Samurai –

Matt

After trying this once with Steve on Tabletopia, I knew I had to have it. Knizia abstract games have their own little spot in my gaming heart; this one fits in easily. With only one simple action on your turn – place a tile – it manages to create wonderful tension and provides extensive tactical options. I’ve now played my physical copy three times in the last two days, with 3 different opponents, and have enjoyed losing each and every time.

Kelly

I totally loved this game. You place your tiles for area control to capture tokens on the island of Japan. It’s a nice balance between keeping track of what your opponents have collected and trying to plan your upcoming turns to maximize your collection.

Pandemic: Legacy (No spoilers) –

Kelly

GUYS! We did it! We saved the world! I just want all of y’all to know that despite the heinous disaster that was October, we totally killed it.

Steve

XenoShyft: Onslaught –

Smee

Mix Aliens in with Starship Troopers and turn it into a tower-defense style deckbuilder, and you’ve got XenoShyft. (Is that ‘y’ necessary, people? Really?) Not a bad concept, but as is usual with co-op games in general, it’s hard as nails, feels unfair (That monster does *what*?!), and you’ll likely lose a good few games before you can manage anything else.

Friday –

Matt

Forever wanting to game, but often without a partner, I decided to give solo gaming a whirl with a Friedemann Friese classic, Friday. Through simple card play and hand management, you’ll work to beat challenge thresholds on hazards to gain stronger cards and ultimately face off against a couple of wily pirates. The game is quick, but engaging, and I’m hoping to tackle all of the difficulty setting in order. It’s proving more difficult than expected!

Forbidden Desert –

Kelly

I got this game for Christmas from a friend and it is quite wonderful. It’s a nice cooperative, puzzle-y game that really challenges you to do everything all at once, even though you just can’t be in the whole desert at the same time. One time we built our whole airship so that was cool… but then we got buried in sand and dehydrated… so it wasn’t, but we still had a really good time.

Matt

Though typically not my first choice, I have to admit that I forgot how enjoyable (and better than its predecessor) Forbidden Desert is. I used this title to expose Mom to her first ever cooperative game and we ended up playing it twice in a row – we had that much fun. Unfortunately, I also forgot how tough the game is, and we quickly found ourselves buried under the dunes.

Haggis –

Matt

Haggis was another title still sitting on my shelf (in shrink, even!) that had yet to be experienced. On a quest this year to play all of my unplayed games, I can now officially check the box on this traditional-style ladder-climbing/trick-taking game. Essentially a 2-3 player counterpart to games like Tichu and Chimera, Haggis has player working to rid their hand of cards first by playing and following sets and straights of cards. We had a lot of fun with this one, though getting used to the twists and turns of a new card game is always a little slow. I’m happy to have another classic-feeling card game on the shelf and look forward to trying it out with two.

Kelly

This was like a tricked out version of Chimera and I was not super great at it. I still liked it a lot and am totally interested in getting some more practice.

Clue –

Steve

Yep. That Clue. The original. I have had the Target exclusive version in the wooden box for a while now in the collection and every now and then it does see some daylight. I can appreciate what it has done for tabletop gaming and the deduction games that have spawned from its success. I would never reach for this over other, more fun and much better options, but sometimes an easy and familiar game is all you need to have fun and a bunch of laughs. Even if, on your turn, you roll a one, plop your pawn one space, and your turn is complete. But hey – no downtime. I should try to track down the Museum Caper version of Clue; that is by-far my favorite version of the game.