Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 1)

It’s the first drop for the year so let’s lead off with the 2024 stats. The numbers are generally lower due to the chunk of time I spent getting body and mind in sync and in a healthier space but I played:

–          78 new-to me titles

–          188 different titles

–          754 games

10+ plays:

• The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (68)
• Gloomhaven (40)
• Texas Showdown (37)
• Just One (34)
• Tranquility: The Ascent (23)
• Tranquility (21)
• Forest Shuffle (20)
• Daybreak (20)
• Martian Dice (13)
• Oh Hell (13)
• Sky Team (13)
• Barbu (11)
• Darwin’s Journey (10)
• Now Boarding (10)

5+ plays:

7 Wonders, Ancient Knowledge, Bluff, Cat In The Box, Civolution, Eternitium, Game, The: Play … As Long As You Can, Hadrian’s Wall, Harmonies, Llama, Lucky Numbers, Marvel United, Match Me, Middle Ages, Mojo, Naishi, Neom, New Frontiers, Odin, Piraten Kapern, Spellbook, Terraforming Mars, Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, Vikings, Xylotar, Yokai Septet

I’ve been asked recently whether my gaming tastes have changed or are changing. It’s not so much the games I play but more how game-play has shifted in tone. The social has become more important, enjoying seeing other people enjoy themselves. If there is a choice between a cut-throat move that’s clearly best for me but hurts someone else, and an ok move that’s friendlier, I’m preferring the latter.

The interesting thing is that the guys I game with have started (subconsciously?) extending me the same courtesies. (Lots of guys play this way regardless of gender of course, but it wasn’t so much a thing in our group.) For instance there’s a nice stand-off happening in Naishi atm where no one will take the steal-a-card option unless I do it first … not going to happen! We played a game of Carcassonne recently without anyone playing blocks (ie building such that a closure requires an impossible piece) and they started offering help with placement options. Being helped during a game is rather novel for me you understand (given I win my fair share) but experiencing that male desire to help out, be-less-cutthroat, etc, which wasn’t extended to me before feels like a nice reflection that I’m being seen for who I am. Gaming has been good to me.

Speaking of games, here’s the new-to-me stuff that’s been hitting the table recently …

ALTERED (2024): Rank 3031, Rating 7.6

I’ve only played with base decks of this 2p TCG to get a feel for the game. Each round you’re competing on 2 different battlegrounds, trying to have the most strength to advance your marker on the track. The issue in the early rounds is that you only have enough mana to play 1 or 2 cards. Further, you only draw 3 cards so choice is limited. You can only increase mana income by 1 each round (the card to sacrifice to do so is a nice decision) and by the time you get to the point where you can play more than 2 cards, the game is pretty much over. If you get lucky with card draw and have 1 or 2 turns where you win both battles, you should have it in the bag. Deckbuilder card games are always interesting due to their variety and I enjoyed checking it out but this one felt like I only saw a small portion of each deck each game and the repetitive nature of each round (start from scratch, play whatever cards you have, hope to get lucky) wasn’t enough to keep us going after the initial exploration was done.  Here is a link to our preview

Rating: 7

BAUER (2024): Rank 12048, Rating 7.1

A quick score-effect accumulation card game. Draw 1 card and add it to the 2 just passed you, pick 1 of the 3, add it to your collection, pass the rest on. After 10 rounds, score your 10 cards. They have the typical set collection / icon collection effects expected. Hope your draw matches what you’ve collected so far. It really is just a 5-10 minute filler but with not enough control or deck variety to pull us back for more than an occasional play.

Rating: 6

ETERNITIUM (2024): Rank 7529, Rating 6.9

Dominion-style deck-builder where you’re trying to be the first to empty your era deck, made up of square, triangle, diamond and circle cards (because as a time traveller you need to work your way back through the well-known “circle era” et al *sigh*). Each turn you’ll pick up a portal card with one of those symbols, and the aim is to play a matching symbol from your hand to clear the top era card as much as possible. Except era cards are usually face-down, and there are penalties if you take a guess and get it wrong, so you need to buy tech cards to help you (eg reveal an era card, play any 2 to discard any era card). But buying tech cards add cards to your era deck so it’s 1 step backwards for a future repetition of 2 steps forward. Downtime is bad (and shuffling EVERY turn is crazy) so it’s best at 2p, worse with 4p. With experience you can get through your era deck quite quickly with just a few techs in the right combination and at that point the lustre fades.

Rating: 6

HARVEST (2024): Rank 3161, Rating 7.7

A light-ish worker placement where you only get to perform 3 actions in each of 4 rounds. If you go the thematic route, spend your early actions clearing your personal tableau of forest and gaining fertilizer and water. Buy seeds in 4 different types of crops and then knock yourself out using field actions to spend those resources planting seeds and harvesting crops for VPs. Or just build buildings throughout for straight up points. Or a mix. As always in worker placement games, turn order is important but there was generally something worthwhile doing instead so there wasn’t a lot of tension. Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, but it was kind of a cookie cutter design without enough oomph of interest to return for mine, plus the artwork really didn’t appeal.   Dale’s review from 2024

Rating: 6

TATSU (2022): Rank 6238, Rating 7.1

I thought this game felt familiar and found out afterwards it was a re-make of the old Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde partnership card game (which I haven’t played for 10+ years). I read my old comment/rating, yep, no change: the ability to call on other players to play on your behalf is the mechanic that sets this game apart from others. There are only 28 cards to count (which you’ll need to do), but this game is really, really hard to play well and determine best moves. Which means it plays slowly. This, and the fact it’s maybe too hard, means it never hits the table enough for you to actually get on top of it. Still, it’s a brain bender for when you’re looking for one.

Rating: 6

THINGS IN RINGS (2024): Rank 3287, Rating 7.3

This felt innovatively fun, even with the Zendo type feel. Picture a Venn diagram of 3 interlocking circles, each major circle representing a binary state which only the quizmaster knows (eg starts with a vowel, is heavier than a chair, is found outside). Pick one of your item cards and place it in one of the interlocking circles and, when it’s inevitably wrong, the quizmaster will place it in the right place and you draw a new card. Get it right, play again, first to shed their cards wins. As each item is placed in its right place you build a sense of what the questions might be and where your items might fit, especially if they seem similar to already placed items and suddenly you’re on a roll and you’re out! It was surprisingly enjoyable as a casual thoughtful opener where everyone kind of plays along and shares their views on where things belong as they’re placed.

Rating: 7

TREKKING THROUGH HISTORY (2022): Rank 546, Rating 7.6

Build an ordered timeline of cards featuring historical events. Depending on where the card is in the display, you also get tiles (much like Bonsai). The question you face each turn is whether it’s better to take the obvious best next card for your timeline (and extend it as long as you can for max points before starting a new one) or take another card because the tiles you get will score massively well for your bingo card this round (before you lose it at the end of the round). While it was pleasantly fine, this simplicity became repetitive quickly enough not to need to play it again.

Rating: 6

WINDMILL VALLEY (2024): Rank 1061, Rating 7.7

Each player has an interlocking dual rondel mechanism of build-your-own actions that is a masterpiece of game design. Loved that bit. The core rondel’s six base actions do standard Euro-y stuff though – get resources, stock your warehouse for pts, build on the board to get stuff, buy better action powers, sell stuff for money, etc. Rondel games play much the same and this is no exception – plan ahead, focus on several rondel actions and max those up, skip the rest. Nice game but it’s standard fare, the main attraction being the shiny new rondel system.

Rating: 7

Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:

Larry:  So let me get this straight, Alison–you played 78 new games and 188 different games in 2024 and that was an off year???  Those totals would represent the sum of two good years for me!  And averaging more than 2 games per day over the course of a year?  Those would be fantasy numbers for me.  You are one lucky lady.

Your thoughts about how games have become more social for you was interesting.  My game groups have always encouraged friendliness in the way we approach games, but not usually in how we play them.  So do we allow people to take back moves?  If no one else has started their turn, of course.  If someone makes what is clearly a suboptimal move, will I point it out by saying “Is that really what you want to do?”?  Absolutely, and particularly if it’s a new game for them.  And our goal is always to make sure everyone has a good time.  But…we’re all trying to win.  Not because winning is supremely important to us, but because having everyone strive to win is what gives the game meaning and allows us to anticipate what others are doing.  So if there’s one option that’s best for me, but hurts another player’s position, sorry, buddy, but that’s what I’m doing.  Now I admit, I’m sometimes reluctant to do moves that include a “Take That!” element, particularly in games where they seem out of place, like Terraforming Mars and Ark Nova.  But if that’s my best choice, I’ll live with the disappointment and do it.  And I expect everyone else I play with to do the same thing to me.  It seems to work for us, as it’s extremely rare for someone to feel picked on.  In fact, a particularly cutthroat move is more likely to get nods of approval than scowls from the rest of the table.  Of course, every group has their own unspoken rules of comportment and there’s no right or wrong way to approach these things.  But always playing to win, within the rules of the game and acceptable social practices, of course, seems to maximize our enjoyment of gaming.