In the iconic words of WWE’s Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods and Big E, “it’s a new day, yes it is!” Sometimes the feeling of a page turning is filled with nostalgia and sadness, but this one feels like a long exhale followed by a breath of fresh air.

Speaking of long-winded blowhards … no no no, that’s not us! We’d rather be called economic wordsmiths. What games have we been playing? Let’s find out!

SEAN J:

I got to have a fun afternoon of Unmatched the other day. We played several rounds allowing us to try out a number of different characters (which is a lot of the fun of the game). Bigfoot predictably took down Sherlock Holmes, Dracula took a bite out of Dr Jekyll, and in an epic 3-way battle between Dracula, Medusa, and Bruce Lee… the little dragon came out victorious. It’s always fun to see the ways different fighters match up together.

DAVID W:

Received and played my KS copies of GPS, Mountain Goat, and Sequoia from BoardGameTables.com. They’re all 20-minute filler games. The first two are re-themes of Finito! and Level X respectively, and the third is a hybrid of Can’t Stop and Las Vegas. Great components, short rules, and lots of fun. My mom loves Mountain Goats and wants to play it every day!

KIMBERLY T:

I played Valley of the Kings, a suggestion from one of my subscribers at my YouTube Channel, Tabletop Tolson. He said it was a favorite deck builder of his and I’d never heard of it. We snagged a premium edition of it and after playing the first suggested scenario/card combinations, I know there’s a lot in store for future plays. The cards have lovely card sleeves and the artwork is great. Also, the way the turns work is interesting: what you draw can either be played into your tomb as victory points (one card max), as the action in the center, or as money to buy even better cards. There are so many combinations and ways to manipulate the draw area (shaped as a pyramid!) and to interact with your fellow players. Super fun!

STEVE T:

Played Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps with David & Scott. We played it on Tabletop Simulator, which is a terrible piece of software, with the least intuitive interface I’ve ever experienced, but the GAME was fun.

I also played Sonora, which combines two game mechanics I am fond of: crokinole-style flicking, and roll & write. It is a “flick & fill” game from Pandasaurus that suffers from that company’s seemingly core mandate of “how can we make this game more complicated?” I enjoyed it, but it definitely felt more complex than a game of this type should be.

JON-PAUL D:

I started University classes last week (for the first time in 20ish years!), and as such, not a whole lot of gaming took place. One game I did get to play, though, was Boomerang: Europe. It’s a draft-and-write game, as players seek to visit many European locations. Bonus points are scored if a player is the first to visit every location in a region, or if they visit at least one location in every region. My favourite part of the game was probably the “experiences”, where points are earned by taking in art, tasting fancy foods, or maybe even enjoying some live music! It’s this part of the game that feels most like being a tourist.

While I wasn’t a fan of the low player interaction (aside from the actual card drafting), I think the Boomerang series is an interesting and worthy entry into the crowded (blank) and write genre. The real question, though, is whether to play with or without the UK cards!

MATTHEW R:

I got play the first mission of Star Wars Unlock, which was in my games I want to play in 2021 list, and I loved it. I had soured on Unlock game a bit recently, but this is the best one yet. Thematically its awesome, and knowing the movies did help us figure out things a bit faster. This mission was based on the Battle of Hoth from Empire Strikes Back. I can’t wait to get to the other two missions and hope they make more Star Wars Unlock series.

BILLY C:

I finally got my hands on my copy of PARKS that I bought almost a full year ago. I guess I preordered between the print runs, and I was wondering if it was ever going to show up. PARKS is a game that just makes me happy. It is easy to understand, building on the key mechanic that I first saw in 2012’s Tokaido. Tokaido first enthralled me but I soon found that the system it was built on didn’t have enough choice in it to keep my interest across multiple plays. PARKS takes that system and turns it into a cascade of interesting choices. I can’t wait to play it again and again and again.

Thank you for joining us for another round of DWP play reports!