I had the absolute privilege to go to Spiel and play a lot of games there. Gamers.Online asked me to look at games that would be interesting for the platform, so that was great. I also got to have some matches with people around me through Gamers Online, which was great. And overall I think this was just a great month of playing a lot of games and discovering more games.
SETI
This space exploration and alien discovery game is one I played solo. I wrote a comprehensive review about it as well. It’s an excellent game with truly versatile multi-use cards that offer numerous strategic options and different paths to victory. The solo is also great. You start with four action cards for the solo, so it’s easy to start, but it becomes stronger as you play, so it presents a real challenge. So I highly recommend SETI.
Frosthaven
Through Gamers.Online, I joined a three-player campaign of Frosthaven. While I don’t own the game personally, we’ve completed scenarios zero and one, thoroughly enjoying this dungeon crawler experience. If you’re familiar with Gloomhaven, you’ll know what to expect. We haven’t done any outpost phases yet, so we don’t know how it will be different, but for now we’re having a lot of fun.
Evolution: Climate
Evolution is one of my longest-owned games, predating my serious entry into the hobby. While it remains enjoyable, it’s beginning to show its limitations. You build up your species and you try to be the best species there is. Usually, I build one with a long neck and cooperation so you can keep getting food and because the game is what it is, there’s not that much diversity in strategies that you can do. There’s not really different roads to go down per se, at least not when you want to win. So for me, it’s a fun game and I want to play it if you suggest it to me, but it’s definitely not something that I would suggest myself.
Agent Avenue
This spy-themed “I pick, you choose” game features agents moving along a circular path, attempting to catch one another. The core mechanic involves strategic movement while trying to force opponents to take cards that hinder their progress or even move them backward. It’s a fun little game I enjoyed it but it’s not something I would get for myself.
Skytear Horde
And then we have Skytear Horde, which is a castle defense game. You try to defend your castle from the bad guys, and you can play this different ways, but I always play this solo. I heard great things on the solo Reddit, so I thought, well, why not try it? And it’s actually a great game. The cards work really well. The card system is elegant and intuitive, with impressive scalability in difficulty levels. What truly stands out is its accessibility combined with strategic depth. This hidden gem deserves more recognition, and I highly recommend it.
Tea Garden
Though not part of my collection, I had the pleasure of playing this tea empire-building game through a friend. You expand your tea gardens, harvest leaves, process them, and utilize them for actions. The thing that I like the most about the game is that when you start you don’t have a lot of options. You have a few cards and they only have maybe one symbol on them. But as you go through the game, you get more cards and they have multiple symbols on them. So you can start to do different things. And when you do that you can also do something else and you start to really chain those actions to each other. And it becomes really interesting how you play. So for me that was really interesting and it really made the game feel unique and special. And I would definitely play it again.
Quests Over Coffee
While this game isn’t entirely new to me – I previously owned the print-and-play version – I recently received the official release as part of the solo game of the month. It comes in a VHS box, which is interesting. As a 10-minute coffee break game, it delivers exactly what it promises. And I only have good things to say about it. It’s not complex. There are not a lot of strategies. The dice bring in a lot of randomness but for what it is, eight minutes of fun while you drink your cup of coffee. It’s just great and it has such lovely illustrations and the jokes are fun actually. So yeah, this is just a great game.
Pandemic Rising Tide
We tried this Netherlands-themed Pandemic variant at the board game club. Somebody brought it along and wanted to play it. You play in the Netherlands, so that’s fun as a Dutchie myself. But overall, I’m not that convinced. I don’t think it adds anything. We also didn’t really have a good game. Our group didn’t really get in sync. Which sometimes can happen with cooperative games. That’s a little bit tricky sometimes. But as someone who owns World of Warcraft Pandemic, I own Star Wars Pandemic, Pandemic Legacy, I like all of those and I would prefer all of those above Rising Tide.
Games Played at Spiel
Avatar: Aang’s Destiny
Despite my limited Avatar knowledge and previous experience with the similar Harry Potter deck-builder, this game pleasantly surprised me. It’s a pretty simple deck building game but the way they do it in this new iteration is that you also have a story deck that you go through which makes it more exciting and makes it feel more like truly you’re going through the story. I really enjoyed it. It’s just a good game with a fun theme. The clean, attractive design and various mechanical improvements make this more than just a themed reskin. Overall, it’s an excellent game that successfully builds upon its predecessors.
Astro Knights
We also played Astro Knights. I own Aeon’s End. So I already knew the system. I was curious to try this streamlined adaptation. While Astro Knights maintains the core system, it offers a more accessible entry point with streamlined mechanics. I am not convinced that I like the graphic design of Astro Knights better. But I’m also used to Aeon’s End, so that might be a thing in that as well. But overall, the experience we had playing with four players and we played at Spiel, so it was quite noisy. And we still had a ton of fun and I can always recommend Aeon’s End. And now I would also really recommend Astro Knights if you want to get into the system. I think this is a great place to start.
Stickers
This unique hybrid of party game and legacy system left us with mixed feelings. The main goal of the game was to build up your sticker album. And throughout the game there were ways to make certain collections more valuable or less valuable. That was fun. And we kind of had a lot of fun screwing each other over and doing the take that things. So that was just a simple party game, yes. But then there were also legacy elements, and you go through those, and it felt like unnecessary bits, unnecessary extras, to call it a legacy game. And so we weren’t convinced about that.
Valkyries
This dry-erase marker game involves marking off monsters in specific patterns using cards to complete objectives and score points. It was a quick and fun game. I don’t feel like it adds anything that is interesting and new and it didn’t convince me that this is a game that I need in my collection but it is something that I would play if someone offered it to me.
Games on Board Game Arena
Harmonies
I play a lot of Harmonies on Board Game Arena these days especially if I have 15 minutes or something and I want to play quick and fun. I play this in real time and it’s such a great game and I always have fun building my little environments. What I am noticing now that I’m playing it so much is that the cards that you get and the tiles that you get do determine a lot. If you could have actually any chance of getting what you need. So sometimes I feel like I just don’t get any chance to accomplish anything that would get me points and that feels a little bit unfair and unbalanced sometimes. But overall, I’m still enjoying it. It’s a short game. It’s a beautiful game. So what’s not to like?
Under Grove
Then we have Under Grove. So I bought Under Grove after Spiel. I saw it at Spiel and I was impressed by how it looked. But we have to be careful with our finances sometimes. So I bought it afterwards, and I’m really looking forward to playing this one solo and trying to get it on my table. But I’m also playing on Board Game Arena now just to get the hang of the system. And I enjoy it when there’s a tutorial on BGA that explains everything to me, and then I play one or two games that way.
Though usually online is not the ideal way to play for me. I like the physical aspect of playing games, but in this case it gets me to learn the game and that gets me to get it to the table that much quicker. So I don’t really have opinions about it yet. I want to save those for when I actually have it on my table, but for now I am enjoying my plays.
Lost Ruins of Arnak
This recurring favourite continues to excel on Board Game Arena. The digital implementation perfectly captures the game’s blend of strategic depth and accessibility. Its intuitive rule set makes it particularly suitable for digital play, maintaining engagement between sessions. I’ve already said a lot about it. So I feel like I don’t need to anymore. If you have any questions let me know, but this is just, it’s a great game.
Distilled
Then I played Distilled on Board Game Arena. I was really interested in this game but it’s not something that is widely available and it’s not easily available, especially not if, like me, you want to try and buy games second hand. I looked up a few YouTube videos and interested. It looks great.
I played it on BGA and it kind of fell flat for me there. I’m not saying it’s not a good game or that I won’t enjoy it, because like I said, I do enjoy physical games more. But it just felt kind of like it was on rails. It was buy an ingredient, make a recipe, you only have one or two choices, make it, score some points and then back to buying an ingredient. And if that’s the whole game, that’s not something I want but I think there’s more to it. It just didn’t pan out on Board Game Arena.
