Tag: Action Selection Games

Curators: Collection Conundrum (Saturday Review)

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Ensuring you can continue to stock the display cases with new exhibits, while also being able to pay your loyal and hard-working staff, is very hard. It is all about getting as many people through the door to raise income, as well as have a better chance of attracting funding to see you through another month. However, at the moment your museum isn't in great shape and you need to expand to make room for more exhibits, which in turn should attract more visitors. Well, nobody said it would be easy in Curators: Collection Conundrum by Worldshapers.

Top 5 Tabletop Games of 2019 (Saturday Review)

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For the first time, the Tabletop Games Blog is giving away an award: the Top Table Award for the best game released in 2019. As you know, a lot of new tabletop games were released this year, probably around 3,000 to 4,000, excluding expansions. That's more games anyone will ever be able to play in a year, and I have probably only seen 20-30 of those. However, I still thought it'd be good to share with you my top 5 games that were published in 2019 and crown the winner.

Eight-Minute Empire: Legends (Saturday Review)

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The four armies have landed on the beach of the abandoned island and deposited their troops with intent. They are here to claim their stake and become the new rulers. Yet, battles are rare. The invaders mostly compete for majority, tolerating their opponents' presence, while brave cohorts cross the seas to reach neighbouring islands in this tiny archipelago. Cities are built to establish a permanent presence, but it doesn't take long until it is all over. In Eight-Minute Empire: Legends by Red Raven Games, you and up to three other players try to manoeuvre your armies over eight to eleven rounds to come out victorious. 

Magnate: The First City (Takebacks)

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The price bubble has burst and the property market has crashed. People have lost a lot of money when they were forced to sell everything at a much lower price. They bought too high and got out too late. Yet, there are also a number of happy faces around the table. They bought land when prices were still extremely low, built properties, rented them out, earned a decent income and then sold everything at the peak of the market - or at least sold most of it, breaking even with everything else. These are the property tycoons that managed to make it big in Magnate: The First City by Naylor Games.

Hitting the mainstream

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Apparently, modern tabletop games have had a huge surge worldwide recently. Mind you, "recently" really means a few years, and it doesn't seem to let up. It's great to see so many people pick up cardboard and have a great time, whether it's alone or with friends, family or complete strangers. So I want to look at what has been happening and see where and how tabletop games have appeared in people's lives.

Travel games (Saturday Review)

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Instead of looking at a particular game, this week I want to look at a number of games that are great to have with you when you're out and about. These games are easy to learn and quick to play, don't take up much room in your pocket or on the table, are quick to set up and put away, but still create enough interest to while away the time. Most of these games will already come in a small box, but some you will have to re-package yourself to make them portable.

Wingspan (Saturday Review)

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I've been saying it for a while now: Wingspan by Elizabeth Hargrave and Stonemaier Games is an amazingly beautiful game. The great physical table presence created by the dice tower and eggs, the gorgeous illustrations on the player mats and cards, the sheer number of different birds on the cards, all with their latin name and a brief description of what they are, and the high quality of all the components and parts make it very special. The artists, Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo, Natalia Rojas and Beth Sobel, have done an amazing job, and Stonemaier Games has ensured that the product meets, if not exceeds, everyone's expectations. However, the beauty and quality are only one part of what makes this game so outstanding. For me, it is the gameplay that lifts Wignspan to the next level.

Oaxaca: Crafts of a Culture (Saturday Review)

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If you like dice action selection games where you slowly build up action combos, then Oaxaca: Crafts of a Culture by Undine Studios is for you. Now don't be put off by dice rolling, beause in this game you can easily mitigate bad luck and even bad rolls still give you plenty of opportunities. Oaxaca ("wa-ha-ka") is also beautifully illustrated, quick to learn and really quick to play, while still maintaining enough interest even for very "serious" gamers. So there is something for everyone and one of the few games that I can confidently recommend for family gaming as well as regular games night groups.

Scythe (Saturday Review)

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I know, Scythe by Stonemaier Games has been out since 2016 and has had a couple of expansions released as well, including promo packs with additional encounter cards. So chances are you have already heard plenty of reviews about this game and maybe own  it yourself, but I still felt it's worth reviewing, because I am sometimes surprised by how many people still don't know Scythe.

Haspelknecht: The Story of Early Coal Mining (Saturday Review)

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Haspelknecht: The Story of Early Coal Mining, to give it its full title, is a kind of action selection game by Quined Games set in the Ruhr region of Germany. The game is set at a time when the area was still covered by forests and coal was first discovered close to the surface. During the game your task is to dig up that coal until its depleted and you have to start digging deep pits to get to this precious resource. The great mechanism in this game is the action selection element, where you draw all tokens of one colour from one of a number of common pools at the start of each round. These tokens are then used to activate your workforce and develop new technologies. It sounds simple, but it creates a really complex, interesting game with lots of options and very few player interaction.