Welcome back for another rundown of the games our DWPeeps have been playing, along with quick thoughts and impressions on those glittery boxes of golden goodness. If you’d like to share your own gaming experiences with us, please reply to our “What Have We Been Playing” posts on your favourite social media platform.

Now let’s see what we’ve all been playing!

JON-PAUL D:

We’ve been cozily isolated from most of the covid chaos here in Canada’s Atlantic Bubble, but cases have risen in recent weeks, so we’re now living with a new wave of restrictions. Of course, that means a return to Board Game Arena, where they are rolling out a new game every single day in December! My favourite so far might be Thurn und Taxis, the exceedingly beige game about establishing the German postal system. In today’s tabletop gaming environment, it’s difficult to imagine a game mostly devoid of colour winning the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award, but in 2006 that’s exactly what happened! It’s a bit of a step up in complexity from Ticket to Ride, and also lacks the overt option to ruin someone’s game by blocking a critical route. The BGA implementation actually aids in seeing what other players are up to, which really helps to focus player choices. Over the years I’ve played this great game about a dozen times, and I’m so glad to be able to return to it through the magic of BGA!

MATTHEW R: 

For obvious reasons an annual Christmas party was moved to Zoom this year. At previous iterations of this party games were played, but I did not expect anything this year. One of the partygoers suggested we try Skribbl, an online Pictionary-like game. As an awful drawer I’ve never been a Pictionary fan, but Skribbl was enjoyable and I found using a mouse to draw was much easier than my hands.

NICOLE H:

I played Red Cathedral which was a really great mid-weight Euro about gathering resources to build up parts of a cathedral! Again, an online platform means slowed down gameplay but it was well worth trying. I’d love to see this on BGA with some automation to speed things up a bit.

JON-PAUL D:

In addition to lots of BGA treats in my gaming diet, I did manage to get some games played at an actual table over the last week, the highlight of which might have been revisiting Dwar7s Winter from Vesuvius Media. In this colourful cooperative tower defense game, swarms of baddies are crashing through the gates and trying to smash our winter fortress, and our dwarf squads must dash out in various directions to stop them from ruining Christmas. Although it is cooperative, players will score points for each hurdle they personally overcome, and if the players all manage to survive the seven weeks of winter, whichever player has collected the most points will be celebrated as the most heroic of all the dwarven families! The prequel to this game (Dwar7s Fall) was recently picked up by IELLO, and I’m hopeful that Winter also sees a wider distribution, because it is a truly fantastic game worthy of a brighter spotlight!

Thank you for joining us for another week of play reports from our amazing DWP columnists. Speaking of amazing, be sure to check out Nicole’s review of KTBG’s Creature Comforts. The Kickstarter campaign for this title ends in just a few hours, so don’t delay in getting the skinny on this robust family game!