What we played ... Week 4

Hi Everyone,

This week our games nights start earlier ..... more specifically on Monday 😲, and nothing better than play 2 new games:

Architects of the West Kingdom (2018):

Players: 1 - 5 

Mechanisms: Worker placement, set collection

Playing time: 60 - 80 min

Designers: Shem Phillips, S J Macdonald

Beautiful game, like your predecessor Raiders of the North Sea, that have a little different system of worker placement, if you have more workers in one space better is the action, exception the black market and the guilds. The end of the game maybe triggered very fast or very slow depends of the players and their strategies. One of the better things, i think, is that in one action to block the opponents you can kidnap the meeples of one space and later put in the prison. The art work is amazing, the components are very good, definitively i want to play again.

Setup

Dice Hospital (2018):

Players: 1 - 4

Mechanisms: Action point allowance system, dice rolling and worker placement.

Playing time: 45 - 90 min

Designers: Stan Kordonskiy, Mike Nudd

Awesome dice game, highly recommended. I like a lot, very easy to teach and play, it's possible to do great combos. During 8 round you need to heal the most patients as possible in your hospital (dices), the number in the dice represent the health of the patient. In every round each player receive 3 new patients, then choose an upgrade for the hospital or hire a new specialist, then put the specialists to work in the hospital, in this phase only 2 special rules are applicable, at the end if you have a patient with 7 or more you discharge him/her or if you have a patient with 0 he/she die. Every time that you discharge patients from your hospital win reputation. At the end who have more reputation win the game.
Really good game, the components in the retail edition are good, we still see this game again soon.

Setup

One clinic at the end

Next, on Friday we played:
Castell (2018):

Players: 2 - 4

Mechanisms: Area movement, pattern building, set collection

Playing time: 60 - 90 min

Designers: Aaron Vanderbeek

A good puzzle game with the theme of the Catalonia's traditional party, in which people build human towers in festivals. To do that you need to recruit new castellers, to train new skills, and visit the cities where the festival occurs to show your impressive tower. The components are good, the colors of the cities could be more different, to teach this game would be necessary 10 minutes even with regular gamers, it´s possible to choose several ways to win points, have a good replay-ability.

After one Round

One Castell at the end

Montana (2017):

Players: 2 - 4

Mechanisms: Auction/bidding, set collection, worker placement.

Playing time: 45 min

Designers: Rüdiger Dorn
Another game from Rüdiger Dorn, fast and simple, could be a family game but this one have a lot of strategy, In your turn you can do 1 of 3 available actions, hire workers, put the workers to work or build a settlement. But you need workers to obtain resources, but at the same time you need money to pay this workers, and the resources are useful to build. A good and solid euro game, whit good components, have a good replay-ability, each game will be different.

At the middle of the game

Crown of Emara (2018):

Players: 2 - 4

Mechanisms: Action/movement programming, hand management, pick-up and deliver, worker placement

Playing time: 45 - 75 min

Designers: Benjamin Schwer
This one was a good surprise, very simple to teach and play, basically we have 2 roundels, one is the city and the another is the village, and in a turn we do 2 action, one for the card played and another for the space reached by our counselor. In one round we do that 3 times, the games ends after 6 rounds. The theme is good, the players are aspirants to be the successor of the King of Emara, for that each player need to persuade the majority of the newly arrived citizens in the capital to support their claim shall become the future king of Emara, to achieve this, players have to offer proper housing for everyone. This is because we have two markers for points, one for citizens and other for the houses, and in the final score only count the marker with less points. The components are good, i think that have a good replay-ability, the theme is good, solid euro game.

In the setup

At the end

At that's all for the past week, i hope that you enjoyed like us.

We'll see you in the next post.

What we played ... Week 3

Hi folks!!

Another week, and another game night with a lot of fun.

To open a night we played a puzzle game:
Cottage Garden (2016:)

Players: 1 - 4 

Mechanisms: Pattern building and tile placement

Playing time: 45 - 60 min

Designers: Uwe Rosenberg

The first of the Rosenberg´s trilogy puzzle games, in that one the players are gardeners challenged to fill their flowerbeds with plants (tiles), and when one of the flowerbed is full then score it. The game is play in several rounds until the gardener (dice) of the nursery pass to 6, and then will occur the last round. I think that is the easier to learn, is fast, always fun and playable with everyone, there are rules for games with kids.

Ready to play

Next, we split the players in two tables, in the first was played the game of the month
Blood Rage: Another game with new players but the same winner, 👏👏👏👏 congrats Jorge.

The first Era

The battle for Yggdrasil

At the end

And next Cryptid (x3) a good deduction game.

In the other table was played:
Dinosaur Island (2017):

Players: 1 - 4 

Mechanisms: Action point allowance system, dice rolling, set collection, tile placement, worker placement.

Playing time: 90 - 120 min

Designers: Jonathan Gilmour, Brian Lewis

If you like Jurassic Park certainly you like this game. In this game the players need to develop your dinosaur park, they do that in 4 different phases (research, market, laboratory and the park). In the research phase each player have 3 investigator, and they use for look for new dinosaurs or research for DNA from a mosquito trapped in amber (dice) or try to increase their cold storage. In the market phase the player can buy upgrades laboratory or attractions or specialist or DNA, only 2 times. In the laboratory phase the players use all your workers in the lab to gain some things for the park and future rounds. In the park phase the players receive  in the park as many visitors as the level of your excitement of the park and gain money and victory points for each survivor (patron) inside the park. Next occur the clean phase and start a new round. The end of the game is triggered hen there is only one objective card left unclaimed. This game is awesome, the components are very good even in the retail edition, there are a lot of rules in each phase to remember, my recommendation is make a summary for the rules, you will only need one sheet paper. After you were play 2 or 3 rounds, the game will become more easy. There are several ways to gain victory points but the objectives give us a path to follow. The victory points give us a player order in all the rounds, to be the first will be useful but would be difficult to recover he gap between players. Like i said, you choose the path that you will follow.

Setup

At the end

Merlin (2017):

Players: 2 - 4 

Mechanisms: Area control / area influence, dice rolling, set collection, worker placement.

Playing time: 75 min

Designers: Stefan Feld, Michael Rieneck

One of the most criticized games of these designers. This time we played without the king´s favor module, i think this module complicates the game. The idea of the game is easy, the players are knights of the Round Table that wish be the successor of the King Arthur in the throne. But never will be easy, you need repel the traitors, you can use Merlin as ally one time in each round, you need to use you henchmen in the principalities to gain benefits to complete missions. and to do all of this the game have 6 rounds, and in 3 of them the players score points.

This is a easy/medium game with hard decisions to take in every turn about the actions that want to do. At the begging of the round the players will roll all their dices, and would prepare all their movements for the round, because the knights only can move in one direction (clockwise). The players gain points for missions cards and for the 3 score rounds, at the end exist one more scoring. Always in this game the final score is always tight between the players. The components are good, the rulebook is good, and in the next game that we will play we will use the Arthur expansion that arrived the last week.

Third round

And that was our game night this week,

See you in our next post.

What we played ... Week 2

Hi folks,

Everything was ready in the "garagem" to play the game of the month:

But first to open the night we played:
Now Boarding (2018):

Players: 2 - 4 

Mechanisms: Pick-up and deliver, simultaneous action selection

Playing time: 30 - 60 min

Designers: Tim Fowers

This is a cooperative game where all the players are pilots of the same air company, and need to transport passengers between north american cities without a complaints. The game occur in real time, like Kitchen Rush. During this time the players may take a passeger(s), move the airplane or deliver a passenger(s). At the end of this time every passenger delivered  worth money, that would be use to upgrade the airplane, and the players who stayed in the ground start to be furious because the delayed time. The game ends if the company receive 3 complaints or all passengers were delivered. At the end every 2 passengers in airports or airplane count as 1 complaint. In summary, the game is .... a game, nothing special, the rulebook is awful, the components are ok, i don't know but something need to happen when the game is played with fewer players than 5, i don't know why, but the routes for air companies that not are in play are not available for others players at the start of the game, you always need to buy the upgrade for that route. 

One airplane at the end of the game

Next, we split the players in two tables, in one of them only was played:
Kanban - The drivers edition (2014):

Players: 2 - 4 

Mechanisms: Worker placement, action point allowance system, commodity speculation, variable phase order
Playing time: 90 - 120 min

Designers: Vital Lacerda

At the middle of the game

In the other table:
Blood Rage (2015):

Players: 2 - 4 

Mechanisms: Action point allowance system, area control / area influence, area movement, card drafting, hand management.

Playing time: 60 - 90 min

Designers: Eric M. Lang

Always a excitement game, trying to win glory for several paths (deaths, quests etc), but in this night we use wrong one card and that change everything in the game, mostly the final score, where the players end up with a lot of difference points, nothing normal for this game. But the most important thing was the people really enjoy the experience and certainly in the next game this mistake don´t be happen. I do not know what else I can say about this wonderful game that has not been said.

At the end of the first Era

At the end of the game

Reef (2018):

Players: 2 - 4 

Mechanisms: Hand management, pattern building.

Playing time: 30 - 45 min

Designers: Emerson Matsuuchi

One of my favorite games of 2018, where the players build a reef using cards, the cards have 2 parts, the upper part show which coral pieces will be pick up, and the bottom of the card give to us victory points if we might build the pattern shown, this occur in several rounds until one of the colors of the coral pieces runs out.It´s always fun see the people try to management the hands of cards (in the hand and in the market) and program which the future patterns to be built to gain the maximum possible points. In summary a perfect game to play fast at any time, easy to teach, components are very good.

The first round

The winner Reef

Port Royal (2014):

Players: 2 - 5 

Mechanisms: Card drafting, press your luck, set collection

Playing time: 20 - 50 min

Designers: Alexander Pfister
To close a game night this was the chosen one. Very simple game where the luck with the cards is´t everything. We are sorry because we forgot to take a photo .... was the emotion of the game.

The winner hand

And that´s all for this week, we´ll see you in the next post.

What we played .. Week 1

Hi everyone,

Is the first friday of the year that means is the first game night of this year, and what a night ..... only new games was played.

To open the game night:
1.- NOCH MAL! (2016):
Players: 2 - 4 

Mechanisms: Dice rolling, 

Playing time: 20 min

Designers: Inka & Marcus Brand
Another roll & write game, maybe the first one that was published of this type, like Ganz Schön Clever or Brikks. This one is really cool, in every turn all the die are rolled and the active player choose a two dice (number and color) and next, the others players may combine the rest dice as they wish (1 number + 1 color), if possible, no matter if they choose the same combination, to finish the current turn all the players risk in their players mat their choice.

At the end 

The winning score

2.- CRYPTID (2018) x2
Players: 3 - 5

Mechanisms:

Playing time: 30 - 50 min

Designers: Hal Duncan, Ruth Veevers
This is a deduction game like Tobago but without cards, and the players don´t pick up in treasures, instead they must find the location of the Cryptid. At the beginning every player receive 2 clues, the clues works like in Tobago (the cryptid is in one terrain, at one, two or three spaces from a terrain/structure). The game runs in turns where the active player can question another about their clue or may risk to say the location of the Cryptip.
The most impressive thing in this game, no matter which map is play or the number of players, always exist only one solution. Really good game easy to teach, and could be used with new players.

The end of the first game

3.- Underwater Cities (2018):
Players: 1 - 4

Mechanisms: Hand management, modular board, route/network building, worker placement

Playing time: 80 - 150 min

Designers: Vladimír Suchý
Another hit of Vladimir Suchý (after games like Pulsar 2048, The last will, etc). In this one, due to the high level of pollution in the world, humanity was forced to build underwater cities to live. A good and solid eurogame, with an action system (working placement) that's works well but it's very important to always play in first in every round to take the action that you really want for your strategy before another player do it and block the action spot. The hand management system allow you create a better "combos" when an action is deployed. A really good game, maybe a little longer at least for 4 players. Exist several strategies to win the game, but you really need to be focus in your strategy trying be little different of the others players to gain access to all actions that you need in every turn.

Another new in the "Garagem", we are going to select 1 or 2 games to play all fridays in a month (depend of the number of players), and we will called "The Game of the Month". This system was created because eather every week there are always new games, with lot of new rules in some cases, or because we go to play games that was played once and we need to refresh the rules. With this new system we are trying to not explain rules every week, play the games faster, and make the most of the game in every week. This month the game chosen was Blood Rage.

And that's all folks for this week.

We´ll see you in the next post

2018 games summary - TOP 10

Hi Folks,

We are trying to select the top 10 games that were played for the first time in 2018, might be an expansion, and why you do choose those games and not other (mechanisms, components, theme, artwork, designer, etc).

Here are my list, in no particular order:

1.- Ceylon: This game is really good, the theme, the competitive/semi-cooperative component, the great interaction between players, because players always do something in every turn no matter if he/she is the active player, very easy to learn and teach, it´s a game for anyone (no regular players, families, etc)

2.- Dragon Castle: This puzzle game that simulate the "Mahjong" is very good, the components are excellent, the theme i like a lot like Mahjong, it's easy to learn and teach, and in the last Essen was created a solo mode game. Well what i can say i like a lot puzzle games.

3.- Spirit Island: My favorite cooperative game of the year, a little different from all other cooperatives games, this one is amazing, in other cooperative games it's simple, players do the action (s) and then the game does something. But this game is a bit different, the players do something, next the game attack on the island and you know where partially, and finally the players do something again if possible: Players have 3 levels of victory and everyone should always have conversation to make the best choice, players are always in tension.

4.- Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King: I never saw one bid/auction mechanisms game like this stay alive in the "garagem", others attempts with other games with the same mechanic were awful. This game is't so simple but with a lot of strategy in the middle, and every decision is critical to expand your kingdom.

5.- Reef: I like a lot this 3D abstract game, you use a grid to build a reef of different types colors to make points in every turn, using a hand management mechanisms, we try use all cards perfectly, programming the points that will be earned in the next turns. Really good games for families.

6.- Village: This game is awesome, with a worker placement mechanisms you use your family members until they die in the Village. A solid salad point game, you can use several strategies in different games, trying to 

7.- Brass: Birmingham: I like a lot this deep strategy game, their history, their components for the KS Edition, the artwork, the competitive/semi-cooperative component, everything is´t awesome in this game, one of my best ever.

8.- Teotihuacan: City of Gods: This dice game is magnificent, their theme, their history around the ancient Mexican culture is very good, components and artwork very good, one of my favorite to win some award in 2019. 

9.- Santa Maria: This drafting dice game was the best between Coimbra or Rajas of the Ganges, i have so ashamed because all are beautiful games but i needed to pick one. This one is very strategic game, with several paths of win

10.- Forum Trajanum: Stefan Feld is one of my favorite designers, i already played Castle of Burgundy, Bora Bora, Merlin and Trajan. Forum Trajanum is solid euro, with a lot of interaction and toughs decisions in every turn, a typical Feld's game, he is back.

Honorable Mention:

Meeple Circus: Very cool dexterity game, a lot of fun with this game in kids and older. 

Dinosaur Island: I like a lot the theme and the components, if you like Jurassic Park 

Wendake: I like the core of the game, take actions with a system of 3 in a row, the different way to win the game with the four paths, you have to bid in everything as is possible in this game, because you only added the worst points obtained in each pair of paths. 

Raiders of the North Sea: This worker placement game has a beautiful artwork, a lot of take that mechanisms in the principal actions, maybe have must change the strategy in every round and so many ways to make points. Every game is different according to the available actions in every turn.

Luxor: Another good designer Rudiger Dorn, designer of Istanbul or Montana, great games, this one is more a simple family game with a lot of fun because the best in this game is the hand management mechanisms.

Please, go on and share with us your preferences about your games played for the first time in 2018.

See you next week.

What we Played?? Week 52

Hi folks!!

The last play of the year ..... is always especial, we look back and see how many games was played in 2018, this years we passed the number of 1000 plays, and try to choose the best games played in 2018 for the first time, by mechanic, components, theme, artwork, designer, etc. But before posting what we played last week I ask you which are your top 10 of the played games in 2018 and why it was chosen.

And the last night of the year was special, a lot of people in the "garagem" made that we were needed 2 tables to play games, in one of them was played WESTERN LEGENDS (x2).

Set up

Spying the other table

At the end

And in the other table was played,
We were going to the market to trade ........ something in ISTANBUL. 

Set up

We kept the topic of gem marketing in SPLENDOR.

At the end

The winner

Next we were go to Oregon to a one month journey, we played PIONEER DAYS.

Set up

At the end of the game

And to close the night, everyone join the same table to play CA$H & GUNS (Second Edtion)