Entry 5
Our first proper weekend got us back on the straight and narrow, and we calculated we needed to average more than 3 games a day still to stay on track, so we had to push hard even during the week. We challenged ourselves to play a few games each and every weekday for this week. We not only managed that, but we bloomin’ smashed it.
Mon; Solar Storm (our first co-op loss, and we were so close), Sagrada, Toakido and Takenoko
Tue; Hive, Age of War, Santo Domingo, Port Royal, King and Assassins, Azul Summer Pavilion and Mancala.
Wed; Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies, Magic Maze (a loss again, this we need to practice more!), and Galaxy Truckers.
Thu; Yahtzee, King of Tokyo Dark Edition, and Qwirkle
Fri; Everdell, Quacks of Quedlinburg, The Mind, and Queen of Drag Card Game (this is top trumps with drag queens, I love Drag Race and got this as a gift from a great friend. This is a really well balanced game between two that we can play on the sofa and I love it.
I am so proud of us and the way we managed this week which has been mega busy, we have done 4 workouts and managed to smash through 21 days as well!
I enjoy all the games we played this week. Going into the week, Galaxy Truckers was on the hit list for my partner, but I’m pleased to announce that actually it has come off the list. In Galaxy Truckers you are trying to real time build yourself the best ship possible. Trouble is you only have so much space available, and you want to have as many engines as possible, and as many shields to protect against meteors, and as many laser guns to shoot down enemies, and as much storage for loot as possible, and as many cabins as possible to store crew who can go and loot abandoned ships. And well you just can’t do everything can you. The ships we had in round 3 were the best ones we had ever built. But they got completely annihilated on the mission. There were pirate attacks and meteor strikes and we barely made it through the mission. MJ managed to limp back with a ship containing only three tiles, mine was a little bigger but very battered up. He won best looking ship as his had fewer exposed connectors (because it was so small!).
Entry 6
The second wobble.
I have been anticipating the arrival of the Lost Ruins of Arnak for a while. I was mega excited. Even MJ was excited, we had already learnt the rules through watching videos and so when it dropped on the mat on Saturday morning, we couldn’t wait to play. But we had other games planned that needed playing, and I also needed to get a gingerbread house made. Pop over to my instagram to see how that debacle went!
Stretching in front of us was a long list (we still have 52 games to play), and sitting in front of us was a grail game. Cue the lights dimming, ambient music playing and a single spotlight shining on the Lost Ruins box…
We decided that we were going to play Lost Ruins in place of a game we knew was on the get rid pile. This is not cheating as the numbers were the same, still 87 games in 31 days. But it meant we didn’t have to play The Victorian Game which is the worse brother to The Really Nasty Horse Racing Game which is excellent.
Having bent the rules to accommodate the new grail game, we allowed ourselves one play, and then promised to play it again on Christmas Day as a treat with the other half of our gaming group who are also our Christmas Dinner buddies. We played it and just so you know, it is exactly as good as everyone says. Lost Ruins is a deck building worker placement game (quite a few of those this year) with brilliant artwork and lots of great quality components. You are explorers discovering new dig sites in Arnak (not a real place), and trying to find artifacts and other treasures whilst not being scared off by frankly terrifying guardians. There is amongst other things a giant snake, huge spider and a massive scorpion guarding the dig sites. The replayability factor is high as there are lots of unseen components that are dealt out randomly. So no two games will feel the same. There is some player interaction in that it's a race to get the top spots. But there is little room for “take that” which I really love. If this is not a game on your radar, get it on there, it is only just out but new stock should be arriving soon and it is well worth buying.