January 10th will be a request night (again, led by Sean). Is there something you missed out on playing during a prior session? Or maybe a game was brought to a session you missed over the holidays that you wish you had a chance to play? Kindly let Sean know ASAP what games you would like to see on the table next week so he can ask whoever owns them if they would bring and lead.

Also, please RSVP your attendance status for January 10th to Sean as soon as you know, as Sandy and Steve are still traveling during the next session.  Knowing how many to expect helps immensely with planning which games to have our table leaders prepare and bring.

1/3/2024 at UNO Park Community Center

IN: Sean, Tim, Matt, Chris W, Drew, Danny, Tony, Rachel, Amy, Ethan, Anna, Rob

ON OUR TABLES:

Pecking Order (led by Drew) A 2 player game by Richard Garfield (of Magic: the Gathering fame, among many others) that was published as rules for a standard deck of playing cards in Games magazine in 1998, and later published as a boxed game in 2006. Players shuffle their deck (consisting of bird cards with values 1 – 12 and a jaguar card with no numeric value) and form a draw deck in front of them. On their turn, player draw and place a card facedown to one of eleven perches on their side of the board. If the other player already has a facedown card on that perch, it is revealed and the attacker announces (honestly!) which card is higher, winning the fight, and removes the losing card from the board (ties go to the attacker, and the jaguar removes both cards) without revealing their card whether it wins or loses. Play continues until all cards are played and scoring is based on value of perches controlled at the end of the game.

BGG Listing

Ahoy! Kitten (led by Tony) A light, chaotic game, published last year (2023) of cat pirates simultaneously selecting ocean tiles of fish to plunder (What care do cats have for gold dubloons? Gold FISH are the treasure they care about). If more than one player tries to get the same fish though, no one gets them.

BGG Listing

Sea Salt & Paper (led by Sean) This 2022 sea themed set collection game (like Rummy in some aspects) has you drawing cards on your turn to add to your hand and laying down pairs of Duo cards from your hand to take extra actions. If at the end of your turn you have accumulated at least 7 points between played cards and what is in your hand, you may end the round, either quickly, where everyone gets points based on their assembled hands, or by giving everyone else an extra turn, with a push your luck bet that you have the most points. If you are right you score the points in your hand plus a bonus and other players lose out, but if your bet is wrong, everyone else gets to score and you don’t!

BGG Listing

Flash Point: Fire Rescue (led by Drew) A 2011 cooperative game of fire rescue, where players win by saving 7 of 10 victims from a burning building before the fire spreads and all of the victims succumb or the building collapses. Players use action points to  do thing like putting out fires, moving around the building, dragging victims out to the ambulances, or performing special actions according to their role. The game includes many optional rules that allow this to be played at multiple levels, from family to expert.

BGG Listing

Djinn (led by Tim) Published in 2023, players are young members of the magic guild tasked with capturing magical beings called djinn from 13 locations across the board and putting them into bottles. You must move around the city to the various locations in order to collect the resources you will need to capture and bottle the djinn, and cork the bottles to control the djinn permanently. Whoever succeeds best will be invited to join the inner circle of the magic guild and wins!

BGG Listing

Business Mogul (led by Chris W) A game designed by our own Chris Warren, Business Mogul has players as the creators of business empires. Players bid for cards, balancing the actions that they want to take against the cards they want to claim (or avoid), aiming to grow their skills and create infrastructure while making choices of money vs power and growth vs end-game bonuses. At the end of the day the player with the most power wins.

BGG Listing

Forest Shuffle (led by Sean) This 2023 Essen release from Lookout Games (the first in their Greenline label, printed on FSC certified paper, and avoiding all plastics in the production) has players competing to gather the most valuable trees to their forest, then attracting species to those trees. This creates synergies as many cards score points based on other cards in your forest or played to the same tree. On your turn either draw 2 cards OR play a card from your hand, paying the cost by discarding additional cards. Once the third Winter card is drawn, the game ends and whoever scores the most points from their forest wins.

BGG Listing

Point City (led by Sean) A bigger sibling to Point Salad, this 2023 release uses card drafting and engine building to build out your expanding city. Each card has resources on one side and a building (requiring specific combinations of resources to build) on the reverse side. Take two adjacent cards from the 4×4 grid and add them to your tableau, replacing drawn cards with new cards flipped to the opposite side (that is to say, drawing a resource side up card causes it to be replaced with a building side up card and vice versa). Buildings can provide permanent resources, points, or Civic tokens (which provide additional ways to get points at end game scoring).

BGG Listing

—
~Skells