Welcome back for another rundown of games played by the DWP crew and beyond!

Shifting a bit from our recent trend of looking at the most-played games logged on BoardGameGeek on a week to week basis, we’ll start looking at statistics from the previous month instead. For this week, let’s take a peek at the most played expansions from August 2020!

1. Wingspan: European Expansion (699 plays)
2. Terraforming Mars: Prelude (462 plays)
3. Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm (295 plays)
4. Terraforming Mars: Hellas & Elysium (280 plays)
5. Spirit Island: Jagged Earth (263 plays)
6. Viticulture: Tuscany Essential Edition (252 plays)
7. Terraforming Mars: Colonies (239 plays)
8. 7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon (234 plays)
9. Scythe: The Rise of Fenris (227 plays)
10. Terraforming Mars: Venus Next (225 plays)

Terraforming Mars is the gift that keeps on giving to Stronghold Games, as well as its fans, of course. What an interesting glimpse into the fandom of some of BGG’s most popular games!

Now let’s take a glimpse at the tables and screens of our lovely Daily Worker Placement meeps…

Billy C:

I have gotten to play Tekhenu: Obelisk of the Sun three times since picking up my copy late last week. From Danielle Tascini and David Turczi, I had high hopes for this game. The two have worked on some games that I absolutely love, and the reviews for Tekhenu seemed positive. I have not been disappointed. The game has all the wonderful decision-making of a 90 minute Euro, many paths to victory, and it finishes before you want to, making sure it never overstays its welcome. It is a dice drafting game where you are selecting dice from a central pool. All the dice are attributed to a specific action, but also are either “pure” or “tainted”. At the end of every four dice, you want to make sure you have achieved a balance between the tainted dice and the pure dice you have drafted. The amount of things you need to consider when drafting a die can be overwhelming, but it is really lovely. Our third game only took us 59 minutes at two players, and for the crunch that this game offers, that is really fast!

Steve T:

I introduced a couple of my people to the co-operative card game Cahoots from Gamewright. It plays like a mash up of Uno and The Game, and has a bright, bold colour scheme that makes it appealing to casual gamers. It makes a great introduction to co-ops.

David W:

Played Mariposas, and enjoyed it very much. There are three seasons with short scoring in between. Four rounds in Spring, five in Summer, six in Fall. It’s a race to move and breed. You need to move north and spread out not only to score between seasons but also to pick up Life Cycle cards which can hand you pretty massive bonuses if you collect matching sets. But then you want to get at least a few 4G butterflies back down south for juicy endgame points. The mechanisms of movement, breeding, and scoring are handled deftly and thematically, and the artwork and graphic design are top-notch (aside from two flower types which are a bit too easy to confuse with each other in my opinion). I have to say I think it’s a better, more original, and more interesting game than Wingspan–not to mention easier to learn and teach in my opinion. But will it sell as much as Wingspan did? Time will tell. In the meantime, Hargrave has definitely proven she is a designer to watch.

Nicole H:

I played Downforce on BGA and it was terrific! The implementation is super well-done and as it’s an official digital port, looks fantastic with high quality visual assets. It’s a fave game of mine and it’s terrific to have another group game to go to online.

Jon-Paul D:

I recently rekindled my love for Dungeon Fighter, which is possibly the most ridiculous dexterity game I’ve ever encountered. While waltzing through the familiar tropes of dungeon crawling, players must defeat a parade of monsters and minions by literally throwing dice at a bone-garnished bullseye. The game demands an endless assortment of trick shots, which include everything from dancing a jig to making a throw with your back turned to the table. It’s pure insanity, and makes me happy in a way that many other games simply cannot. Horrible Guild is Kickstarting a new edition of the game later this month – if you don’t mind your games being goofy to the extreme, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on!

Kimberly T:

I got to Zoom with my friends that I usually meet up with at Board Game Geek Convention and we played Pricetitution. The thing that made that game perfect for our Zoom session was that we talked in between questions and it allowed us to catch up while having lots and lots of laughs. I had a great time and can’t wait for our next Zoom Gamesapalooza!

Sean J:

I got to try out a new game I had had my eye one, Project L. The production is super pretty and the game is really simple and addictive. You get three actions on your turn to gain puzzles or Level one pieces. You can also upgrade and place your pieces to complete the puzzles you’re working on. Completing puzzles earns you a new piece and maybe some points. I had great success playing this with my family, and we ended up playing about five times over the weekend. An instant new favourite with that crew!

Thank you for joining us for this walk down last week’s memory lane. We’ll be back with more play reports in a week, but in the meantime, check out some of our other fantastic content, including David W’s 6 Great New Deckbuilders article!