Social interactions can be tricky, especially when you mix them with games that include bluffing, scheming or even lying about things you do in the game. We’ve had multiple times that a friend would reach out the day after a game to say that they’re sorry about what they said, while we barely had an idea of what they were talking about. This has slowly fed a lingering sense that we might be terrible at reading a situation, so when Deep Regrets came along its name and theme made it the perfect combination to address that fear while having fun with its title. We love board games with titles that make people want to joke about them. We haven’t even played Deep Regrets yet but ever since a friend backed it on Kickstarter, its title has been the start of a lot of jokes in the group chat. We’re very keen to try out this push-your-luck game about fishing up horrifying fish/monsters and share our experience, and hopefully we can make it happen soon!

But instead of musing on what could be, let’s talk about what we did play this week! On Tuesday, we continued Middara in which we have reached Chapter 2! Because of the chapter’s hefty intro story and the fact that the shop had a completely new inventory, we didn’t even get to play an encounter and just had fun voice acting the story bits, and tried to make some new builds for our characters that can withstand the now stronger enemies. Most of the new equipment was pirate-themed, which made sense for the story, but it gets a bit wacky when you picture what our team of teenage misfits looks like. The mix of modern clothing, fantasy weapons with some pirate-ty accessories would probably go viral on fashion Instagram. Maybe I should convince Rachel to draw them for a comic… 🤔

After getting the shopping out of the way, we played a game of RatJack. Normally, we enjoy Studio H’s bigger releases more, but this smaller release is a lot of fun. It combines Love Letter with Blackjack and is full of options to screw each other over and a fun amount of bluffing about your situation. The production is also really nice as it comes with actual poker chips and the different decks you can combine to customize the game, all have their own little tuck box. We have played it only twice so far, but I’m going to push this one a little more in the rotation of games because I play more of it. On Thursday, we played two games of King of Tokyo Duel. While our first impression playing it right after Spiel wasn’t super great these two games were a lot closer and a lot more interesting. In both games, I started out strong but just couldn’t push it over the finish while Rachel used her monster abilities and bought some cool cards to turn the game around and win. The art for this game is so good we might need to beg Quentin Regnes and/or Iello to sell us a big promotional print we can hang on our wall.

On Friday, I played Kill Team again, and this time I decided to leave my Ork Kommandos at home, and bring along some freshly painted Space Marines, which I put together in record time for no concerning reason. I still lost, as I am awful at Kill Team, but I did enjoy playing an elite team a lot more than a non-elite team. I played against Death Guard, which meant we could, when rolling well, completely shrug off attacks, and all our units had one more action point to spend during an activation. This resulted in a game that felt a lot more flexible for me and less punishing, as my unit wasn’t instantly turned into a smoldering crater when left out in the open. So I’m bringing my Jimmy Space Marines next time again.

We also played long-time favorite Agricola but the first time playing it with the Farmers of Moor expansion. I’m not completely sold on the expansion yet, as I think it make the starting player even stronger than the original game and the fact you now also have to heat your house did feel like it added much, but maybe I’ll start seeing its strength after some more plays as the expansion is pretty well regarded. Our friend upgraded his copy a lot, with all sorts of 3d printed storage boxes that feel very thematic. We really should take the time to take some nice pictures of them next time we play!

Lastly, this weekend, we went to a birthday where we played some Hitster, which I suspect is the best-selling party game in the Netherlands at the moment, and Hues and Cues. Both were a blast, and I didn’t even do terribly at Hues and Cues, even though I’m colorblind, which was a bit of a disappointment to everyone hoping to see some hilarious guesses from me. 😛

That’s it for last week, this week we’re playing our first Vital Lacerda game, but we have no other gaming plans yet!