Heaven & Ale – Andy Matthews
Have you ever played one of those “highly recommended” games that are beloved by other people, only to have it fall flat for you? That was my experience with Heaven & Ale, the 2017 release from eggertspiele. There’s lots to like about this game: moving up on tracks, managing money, comboing, and that central rondel. But the combination of all of it just left me feeling frustrated and underwhelmed.
I went into the game knowing that money was tight. You start with $25 and the only way to earn money is to “harvest”, and the only way to harvest is to land your player pawn on one of the purple scoring spots (of which there are 6). But first you have to buy tiles that allow you to harvest, and place them on your board (light or dark side?), and arrange them into a configuration that will allow you to build a shed, or by color, or by value… Are you seeing where I’m going with this? And I haven’t even gotten to the math-heavy end game scoring.
I’m not questioning whether people like this game, as I mentioned there’s lots to sink your teeth into. It just seems that I enjoy softer foods. 😀 The upside is that now I’ve played this, I can sell it and pick up something else that I’ll enjoy more.
Ease of entry?:
★★★☆☆ – There were a few questions
Would I play it again?:
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Read more articles from Andy Matthews.
Great Western Trail – K. David Ladage
Don’t judge a book by its cover. This is an adage we are all likely quite familiar with. So if we are all so familiar with this concept, why do we still find ourselves doing it? Every month, a BGG user named Tom Verdonck publishes a Geek List that is the statistics of the current Top 50 games on the site. For nearly 7.5 years, the game Great Western Trail has been listed somewhere between #9 and #15. This is a popular game, but I look at it and my first thought is that this is not a theme that speaks to me. I am here to tell you, folks, that after this game was brought over to my house and I have had a chance to experience it… I was wrong. It turns out that this is a great theme.
Great Western Trail is an amazing game! The interaction of the public and private locations (not to mention the bandits and hazards) along the path to herding your cattle into Kansas City is fun and engaging. The expansion of your own rail network is interesting. The hand management, deck-building, and other mechanics all come together into a cohesive whole. I have had a taste… I really want to play this again. And again…
Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Read more articles from K. David Ladage.
Moose Match Mayhem – Justin Bell
By this point in the Dolphin Hat games lifecycle, you know what you are going to get for ten bucks—a solid family-weight party game that can be taught in less than a minute and that features cute artwork and rapid-fire laughs. Dave Campbell, the founder of Dolphin Hat who gave us Gimme That, 800 Pound Gorilla, and Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, handed me a copy of his latest game, Moose Match Mayhem, at Gen Con 2024 and three plays later, the kids are already keeping it in the game closet next to Taco Cat.
Moose Match Mayhem asks players to build sets of cute animals by drawing cards from a draw deck face-down, then collectively flipping those cards face-up into the center of the table while chanting “Moose…Match…MAYHEM!” When cards are revealed, players slap the one they want to add to their hand. If it’s an animal card in one of three cards, that’s OK…card added, no further action required. If it’s a wild card, it can be added to any set. Pick up a yeti, and if it’s a player’s second yeti that matches the color of a previously-snatched yeti, the yeti scares away any cards not in a three-card suit. The Avalanche card is a doozy—it looks just like the wild card, but if a player touches an Avalanche, it washes all the animal cards not in a set into the discard pile.
Moose Match Mayhem is another winner; it’s not taking the Taco Cat throne, but it’s still a good time. My family knocked out three games in the 20-minute span before pizza arrived on a recent Saturday night. Like Dolphin Hat’s other games, kids have just as good a chance at winning Moose Match Mayhem as the adults; when I did my Gen Con demo, an eight-year-old stranger swept the other three adults off the board. My kids won our first two plays but I took home the third game and pumped my fist when it was over. Suck it, kids!
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Read more articles from Justin Bell.
Pride of Ninja – Andrew Lynch
Pride of Ninja is a drafting and tableau-building game with a little more going on under the hood. Think of it as Sushi Go for the adults in the room, a slightly nastier and more intentional drafting game. As you choose which soldiers to add to your li’l army, you place them either face-up in the front rank or face-down in the back rank. Some cards have different scoring criteria depending on their position; what may be good for you in the front could prove disastrous in the back. You also have to be mindful of space. You only have four slots in each row, and have to fill them all by the end.
Once the picking and the passing are done, everyone reveals their facedown rank, and the powers of all the cards resolve in numerical order. The reveal injects things with a tasty bit of drama, but it’s not much. This isn’t a game you’ll be thinking about when you’re done. Ultimately, Pride of Ninja is pleasant, but it doesn’t have much to elevate it above other games in the genre.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Read more articles from Andrew Lynch.
Inventors of the South Tigris – David McMillan
This past weekend, after what felt like an eternity of waiting, I was finally able to get my recently acquired copy of Inventors of the South Tigris to the table. This is the third game in the Garphill Games South Tigris trilogy, and it promised to be their heaviest game yet.
After a lengthy teach, I felt like I had a decent grasp on what was expected of me, and I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. Inventors places the players into the middle of 9th century Baghdad. Following the events of the second game in the series, Scholars of the South Tigris, Baghdad has become a mecca for learned people. In the game, you are an inventor coming up with, oftentimes bizarre, inventions that you’re trying to bring to life. You’ll be managing a small group of craftsmen to manufacture your prototypes and then you’ll be getting people to test them before publishing your findings for the rest of the world to enjoy—think Thomas Edison and Menlo Park, just at a different time and place in history.
Inventors is a heavy game with a lot of moving parts and interconnected systems. There’s a lot of dice manipulation, a lot of card management, and even a bit of worker placement. Every decision was agonizing, but in the best way possible. While it’s easy to see a clear path to victory in many games, this definitely isn’t one of those. There were a few times that I felt like I was floundering without any real strategy in mind, but those times were few and far between. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience and I’m excited for the next time I’m able to get it to the table.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Read more articles from David McMillan.
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