16 for our RIVERS themed session

IN: Steve & Sandy, Sean & Wendy, Ethan & Amy, Tim, Matt, Nicole, Chris, Reimi, Zach, Julie, Danny, Rob, Sean K.

River Valley Glassworks (led by Wendy) 2024 drafting and pattern building game. This is a 30 minute family game, where players are collecting glass pieces from the river and lake to fill up their warehouse. VPs are scored at game’s end for both rows (only if unbroken from left) and one’s two highest columns. There are penalties for drafting glass that doesn’t fit in one’s warehouse. Beautifully produced and we’ll explore the 6 mini-expansions that came with the deluxe edition in future sessions.

Caldera Park (led by Nicole) Kramer/Kiesling revisited and revised 2021’s Savannah Park in 2022 changing the terrain, placement/tile selection mechanism while retaining the herd multiplied by water hole scoring but adding geyser, waterfall, river and terrain bonuses. The two designs feel different enough to own both but Caldera Park will appeal more to gamers while Savannah Park will appeal more for casual and family gamers. It has a partial resemblance to the 2023 SdJ winner, Cascadia.

Daitoshi (led by Tim) 2024 complex worker placement/engine building game that utilizes both a modular board and a rondel. Players are in the role of harnessing the power of steam, finding themselves in the shoes of industry magnates who take control of the city of Daitoshi, located somewhere in the Japanese countryside. The game takes place in a mythical world on the brink of a steampunk revolution where technology and modernity conflict with the ancestral laws of nature. As we destroy nature to harvest the resources required to expand the city, the Yokai revolt.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/402677/daitoshi

Life of the Amazonias (led by Matt) 2023 strategic meeple placing game that combines bag building and pattern building. Players will restore land, place various animals, and plant trees and flowers to enrich their jungles and create the most ecologically rich jungle. Various lives must be placed in the jungle taking into account each unique characteristic of the plants and animals in order to create synergies within one another. The game shares some characteristics with both Cascadia and Quacks of Quedlinburg.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/368305/life-of-the-amazonia

Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers (led by Wendy/Sean)  2002 stand-alone set in the stone age. Instead of cities, roads, and farms, it has forests, rivers, lakes, and meadows. Players’ meeples can represent hunters (when placed in the meadows), gatherers (in a forest), or fishermen (on a river segment). They also have huts, which can be placed on rivers or lakes to get fish from the entire river system.

Cascadia (led by K-ban)  2022 Randy Flynn designed tile-laying and token-drafting puzzle game featuring the habitats and wildlife of the Pacific Northwest that won the 2022 SdJ. Players take turns building out their own terrain area and populating it with wildlife. Players start with three hexagonal habitat tiles (with the five types of habitat in the game), and on a turn they choose a new habitat tile that’s paired with a wildlife token, then place that tile adjacent to their other ones and place the wildlife token on an appropriate habitat. (Each tile depicts 1-3 types of wildlife from the five types in the game, and players can place at most one round wooden token on a habitat.) Four tiles are on display, with each tile being paired at random with a wildlife token, so players must make the best of what’s available — unless they have a nature token to spend, so that they can pick their choice of terrain and wildlife. Each wildlife type scores VPs differently. Players score VPs for both wildlife types and for their largest contiguous terrain types – with a bonus if their group is larger than the other player’s. We used parts of the recent Landmark expansion to add a 5th player and some varied wildlife scoring cards. 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/295947/cascadia

River of Gold (led by Sean) 2024 area majority and influence game where players take on the role of river merchants allied with legendary samurai clans, each vying to exploit the river to earn wealth, glory, and wisdom. Players can invest in developing ports, markets, shrines, and more along the banks of the busy river. Conversely players can rely upon sailing the river of gold, growing their wealth and influence through delivery contracts, visiting the nobility, and garnering a bit of divine favor during tough times.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/399941/river-of-gold

Vaalbara (led by Zach) 2022 drafting set collection card game with simultaneous actions. Each player plays as a clan leader and has to secretly and wisely play a card from their hand, representing a member of their tribe, to try to take over some territories.  All players have the same deck of 12 cards representing the members of their tribe. Each turn, players secretly choose one card. In the order of initiative of the revealed Characters, players will be able to activate their powers and take over one of the available Territories. Each type of Territory has its own way of scoring points (collection, pair, diversity, risk…).  After 9 rounds, the player with the most points wins the game and unites the tribes of the continent under their banner!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/361241/vaalbara

Cascadia: Rolling Rivers (led by K-ban) one of two 2024 roll & write versions of Cascadia (along with Rolling Hills). One player rolls 4 large share dice while all players simultaneously roll their 2 small dice. Players then collect wildlife, and complete habitat cards to fill in different environments in Cascadia. Use special actions to manipulate your dice, and dynamic completion cards to unlock powerful combos.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/407318/cascadia-rolling-rivers

Steve