First full day of the Con and we dove right in.
1. Treasure Island (7)
Bluffing and Buried treasure. Treasure Island is reminiscent of games like Scotland yard and Letters From White Chapel, but has none of the hidden movement. Instead Long John Silver has buried his treasure. Only Capt Silver (the player playing him) knows where the treasure is, but has to watch, imprisoned by the other players, as they roam the island digging randomly for the gold. Players have unique abilities and are given different clues at the start. Each day, a different pirate player will act on private and public clues until finally on the 15th day Long John Silver escapes and must race the other priates to his treasure.In our game, we were able to use several of the devices available to give clues... there are several different templates that provide map info, along with a large wooden drawing compass. The game really flowed well after the initial rules breakdown and we were really enjoying it when I stumbled onto the treasure on the 6th day.
I cant wait to give this one another shot.
Did it spark joy? Yes. Will I add it to my collection: Sure - for the right price.
2. Gizmos (6)
Another engine building game. In Gizmos, you are trying to build and energy machine that will process, convert and replicate energy for victory points. The goal is to gather energy marbles and use them to purchase components for your machine. These components will eventually allow you to chain actions together into massive chain reactions.I enjoyed Gizmos and would certainly play it again. Like any good engine building game, there are several possible paths and each of us used a different one in our first play. In the long run, I dont think the novelty and limited cards will give this one enough replay-ability.
Did it Spark Joy? Yes
Do I see this entering my collection? No.
3. Fool! (6)
Trick Tacking with uneven suits and a skip token. Fool! should probably not be played with 4 players. Fool plays like any other trick-taking (no-teams) game except the low card in each trick has to sit out the next turn. There is an 8 card, 11 card, 13 card, and 17 card suits, so missing out on a hand isn't always a bad thing. I think with 6, this is probably a better experience. Unfortunately I am a purist when it comes to trick taking, and I really enjoy traditional team game mechanics.Sparked Joy? A little
Adding this to my collection? Maybe.
Break for Lunch at Nudo.
Ramen was had.
Extra broth was consumed.
Strange Donuts followed
4. Cacao (5)
Tile laying to harvest and sell Cacao: The Fruit of the Gods!The game has 2 types of tiles. Player tiles show meeples in different concentrations per side and Game Tiles that depict cacao fields, trading posts, water holes or temples. Players have to play in a strict checker board pattern and will take turns taking advantage of gaps created by previous plays.
While this was different than the recent tile laying games I have played, it doesn't really do anything special or new.
Sparked Joy? No
Adding this to my collection? No.
5. Skull Island (5)
Trick
Tacking similar to Oh Hell. Skull King features a set up similar to Spades, with the addition of escape cards that let you play off without losing power, and super trumps. There is a lack of teams, a simultaneous bid calling and a convoluted scale of super trumps; pirates that beat everything including a mermaid, a Skull King that beats everything but a Mermaid, and a Mermaid that only trumps everything if the Skull King is involved. All of this combined with a scaling hand count (1-10) results in a lot of randomness that makes normal rank and file cards useless and the trick-taking is insufferable at best. In our play, I was so irritated at the early 2-3 card hands and an inability to know what cards are involved that I didn't care when the hand counts were larger and played more like a traditional trick takers. One major flaw is that there is no way to comeback from a poor score since there no teamates to cover you, being down results in bigger risks and losses. Kristin and I, leaders in the last round, both called nill and were able to play off all cards without much difficulty.Sparked Joy? Not even a little.
Adding this to my collection? Never
6. Pantone (8)
Pantone is an art game where, on your turn, you have to create a piece of art out of pantone color swatches, that represents the character on your clue card. The characters range from simple cartoon characters like Bart Simpson to super heros like The Hulk, or well know public figures like Barack Obama or Prince. We love this game. Both the challenge of creating some of the characters and the difficulty of guessing on such abstract images crates an experience that you cant wait to capture for social media.Sparked Joy? Yes
Adding this to my collection? Likely.
Below: Prince / Mickey Mouse / Donald Trump
7. Just One (8)
This is a great Party Game where one player takes a card and presents it to the other players without lookingat it and nominates one of the 5 words. Those players now have to write down a single word clue. Once all players have their words, they compare them and remove any duplicates. Now they present the remaining clues to the player with the list and he/she has a single guess or pass. The team that passes the least will do the best.The game rewards creative flexibility and the resulting groupings of clues can be quite interesting. It also forces you to look beyond your initial thought and search for something else that will make sense but not lead your team off the answer.
Sparked Joy? Yes
Adding this to my collection? Likely.
8. Decrypto (9)
Players compete in two teams in Decrypto, with
each trying to correctly interpret the coded messages presented to them
by their teammates while cracking the codes they intercept from the
opposing team. We started a little slow in our first round, but as the rounds passed the drive to give perfectly disruptive clues really enhanced the competition. Intuition builds as you play this game and your own codes get better as you are forced to look for the logic in your opponents clues. A great game for 6-10.
Sparked Joy? Yes
Adding this to my collection? Likely.
To the right: Code Breakers: Cornelia, Ryan and Chris; Breaking codes and hearts.
9. Spikey Dastards (6)
An evil dexterity game with painful spikey pieces. We played a quick game of this with Matt and Cornelia, but you should check out my full review of this delightful game in the next entry that details the Saturday night game of this played full contact and drunk.Sparked Joy? No?
Adding this to my collection? Already own.
10. Knapp Daneben (6)
A German Roll & Write Dice game. We were really looking to play Ganz Schon Clever, but could only find this one. Players own one of the colord dice and when each player rolls the dice, they may use that color and one other to record the sum of those dice in different boxes. Playing either hard to roll numbers like 2 or 12 or keeping numbers within one of their neighbors will score the most points. Great filler and saying the name in broken German to annoy Scott Reed mad it even more fun.Sparked Joy? Yes
Adding this to my collection? Maybe
Chris, Scott, Alicia and I start drinking...
11. Deadpool vs. The World (7)
Imagine a combination bewtween Cards Against Humanity and Say Anything. Players are given a hand of Deadpool Caption cards that have a phrase with a blank and a place to fill in the blank and maybe do a small vulgar drawing. Another player flips a WTF card that reveals a cartoon of Deadpool and players compete to fill out cards and be selected as the funniest or most appropriate (read that as "not appropriate at all") cards. This is great late night fun and we covered the range of answers from Deadpool movie appropriate to completely vulgar (image and text)Sparked Joy? Yes
Adding this to my collection? Already own.
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