F is for Fog of Love

by Hush Hush Products

I bought this one to play with Dustin the Valentines Day after our second daughter was born. With a 2-year-old and a 6-month old, there wasn't really a leave-the-house date night in the cards. So I thought this would be a fun alternative... Well, we played it once-- just the tutorial-- and then it joined our fairly long list of sad, lonely, un-played games.

Players: 2

Time: 60-120 minutes

Ages: 17+

Theme: Dating RPG

Mechanics: Roleplaying, Storytelling, Hand Management

Somehow, I managed to convince him to play it with me again for this challenge... First, let me just say that this game is really nice quality, from the components to the actual game box.

Since we had forgotten how to play at this point, we had to reset the tutorial, which took some doing, but we figured it out. Then we dealt out our characters. You chose your own personality and profession from your own hand, but your partner chooses your characteristics from cards they are dealt.

Me, "Kristina": A spiritual, relaxed, impulsive criminal with nerdy glasses, a nose piercing, and bedroom eyes. *wink wink*

Him, "Daniel": A cocky, yet insecure, adventurous police officer with old-fashioned clothes, a muscular body, and a seducing scent. Oooh, la la.

Anyway, the idea is that you have a few destiny options, and as you play through the game, go on dates, and simultaneously vote for specific outcomes to various situations new couples would confront (think meeting the parents, having an argument, opening a joint bank account-lol), you try to decide which destiny you might be able to feasibly complete without ruining the relationship and breaking up. At the end of each dating stage (more serious and dramatic situations occur in later stage, vs. the cute, fluffy, happy stuff from the earlier stages), you must give up one of your destiny options, until you are left only two at the end to choose from.

So how did things go for "Daniel" and "Kristina?"

I went for the Equal Partners destiny and Dustin went for the Unconditional Love destiny. I satisfied mine, but he did not satisfy his. So our characters did stay together-- mine happy and fulfilled, his not so much... Bummer.

So the game-- I liked it. A cop and a criminal? How perfect was that? I thought the game was cute and funny-- like a fluffy version of D&D. I'd be totally down to play some more of the scenarios and see if they hold up. The tutorial doesn't really add much to the gameplay, but I understand that future scenarios offer new situations to roleplay, which I think would add the little something extra it needs.

Dustin, on the other hand, was not a fan. He did not care for the theme one bit. So I guess this one is going back on the sad shelf, because I won't agree to get rid of it and he won't agree to play it. Someday, I'll convince someone to play the other scenarios with me...

So, because we don't agree:

My Rating: A temporary 7/10 - I would be willing to play this one again, a normal scenario, and then decide if I need to adjust my rating up or down.

Dustin's Rating: Oof/10.  I did finally get him to commit to a number, so he's saying 3/10, as he likely won't play again.

E is for Exit: The Game - The Forbidden Castle

by Kosmos

I've always loved the idea of an escape room, so I bought a bunch of these Exit series games and we haven't really gotten around to playing them for some reason. We did the Abandoned Cabin (2.5/5 difficulty) version a few years ago and haven't gotten around to playing another one. So here's an excuse!

Players: 1-4

Time: 60-90 minutes

Ages: 12+

Theme: Escape Room

Mechanics: Deduction Puzzle

So how did we do? Really poorly according to the scoring system. While we didn't use too many clue cards, we spent way too long (2.5 hours!!) making our escape, which brought our score down to a dismal 4/15. That's totally an F.

Here are my notes...

I was actually interested in the game for the first few puzzles. But somewhere around the 1.5 hour mark, I began to feel really discouraged. Some of these puzzles were so obtuse or they were neat concepts with poor execution. By the 2 hour mark, I was in the kitchen washing dishes, while Dustin toughed it out and finished it up. Here's what it looked like towards the end there. It was really hard for me to cut the chunk out of that card, btw. It felt so wrong. And on that note, it's kind of a bummer that these can't be enjoyed multiple times. I mean, I wouldn't play again, but I'd totally pass it off to someone smarter than me...

Maybe escape rooms aren't for me??!

Our Rating: 4/10 stars. We didn't really care for it, but we're thinking maybe we'd like it more with a few extra brains to pick up the slack... Or maybe we just need to play a lower difficulty. So we'd try it again...

D is for Dreamscape

by Sylex

Backed this one on Kickstarter during a serious game-backing frenzy... The artwork and the 3d puzzles really sold me on this one.

Players: 1-4

Time: 60-90 minutes

Ages: 10+

Theme: Dream-Building

Mechanics: Resource Collection, Pattern Building

In Dreamscape, you play as a dreamer, collecting dreamshards, which you use to build your 3D "dreamscape." During the construction phase, you create lakes, rivers, waterfalls, mountains, swamps, and various other landscapes to complete personal challenges, which is the first way to obtain points. There is also a set of shared goals that will influence your play throughout-- some of these can be completed/scored by multiple players, while others-- the winner takes all. The advanced rules throw Mr. Nightmare into the mix, and then you must do your best to avoid him and his nightmare shards.

Managing the two different phases of play keep you thinking and planning ahead. It's well balanced-- In our first game, Dustin spent time completing one large personal goal while I completed several small ones, and vice versa in our second game, and our scores were pretty close. We also see lots of replay-ability for this one due to changing group goals and new personal goals every time you play. Not only that, but it came with 4 different mini expansions that add to the complexity. It's a pretty unique game and I'm happy we backed it!

We played two games and scored as follows:

D = 51, B = 41 (He beat me)

B = 49, D = 48 (I beat him)

Our rating: 8/10 - Enjoyable-- will play more!

C is for Century: Golem Edition

by Plan B Games

I played Century: Spice Road at a board gaming convention back in September and of the 14 games I played that weekend, it was one of the few that stood out in my head (the others being Wingspan and Sagrada). I knew I wanted to play this game with Dustin, but decided to go with the re-themed golem edition, simply because I prefer the look of the crystals to the wooden cubes. So I picked this pretty version up the other week at our local shop, Phoenix Fire.

Players: 2-5

Time: 30-45 minutes

Ages: 8+

Theme: Crystal Harvesting / Trading

Mechanics: Card Drafting, Hand Management

In Century: Golem Edition, players draft market cards, harvest crystals or trade existing crystals for new crystals and ultimately use them to claim victory point cards. The first person to collect 5 cards triggers the end of the game and cards are added/scored.

It is super quick to learn and it plays well and quickly with 2 players. Can't wait until our girls are old enough to play this one, because it's pretty solid-- a table staple.

We played two games and scored as follows:

B = 87, D = 78 (I beat him)

B = 81, D = 78 (I beat him again)

My rating: 10/10 - Loved it and would always be happy to play.

Dustin's rating: 9/10 - Liked it. It was quick, easy to learn, thematic and fun. (Probably because I beat him...) (really though, it's probably just because it's more my jam than his).

(One of our littles wanted to be included)

B is for (The) Brigade

by Red Genie Games

This was the first board game we backed on Kickstarter, so we really really REALLY wanted to love it. And... we didn't. And I'm kind of sad about that. 😥 We played this once back when it arrived in 2018 and haven't touched it since. So we decided to give it a second chance. Sadly, it turns out our first impression was accurate.

Base Game / Way of the Wardens Expansion

Players: 2-4 / 1-5

Time: 20-40 minutes / 25-60 minutes

Ages: 8+ / 10+

Theme: Fire-plagued Town

Mechanics: APs, Modular Board, Area Majority, Set Collection

So the town of Tinderbox is home to Pyromancer University and somehow, a fireball storm has accumulated over the city and is raining fire down on hapless citizens. Sounds like a pretty neat concept, right? Well, it is a neat concept, but it's poorly executed... I will say, though, that we have only played this one with 2 players, so perhaps it just has balancing issues and would play better with 4. Benefit of the doubt and all that jazz.

The PvP Variant:

You are a firefighter racing against rival firehouses to protect more buildings, earn more influence, and win the title of Fire Chief. Each turn, you have a set # of action points (that can be increased through upgrades), which you use to perform various actions like moving to new locations, recruiting crew members, refilling your water buckets, extinguishing fires, moving your water wagon, etc. The coveted fire chief position is earned if you win over 5 building squares owned by the same faction, 5 squares owned by unique factions, or 3 university squares, which you do by extinguishing fires on those blocks or adjacent blocks. The catch is that each turn, you must pull an event card, which typically causes the storm to rain down more fire or sends a gust of wind blowing from one one direction of the map to another, spreading fire across the town quite quickly. When the intensity of a fire climbs too high on any specific building square, the building is destroyed and is turned over.

The Co-Op Variant:

The same as above, only you work with the other players to reach a predetermined # of action points before the turn track depletes. You can't recruit any crew members and you all must share one wagon. Lame. You do have access to equipment, which can help you gain action points or hinder you.

The expansion also introduces several other modes of play, like 4v1, solo mode, and a small 4-part campaign that can be tackled in either solo or co-op mode. Unfortunately, after a round of each above variant, we were uninterested in trying the campaign mode. Play just didn't hold our interest.

Okay, Bonnie, so why didn't you care for the game?

1. It was awkward. As I mentioned above, the ideas were good, but the execution was not.

2. Our play-through of the PvP variant lasted maybe 10 minutes. I beat the game in less than 5 turns. Which was kind of a bummer. It actually took more time to set up than to play. It was just boring.

3. The wind event is awkward and easy to screw up.

4.  The rulebooks are not great, especially the Way of the Warden's expansion rulebook. Oh, how I was tormented by that one. Poor layout. Unclear. Just not what I've come to expect from a quality game. I am a rule book hoarder-- I'm sure you know the type, but I am an excellent rule reader/memorizer/teacher. (Except for that ONE time in Gloomhaven that we don't talk about *cough*)

5. The co-op version doesn't really give you a goal to work towards. The rules just ask you to set a random number of victory points as your goal and to go for it, but it doesn't tell you what might be an average goal vs. a more lofty goal. This bothered me. So we just purposely played without a goal, made it to 42 and then decided our goal must have been 40, so look at that, we won. Woo. And, well, it was also kind of boring.

6. There was a misprint on the co-op tracking cards that caused initial confusion (factions are represented by different colors and our card has two purple tracks and no blue track). Obviously we figured it out, but it was just one more check against it.

Our rating: 3/10 - We didn't like it after 3 tries and 2 variants, so we likely won't play this one again.