Dale Yu: Review of That’s Pretty Clever! Kids

Posted on October 9, 2024 by Dale Yu

That’s Pretty Clever! Kids

  • Designer: Wolfgang Warsch
  • Publisher: Schmidt / CMYK
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 5+
  • Time: 15 minutes
  • Amazon Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/3Y0In7n
  • Played with review copy provided by CMYK

You want to get your hands on everything you can at the birthday party: balloons, gifts, candles, and mountains of sweets! Will you be able to grab more than all the other partygoers?

This game is similar to Ganz schön clever, with one player rolling dice on their turn, then choosing what they want while everyone else gets something from what’s left behind.

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Earth is the Dice Tower Game of the Year

Posted on October 8, 2024 by huzonfirst

So we’ve got some catching up to do.  The Dice Tower Awards were revealed during GenCon, but with all the other excitement surrounding the event, I missed the announcement.  So apologies for that, but I did want to mention the results.

The Dice Tower’s pick for its Game of the Year is Earth, designed by Maxime Tardif and published by Inside Up Games.  It’s the fourth significant award for Earth; previously, it won the IGA (best Solo experience), the Golden Geeks (best Medium Weight game), and was one of the four winners of the Meeples Choice Award.  So a very impressive year, indeed.

A total of 10 titles received Game of the Year nominations.  Here they are, together with their designers and publishers.

Game of the Year
***Earth  (Maxime Tardif) – Inside Up Games***
Darwin’s Journey  (Simone Luciani, Nestore Mangone) – ThunderGryph Games
Distilled  (Dave Beck) – Paverson Games
Forest Shuffle  (Kosch) – Lookout Games
Nucleum  (Simone Lucinai, David Turczi) – Board&Dice
Sky Team  (Luc Remond) – Le Scorpion Masque
The White Castle  (Israel Cendrero, Sheila Santos) – Devir
Thunder Road: Vendetta  (Daviau, Jacobson, Neff, Myers, Keifer, Cohen, Chalker) – Restoration Games
Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West  (Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock, Alan Moon) – Days of Wonder
World Wonders  (Ze Mendes) – MeepleBR

Finally, here are the winners in the individual game categories.

Welcoming Game:  Wandering Towers  (Wolfgang Kramer, Michael Kiesling) – Abacus
Two-Player:  Sky Team  (Luc Remond) – Le Scorpion Masque
Party:  Blob Party  (Pam Walls) – WizKids
Solo:  Legacy of Yu  (Shem Phillips) – Garphill Games
Reprint:  The Castles of Burgundy Special Edition  (Stefan Feld) – alea
Co-op:  Sky Team  (Luc Remond) – Le Scorpion Masque
Small Publisher:  Distilled  (Dave Beck) – Paverson Games
New Designer:  Last Light  (Roy Cannaday) – Grey Fox Games
Theming:  Thunder Road: Vendetta  (Daviau, Jacobson, Neff, Myers, Keifer, Cohen, Chalker) – Restoration Games
Production Value:  The Castles of Burgundy Special Edition – alea
Artwork:  Disney Lorcana – Ravensburger
Strategy:  Earth  (Maxime Tardif) – Inside Up Games
Innovative:  Sky Team  (Luc Remond) – Le Scorpion Masque

Congratulations to all the winning games!

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Dale Yu: Review of Belratti [Essen SPIEL 2024]

Posted on October 8, 2024 by Dale Yu

Belratti

  • Designer: Michael Loth
  • Publisher: Kosmos
  • Players: 3-7
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 25 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4e8Q155  

You are buying artwork for your museum, always trying to meet the current trends and finding genuine art from your associates. But the famous Belratti is trying to cheat his own fake paintings into your collection.

In Belratti, players are split into two roles — buyers and painters — and are playing against the game. The game presents two cards as topics for which the buyers need to buy paintings. They ask for a certain number of cards, and the painters have to collectively meet this target number.

The painters select cards from their hands they think will fit the most to one of the topics. Then additional cards are added as Belratti’s fakes. All cards are shuffled upside down, then flipped up. The buyers then have to select all the cards from the painters, not the fake cards by Belratti.

The roles change after each round. If too many fakes are bought, the players lose. (The name of the game is obviously derived from the name of the German art forger W. Beltracchi)

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Simon’s Essen 2024 Sunday report

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Dale Yu

And so Essen draws to a close for another year. Remarkable sunshine, great fair atmosphere, loads of people…Essen never disappoints.

Ice Hike: Beware of the Bears by NRP games is a interactive game where players try to traverse across an icy landscape from one corner of the board to the opposite corner. On the way you will encounter mountains which you need rope to scale, as well as bears  – both of which may have been played by your opponents to block your path. a simple tile-laying game with some definite in-your-face play which some of you will enjoy.
Run Bunny Run by HenMar games is a simple card game for 2-5 players  in which one player plays the bunny and the others the wolves trying to capture it. There are obstacles on the table: for example fences a bunny can run under but wolves can’t get past, and stone walls that block the bunny and allow the wolves to jump over. Movement is with cleverly designed cards similar to Wings of War which show an outline of the card you must play next on them, so that the bunny can see which direction the wolves are headed; meanwhile the bunny’s movement is more flexible so that it can adapt. Very neat.

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Joe’s Bookshelf – Got Game?

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Joe Huber

Written by Dr. Leisl Grimm, and published in 2024 by Got Games Books
Review based upon a copy provided by the publisher

The hook for this book is laid out clearly on the back cover. “Most books about board games are boring. This is not that book.” While I don’t agree that most books about board games are boring, I was curious to see how this book would stand out.

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Dale Yu: Review of EXIT: The Magical Academy (Spoiler Free)

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Dale Yu

EXIT: The Magical Academy

  • Designers: Inka and Markus Brand
  • Publisher: Kosmos
  • Players: 1-4
  • Age: 12+
  • Time: 1-2 hours
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3ZLJ71w

The EXIT series was one of the original puzzle-game franchises to hit the market when the escape room game craze took off a few years ago. To date, my family and I have been able to play all of the ones released here in the US, and this is a series that we continue to look forward to future installments. While there are many worthy competitors in the genre, the EXIT series is possibly the best known of the bunch – due in part to the initial set of games being awarded the 2017 Kennerspiel des Jahres award. Continue reading →

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