are also a bunch of double sided cardboard tokens (white roses on one side and red roses on the other) that are used to stake out control on the board. Each player is given the four Hero cards of their color – these can be used to force a previously placed marker to change allegiance to your camp. Additionally, the deck of power cards is shuffled and each player is dealt five cards. Continue reading

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Dale Yu: First Impressions of Doctor Panic

 

Doctor Panic

  • Designer: Roberto Fraga
  • Publisher: REPOS
  • Players: 2-9
  • Ages: 8+
  • Time: no more than 12 minutes!
  • Times played: 2, with review copy provided by REPOS

PANICOBLOC_BOX_TOP

(This is kinda of a theme… the second Fraga Doctor game this week! )

Doctor Panic is one of those interesting games that will likely have few opportunities to hit the table, but will provide raucous fun when it does come out. In this cooperative game, players split themselves up into teams to save the patient on the table. Teams are made up of 2 or 3 players, and each team gets ready for the game by taking a card from each of the eight test decks. These 8 cards are then shuffled and placed face-down in front of the team. All of the varied equipment is laid out on the table where everyone can reach them. Continue reading

Posted in First Impressions | 3 Comments

Animals on Board (Game Review by Chris Wray)

  • Designer: Wolfgang Sentker, Ralf zur Linde
  • Publisher:  eggertspiele / Pegasus Spiele (Germany), Stronghold Games (U.S.)
  • Players:  2 – 4
  • Ages:  8 and Up
  • Time:  15 – 30 Minutes
  • Times Played:  > 5 (On the English/German First Edition)

AnimalsonBoard

Animals on Board hit my radar after Dale’s mentioned it in his Gathering of Friends posts. I read the rules, and it looked like a great “filler plus” game that my group would enjoy. I ordered a copy, and I’ve played it several times since. Animals on Board offers a clever mix of set collection and the “I split, you choose” game mechanic, and I could see this title being on the SdJ jury’s radar in the next few weeks.

The game has been released in Europe by eggertspiele and Pegasus Spiele, and the U.S. release will be by Stronghold Games, who is showing a planned release for May 25.

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Review of Dr Eureka (Blue Orange)

 

Dr. Eureka

 

  • Designed by: Roberto Fraga
    Illustrated by: Stéphane Escapa
  • Published by: Blue Orange Games
  • Age: 6+
  • Players: 1 – 4
  • Time: 5 – 15 mins
  • Reviewed by: Tom Wetzel (guest reviewer from allaboardgame.com)
  • Times played: 5 (superviser kids play 10+)
    dr eureka


Your elementary school classroom may have had an abstract puzzle with three dowels sticking out of a board and a pyramid of discs stacked on one of the dowles. The object of this puzzle was to get the discs from one side to the other without breaking a simple sequence rule -this puzzle is called the Towers of Hanoi. Continue reading

Posted in Essen 2015, Reviews | 2 Comments