We’re not native English speakers and with word games, my head sometimes goes a bit wonky switching between multiple languages (English, Dutch, German, French) except for the one we’re playing. Reading, for example, a rulebook does help combat that a bit. 😀 Playing the real Paperback at the table does feel like it’s way harder than playing the app version because the app has a built-in spell checker, leaving some room for ‘experimentation’ if you’re not sure if a word is correct.
But… since this 10th Anniversary Edition of the game has a card illustrated by yours truly, I’d better get used to playing the analog version because I’m looking forward to showing off the card to our friends! It’s so weird to have something you made included in a game but also really cool so I’m grateful Tim Fowers offered me the chance!

So last week, we played Undaunted 2200: Callisto and I must say I really like this version of Undaunted. Our two games have been really close and fun. The game feels more dynamic and exciting than the other Undaunted games and I don’t really know how to explain why. The setup time has decreased greatly now that there is a board for every mission. I cannot say what that will mean for the replayability at this point but we thought the first two maps were already interesting enough to play again. In our case, we’ll probably play through the entire game with our current setup (Heinze as the miners, and me as the Corp) and if we’re still up for it, we can switch it around. It’s absolutely a step up for me compared to the original war theme, big fan. 🙂

Most of the week, Heinze was away for work and our weekend was booked with social activities so we didn’t get to play a lot of games. But we did receive a copy of War Story: Occupied France which is a choose-your-own-adventure-like game that takes place in WW2. Ever since we first heard about it, we’ve been intrigued and are looking forward to the game night we already planned for it with a friend who was also very hyped.

Another interesting new game in our collection is City of Six Moons. It’s a game ‘discovered’ by Amabel Holland and it’s a strange one, which is perfect for one of our gaming groups. It’s a game without text. Literally no text at all, so that also goes for the rulebook. You’ll have to try and figure out what the game is by deciphering the symbols and try to make sense of the rulebook. This sounded like such a weird thing that we ordered a copy and can’t wait to stare at the contents of this box with a group of people trying to see if they can also discover the game. The best/worst part is that there is no ‘right’ solution, so you’ll never know if you got it right.

This week is going to be a little light on games again, but if we have the energy this weekend… we might just play a load of games to compensate. 😀

(note: you can also watch our weekly recap videos on YouTube if you don’t have Instagram)

Last year, we dragged along a deckbox filled with print-and-play games… but we never played them because our first hike in the mountains was more intense than anticipated. 😀 So this year, we decided to notch down the trail’s intensity a little and we went to the Mullerthal region in Luxembourg. We had planned to hike two of the three loops in four days, but due to a little injury at the end of day one on my side, we took it a bit easier the following days and we ended up walking route 2 and half of route 3. We were surprised to even come across a tiny board game store in Echternach called The Meeple Monastery! Those board gamers are just everywhere. 😉 If you’d like to see more of our hike in Mullerthal, I’ve also made this short hiking-only video with a bit more footage.

But as the comic suggests, we did play games besides hiking a lot! Our most-played game is Circle the Wagons because of how quick, simple, and fun it is. Another one of our favorites is Confusing Lands, which no longer is a PnP-game but now has a physical release! Skulls of Sedlec is also a charming fun game that we played a few times and we played one game of Liberation, which I do like the clever game design of but I was a little too low in energy to nail the memory part (mostly remembering which cards the other player has played) and that made it feel frustrating. Not the game’s fault, just not the right moment for it. If you’d like to learn more about the games, we’ve discussed them in these two earlier posts.

This week, we’re excited to play Undaunted 2200: Callisto and we received our Kickstarter deluxe edition of Paperback that contains a card I designed (aaaah!), also looking forward to playing that. 🙂

Spiel has an interesting range of ‘mascots’ this year… Lion would totally fit the group. 😉

Sorry, no blog post this week since we’re off hiking in a (hopefully) lovely place called Mullerthal. We wish you all a wonderful week!

We received an early copy of Undaunted 2200: Callisto last week and we cannot wait to play it! When the Undaunted series began, we started making bad pun-comics about the games (number 1, number 2, number 3) but at one point Osprey released so many Undaunted games, that we let go of the format. But with Callisto, we’re happy to revisit it, haha.

We’ll let you know what we think once we can play it! Speaking of games on the to-play list, we played Daybreak last week! We have to say it’s a fun co-op game. The game looks a bit more intimidating and complex than it actually is. The most interesting part is the balance between the different parts of the world that players represent. You can play as the USA, Europe, China, and The Rest of the World and together they must try to combat global pollution while also keeping up with the local demands. Playing as ‘The Rest of the World’ it was interesting to see that I had a way higher population growth than Europe and the USA, making it harder for me to get rid of polluting forms of energy than it was for them. That forces players to really get into the co-op part of this game and be considerate of other player’s situations. We were surprised that the map on the main board doesn’t really have a function except for a few tracks and the gameplay reminded us of Let’s Go to Japan a little! At least the way how you’re creating rows of cards in your own player area and the use of icons to activate certain abilities. But: we liked it! We did win the first time playing it (four players), so next time we’ll add event cards to make it harder.

We also played Compile, a new game by Greater Than Games and I think I’ve said it before here, but that game is great! We really like how much game is in the tiny deck box with room for expansions.

This week, we’ll FINALLY finish our Descent campaign (hurray!) and we have a story game-themed night planned, I believe we’re going to play Atma: a roleplaying card game. That’ll be fun! The rest of the week we’ll be busy preparing and packing for our hiking trip next week.

(note: you can also watch our weekly recap videos on YouTube if you don’t have Instagram)

In Netrunner, players often draw cards from each other’s hands thus it’s important to shuffle regularly. I once played against somebody at a tournament who was doing it constantly and he told me that that was something he developed while playing Magic during his teens. I’m glad I’m not a true compulsive shuffler but I can truly imagine it being a thing with all these trick-taking games nowadays.

We’ve had three game nights/days this week! On Tuesday we played an upcoming game we cannot tell you anything about alas, but we thought it was cute and clever. Once the NDA has lifted, we’ll share more about it.

On Thursday night, we played a few games of Caution Signs and Love Letter. Everybody was in the mood for light games and our friends were curious about Caution Signs. And again, we have to say that everybody has really enjoyed playing the game so far even the ones who think they’re terrible at drawing! We ended the evening with a couple of games of Love Letter and not just any Love Letter, but the one we designed almost eight years ago for our wedding guests. It’s not Semi Co-op themed but it was just a fun little art style experiment. I still really like how it turned out!

This weekend we went hiking some more to train for our hiking vacation (need to get those kilometers in!) and did a lot of gardening. On Sunday, a friend came over and he and Heinze played an old version of Through the Ages. They started a simple game but did not finish it because they thought it lacked depth and one player was so far ahead that continuing for another hour would not be fun for either of them. After some homemade pizza, we played three games of Biblios! We’re still quite shocked that this version of the game doesn’t exist anymore and that Iello has ‘replaced’ it with “For the King (and Me)“. We’re glad we own the old version because we think it’s almost perfect even though I’m really bad at it, according to our statistics I’ve only won it once of the 24 logged plays, hahaha.

Sometimes it’s a mystery that we didn’t think of a joke/comic before. I mean it’s been almost nine and a half years of comic making! :’) Want to use the Bingo card yourself? Here’s a random digital version!

This week, we thought we would finish our Descent campaign, but it was already 11 PM on a Tuesday and the app notified us that we were about to enter the last battle of the finale. We decided to save the game and finish it next time, which will be in two or three weeks. Then, we will finally begin our Middara campaign! Looking forward to it.

We also played another co-op game of Aethermon: Collect but we cannot seem to beat our own high score which we set the first time we played it at the UK Games Expo! Luckily, the game takes about 15 minutes to play so we’ll just keep on trying. 😉

Friday night was game night with a group of six and we played an interesting variety of games. Everybody was a bit beaten by work so we started the night of light with Big Potato’s newest game Mini Game Party (very confused that this is not on BGG). The game consists of 101 different silly ‘games’ or activities with the contents of the box. Now, the interesting part of the game is the way how the teams are formed. Teams are decided every round by flipping a card saying, for example, “Android or iPhone”, “Zoo or Aquarius” or “Cats or Dogs”, players take their two-sided token (blue/red) and vote on which team they are on. Ending up as the only member of a team isn’t too bad because it also changes the scoring to your benefit. If team blue has five members and team red has only one player, the blue team members score only one point each if they win the challenge, while the member of the red team gets five points (equal to the number of team members of the other team). It’s silly, it’s fun and it doesn’t take long to play, excellent!

After that, it was time for something more substantial and we grabbed a goldie-oldie: Steampunk Rally! The game’s still fun but we shouldn’t wait another three years before playing it again. :’D We ended the night with a new favorite that makes everybody laugh: Caution Signs. The drawing game in which it really doesn’t matter if you can draw or not. Twenty seconds is just too short, period, but that’s also what makes it hilarious.

On Saturday, we played Chaos in the Old World! This game went a lot quicker than last time (a few weeks ago) but my Horned Rats really didn’t get a chance to get rolling. It was a combination of a failing strategy and being decimated by Khorne who was very lucky with the dice rolls. Ouch!

We have a few nights with friends planned this week but I’m not sure if it will be gaming nights. We’ll see! 🙂

We played Whirling Witchcraft with a friend last week and they won by a landslide but also concluded that they thought it was a game you had to play a few times to form strategies and get really good at it. :’) We’re not sure if there is THAT much tactic involved in Whirling Witchcraft but if they want to play it again we’re all up for it cause we really enjoy the game! It’s a perfect easy-to-learn game with the right balance between ‘doing your own thing’ while also having interaction with the other players. The game’s sometimes sold for ridiculously low prices like $5 in special sales of AEG… We think that’s way too low but I guess that’s how the market works nowadays (even though the game is only three years old).

Last week, we also put together the Folded Space Root insert, reducing our collection to ‘only’ three boxes! More importantly, we can now find things without having to check all the boxes! It was also a reminder that there’s still a lot of Root content we haven’t explored yet. We could almost organize a Root weekend dedicated to trying out all the different factions and special add-ons like the Hirelings… By the way, the insert was easy to assemble and we really like how lightweight the foam ones are. We’ve made some inserts of our own from wood and those really add some pounds to the game boxes.

We received a copy of Lumicora! We made a commissioned comic for it earlier this year but we hadn’t played the game and we now can! We’re looking forward to trying out this game by Rita Modl and the good part is that we already know the rules since we studied them intensely for the comic.

Talking about ‘older’ games… we also played Flash Point: Fire Rescue and I played my very first 18xx game, 1830: Railways & Robber Barons. A friend has all the maps of Flashpoint Fire Rescue and we just cannot win the plane map. It always feels like we’re ‘mopping with a running tap’ as we like to say in Dutch which should be something like ‘putting a sticking plaster on a wooden leg’ at least that is what Google tells me. 😀 Maybe we’ll have to look into strategy guides for this one…

On Saturday it was time for 1830 and that was quite the experience. We started at 11 AM with a short rule overview and we finished at 8 PM with a short lunch and pizza break in between. It was a fun game day but I think I have to conclude that a six-player game of 1830 is not for me. 😉 I remember looking at the time around 4:30 PM and thinking: if it’s done soon then it wasn’t too bad..! But it turned out it wasn’t done for quite some hours and the game was getting rather repetitive. I had a great time with great company but in the future, I’ll pass if somebody proposes to give it another try. And let’s be honest, the game is probably better with a lower player count anyway. 🙂

ONE LAST TURN! …. please?! It’s an aspect of games with a racing element that can be frustrating when you think everything was perfectly aligned for that one last turn you had planned… but it never came. There are also enough other games that try to make sure that everybody has the same number of turns before scoring and I think I prefer that with a long game that requires a lot of planning and thinking.

Last week we visited the press event of Dutch publisher 999 Games. They’ve recently moved into their new ‘office’, but oh boy I’d call it an HQ (it’s so big!), and invited people to visit to check it out and show what games they’ll be publishing this year. It was a mighty impressive building with a big warehouse and a beautiful gaming space (and cantine) on the top floor. We’re glad business is going well for them!

Games we played were Intarsia, Nunatak: Temple of Ice, and the new game in the Pick-a-Pen series called Hackers. And we might also have played a prototype but we cannot share anything about that.
We had already seen a sneak peak of Intarsia last year at Spiel and it was great seeing how well the production turned out. The wooden pieces really had a flush fitting and it looked beautiful! The gameplay is quite simple and we’d like to say its complexity level is comparable to Azul. We believe Intarsia is going to be a BIG hit at Spiel this year.

We also played Nunatak and although we had a fun time it’s not a game we would add to our collection. There was a lot of luck involved with four players and I could see that might get frustrating. It feels like a great family game but our first impression was that it was not for us and there are other games we would rather play.

Pick a Pen has been a very successful new game series for 999 Games but we had never played one. They are roll-and-write games in which the colored pencils are also the dice and seeing the chunky pencils I understand its popularity. But alas, we quickly discovered that the game is not colorblind-friendly so we will have to skip that one.

On Sunday we played the party game Ransom Notes! It’s very easy and silly fun! The game comes with over 800 word magnets and players will have to form short sentences describing whatever that round’s instruction card says. It could be things like “Ask a child in the airplane seat behind you to stop kicking”. Since you have a limited pool of words to choose from, you’ll have to get creative and you cannot create a good sentence. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of Cards Against Humanity and even though this game checks some of the same boxes, it feels more creative and less steering into a certain direction.

As you might have noticed, this comic is a day late and that was simply because of work and an advanced deadline of the accountant due to the holidays. So, the comic was bumped one day, sorry!

I’ve always steered clear from playing 18xx games, hearing from Heinze and friends that it easily took five to six hours and people sat at the table using calculators and even spreadsheets to keep track of what was happening on the board. Nothing about that sounds very appealing to me so whenever they have an 18XX day planned, I just have a day to myself (which is not too shabby either ;-)) But the ’18xx’ group has been asking when I and a friend are joining them and finally play our first 18xx game and… we might have said yes. So, that’s happening this month! We’ll see if it’s the experience that I think/fear it will be… or maybe I’ll like it? I will let you know in a few weeks!

Even though last week was about a 60-hour work week, we did play some games! We started the week by playing another game of Maul Peak and we’re still very much charmed by the concept of the game! Playing as the bears (heroes) that have to defeat the guardian is a tricky thing to do as you have to accept you’ll be taking heavy losses on your way to climb the guardian before you can start doing damage and limiting the Guardian player’s actions. We still need to start playing it with one of the other guardians that come with the game and see if that makes it even harder for the heroes or just harder for the Guardian player due to the higher complexity rating.

We also got a surprise package from the Dutch publisher 999Games containing Sky Team and two games from their new solo puzzle series, the Flex Puzzler and Cat Stax (originally published by Huch & Friends). I’ll be honest that I think that the Flex Puzzler has a fun concept but it’s almost impossible to make puzzles complicated. I found little difference in difficulty between puzzles 40 and 80 (which is the last one) so that was slightly disappointing. I think I’ve spent about an hour solving all the 80 challenges. Cat Stax seems more of an actual puzzle because it’s about fitting pieces to a grid but I haven’t tried that one yet. We’re looking forward to trying Sky Team since we haven’t played it since we played the prototype back in 2022 in Essen!

We ended the week with our second game of Distilled and as we suspected: that was a way quicker game! There’s not too much player interaction with just two because you’re then both trying to achieve different goals and have little competition or a hard time getting the ingredients you’re looking for. Nonetheless, I like the game! It has a relaxing length and complexity.

Tonight it’s time for another game of Descent, one of the last scenarios! 😀