53) Thurn and Taxis

Another solid game that creates tension as people vie to be the first to complete different goals for the most points. This game is quick to pick up and easy to teach. There's not much down time and its just fun to play.

All packed up 

Just getting going

Fast start leads to a slow finish

A good quality game. Its main limitation may be replayability as it may start to feel like you're playing identical games over and over. Regardless I still enjoy this and would recommend it.

52) Keyflower

This game started off a bit slow (partly because we were still learning how to play). But towards the middle and end the tension and strategy picked up a bit. After the first play I imagine the same tension will be present throughout the game as we weren't sure how to value different tiles at the beginning. I'm really excited to try this again and hopefully clean up a lot of the mistakes I made in this inaugural game.

The game in all its glory

Bidding

Workers and tools on boats

End game board

Awesome game. I expect multiple plays to bring out more of the strategy and depth in the game. At the same time its fairly straight forward in the actual game play. So, its quick to pick up, fun to play, and lots of strategy. Win, win, win.

51) Hive

A quick and fun two player game. Each player is control of a group of creatures that each have different was of moving. On your turn you move one of your pieces or add one of your pieces to the 'board'. Once someone's queen bee is surrounded the game ends. I really like the strategy of this game and I always feel like it takes me a game or two to remember the spacial tricks to playing well.

Assemble the troops

Beetle on my bee

Surrounded the black bee

I would recommend this game, although I question the replayability. I may be missing some of the depth of the strategy, but I can see getting tired of playing after a few plays. We didn't break open all the expansions though, so that could give extra life to the game. My only other complaint would be that you can usually tell who's going to win a few turns before it happens. Despite this I highly recommend this game as it really forces you to think in a different way.

50) Cube Quest

Another fun flicky game. Each cube represents one of your troops and on your turn you choose one to flick at the other players troops in an attempt to get their king off of the play mat. Of course any piece that leaves the play mat is out of the game so you have to moderate the force with which you attack.

Game overview

Hide the king

A reasonable defense

Where is your king?

A fun and quick game that will play differently every time. I'm glad I got to play this one. The one issue is that the play mats don't always lay flat, but that just means you have mountains and valleys.

49) Zombie Dice

I really can't think of anything good to say about this game. Essentially its Farkel with a theme and a lot fewer decisions. The game is rolling dice to get points. You can risk your current roll to try and get more points or bank the points you have and pass the turn. Unfortunately my game had zero meaningful decisions for me to make and rote dice rolling isn't fun. If I had optimized my play I would have had one point, but of course I risked it and didn't get to score my one point. On top of that you're just rolling dice.

It's awkward getting 3 dice out of that container

That wasn't my roll

Don't buy this game, don't play this game. Enough said.

48) Catacombs

Flicky game at its best. One player is in control of the horde (lots of disks) and each other player is a hero and in control of one disk. When its your turn you flick your disk(s) and attempt to hit the other players disks and thus do damage to them. You proceed through 5-6 different rooms with different enemies and then meet the boss at the end. As a hero you also get to buy fun weapons.

I'm an elf

Overview of the game

The troops eye view

This was a great game that gets everyone up and moving around the table. Your always debating if you go in for the kill and risk getting pummeled next turn or if you play more defensively. We all tended to go all in and threw caution to the wind.

47) Dixit

I generally give this game high marks, but I think I'm starting to get tired of the cards in the base set. It's one of the few party games that I'll give high marks to, but this time around I felt like the cards were a bit stale. For me, I think I would want to play some of the expansions and may start to opt out of just the basic game. I also realized that I'm horrible at guessing other peoples cards, but everyone always loves miss-guessing my card.

A good hand, ha!

Lets make them keep score with bunnies...ok

Cards are neat

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for playing again, I would say if you haven't played this you must get a game of this in. When I first played it I really enjoyed it. It really stretches you to think outside the box, especially given the crazy artwork.