I played and wrote impressions for all Advent Calendar games. Happy new year!

[Toma122]

I think my overall biggest surprise was Sea, Salt & Paper considering what a small card game that is and the interactions it allows for. Really looking forward to that arriving to play with friends!

Yeah, I've been playing that one as well, since it came through beta I think and it's pretty good. I'm glad it's on here, as it doesn't seem readily available to me in Australia IRL.

There was a single online store that I could access that even had the expansion cards available and only 3-4 stores with the normal game. Sooo... Yeah, basically impossible to get even here. I really hope it's reprinted at some point or gets some new publishers.

[ChiefPointThief]

"Donuts" may technically be a new release, but it is just a reskin of the game "Insert" designed by Bruno Cathala which was a digital release available only on BGA.

I learned something new today. I thought this was just another donut game like the one that already exist here.

Nice review. Seems like you put a lot of work into it.

Agreements: Daybreak, Pook, Meglomania, lets catch a lion, turing machine, forest shuffle, wizard, bang, gift of tulips,24/7, ticket gagnat, bag of chips

Major Disagreements: Diceathlon. It isn't fantastic but I think it is a decent dice game. It seems like you really didnt enjoy this at all
Spots. I thought maybe you didn't like dice games so was surprised to see this so high rated.
Exit Strategy:

"Donuts" may technically be a new release, but it is just a reskin of the game "Insert" designed by Bruno Cathala which was a digital release available only on BGA.

I learned something new today. I thought this was just another donut game like the one that already exist here.

Nice review. Seems like you put a lot of work into it.

Agreements: Daybreak, Pook, Meglomania, lets catch a lion, turing machine, forest shuffle, wizard, bang, gift of tulips,24/7, ticket gagnat, bag of chips

Major Disagreements: Diceathlon. It isn't fantastic but I think it is a decent dice game. It seems like you really didnt enjoy this at all
Spots. I thought maybe you didn't like dice games so was surprised to see this so high rated.
Exit Strategy: Read your review. Only got a few 2p games. Liked it and am hoping is is better in team mode.
Wingspan: I know I am in the minority but this game really bores me. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. Everyone loves it

Slighty overrated: Hanamikoji-nice quick game. Like it but cant go to very good.
Skate Legend: This deserves a meh. Not excruciatingly unpleasant but just kind of pointless lol

Slighty underrated: Zefria: Good strategic coop
Ticket to ride Europe: Don't like the stations but ttr is a decent game so would rank at least good still

Stockpile has been on my to try list forever. Need to get around to that game

[Toma122]

Nice review. Seems like you put a lot of work into it.

Agreements: Daybreak, Pook, Meglomania, lets catch a lion, turing machine, forest shuffle, wizard, bang, gift of tulips,24/7, ticket gagnat, bag of chips

Major Disagreements: Diceathlon. It isn't fantastic but I think it is a decent dice game. It seems like you really didnt enjoy this at all
Spots. I thought maybe you didn't like dice games so was surprised to see this so high rated.
Exit Strategy: Read your review. Only got a few 2p games. Liked it and am hoping is is better in team mode.
Wingspan: I know I am in the minority but this game really bores me. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. Everyone loves it

Slighty overrated: Hanamikoji-nice quick game. Like it but cant go to very good.
Skate Legend: This deserves a meh. Not excruciatingly unpleasant but just kind of pointless lol

Slighty underrated: Zefria: Good strategic coop
Ticket to ride Europe: Don't like the stations but ttr is a decent game so would rank at least good still

Stockpile has been on my to try list forever. Need to get around to that game

Thanks for taking time to share your impressions! I mean enjoyment is all relative, but yeah, especially in comparison playing all these games next to each other made me really appreciate a certain level of polish in game design. Diceathlon absolutely could be a decent to good game if it was reworked, but I really think the way its currently balanced with its high likelihood on draws and the incredibly disheartening ladder category that the fastest one wins. It really was not pleasant to play for me, especially when you compare it to something like Spots that offers fair and balanced challenges with exciting finishes.

Wingspan is a very funny thing. I still dont understand how Wingspan got to be such a hit with casuals and newcomers to board gaming. I would have thought its much too involved with different mechanics for people to understand quite intricate gaming concepts. But I suppose it works because technically you can play Wingspan without caring much about the inner workings of the mechanics. Buy bird, make eggs, play bird, repeat. I think the game has incredibly interesting optimiziation possibilities though, its very subtle, but optimizing that little bird engine can be really darn satisfying. I am weird though and enjoy optimizing pretty much anything, haha.

And yeah, TTR is probably the game I have the most disagreements on. The original Ticket to Ride was one of the most miserable gaming experiences I ever had with my friends. Thankfully Europe makes it a lot less harsh, but still suffers from rewarding hoarding cards for a while. But yeah, many people enjoy TTR and more power to them, but I was already surprised Europe managed to get out of that Meh category for me at all.

And do try Stockpile! Really surprising package.

[inkera]

As my christmas activity, I wanted to play all advent calendar games and write some impressions to figure out which ones I want to buy or recommend to others, so I figured I might as well post that result for all of you

This is quite an impressive review! Thank you for doing this and sharing

[Toma122]

As my christmas activity, I wanted to play all advent calendar games and write some impressions to figure out which ones I want to buy or recommend to others, so I figured I might as well post that result for all of you

This is quite an impressive review! Thank you for doing this and sharing

Haha, thanks! Yeah, I was a bit shocked when I posted them all year that it was apparently already 93.000 characters combined, but if it gets some people to check out some good and underappreciated games, all the better!

[katmk]

What a great round-up! I aimed to play all the games from the summer calendar, but time did not allow for winter, so thank you for such a lovely overview and steering me towards the gems I missed.

[Meeplelowda]

This must have been a labor of love, so thanks for all the work you put into this. I have only played a handful of the new releases, but I have one dispute.

"Donuts" may technically be a new release, but it is just a reskin of the game "Insert" designed by Bruno Cathala which was a digital release available only on BGA. I think it is a fantastic abstract game with a clean, easy rule set. I don't find that it is any more tedious than any other abstract game. In all of them you have to "check all possible move paths" to the extent your clock and powers of calculation allow.

Thanks for the kind words, it is very appreciated

Sometimes its a bit hard to quantify why a certain game clicks or doesnt click. Go is one of my favourite games ever, been playing it regularly since 2016 at a pretty decently high levle now, so I know how abstract games "tick", but Donuts felt more tedious than fun to me. Kulami was another example that just flowed a lot better with its decisions and replayability. But obviously these type of opinions are going to be a good bit subjective, haha. Pretty sure there are quite a few other opinions that many have a bone to pick with and I love hearing why people agree or disagree, its always good to get different perspectives on things.

As others have said, I definitely agree with the review of Sea Salt & Paper. I have 29 plays since 29 Dec. and really enjoy the game. So it's good to know that we have similar tastes for some things (like Sky Team and Wingspan) which will help me use your reviews for recommendations.

My recommendation to you based on my impression from your reviews is "Earth."

[Toma122]

As others have said, I definitely agree with the review of Sea Salt & Paper. I have 29 plays since 29 Dec. and really enjoy the game. So it's good to know that we have similar tastes for some things (like Sky Team and Wingspan) which will help me use your reviews for recommendations.

My recommendation to you based on my impression from your reviews is "Earth."

Really looking forward to playing Sea, Salt and Paper with some friends on monday Curious how it works in our social setting. Thanks for the recommendation! Definitely was on my todo list eventually. but put it off for a bit too long probably.

And just in case anyone was curious, I posted a few more impressions over here but I'll post the new ones in the BGA thread since i am replying now anyway: https://www.resetera.com/threads/board- ... -117214548

Papayoo (Okay)


Papayoo is a simple trick taking game...in reverse. Your task is to get as few tricks/points as possible. The black payoo cards are the main offender here, as they get you minus points for getting them. You can alleviate your luck a bit by giving 5 cards to your neighbour at the beginning, but thats it. There are no trump cards, no extra rules, just pure trick taking calculations with the players around the board. The game goes quick, is easy to learn and play, still requires some rethinking and a new appreciation of what a good card hand is, but ultimately lacks anything particularly noteworthy or interesting to it, especially once you played a few rounds, where you were destined to fail and nothing was remotely possible to go your way at all. The lack of any trump suite does make the game feel a bit like a one way trip sometimes.

Overall, its not a bad trick taking game by any means though. Quick and easy fun, definitely good for a quick distraction if you need something quick and light with your friends.



Challengers (Good)


Really enjoyable and rather unique mix of deck building and auto battler that excels at a few things, but needs to be considered with a grain of salt. So the idea is that everyone has their decks, they play a card with a numeric value and if that value matches the card of the other player, they take over the victory"flag". If your number wasnt high enough for that, you draw another and add all your card numbers up. At the end of a round, you discard all cards except the last one, which is the new number your opponent needs to beat. As the cards in your decks are limited, you lose the game by either running out of cards or by exceeding your discard limit of 6 card "types".

If that sounds very hands off, thats because.. it is! There are cards that allow you to affect your deck, draws and discard piles (and you absolutely should use these effects), but at its core this battle runs very automated, your deck fighting against your opponents. What the actual game is about though, is building that deck and that part is a very juicy little challenge with addictive properties. A game goes for 7 rounds and with each round you get to take slightly stronger cards than before. Every turn you see a random pick of 5-10 cards and get to decide if you want to add 1-2 cards to your deck, remove some cards and really finetune that machine of yours. At first, that process feels random and not very satisfying online, as the biggest issue of this game is the prerequisite knowledge of card combinations, which also tripped me up extra hard as the deck building instinct to throw away all lowest value card first majorly screwed me over (seriously, dont throw away those 1s right away). Once you do understand how the game ticks, seeing some nice combinations from your opponents, things start clicking into place and every card magically opens up new ideas of how to use them in your next match.

Obviously a game thats just focussed on deck building, without decisions on cards might not be for everyone, but that has some other unexpected benefits. Games play quick, encourage you to go right back to tinkering with your deck. When playing against an opponent with a seemingly stronger deck, you can also pick cards that mess with their strategy if yours isnt working out. Also this game is quick to play for up to 8 players because of its everyone vs everyone style tournament setup, while also offering deep counter strategy potential if you play it against the same person, while both tinker with their decks.

It has some cool artwork, works in large groups, is really addictive once you get the hang of it and I really do like it. But it needs a few plays to start shining and honestly, the card variation from game to game needs to be bigger so that its more about figuring out new exciting possibilities with your current cards, instead of recycling and only shooting for your favourite deck. I think the game would benefit a LOT from having more ability variety that makes predetermined strategies less effective, as it might also make the entry to the game more appealing. Still, fun unique game. Also shoutout to the BGA implementation asking me after a few plays if I want to automate certain actions as I was more experienced by that point. I like you, little caring option box.


Volto (Okay)


This game definitely will find its crowd appreciating it, so if any type of involved bluffing strategy games like Stratego (its Stratego) appeals to you, definitely do try it. The game plays like a version ofchess, where your pieces have different move abilities. Some can move straight, others diagonally, while your king can move in all directions. You can win a game by either capturing your opponents king, by making your opponent capture your 2 queens (basically a "poisoned" piece that can move like a king, but cant capture enemy pieces and if its gets captured removes the enemy piece) or by moving your king to the opponents sides.

So this sounds and plays like chess, or more specifically Stratego, but the big difference to chess is that you dont see what type of pieces your opponents pieces are. That creates a very interesting dynamic, where you can bluff with your pieces, trying to trick your opponent into taking your queens or making him ignore your king.

So I like abstract strategy and the hidden elements sounds like a cool idea that allows you to strategize by observing your opponents movements and obscuring your own, making mental notes and plans of what the current board state likely is. What ultimately ends up happening a lot however, is players moving a lot of back and forth, not making any relevant move, as hitting your opponent could potentially be pretty deadly with those queens. Its definitely not a game of pure luck, even if some decisions feel like 50/50 gambles where a queen might be hiding, but I am a bit uncomfortable with how many games I just saw that just push pieces back and forth until one player randomly decides to attack.

Still, neat concept even if it feels imperfect and relatively quick to play as its a much smaller battlefield than Stratego is.



Akropolis (Very Good)


So this one surprised me a good bit. It is a relatively simple tile laying game where different shapes and adjacency bonusses decide the amount of points you get. Blue tiles score only the largest blue area, yellow tiles only score if they are separated from another, red tiles only score if you are not entirely enclosed, etc. You increase the point score of any colour by playing their corresponding plazas that multiple the tile point score. The kicker is that you can place tiles on top of another, which multiples a tiles value by its height level, which is a very satisfying puzzle to balance.

The rules are simple, but the beauty of this game is in its variability. The core rules of taking a tile and placing it is simple and doesnt require a deep understanding of more elaborate strategies. Its an easily understandable family game if you want it to be, just layering a tile here and there to increase your scores. However, once you start get more experience, you can start to plan a move ahead, plan connections on the next level or even plan for potential combinations 3-4 levels up if you want to play that kind of strategy. There is a bit of a potential for paralysis analysis, but especially in the beginning player will likely gravitate towards focussing on just a few colours, which greatly reduces that risk. That again makes it easier for newcomers to engage with the game.

And once you wrapped your head around the base concept you have 5 different scoring variants, that allows you to maximize scoring potential for each colour even further, making the game as optimizable as you want, truly cranking up the possibilities for potential big value combinations.

It plays fast, has a good 2 player competetive edge where you need to keep a close eye on your opponents, allows for casual family play, has deeper optional scoring variants and, even if its also a bit less intuitive to judge a 3d element online than in real life, is just really satisfying to watch being built and turn around as a 3d visual element, even digitally. This game probably has a really satisfying real life table presence as well.

Not a game that will be in many top 10 board game list of all time, but its a darn nice package.

[ChiefPointThief]

I agree with you on envelopes of cash. The theme alone sold me but the gameplay was great as well. There aren’t too many games here that I care about the theme and some are overdone so this was refreshing. This game has been here for about a year and I never came across it.

Stockpile wasn’t as good as envelopes but was a solid game as well.

If you like sky team you should try now boarding. Other than them being both coop games about planes they aren’t similar but now boarding is far superior imo.

[Toma122]

I agree with you on envelopes of cash. The theme alone sold me but the gameplay was great as well. There aren’t too many games here that I care about the theme and some are overdone so this was refreshing. This game has been here for about a year and I never came across it.

Stockpile wasn’t as good as envelopes but was a solid game as well.

If you like sky team you should try now boarding. Other than them being both coop games about planes they aren’t similar but now boarding is far superior imo.

Funnily enough, I did play Now Boarding just yesterday and definitely enjoyed it. I am not the biggest fan of push your luck games and time restraints though, so its its not really my cup of tea as the puzzle definitely requires the chaos injected with the limited time element. As a pure puzzlers, it gets a bit more straight forward to figure out and Sky Team just was a refreshing challenge that I havent encountered like that before at all. Adding the mission structure and variable setups made this game really feel different and customizable.

I can definitely see how someone might prefer the more classical setup of Now Boarding though, as its a pretty straight forward structure and feels more focussed on playability through emergent round by round changes with new passengers.


The full impressions:

Now Boarding (Good)


Another cooperative game with a flight theme, this time all about pickup and delivery passenger management. The basic rules are simple, but as is common in the genre, figuring out the best way to optimize the paths with your game partner is anything but. You are in charge of a plane and can move around the map, picking up and delivering passengers. Since no one said air travel is easy, you will also need to deal with random weather conditions, making certain routes harder to travel and passengers that become angrier with every turn they didnt get picked up. However, if things get too tough, you can upgrade your seat capacity or speed to handle even the most annoying VIP customers that have even more specific demands.

The standard game is played on a 15 second timer per turn, adding to the overal chaos when you take on, park, deliver passengers all the way across the US deciding between urgent situations, customers that will give you much needed upgrade money or customers that you can prepare and streamline for another player to pick up, as he might be going to that area anyway.

The game thrives on these horrible airline minute by minute decisions where you might need to park a passenger on the other end of the map, just so you can come back to him hours later, while you entirely forgot about another passenger that you could have easily transported because of the pressure building while you ... not lose the game prematurely by making any specific customer too unhappy. The game also includes a turn based mode, which definitely works and with some difficulty options still allows Now Boarding to be a competent and challenging game without time restraints. I am personally not the biggest fan of tight time controls for short tuns and prefer thinking more about any move, and even if I enjoyed the mode without timer, its very clear that the game loses a layer it needs, because of just being a tiny bit too simplistic overall for the remaining puzzle.

If you enjoy coop games, this is absolutely worth checking out, even if the pickup & delivery formula isnt terribly unique or particularly extensive, but what is here is just enough to be a really compelling puzzle package. The replayability definitely works in its favour because of how every single turn presents new challenge to balance your resources on, though and if you dont mind the timed element, its a challenge that will definitely take a good bit to master.