17 at the UNO Park Community Center for an evening of Insect themed games.

Welcome to Jesus and Carole on their first visit.

September 3 Berkshire Gamenite RSVP Form

IN: Steve & Sandy, Nicole & Gus, Tim, Armando, Zach, Julie, Reimi, Ethan, Tony, Danny, Rob & Tim, Jesus & Carole, Matt

Sisimizi (led by Nicole) 1996 Alex Randolph design where players are competing ant colonies that are attempting to link all of their ant mounds together. Players attempt to create chains of ants from one ant mound to the next while also trying to cut off other players’ chains.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/540/sisimizi

Kabuto Sumo 2x (led by Tim) 2021 dexterity pushing puzzle where players try to push pieces off the edge, like those coin games at arcades. Players are one of the contending beetles battling for supremacy in the ring and their place in the pantheon of legendary wrestlers. Players are trying to strategically slide pieces onto the board and push the other players out of the ring. It’s an exciting combination of dexterity, strategy, and luck – with multiple expansions to explore.

Micropolis 2X (led by K-ban)  2018 Bruno Cathala (King Domino, Five Tribes, Mr Jack) Ant game of drafting 10 tiles to score the most points in multiple categories. Each player starts with a central location that will be surrounded by ten tiles over the course of the game, with the tiles being connected by a series of tunnels. Over ten rounds, players draft tiles one at a time, with the player with the largest army going first. They can take the first tile in line, or place an ant on each tile they want to pass to get to something better. The tiles have various roles on them: Queens, who if alone can improve their space; Nannies who give players extra ant soldiers; Architects who let players take any tile for free; Warriors who attack the first player; Generals who manage the movement of your ant soldiers; and Fruit gatherers who collect fruits, which score based on the variety players have. Ants at the end of the game are worth one point each, and whoever has the largest army earns an additional 5 points.

Bites 2x (led by Nicole) 2020 reimplementation of Big Points adding theme and variable goals – ants collecting food along a path for set collection points. During setup, a trail of food is laid out. On each player’s turn, they can move any ant to the next food in the trail that matches their color (red ant to apple, purple ant to grapes, etc). Then the player takes the food token directly in front of or behind the ant, saving it to score at the end of the game.

However, players don’t know for sure how much the food is going to be worth until the matching ant makes it to the ant hill at the end of the trail. This creates shared incentives as players work together to advance some ants and hold others back.

Along the way players also have the chance to pick up chocolate, which can be turned into special actions, and wine, which provides a way to score bonus points.

There are four decks of cards that define the rules for the game. Each game, one card is chosen from each deck to provide a unique combination.The “rule decks” are:

• Ant Hill – Food tokens are worth more points if the matching ant gets to the hill FIRST. Or, food tokens are worth more points if the matching ants get to the ant hill LAST.
• Wine – The wine tokens have a different way of scoring in every game.
• Chocolate – The chocolate tokens provide a different special power in every game. And, the best way to use that power will change based on the other special rules in play.
• Variant – One special rule that applies to this game which offers an extra twist.

Apiary (led by Matt) Mankind is gone from the Earth. Bees ascended to sentience and building upon our ruins, they have headed to the stars. Play factions of space bees exploring space using worker placement and bumping. 

Each player controls one of twenty unique factions that starts the game with a hive, a few resources, and worker bees. A worker-placement, hive-building challenge awaits: explore planets, gather resources, develop technologies, and create carvings to demonstrate your faction’s strengths (measured in victory points) over one year’s Flow. However, the Dearth quickly approaches, and your workers can take only a few actions before they must hibernate! Can you thrive or merely survive?

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/400314/apiary

Pollen (led by Ethan) 2023 retheming of Knizia’s 2009 ‘Samurai: The Card Game’ that excels with 3 players. This is a pretty tight and simple area-majority card game (or actually a tile placement game) with funky end-game scoring featuring a typical Knizian twist. 

Player’s goal is to collect three different types of tokens (representing butterflies, bees & June bugs) in order to have the majority in two, but players need at least one majority to be eligible to win. This is accomplished by playing cards around tokens that represent pollinators, once a token is fully surrounded with 4 cards, the player with the most matching icons gains the depicted token. The card set is the same for each player with cards influencing one type of token or all three, thus when to play the stronger cards is important as is keeping track of who has what majority.

The parent game, Samurai, is currently being crowdfunded, re-themed as Hanami (which I’ve pledged) with relaxing picnic lunches among the cherry blossoms and paper lanterns of Tokyo city parks or the lush countryside of Japan. It brings new strategies and two distinct ways to play: The Japan map allows players to enjoy the classic Samurai ruleset, and the Tokyo setup gives players new challenges, new abilities, and new tiles. 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/369898/pollen

Renfield (led by Tony) 1999 trick taking/gambling card game. Each card has 4 traits, rank (1-17), suit (tools, parts, stones), bugs (0-6) and a dollar cost (0-5). The game is played in hands of six rounds. Six cards are dealt to each player then setting the order of suit hierarchy is bid on. The highest bidder puts their money in the pot and sets the suit order. The top bidder then plays a card and everyone must follow suit if possible. The winner of the trick takes the cards and checks for dollar amounts which must be paid to the pot. He then leads the next trick. A player may fold instead of playing if they have won at least one trick with a bug and is out for the rest of the round and can not win the hand. After six rounds have been played the winner of the hand is the person who has taken the fewest bugs more than zero. 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2149/renfield

Can’t Catch Harry (led by Rob) 2019 fast paced frenetic card game that is an Odds Ones Out version of Spoons…and likely the lowest rated game on BGG that we’ve played at a 5.2 . 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/264660/cant-catch-harry

Hive 2x (led by Tim) 2001 strategic game for two players that is not restricted by a board and can be played anywhere on any flat surface. Hive is made up of twenty two pieces, eleven black and eleven white, resembling a variety of creatures each with a unique way of moving.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2655/hive

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 players will compete with them over a set of public and private scoring goals. The 3D bee miniatures are beautiful as are the honey/nectar player boards. There is a small spatial awareness learning curve but this is a good gateway game.

Splendor (led by Armando) 2014 award winning game of chip-collecting and card development. Players are merchants of the Renaissance trying to buy gem mines, means of transportation, shops—all in order to acquire the most prestige points. If wealthy enough, players might even receive a visit from a noble at some point, which will further increase their prestige. On turn, players may (1) collect chips (gems), or (2) buy and build a card, or (3) reserve one card. If you collect chips, you take either three different kinds of chips or two chips of the same kind. If you buy a card, you pay its price in chips and add it to your playing area. To reserve a card—in order to make sure you get it, or, why not, your opponents don’t get it—you place it in front of you face down for later building; this costs you a round, but you also get gold in the form of a joker chip, which you can use as any gem. All of the cards you buy increase your wealth as they give you a permanent gem bonus for later buys; some of the cards also give you prestige points. In order to win the game, you must reach 15 prestige points before your opponents do. On one hand there are no insects in Splendor, but it does make Armando very happy – so there’s that!

Steve