For so many people, boardgaming is a social fuel. Although I feel I’m becoming a chattier, nicer person as the months go by recently, boardgaming is such a positive for those who aren’t natural socialisers. The games always provide something in common to talk about, but they also allow you to be social without feeling the pressure to be social.
All by way of explaining why it’s pretty neat coming home to see your son playing Twilight Struggle with one of their friends and moving from that straight to Memoir ’44. The offered social baton seems to have been accepted and taken up.
ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE (2023): Rank 1635, Rating 7.2 – Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3Xt9ojS
Cards. Lots of cards. They’re typically free to play but the cost is how many negative tokens it gets and how many turns it takes to move it along your timeline into your VP pile (and therefore how many turns you have to clear its negative VP tokens). Nearly all the card effects are manipulations of these things (card slots, types of cards, getting rid of tokens) or VPs if you’ve met its criteria. Which leads to a lack of variety after a few plays. The other downside is the rather large downtime which wants the game to be 2p only (which works nicely) or 3p (now becoming a drag) and 4p is out of the picture. The upside is that the game offers good decisions each turn and there’s quite a few turns. I enjoy card-effect games so I’ve enjoyed exploring, whilst knowing my score is likely to depend on whether I draw into cards that match and take advantage of those I’ve started with. Dale’s review here…
Rating: 7
DORFROMANTIK (2022): Rank 452, Rating 7.7 – Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4cKkRQd
Effectively a solo co-op game. There are 3 goals in play at any one time to get terrain groups to their designated size (4, 5 or 6) and if the tile you draw can’t advance one of those, get other terrain groups to size 3 so they’re ready to complete asap once a current goal is met and a new one is drawn. This game is for those who love the search for perfect tile placements that maximise scoring opportunities for all future tile draw scenarios, and are attracted to meta-goals and advancing up a recognition track (which mostly unlocks new ways to score and adds more considerations for future games). After the early explore and the working out of best approach, we haven’t gone back to it though.
Rating: 7
ECOSYSTEM: SAVANNA (2023): Rank 8651, Rating 7.4
Same comment and rating as Ecosystem, this being just a variant-scoring version: This is one of those fillers that have no barrier to entry, being immediately recognisable and playable by its blending of now-common mechanics. Start with a hand of 10 cards, play 1 to your personal tableau (a 4 x 5 grid), pass your hand left. Play 2 rounds. The different card types score differently per its own rule based on its proximity (or not) to the other card types in your tableau, all scoring at end of game once all 20 are placed. It’s up to you what you want to concentrate in but nowhere near all the cards come into play so the cards you want may not come. It’s on you to have a plan but to shift as needed. I don’t mind that in a 15-minute filler and this was easy, enjoyable and will see replay.
Rating: 7
NOW BOARDING (2018): Rank 2380, Rating 7.0
Pick-up and deliver co-op. Each round, passenger cards appear at airports and your aim is to move your airplanes around to pick up each within 3 rounds and get them on their way, earning money for delivering them to their destination. The money allows buying of essential speed and passenger capacity upgrades. You’ll only win if you co-ordinate – you pick up that one, drop them here, I’ll pick them up on my way and get them to the destination. Different routes are also blocked for each player which also forces hand-offs. We found it relatively easy 2p (when each player had only 2 routes blocked) and hard 3p (when each player had 3 routes blocked) which isn’t a bad thing. If cards come out consistently where you are, you’ll do well. If they come out where you were a turn ago things will stink up but it’s kinda fun assessing and coordinating it all as best you can.
Rating: 7
SKY TEAM (2022): Rank 200, Rating 7.9 – Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3ALI1sb
One of the best 2p-only co-ops out there, especially when playing with your son who’s a Qantas pilot. You have 7 rounds to get everything perfect and land the plane. Each round both players secretly roll 4 dice and alternate playing them to the board. Two items need both players each round – the bank angle needs dice as close to each other as possible and the speed is the sum of each dice allocated. Do you need to slow down, speed up or stay steady? Each player has other responsibilities as well that soak up dice – avoiding planes, setting flaps, brakes, etc. It’s a game of leading, guessing, following, knowing what each player has to do and what values might be free – and hoping they’ve got them. It’s fun, challenging, plays in a perfect timeframe, and ramps up its difficulty level beautifully with the different airport challenges. The OG review here
Rating: 8
SKYMINES (2022): Rank 643, Rating 8.0 – Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/3AMgEyl
The same rating and much the same writeup as its original incarnation Mombasa, being that I just don’t prefer share games. It’s a clever card action and recovery system though which gives you a lot to think about and plan for. It’s a good game that doesn’t take stock (ahem) with the traditional convert resources into VPs trope. The main issue though is it took everyone so long to plan and play! There are a few different things in the game to explore which I’d come back for, including trying different card planning approaches, but preferably at a player count lower than 4.
Rating: 7
TRAILBLAZERS (2022): Rank 5926, Rating 6.4
The tiles contain in-and-out loopy type tracks in 3 different colours which are collected 7 Wonders style (but two at a time which helps) and placed in your tableau, your aim being to build the largest possible closed track in each colour while scoring card icons and challenge cards as well. The brain-burny part was being able to overlay tiles, allowing you to fix a problematic section later, tiles willing. The main decision was when to start closing each track when of course you don’t know how helpful your final cards will be in each colour. The game worked and was fine but the brain-burn vs luck dynamic was a little too discordant for me to enjoy it fully.
Rating: 6
YOKAI SEPTET (2023): Rank 18248, Rating 5.6
This is the remake of “7 symbols, and 7 Nations” which was on my wish-list for many years due to plaudits from gamers I trusted (but it was a low-volume run and quickly out-of-print). 7 suits, 7 cards in each suit, aim to win 7’s. Things of note are that each suit has a different number range (so the 7 has a different rank in each suit), the VP value of each 7 differs according to its rank, and the winning/losing condition of winning four of the seven 7’s by the time you win your 7th trick makes game-play interesting. With a 3-card pass prior to the first lead and only 7 cards in each suit, short-suiting is rife though and our main issue is that any given lead could end up any which where. It also only goes 2 or 3 rounds so it falls more into that filler-type trick-taker category whereas I was expecting something with a little more gravity perhaps. It was interesting working it out though.
Rating: 7
Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:
Mark Jackson: I’ve really been enjoying Ancient Knowledge – and I’m really interested to see how they implement a solo mode in the upcoming Heritage expansion. Like Patrick, I’d say four is “right out” (just too slow), while the two player game is excellent and three players is fine IF you have experienced players.
Having never played Mombasa, I came to Skymines fresh. It has similar downtime issues to Ancient Knowledge with four players. I will note that the solo mode is actually quite well done once you get past the odd structure of how it works.
Alan How: Echoing Mark and Patrick’s thought about player count in Ancient Knowledge – 2 is the best player count by far. Sky Team is great fun and gives you that satisfaction of landing the airplane when it happens. I’ve managed the easy ones, but the more difficult landings have eluded me so far. Even so, they’ve been very enjoyable games.
Dale: there is no more fitting Patrick Brennan 7 rating than for Yokai Septet :)
Larry: I haven’t played any of these games (although I’m looking forward to trying out Sky Team), but I have played Mombasa quite a bit, even though it’s been a while since it hit the table. But I’m a big fan of it, despite the fact that, like Patrick, share games aren’t my favorite. But acquiring shares in the companies is just part of the gameplay in Mombasa, which is very much a multi-faceted design. It’s not a particularly short game, but I never felt like it dragged. And my recollection is that it’s best with the full complement of 4 players, as the interaction with your opponents on the map is much more interesting than with fewer players, so that’s the player count I’d recommend. I’d love to get to play it again, either the original game or the reskin of Skymines.
Fraser: I must keep a lookout for Skymines to have a look. Mombasa, or Reg as we like to call it in our house and Patrick may know why, has been a favourite for many a year. It was a gift from our German daughter’s family so even if Skymines was better, it would only be an addition not a replacement.
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Patrick Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2024 (Part 4)
For so many people, boardgaming is a social fuel. Although I feel I’m becoming a chattier, nicer person as the months go by recently, boardgaming is such a positive for those who aren’t natural socialisers. The games always provide something in common to talk about, but they also allow you to be social without feeling the pressure to be social.
All by way of explaining why it’s pretty neat coming home to see your son playing Twilight Struggle with one of their friends and moving from that straight to Memoir ’44. The offered social baton seems to have been accepted and taken up.
ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE (2023): Rank 1635, Rating 7.2 – Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3Xt9ojS
Cards. Lots of cards. They’re typically free to play but the cost is how many negative tokens it gets and how many turns it takes to move it along your timeline into your VP pile (and therefore how many turns you have to clear its negative VP tokens). Nearly all the card effects are manipulations of these things (card slots, types of cards, getting rid of tokens) or VPs if you’ve met its criteria. Which leads to a lack of variety after a few plays. The other downside is the rather large downtime which wants the game to be 2p only (which works nicely) or 3p (now becoming a drag) and 4p is out of the picture. The upside is that the game offers good decisions each turn and there’s quite a few turns. I enjoy card-effect games so I’ve enjoyed exploring, whilst knowing my score is likely to depend on whether I draw into cards that match and take advantage of those I’ve started with. Dale’s review here…
Rating: 7
DORFROMANTIK (2022): Rank 452, Rating 7.7 – Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4cKkRQd
Effectively a solo co-op game. There are 3 goals in play at any one time to get terrain groups to their designated size (4, 5 or 6) and if the tile you draw can’t advance one of those, get other terrain groups to size 3 so they’re ready to complete asap once a current goal is met and a new one is drawn. This game is for those who love the search for perfect tile placements that maximise scoring opportunities for all future tile draw scenarios, and are attracted to meta-goals and advancing up a recognition track (which mostly unlocks new ways to score and adds more considerations for future games). After the early explore and the working out of best approach, we haven’t gone back to it though.
Rating: 7
ECOSYSTEM: SAVANNA (2023): Rank 8651, Rating 7.4
Same comment and rating as Ecosystem, this being just a variant-scoring version: This is one of those fillers that have no barrier to entry, being immediately recognisable and playable by its blending of now-common mechanics. Start with a hand of 10 cards, play 1 to your personal tableau (a 4 x 5 grid), pass your hand left. Play 2 rounds. The different card types score differently per its own rule based on its proximity (or not) to the other card types in your tableau, all scoring at end of game once all 20 are placed. It’s up to you what you want to concentrate in but nowhere near all the cards come into play so the cards you want may not come. It’s on you to have a plan but to shift as needed. I don’t mind that in a 15-minute filler and this was easy, enjoyable and will see replay.
Rating: 7
NOW BOARDING (2018): Rank 2380, Rating 7.0
Pick-up and deliver co-op. Each round, passenger cards appear at airports and your aim is to move your airplanes around to pick up each within 3 rounds and get them on their way, earning money for delivering them to their destination. The money allows buying of essential speed and passenger capacity upgrades. You’ll only win if you co-ordinate – you pick up that one, drop them here, I’ll pick them up on my way and get them to the destination. Different routes are also blocked for each player which also forces hand-offs. We found it relatively easy 2p (when each player had only 2 routes blocked) and hard 3p (when each player had 3 routes blocked) which isn’t a bad thing. If cards come out consistently where you are, you’ll do well. If they come out where you were a turn ago things will stink up but it’s kinda fun assessing and coordinating it all as best you can.
Rating: 7
SKY TEAM (2022): Rank 200, Rating 7.9 – Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3ALI1sb
One of the best 2p-only co-ops out there, especially when playing with your son who’s a Qantas pilot. You have 7 rounds to get everything perfect and land the plane. Each round both players secretly roll 4 dice and alternate playing them to the board. Two items need both players each round – the bank angle needs dice as close to each other as possible and the speed is the sum of each dice allocated. Do you need to slow down, speed up or stay steady? Each player has other responsibilities as well that soak up dice – avoiding planes, setting flaps, brakes, etc. It’s a game of leading, guessing, following, knowing what each player has to do and what values might be free – and hoping they’ve got them. It’s fun, challenging, plays in a perfect timeframe, and ramps up its difficulty level beautifully with the different airport challenges. The OG review here
Rating: 8
SKYMINES (2022): Rank 643, Rating 8.0 – Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/3AMgEyl
The same rating and much the same writeup as its original incarnation Mombasa, being that I just don’t prefer share games. It’s a clever card action and recovery system though which gives you a lot to think about and plan for. It’s a good game that doesn’t take stock (ahem) with the traditional convert resources into VPs trope. The main issue though is it took everyone so long to plan and play! There are a few different things in the game to explore which I’d come back for, including trying different card planning approaches, but preferably at a player count lower than 4.
Rating: 7
TRAILBLAZERS (2022): Rank 5926, Rating 6.4
The tiles contain in-and-out loopy type tracks in 3 different colours which are collected 7 Wonders style (but two at a time which helps) and placed in your tableau, your aim being to build the largest possible closed track in each colour while scoring card icons and challenge cards as well. The brain-burny part was being able to overlay tiles, allowing you to fix a problematic section later, tiles willing. The main decision was when to start closing each track when of course you don’t know how helpful your final cards will be in each colour. The game worked and was fine but the brain-burn vs luck dynamic was a little too discordant for me to enjoy it fully.
Rating: 6
YOKAI SEPTET (2023): Rank 18248, Rating 5.6
This is the remake of “7 symbols, and 7 Nations” which was on my wish-list for many years due to plaudits from gamers I trusted (but it was a low-volume run and quickly out-of-print). 7 suits, 7 cards in each suit, aim to win 7’s. Things of note are that each suit has a different number range (so the 7 has a different rank in each suit), the VP value of each 7 differs according to its rank, and the winning/losing condition of winning four of the seven 7’s by the time you win your 7th trick makes game-play interesting. With a 3-card pass prior to the first lead and only 7 cards in each suit, short-suiting is rife though and our main issue is that any given lead could end up any which where. It also only goes 2 or 3 rounds so it falls more into that filler-type trick-taker category whereas I was expecting something with a little more gravity perhaps. It was interesting working it out though.
Rating: 7
Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:
Mark Jackson: I’ve really been enjoying Ancient Knowledge – and I’m really interested to see how they implement a solo mode in the upcoming Heritage expansion. Like Patrick, I’d say four is “right out” (just too slow), while the two player game is excellent and three players is fine IF you have experienced players.
Having never played Mombasa, I came to Skymines fresh. It has similar downtime issues to Ancient Knowledge with four players. I will note that the solo mode is actually quite well done once you get past the odd structure of how it works.
Alan How: Echoing Mark and Patrick’s thought about player count in Ancient Knowledge – 2 is the best player count by far. Sky Team is great fun and gives you that satisfaction of landing the airplane when it happens. I’ve managed the easy ones, but the more difficult landings have eluded me so far. Even so, they’ve been very enjoyable games.
Dale: there is no more fitting Patrick Brennan 7 rating than for Yokai Septet :)
Larry: I haven’t played any of these games (although I’m looking forward to trying out Sky Team), but I have played Mombasa quite a bit, even though it’s been a while since it hit the table. But I’m a big fan of it, despite the fact that, like Patrick, share games aren’t my favorite. But acquiring shares in the companies is just part of the gameplay in Mombasa, which is very much a multi-faceted design. It’s not a particularly short game, but I never felt like it dragged. And my recollection is that it’s best with the full complement of 4 players, as the interaction with your opponents on the map is much more interesting than with fewer players, so that’s the player count I’d recommend. I’d love to get to play it again, either the original game or the reskin of Skymines.
Fraser: I must keep a lookout for Skymines to have a look. Mombasa, or Reg as we like to call it in our house and Patrick may know why, has been a favourite for many a year. It was a gift from our German daughter’s family so even if Skymines was better, it would only be an addition not a replacement.
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About Dale Yu
Dale Yu is the Editor of the Opinionated Gamers. He can occasionally be found working as a volunteer administrator for BoardGameGeek, and he previously wrote for BoardGame News.