T.I.M.E. Stories
Matt
With a review inbound soon, I’ll attempt to keep my thoughts brief. Lured in by its sleek modern design, we dove into the world of time traveling and mystery solving late Saturday night. By early Sunday morning, some 5 hours later, we had completed the case. The ride was captivating, drawing us in and – ironically – making us lose all sense of time. Before we knew it, the story was over. To our dismay, we then realized that there was nothing more in the box. No further adventures to embark on. We had consumed the game and would not feast again without an additional $30 purchase. Somewhat soured by the reality of its marketing choices, I long to experience the thrill of T.I.M.E. Stories again, but detest the idea of repeating the one-and-done nature of its play.
Codenames
Steve
I finally got a chance to play this gem this past weekend. I know, I know. I am late to the game on this one. Better late than never as they say, right? I got a chance to play this one countless times both 4 and 2 player. I was able to play most of the games with Alicia and the 2 player variant. We found out that we just MIGHT be pros at this. I mean, we beat the dummy player in 3 turns. Thats gotta be a record or something right? Codenames is an absolute blast!
Kelly
Yep. I am still playing this one. The number of cards and the sheer number of possible combinations of them means that we can just keep playing it forever.
Mission Red Planet
Smee
Think Citadels meets area-control on a steampunk-era Mars, and you’ll get the gist of Mission: Red Planet! Players each have a hand of the same nine character cards, and will secretly decided upon which to play during any of the ten rounds that the game will last. Once you’ve played a character, though, it will be unavailable until recruited back into your hand. Slow to start, with five rounds of setup and jockeying for position before the first of three scoring phases, Mission: Red Planet quickly ramps up towards the end as the time between scorings decrease, and the resources available to score increase during each succeeding phase!
Pandemic: Legacy
Matt
This past weekend, we continued our Pandemic Legacy campaign with trepidation. After back-to-back losses in January, we headed into February wondering if we’d be opening the mysterious “Box 8” sooner than anticipated. Fortunately, we proved to be quick learners and were able to effectively manage the spread of the multicolored pathogens plaguing the world. We ended with only one outbreak and one additional city falling into “Rioting” status. With some additional, well-placed research stations established around the globe, we have higher spirits moving into March. After only three plays, this game and the story it tells is proving to be a blast.
Castles of Burgundy
Steve
This has been sitting for about 2 weeks after obtaining it in a trade. I read the rules, watched some videos and was pretty intimidated. Mostly because I really wanted to play this with Alicia but I just had no idea how I was going to teach it. Finally on Sunday evening I busted it out and she agreed to play. I could see her eyes rolling and head begin to spin as I started to describe what we were doing. She hung in there like a champ and we were rolling pretty good after the first phase. Everything just clicked and the game mechanics and strategies danced along beautifully. After phase 3 I realized that Alicia was absolutely destroying me in this game. I ended up losing by over 50 points. A rematch is in our future for sure. This is an absolute genius of a game and very glad I finally was able to get my hands on this one.
Chimera
Steve
I have a soft spot for trick taking card games. I grew up on all different types of these types of games and used to always play a ton of hearts when I should have been working. We had some time for one more game before we closed out our Pandemic: Legacy night. After the dizzying explanation of the different tricks and how to score points it became a pretty simple game to pick up. The difficulty comes in with how you want to approach the round. Do you want to be the Chimera and battle against the other two opponents or team up as the chimera hunters. The game is very similar to Tien Len, which a vietnamese poker variant for four players (A lot of fun to play as well!). It has the same style of rules with some added elements to set it apart. I would like to try this one again soon. The only downside is that it is a three player only game and sometimes that can be a difficult player count to accommodate.
Matt
Though it was only for a few hands, we had the opportunity to get Chimera, the Tichu-inspired ladder-climbing card game, to the table. Once again, as it always does, the game proved to be one of the best options for 3-player gaming. I absolutely love this small box card game.
7 Ronin
Kelly
My ninjas successfully invaded the town and overtook Matt’s Ronin. The beginning of this game felt like we were just…wingin’ it. But, as we got deeper into it I was able to employ some forward-thinking and plan my moves. It was a really interesting game to play and I really enjoyed figuring it out.
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