The Board games we played this week (not ALL on BGA! 😱 🤯 )

Hi again gaming friends!

This week, I wasn't able to make the online gaming meeting on zoom as I had an appointment to be at - however, I was able to still play turn based, AND I was able to play some games IRL (In real life) with my OH - it was a good week for gaming :)

So the first game we played on BGA (Board Game Arena) this week was:

Go Goa

I really like this game.  It's one that we had all played before and it's another roll and write - and similar to "61 autumn leaves" I described last week - you roll 3 dice.  But in this game, you choose one for "direction of travel", one for the "distance of travel" and the one left over is used to decide how many "deviations" you can make

Ok, so the aim of the game is to choose appropriately difficult "tour routes" (each tour route consists of 3 locations you have to visit) and then attempt to visit all 6 of the locations using your dice rolls as efficiently as possible. 

There are extra bonus points for visiting sets of "types of locations" and some for visiting the locations furthest away from the start tile.  

In addition, you can also pick up "tour guides" from the beaches which enable you to adjust your dice roll.

The final "twist" is that whilst everyone gets a turn at rolling the dice and everyone plays those dice on every turn, only on your own turn can you choose from all three dice.  When it is someone else's turn, they choose their direction dice first and it is not possible for you to choose that dice for your direction.  This makes it tactically useful as not only do you get an advantage on your turn, but you can also stop your opponents from heading in the direction they want.

You get 12 rounds (that's one turn for everyone playing x 12) to complete your goals - if you manage to visit all the locations on your "tour route" you can use your remaining turns to try to gain the bonuses.

Sadly, similar to the autumn leaves game, I've not been able to find this game in shops 😫 - if anyone knows how to get hold of it, do get in touch

The second game I played this week was IRL and was:

Splendor

Another game I like a lot and actually it is available on Board Game Arena (linked above)

The aim of the game is to get to 15 points quicker than your opponents.  I lost at least 2 games of this to my OH - as they rarely play board games I was a little miffed! I think I need a new strategy!

This is a very popular and well known game (and in fact, we sell upgraded versions of the "jewel tokens"), and relies on "card drafting" or "deck building" as its mechanism. 

Each turn you collect the jewel tokens you need in order to buy cards (you can only take one action on each turn).  These cards (openly visible to all on the board and consisting of 3 "levels") give you "permanent" jewels (which you can then use in future trades in place of the "temporary" jewel tokens - you don't "lose" them when you spend them).

Some cards also give you victory points - the higher the "level" of the card, the more likely it is to give you points.

You can "reserve" cards if you don't quite have the necessary amount of jewels to buy them and you're worried that perhaps your opponent is about to take that card - but you can only have a certain amount of reserved cards.

There are also bonus cards - dignitaries (I think that's what they're called) will come and join your hand (and score you points) if you achieve their required amounts of permanent jewels (usually 3-4 of 2-3 different colors).

So yes - I think perhaps if I practice more on BGA, I might be able to beat my OH!

The third game I played this week is a game I had never heard of before - we came across it on a youtube video and it's called:

The L Game

We actually made ourselves a set of pieces and a board for this using our laser cutter (keep your eyes peeled for a limited number of these being available in our store later in the year).

The game is extremely simple, but really fiendish and YET AGAIN I have yet to win more than 1 game of this in the maybe 20 or so games I have played with my OH (I hope this isn't giving the wrong impression of my skills lol!) - I don't think I'm strategic enough...or maybe I just like to have fun and don't really care about winning....? That's what I tell myself anyway! 🤭

Anyway, the game was created by Edward de Bono (the famous physician and psychologist) and is supposed to teach you about strategy and being able to think several steps ahead.  

Both you and your partner (it's only a 2 player game) are in control of an L-shaped piece and have joint control over 2 "floater" pieces.  Each turn you have to move your L-piece so that it is at least 1 square different from it's previous position AND you have to move one of the floater pieces - either one, it doesn't matter.   The aim of the game is to get your pieces in to a position so that your opponent cannot make a legal next move.  Sounds easy (and it technically is) but very hard to win (in my experience!)

I actually tried to create a winning position on my own so that I could take a photo of it and I can't do it!! LOL - maybe check out the video (linked above in the title) or give it a try yourself with pieces of paper/card or you can try your hand here online

OK - so that's it for this week - thanks for joining me - I look forward to another week of board gaming :)

Happy Gaming everyone!