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YACG (Yet Another Cthulhu Game)

MessCthulhu

“Don’t Mess with Cthulhu”

designed by Yusuke Sato, published by Indie Boards and Cards

Social deduction meets the Lovecraft mythos. A simple game where players are secretly either investigators or a sneaky cultist. Five cards are dealt to each player, take a look at them, and then place them randomly in front of yourself. Try to get players to open Elder Signs (if you are an investigator), or ill omens (if you are a cultist). First side to get all their necessary cards face up wins. So, basically, lie, bluff, cajole, and convince other players to do what you need.

Plays quickly and easily, and fun as well, if a little like other social deduction games.  But, theme?

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The Most Euro-y Game of Them All?

Orleans

“Orleans”

designed by Reiner Stockhausen, published by Tasty Minstrel Games

Raise your power and prestige in the Medieval French city of Orleans! In this “bag-building” game, randomly draw up to four different workers from your bag: knights, craftsmen, monks, farmers, and boatsmen. Assign them in groups of two or three to different actions on your player board. Advance on different progress tracks to collect resources or build buildings (which provide more spots to place workers), or to travel through France building trading houses and collecting resources. Collect citizens from the progress tracks to earn extra points. And then stare at the workers you drew and realize you are only one worker away from a MONSTER turn.

Easily the most Euro game you will every play: so many decisions with multiple paths to victory. The blind worker draw adds just right amount of randomness. But so many decisions…

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Heroic Deeds for the Young’uns

 

Kaskaria

“The Heroes of Kaskaria”

designed by Benjamin Schwer, published by HABA

The evil trolls have stolen the Golden Amulet of the Kingdom of Kaskaria! Race on your cliff jumper and scaled griffin to retrieve this valuable treasure! On their turn, players will either draw a card or play two or more cards of the same color to advance their pieces, collect gold, or to add cards to their hand. The first player to arrive at the nest and recover the amulet ends the game, but gold is earned for being furthest along either the cliff jumper track or the scaled griffin track. Whoever has the most gold from collecting it along the way or placing wins! Did I mention this was a HABA kid’s game? My six year-old won and she liked it!

Enough gameplay options to both challenge the kids AND keep the adults in the game without them having to hold back. But with so many colors, it’s sometimes hard to figure out which colors actually match.

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We Got Fun and Games (and Orc and Goblins).

WelcomeDungeon

“Welcome to the Dungeon”

designed by Masato Uessugi

Can you defeat all the monsters in the dungeon with the “help” of your opponents? Choose an adventurer with lots of special powers and then look at a monster card: decide if it goes in the dungeon or if it goes out. If it goes out, take away one of the adventurer’s special powers. The net result: the dungeon gets more dangerous as the adventurer gets weaker and weaker. The next player does the same: until everyone passes and only one player remains. That player takes the poor, under-equipped adventurer through the now enemy-packed dungeon and hopes for the best. It’s mostly about playing your opponents: what do you think they will do? Probably go in just when you want to and win the game.

It seems so easy with such easy choices, but don’t timing is an issue and it becomes critical when it’s just you and your opponent: you know you can make it, but you have to force her out somehow before you lose the one thing you need…

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Zen Turf War

Lotus

“Lotus”

designed by Jordan Goddard & Mandy Goddard, published by Renegade Game Studios

Get your Zen on in this gorgeously illustrated card-game of flower building.  Build flowers by playing cards in a clever circular pattern. Each round, place up to two petal cards to build up to five different kinds of flowers of five different sizes.  Then claim those complete flowers as points. However, you can also “control” flowers through adorable little bug guardian tokens. Control lets you take a five-point token or to upgrade your abilities.

Don’t let the cover fool or zen aesthetic fool you: best comment about the game isn’t even mine, but from my son: “it’s a pretty game for what amounts to a brutal turf war.”

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Build your Kingdom with “Kingdom Builder”

KingdomBuilder

“Kingdom Builder”

designed by Donald X. Vaccarino, published by Queen Games

Build your kingdom via strategic placement of your settlements!  A game of very few choices: you get one card, you play it, and build three settlements on the terrain type (flower fields, deserts, forests, mountains) matching that card. Note the strict building rules: you must build next to an already existing settlement if you can. Build next to bonus tiles which usually give you the ability to build, another settlement!  Try to score points at the end based on three randomly drawn goals that makes the strategy of every game different. Sometimes you need the largest settlement, or have the most separate settlements, or sometimes, score for both.  The four modular boards provide some extra variety as well.  But in the end, the whole affair feels a bit bland.

Not a whole lot of choices makes for a rather dry game at times.

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Things Are Harder in German…

 

GermanRailroads

“German Railroads”

designed by Helmut Ohley & Leonhard Orger, published by Z-Man Games

An expansion to “Russian Railroads”: replaces the original player boards with new player boards that are modular, so you can customize the rewards you get as you expand your lines. In additon, adds a powerful new currency: coal, that lets you power your trains, increase your industry, and get fantastic new additional actions. But it also just gives you even more choices and increases the analysis paralysis as you try and combo and plan and score.

Who knew building railroads could be so hard?  So many more choices…

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In Soviet Russia…[insert extremely dated reference here]

RussianRailroads

“Russian Railroads”

designed by Helmut Ohley & Leonhard “Lonny” Orgler

It turns out that in Pre-Soviet Russia the railraod rides you as well. A complex worker-placement game where you race on your personal player board to complete up to three rail lines while increasing your industry. Go further on different lines to get bonuses and to increase your scoring: but choose wisely, you only have 7 turns to do everything you need to do. Definitely a brain burner becasue you need Plan A, B, and C as people WILL take what you need. And Scoring is, I guess appropriately enough, quite a bear.

An extremely tight game that forces to make hard decisions.  The between round scoring is the hardest part: different rail will give you different point values and they are multipliers as well.  But, a great brain-burning, strategic worker-placement game.

 

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Crafty Card-Crafting down in the Vale

MysticVale

“Mystic Vale”

designed by John D. Clair, published by AEG Games

Regenerate the blighted land in this fantasy-themed card game.  Instead of just a deck-building game, features a “card-building” mechanic with clear cards that you slip into sleeves to power your cards on the way to gaining the most victory points. On your turn, flip over cards to see how much power you have.  But be careful, if you reveal too many blight tokens, your turn ends and you get (almost nothing).  Use your available power to buy upgrades WHICH YOU ADD TO YOUR ALREADY EXISTING CARDS.  Build up your cards, buy more powerful card parts, then eventually buy lands for more powers and even more victory points.

Feels like “Splendor,” but with do-it-yourself cards.  Might seem gimmicky, but it’s a solid system and provides lots of interesting possibilities and choices.