Dead of Winter is like a Christmas song for us. We suggest playing it at least a few times every time it gets colder. To be fair it’s been a while since it was played but it’s like a core memory that we will not let go of. Maybe this year we’ll be able to get it off the very long “games we really should play again”-list and make it actually hit the table again! Another fun thing was, at least up to a few years ago, how with winter making its way you’d see the pictures of Dead of Winter standees standing in actual snow popping up all over social media like Instagram. We don’t see it that often anymore but we also haven’t seen another game taking its place!

This week was a week of lots of new games! The one that impressed us the most was Zoo Vadis, we didn’t have it on our radar but a friend bought it and he seemed very impressed after playing it a few times so we decided to play it during a six-player game day.
Zoo Vadis is a reworked edition of the old Knizia game Quo Vadis? that we honestly never played. In this game, you play as different animal groups in a zoo who have formed political parties trying to become the most powerful animal of them all. You’ll slowly rise through the different exhibits in the zoo hoping to reach the star exhibit before all its places are occupied. If you’re able to reach the star exhibit your victory points will start to count and the player with the most VP wins. The twist is that if you want an animal to reach a better exhibit, you need a majority vote of half the spaces in the current exhibit to allow you to move forward. This means you can deftly place multiple pieces of your own colors to win votes but making deals with other players and bribing the NPC peacocks for votes is often the better, albeit more expensive, option. It plays in 40 minutes and it’s something unique we haven’t played before, so if you like games with bigger groups but don’t want something that takes all afternoon, this is highly recommended. It also made us very curious about Bitewing Games’ other offerings as this is a wonderful production and the additions to the original Knizia design are very strong in our opinion.

We also received the big box of Colt Express which was a delight as well. In the past, we quickly tried a round of the app version but the real-life version with the cardboard train is a lot more interesting and fun. In Colt Express, you play as bandits who all try to loot as much money as possible during a train heist. Because it’s a programming game, you play some cards and hope your plan works out in the end but sometimes it’s just fun because it’s a chaotic fun-filled mess.  The big box comes with the first two expansions (Stage Coach and the Marshal) and an extra bandit. We played the base games once and one game with horses and the Stage Coach and we enjoyed both games. We see an increase in our game days with 6+ players, so we think Colt Express is a really nice addition to our collection.

Lastly, we played Xylotar which was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for everybody involved. We suggested it as a closer for our game day and didn’t really read the rules beforehand, so the start was a bit chaotic. Once everyone got into the bidding and the deduction part of the game (you are not allowed to see your own cards!), we all thought it was a pretty clever trick-taker and had a nice time. Trick-taking still isn’t our favorite genre ever… but we do enjoy how many different variations everybody seems to be coming up with.

This week we’re going to take it a little slower games-wise but, talking about the classics our gaming groups have on their “games we really should play again”-list, Rachel is playing Tales of Arabian Nights!