Weekend Gaming - August 2022
This past week has been extremally busy between my day job, playing games, buying games, and planning new content. However, despite how busy I was, I still found time to enjoy a wonderful game night with my group.
On Saturday, we met up at a place I had spoken about previously, Game Train USA. Game Train USA is located in Highlands Ranch, Colorado about 30 minutes Southwest of Denver. They have a game library of over 600 games, a full bar, and food to enjoy. We kept bouncing between four and five players and played five games. Below are all the games I played this weekend and a summary of each game and my thoughts. Just a reminder, these are not reviews, just my impressions of the games.
The first game we played was Azul published by Next Move Games. I first played this game on Board Game Arena and really fell in love with it. It’s very simplistic when you are collecting tiles in a strategic way that generates patterns that grant you points. You have to make sure not to get too greedy, otherwise, you will find yourself grabbing too many tiles, or tiles you can no longer play and end up losing points.
“In the game Azul, players take turns drafting colored tiles from suppliers to their player board. Later in the round, players score points based on how they've placed their tiles to decorate the palace. Extra points are scored for specific patterns and completing sets; wasted supplies harm the player's score. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.” - Board Game Geek
Ghosted (2021)
Ghosted is an interesting take on a social deduction published by Big G Creative. How I would explain it is like a reverse Guess Who mixed with Clue. Every player is a ghost and is given a suspect, weapon, and motive card. These cards essentially, tell you who, what, and why and you cannot see them. You can see everyone else’s cards and you take turns asking questions to try to figure out your cards. The first player to get them all right wins. I really enjoyed this game and it played quickly. I found this to be a nice starter game for your party.
“You've come to an untimely end, been offed, put to rest, fatally finished. You've been ghosted!
Now you must solve your own demise from the great beyond. Identify which suspect had it in for you, what wacky weapon they used, and why they wanted you out of the picture. The first to solve the mystery of their passing wins.” - Board Game Geek
Deep Sea Adventure (2014)
I first heard of this game from Jamey Stegmaier, I think he first mentioned it in one of his videos. I bought it and I can’t stop talking about it. This game is extremely simple as you dive down into the deep depths of the ocean, trying to collect treasures. Although this is a push your luck, every person for themselves, it has a twist with the shared resource of oxygen. This was a huge hit with the group, there is just something special about the dice rolls that are either good or bad and those that want to take all the treasure, even though it will screw everyone up. It comes in such a small box, it’s perfect to start any game night off or end with some laughs.
“A group of poor explorers hoping to get rich quickly heads out to recover treasures from some undersea ruins. They're all rivals, but their budgets force them all to share a single rented submarine. In the rented submarine, they all have to share a single tank of air, as well. If they don't get back to the sub before they run out of air, they'll drop all their treasure. Now it's time to see who can bring home the greatest riches.” - Board Game Geek
In Lanterns, you have your hand management, pattern building, set collections, and tile placement. The art is very beautiful, but also very simplistic. I highly enjoyed the theme, and the mechanics worked together to create a fun, abstract game. However, I wasn’t as focused on this game as I probably should have been. I believe I will need another playthrough or two to fully grasp the game.
“The harvest is in, and the artisans are hard at work preparing for the upcoming festival. Decorate the palace lake with floating lanterns and compete to become the most honored artisan when the festival begins.” - Board Game Geek
King of Tokyo published by Iello was one of the last games we played. I have played this game before on Board Game Arena, however, my first time playing with a physical copy. This is a super fun, fast-paced, dice-rolling game. You roll a total of 6 dice (more if you have a special upgraded card) with various abilities on them. Those abilities range from attacking, healing, energy, or points. Each player takes the role of a monster either attacking Tokyo or attacking other monsters. There are two winning conditions, the first player to 20 points or all other players are killed. It’s super fun and I highly recommend it if you are looking for something that is easy to set up, easy to play, and something on the shorter side.
“In King of Tokyo, you play mutant monsters, gigantic robots, and strange aliens—all of whom are destroying Tokyo and whacking each other in order to become the one and only King of Tokyo.” - Board Game Geek
My weekend was filled with fun games and with fun people. I always enjoy playing new games, as well as introducing others to some of my favorites.
What games did you play this weekend? Comment below and let me know! As always, you can join in on discussion on my Facebook and Instagram pages!
