Daybreak – K. David Ladage
This is a game that came to my attention in an odd way. A climate scientist wrote an impassioned review of the game over at BoardGameGeek. After reading this review, I had to get a copy of this game and check it out. My first chance to play this game finally arrived, and I am quite happy I purchased it. The game is beautiful. That said, it has some issues. There is a serious luck-based element to the game where you just might not get the cards you need to take advantage of global programs or deal with the crises that are about to take place. But the biggest problem is editing.
Back when Magic: the Gathering first entered the gaming scene, one of the things that they learned pretty early on is that templating is required if you want people to know what is going on in your game. Templating is the process of standardizing language across the components; if you say something a particular way in one place, you need to express that concept the same way everywhere else. Not doing this creates confusion. This happens quite a bit in Daybreak, where a card might indicate that something can happen only once per turn, while another indicates something can happen only in the Local stage… which, best I can tell, is when all of these actions take place, so I have no idea if this is limited to once per turn or not. It also begs the question: can I use those other abilities outside the Local stage? (We ruled that such cards were limited to once per turn, and that the other cards are only effective in the Local stage.)
The game was fun. But I think the review by my colleague, Tom Franklin, is correct in all of his assessments. There is the potential for a good (even great) game here. As it currently sits, it ain’t there yet. I will give it a few more plays.
Ease of entry?:
★★★☆☆ – There were a few questions
Would I play it again?:
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Read more articles from K. David Ladage.
The Artemis Project – Justin Bell
“Anybody want to try an older dice worker placement game?”
These words kicked off an afternoon with The Artemis Project, a 2019 release from Grand Gamers Guild asking players to spend six rounds rolling dice, placing said dice in standard resource collection and worker acquisition slots, and going on “expeditions” to score points and collect badges that trigger end-game scoring opportunities. It’s a game that was more interactive than other Euros in this vein, so I liked the somewhat stabby nature of how dice were placed and how that might displace another player who wanted to take certain actions.
The Artemis Project was above-average fare, and I liked the approachability. The game would play very fast in the hands of snappy decisionmakers. (Win or lose, I play fast, so three of me at any table speeds up gameplay significantly.) There are buildings that trigger income collection during an upkeep phase, and players who get hosed at a particular location still get a bump on a track that scores extra resources, a dice mitigation tool known as backpacks, or maybe a point later in the game. The guy who showed this to me swears that the expansion, Satellites and Commanders, is a must, so I may take him up on this offer if the game comes out at a future game night soon.
Ease of entry?:
★★★☆☆ – There were a few questions
Would I play it again?:
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Read more articles from Justin Bell.
nana (Trio) – Bob Pazehoski, Jr.
In a stroke of brilliance, Kaya Miyano envisioned a mashup of Memory and Go Fish and called it nana (which translates, fittingly, as seven). It has since been released under different names and card designs, but regardless of the language, this tiny box is gold. Now if we’re being honest, you could play this game using a standard deck of cards with ease; but it loses a smidge of charm in the process.
The rules are ridiculously simple: either call someone (yourself included) to reveal either the high or low card in hand, or reveal one of the cards in the center. Do this until you either reveal two different cards or a set of three. That alone is fun. But the game of it is in the varied win conditions. First to either: reveal three sets, reveal two sets whose numbers combine via addition or subtraction to make seven, or reveal the set of sevens. Genius—because it keeps the playing field even down to the last card. Play nana. Buy Trio. Try it with Bicycle. But get it to the table, in all its ease and delight.
Ease of entry?:
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?:
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Bob Pazehoski, Jr.
Now! – Andrew Lynch
I like shouting. I like slapping cards down on the table. I like almost being right but not being quite right. I like being more right than someone else who was almost right but not quite right. Now! offers all of these things, and does so in a quick playing time, which means I’ll always be happy to play it. Is it great? No. Is it particularly memorable? No. Is it easy to teach and take enough players to be a great filler when you’re responsible for a group of gamers who don’t all arrive at the same time, as is a professional hazard in my line of work? Absolutely.
Ease of entry?:
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?:
★★★☆☆ – Wouldn’t suggest it, but would happily play it
Read more articles from Andrew Lynch.
Ezra and Nehemiah – David McMillan
Ever since I saw the announcement for this game in the Garphill Games Discord channel last year, I have been eager to get my hands on it. Ezra and Nehemiah is a biblical-themed game that takes place in the decades following the collapse of the walls on the city of Jericho. The king Artaxerxes has given his blessings to his cupbearer, Nehemiah, to go forth and rebuild the walls, and the city. And that’s what the players will be doing: rebuilding the city and educating the masses about the Torah and its teachings.
Ezra and Nehemiah is one part card selection, one part action point spending, and one part resource gathering and managing. Each turn, players will select a card from their hands to play into their tableau. These cards provide tags which will boost the effectiveness of whichever of the game’s three actions the player chooses to perform on their turn. Each action interacts with the game state in a different way. One deals with clearing the rubble away and reconstructing the walls. One deals with sending out scholars to teach the Torah to the masses. One deals with rebuilding, and sanctifying, the temple.
Players have access to a limited pool of workers which can be sent out as teachers, sent to the temple as Levites, or used on their own player boards to gain the players temporary boost to tag productions or instant resources. At the end of six game rounds (six days), there is a seventh day (the Sabbath) in which players must feed all of the workers in their pool and on their player boards or suffer the consequences of losing points for unfed workers.
Ezra and Nehemiah remixes elements that players of other games in the Garphill Games catalog will appreciate, but it also pulls in some new, fresh elements as well. While there was a bit of a learning curve in my first game (the setup and teach is a real bear), I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to many more games in the future.
Watch out for my upcoming review.
Ease of entry?:
★★★☆☆ – There were a few questions
Would I play it again?:
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from David McMillan.
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