I Need This Board Game...

A classic and well-balanced game like Puerto Rico does not need expansions. Then I found out there were two mini-expansions and these were included with the deluxe version of the game, so why not try them out? Expansion I - New Buildings This expansion adds 12 small violet buildings and 2 large violet buildings to the game that can be used in place of the original buildings. To select which ones to use, these are combined with the buildings from the base game and drafted until 12 small and 5 large buildings have been selected. Once selected, the game is played without any other changes. The new buildings changes the strategy of the game in small but interesting ways. For examples, Aqueducts boost the relatively weaker indigo and sugar goods. The Black Market is also an interesting building that provides help with building by sacrificing colonists, goods, and/or victory points. Churches provide a victory point boost when building. For other ways of earning doubloons, the Lighthous...

For a brief recap of how I came up with my list, refer back to my previous post: 2018 Top 100 Games of All-Time - #100-91 Here we go with #20-11! Now we're into 2019 so I'll try to wrap up this last 20 quickly so I can move onto all that has happened in this last year! #20 - Steam The best train game I have played so far by a longshot. There are so many mechanisms at play - network building, pick-up and deliver, bidding -it all adds up to one satisfying experience. With now five map expansions available, there is plenty of content to work with. #19 - Caverna: The Cave Farmers With significantly less plays than Agricola and more interest in the other, more different Uwe Rosenberg games, this one has fallen a bit. Still, the gameplay is solid and I see why the wealth of choices this game presents is appealing. Players aren't tied down to any one strategy and going on expeditions is a lot of fun. #18 - Castles of Mad King Ludwig This game has fallen...

# of Players:  2-4 Playtime: 1-2 Hours Core Mechanic: Action Selection Theme:  Planting Type: Euro Weight:  Medium Year:  2017 Rating: 8* Towards the end of 2017, everyone was raving about this gorgeous and well-themed abstract game. It also looked light enough to be a gateway game but with some depth, which I am always on the lookout for. This was also the year for Azul and Sagrada, so a banner year for gateway abstracts. Could the table presence of Photosynthesis propel it to the top? Each player is a different species of trees trying to gain dominance in the forest. Each round, players will take turns collecting light points from the trees they have (Photosynthesis Phase) and taking actions using these light points (Life Cycle Phase). Play is centered around a board where the trees will grow and a rotating sun that will shine light on different parts of this forest. The game continues until the sun has made three revolutions around th...

Engine-building is an amazing feeling in board games. To see all your careful planning pay off as you are able to take better or more efficient moves or obtain more goods towards the end of the game is very rewarding. Engine-building is generally never the lone mechanism in a game, I'm not even sure if it qualifies as an actual mechanism, but most of my favorite games have this feature where you start of taking small moves, building an "engine" that over the game allows you to do more with the same move or sets off a chain reaction  that allows you to do multiple things efficiently, one after the other. The more I think of it, maybe this is not a mechanic after all since it isn't even listed on BoardGameGeek as one, but it is more of a feeling I get when I play games, and here are some of the games that evoke that feeling the best. The first game I played that really captured the feeling for me was Le Havre . A big component of this game was shipping goods in exchan...

It's been awhile since I last did any collection updates, so let's get started again since I have done many reviews since the last one. As more games get reviewed, it's possible that games will slip off with each update as they get replaced with others or get added or deleted post-review if I have a sudden change of heart on the game. But first, a new one as I realized I have not summarized the Gateway collection before. Just a reminder, I will also be providing rounded pricing in CAD and USD for reference from BoardGameBliss and Cool Stuff Inc., respectively. If a price is in Italics , that means I was not able to find a price and I am just using the CAD or USD price as a placeholder. I think eventually I'll be taking into consideration price and the overall value of a collection but not at this time. The Gateway Collection - 10 Games ($390 CAD/$330 USD) Action Selection: Takenoko ($50 CAD/45 USD) Network Building: Ticket to Ride ($60 CAD/$45 USD) ...

Due to the holidays, I ended up being too busy to post this before the end of the year. I decided to just skip the December update and use this for January, which gives me a bit more time to find things for February now. Anyway, onto the new stuff! Smash City This new game looks like a hybrid between a dexterity game and King of Tokyo, which seems like a perfect combination. Hopefully the game is as fun as it looks! Franchise A re-implementation of a game I never heard of, Medieval Merchant, based on looks alone it feels like a cross between Food Chain Magnate and Power Grid, which are two great games to be compared to. Yokohama Duel Yokohama is one of the highest ranked games on my list of games I want to play, so I am just as excited about this two-player version which possibly could hit the table before the original. Terra Mystica: Age of Innovation A big expansion to my #1 ranked game is an instant purchase for me. I can't wait to see what it adds. That s...