38) Concept

This game is awesome. Whomevers turn it is draws a card and choose a word/phrase that everyone else is going to try and guess. You then place markers on the board as clues to lead the other people to guess the secret word or phrase. Easy enough to understand the rules, but it can be a huge challenge to get people to connect the dots of your clues. I love that it forces you to think outside the box and problem solve different ways to explain what you're thinking.

Beautiful board 

A book thats a movie, young adult, superheros, death, ummm...

Very fun. I would most liken this to Dixit, which fills the roll of "I don't like party games...but I love THIS game".

37) New Amsterdam

This game had so much promise, but unfortunately ended up being a dud. I really enjoyed what the game offered. You're bidding on what actions you can do and then using those actions to collect resource and build up your land and shipping fleet. My big complaint is that there was so much down time. I spent 75% of this game waiting for other people to play, which is super boring. It's only compounded on turns where you don't have much to do (already boring) so you're turn goes extremely fast, which means you get to watch everyone else play even more.

Getting ready to start

First turn scoring = loosing the long game

A bustling city

Game over

This is a solid two thumbs down. The one caveat is that it was everyone's first play so it may have gone a bit slower then normal. Despite that you will still have tons of down time and even a fast game would feel like it was dragging on forever as you sit and watch everyone else play.

36) Tigris and Euphrates

Every time I play this game I'm reminded of how amazing it is. Generally its an area control and battling game driven by laying tiles. One aspect of this game that I really love is that when resolving battles tiles come off the board, which drastically changes the power of the board. People's board strength is constantly changing and to be able to see these changes coming and take advantage of them is key to being successful.

Part way through the game

My secret stash

Leaders taking a breather - never a good sign

Final score

I love the strategy of this game and how you're constantly trying to adapt your plans to an ever changing board. I highly recommend this one.

35) Friday

It was interesting playing a one player game. I enjoyed figuring it out and it took a few games before I was able to put together a win. At the same time, now that I've beaten it, I don't feel a huge need to revisit this one.

Ready to start 

Fun flavor

This is how to lose

Defeating the first pirate

Second pirate doesn't stand a chance

I'm really glad I got to beat this game once and it was fun adjusting my strategy and trying to figure out the best plays, but I feel like once you figure it out there's not a lot of replayability.

34) Glass Road

I came into this game with little knowledge about what it was and was blown away at how fun and challenging it is. There's the resource management aspect to the game which then allows you to build up your board with various building and landscape tiles. All of this is driven by a fun card playing mechanic where you're trying to figure out what other people will play in-order to maximize the benefit of the cards you play. The buildings require you to balance immediate bonuses, resource conversion, and long term scoring combinations and that resource wheel was so simple, yet at times it was a pain controlling which resources you had. There's so much packed into this game and yet its so elegant and simple to play.

Player board ready to go

Ingenious resource wheel

Four player game just getting started

My end game board

This game unexpectedly jumped to one of my new favorites, needless to say I highly recommend it.

33) Escape: The Curse of the Temple

This game is frantic, chaotic, and lots of fun. Everyone is madly rolling dice trying to explore new areas and collect gems along the way. All the while you're listening to a sound track that requires you to go back to the start location twice and only gives you 10 minutes accomplish everything above as well as find exit and escape.

Store copy's are the best

End of game board

We escaped!

I never thought rolling dice as fast and furiously as I can for 10 minutes could ever be this fun. There's also a good amount of planning and working together, making for a fun real-time co-op game. Additionally, after each game we all sat back to catch our breath and our wits for 30 seconds before carrying on with life...it really is intense trying to escape this temple!

32) Cosmic Encounter

In this game you're attempting to colonize other players planets. To do this you must negotiate with the other players and try and convince them to help either the attacking or defending player. This game has the potential to make people unhappy with each other as a main component can be (although it wasn't as much in our game) to convince people of one thing and then stab them in the back.

Two of the five players planets

My planets

End of a five player game

Purple got hammered

This game was quite fun and played quicker then I had expected. The re-playability of this game probably its strongest quality. Each game players choose a different character that give you special abilities and often changes the rules of the game. These abilities greatly influence peoples path to victory and will make for a different game experience every time. All that leads to fun fun fun.