It’s a recurring problem with us: just a few days in advance, we realize that it’s Semi Co-op’s anniversary and it happened again this year. And that while this coming Friday marks our tenth anniversary! A crazy milestone! And we forgot about it – but in our defense, we have both been very busy the past two months with work and other things I won’t get into, so we didn’t have time or the headspace to plan some great epic event to celebrate. I’ve accepted that that is how life works sometimes, and I’m at peace with that. Quite honestly, I’m surprised Semi Co-op is still around, and that in itself is a victory – plus I’ve definitely accomplished my original target of getting better at drawing (cartoon) characters, huzzah! 😉

So let’s take a look at what we did last week. First, it was time to continue our Middara campaign and we’ve now completed chapter one! We enjoy that it’s a bit heavier on the story side than Gloomhaven was but sometimes that does mean that you have to read out four pages of text. And yes, we are aware that there is an app with a voice-over but we’re the group that enjoys reading the story out loud and we even voice-act all the characters. It makes it way more fun and interesting than letting one person read the whole story out loud or listen to it through a speaker.

Since we didn’t feel like reading another three pages of text that same night, we decided to play some short games and we ended up introducing our friend to Trio and one of our favorite weird games Rollecate. Rollecate remains such a weird concept to explain to people, and it’s hard to play right! That being said, I believe I might have mastered it since I’ve scored very few negative points this time, hah! Or it might have been luck, hush.

Another small game we played was Confusing Lands, which we bought as a print-and-play to bring with us on our hiking vacation two years ago. In the meantime, the game has actually gotten a physical release, and we think it’s a really fun microgame for two players. Every game, there’s a shared scoring objective, and during the game, you can add more personal scoring objectives to your world but each one costs you ten points; so you have to make sure to make it count. That, combined with that you’ll only play eight cards during the entire game, makes for a fun and short puzzle!

The “big” gaming day of last week was our six-player team game of Dune: Imperium Uprising. Everybody was a bit sceptical about the downtime with that many players but the interaction between team members and players prevented that from happening. We all agreed it actually worked really well and that it was fun! We were both Muad’Dib and although we did quite well at the start of the game, we got wiped in the end phase. Our worms didn’t bring enough power to the battlefield and, sometimes, that was a little frustrating. Even when we had a battle with FIVE worms, we didn’t win. Ouch. For next time, we might have to look up some strategy guides and see what works best for the sand people. 🙂

We have little planned this week, except for Heinze who has a game of The Defence of Procyon III planned this weekend. I’m reaaaally curious what he’ll think of that one!