Gaming Goals for 2023 – Dusting Off Old Games pt. 1

Gaming Goal – Replay 10+ Board Games that I haven’t played for 2+ years

I’ve got a lot of board games and card games.

During the lockdown I did an inventory of those currently on my shelf so the count didn’t include ones currently on loan or visiting other gaming tables at the time. There was a lot. And sadly, a bunch of them haven’t returned to my table in far too long so I resolved I was going to make an effort to bring some of them back and decide if they ought to keep taking up space that could be going to new games.

Not all these games were from my shelf, but they helped my fellow gamers get their old games back into play and I do enjoy them. Some games require the right mix of personalities and gaming styles to be enjoyable, but that’s a rant for another time.

• Happy Little Dinosaurs
  Would play again
  I would call this an entertaining game with some pretty simple but swingy mechanics. Avoid disaster cards, play cards to gain points, and be the last dinosaur standing. It’s got a quick play time so being eliminated isn’t a horrible thing. I was gifted with the 5-6 Player expansion and picked up another expansion pack for more disasters.

• Puerto Rico
  Would play again
  It’s a classic game from 2002 that has some mechanics that have become pretty common since. Each round you get to draft a role with a special ability, usually making something easier to do or gaining a bonus piece. You manage your resources of trade goods and coins to gain victory points. It’s had a deluxe anniversary edition and word is that there will be another edition released soon that will address the context of historical European colonization of the period that this game takes place.

• Small World
  Would play again
  Play a kingdom of a random pairing of fantasy race and a trait, grab as much land and victory points as you can before their fall before other kingdoms or even your own new kingdom on the rise. The game ends at a set number of rounds, most victory points wins. I like that is has variety due to the random pairing, though some are more powerful or much weaker than others and some require some very cunning strategy and luck at dice rolls to succeed, and if you’ve got a loser combo then there is another one to replace it soon enough. I’m also a fan of games with an end game after a set number of turns so it doesn’t descend into a forever grind for a win ala Risk. It’s got nice chunky cardboard pieces and the colors are pretty easy to identify.

• Pandemic – Fall of Rome
  Would play again
  Not my favourite of the Pandemic games, but it’s a good demonstration of how it could be jigged for different objectives. In this case, it is barbarian tribes that represent the growing threat on the march to sack Rome. Instead of finding a ‘cure’ like classic Pandemic, you make a treaty with the five different tribes which means you can recruit them as legionnaires to protect cities from barbarians (which can include the same tribe these legionnaires were recruited from, legionnaires are a different kind of piece from the barbarian cubes so there’s no worry about mixing them up). I’m a fan of how Pandemic has tried out different twists through their historical series and once I got the hang of the twist in this one, I enjoyed playing it.

• Terraforming Mars
  Would play again
  This game won a fair bit of buzz and awards when it came out. It’s had a few expansions, including a Terraforming Venus. It’s a game where players must work together to succeed even as they compete for victory points. For example, some cards can only be used when the surface temperature has reached a certain point. There’s a lot going on in gathering all the effects of the cards you play and build, but that’s some of the fun for a micromanaging gamer like myself. Not a short game, but a good crunchy game that needs to be played as least twice, once to experience how the pieces work together. Even then, the spread of what random cards come up make for a different experience on the replay.

Continued in pt. 2 …

Inspired by the excellent podcast, “Into the Meepleverse” and their discussion of gaming resolutions for the year, I decided to make some resolutions of my own including trying to play at least ten boardgames new to me.