135) Lagoon: Land of the Druids

An interesting tile building game where each tile with one of your workers on it grants you special abilities or actions. Each turn consists of you refreshing (flipping up) three of your workers. You then use workers to build new tiles, move to an adjacent tile, activate the ability on a tile you're on, or destroy a tile that you have a worker on. Using a worker causes them to flip face down and become inactive until the next turn. The goal of the game is to collect resources and destroyed tiles, which count for points at the end of the game. The trick is only certain resources or tiles are worth points based on which tile resource is most prevalent on the board at the end of the game.

Ready to start 

Mid-game tiles 

End game board

The potential for this game to be really awesome is there. The difficult part is figuring out how to make your pieces do what you want. Everyone playing felt very limited by the amount they could do. So often my pieces were in the wrong spot and there was just no way to move them to where I wanted. Each turn felt like an insurmountable struggle to get anything done. Part of that is learning how to play, but the more interesting part should be trying to solve the puzzles that each new combination of tiles presents. There is a bit of a learning curve, but it feels like once you figure that out this game will be really fun.

133) Rumis

This is a neat tetris style game. Initially a map is chosen and placed on a neat spinning center board. Then players take turns placing one of their pieces. The first three pieces placed must all be touching and each subsequent play a player must have the played piece touch one of their other pieces on the board. Additionally, no piece may go higher then the fifth row. Once all the pieces have been played you look down on the board and count up how many of each color is represented. The high score wins.

Ready to start 

Just getting going 

To branch out low or build high?

End game score

A great little game that we all enjoyed enough to play a second time. About half way through the first game a light bulb went off and I said "oh, this is an area control game". Then one of the other players said roughly 'so it is...now I see how to play.' I guess I shoulda kept my mouth shut until the end of the game. Despite the games simplicity there is a quite a bit of strategy. Trying to figure out the area control aspect is difficult. There is also a balance of trying to build to the top level and assure points as opposed to grabbing lower locations in the hope that everyone else runs out of time to cover your pieces. If you can find a copy of this I would recommend giving it a try.

126) Elfenland

The goal of this game is to move your boot around the board and visit as many cities as possible. When you get to a new city you remove your colored marker from that city. Whomever has removed the most of their makers at the end of the game wins. Each round players draft transportation markers (hopefully corresponding with cards in their hand). Then players play transportation markers on roads (only one per road) to define what type of cards can be used to travel along that route. Then players spend their cards and move their boots to as many cities as possible.

A box like that really draws you in 

Just completed the first round

Start of a new round

This is a fun game that really challenges a players ability to plan ahead and be flexible in what they're doing. It's also a very tight game where players often have very close scores making each decision even more valuable. Overall a good game that doesn't take too long to learn and offers some fun and unique challenges.

123) Tragedy Looper

This is a unique puzzle solving game where one player takes on the roll of running the game while the remaining players try and solve the puzzle. In the game we played we were trying to figure out who the key person was and then prevent them from dying. The player running the game is trying to kill the key person. Each turn players play cards that allow characters to move or gain experience or fatigue. After cards have been resolved characters perform special actions, which may include different characters getting killed off. When the objective fails the game is reset and the players have another chance to try and figure out how to win.

Anime Theme

Set up and ready to start 

There's been a murder

This game is different from other games I've played. It was a bit of work to figure out what was going on, but once we got into it it was a fun puzzle to solve. A huge bonus is that we played one of many different scenarios, meaning there are tons of new game versions all within this one game. I'm looking forward to trying this again.

111) This Town Ain't Big Enough for the 2-4 of us

This is a neat tile laying game that feels a lot like Carcassonne. Each player is a different color/symbol. On your turn you play a tile, score any new completely fenced areas, and draw a tile for next turn. The scoring is interesting in that you're only scoring points for colors/symbols that have less presence in the enclosed area then you do.

Incase you thought I made that title up

Tiles with fences

Scoring track

I like this game largely because it was a mental challenge trying to figure out how to have the most of my color in areas, while still having other colors present to score points. I can imagine this game could become overplayed and it could become fairly easy to find the optimal plays. But, having only played it once, I'm excited to try it again. One more positive is that I never felt like I drew a dead tile. I always had somewhere to play my tile that was working towards a goal.

110) Romans Go Home

In this game you're trying to win different towers for victory points. Each round 6 towers are available to be conquered. Each player draws six cards and lays them upside down in columns corresponding to the towers. Then each player flips up the first column of cards, checks card abilities and assigns the tower to the player with the highest valued card. The winner of the tower removes all their face up cards then the next column of cards is flipped.

Team McRed ready for action

Waiting for a few more cards to be played

Example cards

Not enough points to win

I enjoy the challenge of trying to plan ahead when initially laying your six cards out. You have to consider what other players will do and attempt to find synergy between your cards allowing you to collect the more valuable towers. I expect after 5-10 plays the strategy starts to get a bit repetitive, but I really enjoyed playing this and would recommend it.

83) Ubongo

This is basically speed tetris. Each player grabs one of the 36 different puzzle boards, the dice is rolled, and you grab the corresponding pieces and try to solve your puzzle. If you finish your puzzle you're allowed to score by collecting gems. Then each player grabs a new board and starts again.

Ready to collect some gems

Individual player pieces

Puzzle solved!

This game is super light and quite easy to pick up although can be challenging if you don't like solving spatial puzzles. The scoring is a bit silly as it feels overly complex and doesn't quite fit the game. Regardless, its a really quick game thats perfect as a filler or for people who enjoy lighter games.