2/8/2023 – Berkshire Gamers Session Report #23-06
- by BerkshireGamers
- 199
7 at Purple Dragon Games on February 8 for The Birds and the Bees
Song Birds (led by Sean) 2016 Japanese card game game about birds trying to achieve dominance in the forest. Each bird is a different colour in the game.
Players are forest spirits, trying to secretly guide their chosen bird to success. The cards are numbered 1 to 7 in red, blue, green and white. The players lay a card from their hand to a 5×5 grid after nut tokens (points) are laid out for each row and column.
When the grid is full of cards, the rows and columns are checked. The colour with the highest total in a line takes the nut token for that bird. Colours with tied totals are ignored, so a low value card can win the nut token for that bird.
When the nuts are totalled up for the birds, the players reveal their final hand card. That card is the bird they favoured (so more than one player might be helping the same bird ), and for each player, the number on the card is added to the nut total to identify who has the dominant bird.
Since the players choose which bird they favour by leaving it as their final hand card, they can delay this choice until they see how the game is panning out.
Hive (led by Tim) 2-player tile game from 2000 is a highly addictive abstract strategic game that is not restricted by a board and can be played anywhere on any flat surface. Hive is made up of twenty two pieces (11 each player) resembling a variety of creatures, each with a unique way of moving.
With no setting up to do, the game begins when the first piece is placed down. As the subsequent pieces are placed this forms a pattern that becomes the playing surface (the pieces themselves become the board). Unlike other such games, the pieces are never eliminated and not all have to be played. The object of the game is to totally surround your opponent’s queen, while at the same time trying to block your opponent from doing likewise to your queen.
Odin’s Raven 2x (led by K-ban and Amy) 2-player 2002 racing card game that was revised in 2016. I led the old school version, Amy the 2nd edition. Clever race mechanics playing cards to match the landscape track balanced by discarding ‘the Magic Way’
Beez (led by K-ban) 2020 opulent board game where players compete to optimize their flight plans to secure nectar for their hive. Be careful of the other bees as you will compete with them over a set of public and private scoring goals.
Wingspan (led by Amy) 2019 Kennerspiel winner (German Gamer‘s game) is a competitive, medium-weight, card-driven, engine-building board game. Players are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats (actions). These habitats focus on several key aspects of growth:
- Gain food tokens via custom dice in a birdfeeder dice tower
- Lay eggs using egg miniatures in a variety of colors
- Draw from hundreds of unique bird cards and play them
The winner is the player with the most points after 4 rounds.
Vegetable Stock (led by K-ban) 2019 single deck card game from Taiwan. A simple 6-round drafting stock market game, where the undrafted last card in each round sets the prices for the 5 Veggie commodities….but when they exceed a value of ‘5’ they crash to zero – ouch!
Kites (led by K-ban) 2022 card game where 5 kites are represented by sand-timers (with different time lengths) A frantic co-op as gamers try to keep all 6 kites (there’s a neutral white timer/kite too)
Longboard (led by K-ban) 2022 Knizia card game on building the best surfboards on the beach…..feels like a cross between Lost Cities and Keltis: the Card Game
7 at Purple Dragon Games on February 8 for The Birds and the Bees Honey Buzz will have to wait until 2/15 or 2/22 as Armando is eager to lead but wasn’t available last week…..don’t you just get annoyed when work gets in the way of gaming? Our 2/15 will be for catching up on…
7 at Purple Dragon Games on February 8 for The Birds and the Bees Honey Buzz will have to wait until 2/15 or 2/22 as Armando is eager to lead but wasn’t available last week…..don’t you just get annoyed when work gets in the way of gaming? Our 2/15 will be for catching up on…