Guess who’s back – back again! It’s the crack team of DWP writers with another roundup of mini gameplay reports from the past week. Let’s jump right into the gameplay pool … cannonball!!

KIMBERLY T:

This week, I played Trails of Tucana, Medici: the Dice Game, and Beyond the Sun. Trails of Tucana and Medici are both roll/flip and writes and I prefer the choices and complexity of Tucana over Medici. Also, in Trails of Tucana, you have two maps to pick from that equate to shorter/longer game. Beyond the Sun is an in-depth exploration and research development game where players must manage their resource production, worker generation, planet conquering, and technology investments to come out on top. There’s some healthy competition with shared space and I like how it worked my brain!

JON-PAUL D:

My favourite birthday tradition has become committing an entire day to gaming with friends, which was a much smaller affair this year, with just two friends joining me for the bulk of the day. Two gaming highlights of the day were Triassic Terror and The Artemis Project. The former is a dino-themed area control game from 2013, in which players routinely spread out their low level dino clans, only to have a Pterodactyl swoop by and gobble up half of your squad! It’s hilarious and nasty, and has handfuls of both plastic and wooden dinosaurs, which is pretty darn cool. I first played Artemis Project in January, and instantly fell in love. Despite my best intentions, I hadn’t gotten around to revisiting this brilliant dice placement game until last week, and I’m so glad I did. Grand Gamers Guild hit a homerun with the game’s production, and the play experience is solid with just the right amount of interaction between players.

STEVE T:

I learned two new to me games this weekend, Parks, by Henry Audubon and Keymaster Games, and New York Zoo by Uwe Rosenberg (published by Super Meeple). Parks is absolutely beautiful, but felt long for what it was. Two players really enjoyed it, but one fell behind early and felt that there was nothing they could do to catch up. New York Zoo is a mash-up of Patchwork and Zooloretto. It doesn’t do anything new, but it’s fun and has tonnes of cute animeeples. Like Rosenberg’s other polyomino-based games, it is a spatial reasoning puzzle with a layer of game added on top.

NICOLE H:

I’ve played Haiclue on BGA with a couple of different groups of folks, and it’s been pretty interesting! It has definite DNA of Codenames and Word Slam. If you’re looking for a fun word game for a larger group give it a try.

DAVID W:

I’ve played a couple of solo games of Viscounts of the West Kingdom, the newest in the series. It’s a little…too too much for me, reminds me of Board&Dice’s “T” series (Trismegistus, Teothuacan, etc.) in the sense of being too many mechanics mashed together to be really cohesive. I still think Paladins is the best game of the series, it hits the sweet spot in that respect. All that being said, I’m looking forward to trying the Tomesaga–both the competitive trilogy and the individual co-op games. The whole series is quite an achievement for Macdonald and Phillips.

Thank you for joining us on another trip down our gaming memory lane! If you’re struggling to keep your own memory lane properly paved and maintained, perhaps you might consider taking a peek at Billy C’s 5 Alternatives to Hosting a Game Night. It’s an excellent read with some great ideas to stay invested in the hobby!