We play many different games; the reason is a combination of publishers sending us games (thank you, publishers!), having friends who are into board games (thank you, friends!), and me wanting to play every game ever made at least once. I love trying new games, especially if they have something I haven’t seen before mechanically or are impractical but epic in some sort of way (more on that later).

The problem with my love for trying new games is that I can be a bit too excited, always wanting to try new games, which has left Rachel and some friends annoyed with me. It turns out that sometimes people don’t want a game night to start with a rules explanation; they just want to enjoy a game and hang out with friends.

This week, however, was my week of only new and/or impractical games! We got to play Arcs for the first time on Thursday, which made quite an impression. We only played the basic game without Leaders and Lore, nor did we try the campaign. It feels like a Cole Wehrle design in the way quite abstract and simple actions feel very thematic in the overall context of the game, creating a very deep system that you’ll need to play many times to get a grip on. While we’re not the biggest trick-taking fans, we didn’t mind the way it’s incorporated here as you have enough room to force important actions. We’re hoping we can play it a few more times before starting a campaign, and it also made us want to replay Galactic Renaissance again. We feel like that stealthy/political area-control game hasn’t made a big splash, which is a shame because we enjoyed the games we’ve played so far.

On Friday, our good friends Chris and Els came over to play Dune Imperium: Uprising, and they also brought delicious homemade hazelnut cakes! We never played the original Dune Imperium and were surprised that some of our favorite parts like the spice spies, the worms, and the shield wall, are all new additions in the Uprising version. Without those additions, we suspect it was a solid but by-the-numbers deckbuilder/worker placement type of game. Our first impression of Uprising was that it’s thematically and mechanically a very fun game that we highly recommend checking out.

On Saturday, we played Katmai: Bears of the Brooks River, and it’s a nice addition to Osprey Games’ strong current lineup. It’s a lane battler like Air, Land, and Sea, but it’s different enough to be its own thing. You strategically place your bear cards along a river, hoping to create the strongest bear force at seven fishing spots. Once everybody places their bear cards and resolves any abilities on the cards, the player who wins at a fishing spot gets to place their Beeple (they’re actually called Beeple in the rulebook!) on one of the four spots on the tile. You score points if you place your Beeples in such a way that it completes different scoring objectives, like making a specific pattern. It adds a nice spatial puzzle to the lane battler and gives the game an arc because, once a Beeple is placed, it stays there for the rest of the game. We love the vibe of the game and the fact that a big part of the rulebook tells you about the real bears of the Katmai Conservatory, instead of just telling you about the game itself. It also made us think of Odin’s Ravens, another great two-player game in a small box from the same publisher.

Lastly, on Sunday, I played the gloriously epic but impractical War Room. It was my fifth time, with mostly the same six players as the previous game, and we were still unable to finish a game within twelve hours. War Room is a World War II wargame in which two teams of three players gather around a very large map with loads of units and croupier sticks to “simulate” the entire conflict. It uses secret orders like Diplomacy, and its battle system strikes a nice balance between just rolling dice and giving yourself some tactical choices on how to use your units. We couldn’t finish the game (again), but I did do some live reporting on BlueSky if you’re curious about how the game went.

This week we’re continuing our journey through Midarra and we’re having a six-player game night for which we’ll happily accept suggestions for games in the comments. 🙂