Roll and Wrong

I really enjoyed some of the early, more maths-based games,...

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For the most part, I'm over roll-and-write games. There are a few I've played online that are fun and make sense, and I've found a few print-and-play games that I'll pull out from time to time. One in particular, Roll Estate, is a great cross between Yahtzee and Monopoly, but without the take-that aspect of the latter. It's a challenge that is actually satisfying.

But Welcome To... has kind of overstayed its welcome, as has On Tour. Next Station London has you drawing 4 different colored routes to gain points and complete achievements, but doesn't feel very thematic. Get On Board, however, has all the players playing on the same board, and you could get negative points for drawing a route along the same street as an opponent. That one is VERY thematic and challenging, and I do enjoy it.

I'm waiting for the Next Big Thing in board game design, because [blank]-and-write games seem to be a dime a dozen right now.

Just with respect to myself, I think they have a pretty limited and discrete play life even when I enjoy the first few plays.

I've played Trails of Tucana quite a lot with the family. In that you draw routes on a nice map of an island, and all players have a slightly different setup. The goal is to connect important landmarks to cities near the coast and to connect some of the cities. It's obviously multiplayer solitaire, even if you can get a connection bonus by being the first player to connect to specific cities. So the core game is about being efficient and getting the right combination of cards at the right time, and in itself nothing special. I like the core gameplay, but I think what makes it good is that the map you draw on is also nice to look at.

I have quite a few of these and I’m still a fan. Here’s the ones I have/had:

Dice Stars: I still like it.
Qwixx: I still like it.
Truck Off: Sucks and always did.
CLEVER: Was replaced by app.
OctoDice: My fave ever.
Roll..Ages: Bronze: Okay.

And there’s some exploration games that are just stellar:

Pencils and Powers
which led to
Doom Realm
which led to
Saucer Escape

That last one…I’m biased