GamesReviews written by WadeMonnig
There are definitely shades of Kingdom Death Monster and Gloomhaven found in Stonesaga. I just wish it “got cooler” faster. It takes many multi-hour adventures to even scratch the surface of Stonesaga and we felt the slow, deliberate pace was a bit too much of “Crawl before you can walk” when we really wanted to be stretching our legs.
The Bremen/Manhattan map pack is a low cost solution if you are looking to put the light back into the eyes of Power Grid players. It only takes a few minutes to explain the various differences and veteran players will slip right into playing but also be delighted by the tactics required to sync with the changes.
So, tune up your linguistic talents so that you can No Thanks is as many ways as possible during a game. A 24? ¡No Gracias! A 22? No Grazie. A 35! No Merci! Of course, No Merci! tickles my double entendre funny bone and is my personal favorite. (Neck and neck with “Fuck right off.”) If there is such a thing as a “Classic Feel Bad Filler” No Thanks is that game.
I don't know if saying “I wouldn't want to play Jump Drive without the Terminal Velocity expansion” is the biggest compliment to the franchise but, after adding it to the base game, it is accurate. The beginning game boost comes via starting planets. A mix of Military and Civilian planets, one of each type is dealt to players before the game begins and they select one as their Home World and benefit from the boost(s) on the card. One of my complaints about the “First Game” starting cards in Jump Drive is that I didn't like that it pushed players in a specific direction with the type of cards a set contained. Starting Planets let you choose your own destiny since you can pick the direction that you hope your soon-to-be galactic empire is headed. The starting planets are a moderately light touch, which is a bit unexpected. However, I have yet to have a game crash and burn up on re-entry due to a bad mix of starting cards, so I think it's exactly what was needed without over correcting.
Tanglewoods gold hits three core concepts I like in my solo gaming: Brevity, Replayability, and Challenge. The length of the game feels exactly right (well, except for when you die in the first few rounds), the nature of the bosses means you can try to pull them out in different orders so the battles never feel “samey” and the variable challenge system skews toward everything on the lower half of the spectrum being benefits and the higher being hindrances.
Try to dismiss your expectations when coming into Vantage. where it takes you will likely not be what you expect. But, if you use the toolbox it provides, it can be a uniquely inventive experience.
Ahh, Loonacy, if you can't contain it, at least you can spread it around.
I, personally, really like what Tea Garden does. It has aggressive deck building, a great variety of paths to victory, and I relish how the secondary actions become your primary focus later in the game. However, the multi-player solitaire nature (where you finish a turn, extremely impressed with yourself, but the other players never react because they are working on their own turn) and the pure transactional nature of the gameplay means I would only recommend it to a specific subset of players. If you enjoy mentally chewing on a moderately heavy challenge, this game is the crumpets that goes with your Tea.
“You gotta check this out.” should be CMYK's tag line. From Hot Streak to Magical Athlete to Figment, I've used this phrase more times than I care to admit when introducing them. Figment takes about 30 seconds to teach and requires zero boardgame knowledge to learn and enjoy. It also has that “Let's play it again” appeal as soon as you finish a game...because, you always think you can/will do better this time.
Jump Drive plays at light speed and does a great job of making it feel like you have built a empire in less than 30 (or 15 or 10) minutes. It doesn't last long enough to be considered a true engine builder, instead it feels like a combo creator. It comes across like the original Twilight Zone television series in how much it can pack into a short amount of time. If you are of the younger crowd, just swap out Love, Death, and Robots for the above Twilight Zone reference...and you probably won't be near as bothered by the “Galactic Influencers” card as I was (Damn Influencers! Get off my lawn with your A.I. instatoks and “I can't leave Twixxer because the Dow is over 50,000!”).