16 at the UNO Park Community Center in North Adams for a request night.

IN: Steve & Sandy, Ken & Rachel, Sean, Tim, Zach, Tony, Chris, Amy, Matt, Julie, Rob, Danny, Maggie, Carol

Wingspan (led by Rachel P) 2019 drafting and set collection engine builder that won the Kennerspiel des Jahres (German gamers game of the year) Players are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to their network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of a player’s habitats (actions). These habitats focus on several key aspects of growth:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/266192/wingspan

Smartphone Inc. (led by Zach) 2018 area majority/influence and route building game economic simulation, where players become CEOs of one of the largest smartphone-producing companies in the time when smartphones were only beginning to conquer the world. Players research technologies, develop a factory, build their worldwide office network, and outprice their competitors to become the most profitable and successful smartphone company in the world. Over five rounds, players program their decisions about price, production, research, and expansion. The game features a unique mechanism of planning, which combines patching mechanisms with bidding and action selection. Each of the rounds consists of eight simple phases: planning, pricing, production, development, research, expansion, selling, and profits.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/246684/smartphone-inc

Daitoshi (led by Tim) 2024 city building worker placement game set in Japan. Players are magnates expanding the city. Build factories and steam engines to convert raw materials into building materials and energy. In turn, players choose between two actions: production and city rounds, then check whether they have a conflict with the Yõkai. If production is chosen, all players may activate one or all three buildings in their factories, up to once per building, while they receive additional benefits as production leader. If a city round is chosen, players must first move their tycoon one or two districts clockwise. Players may use steam to move further and may then send workers of the appropriate type to the workshops in their district and must perform the exploitation action indicated on their district. Players may perform the action indicated on their district or on the megamachine if it is also located in their district. There are many actions to choose from, such as trading with other cities, providing electricity to areas, renovating/expanding areas, and much more. After performing one’s action, players must check whether they still have conflicts with the Yõkai based on the exploitation report in their factory. The end of the game is triggered when the last tile on the wilderness track is revealed. The player with the most points wins the game.

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

Railroad Tiles (led by K-ban) 2025 tile placement and pattern building game. Players start each round by drafting tiles from the sets available in the common pool, then they place their routes on their tableau, trying to make as many connections as possible, while being careful not to lock themselves in with choices that are too constraining. Each round, players can also place cars, trains, or travelers to populate the landscape they are creating. The available actions change from round to round, so players need to prepare in advance! The more pieces of the same kind each new placement connects to, the more points that players earn. One can also score bonus points at game’s end for placing tiles in a large rectangle without gaps and for creating sets of three adjacent city tiles.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/418062/railroad-tiles

Can’t Stop (led by Tony) 1980 Sid Sackson push your luck classic dice game where players roll four d6 and pair them off to advance their pawns, claiming columns on a stop-sign shaped board.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41/cant-stop

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (led by Tony) 2021 card game, with the same innovative co-operative trick-taking mechanism as the highly lauded original space-themed game — but with some exciting new surprises! While communication between crew members is severely limited by their submerged state, it is also critical to success; finding the hidden land in the murky depths depends not only on winning tricks, but also on carefully negotiating the order in which they are won. If things don’t go as planned, players might just be able to salvage the operation, but it will take near flawless execution and perhaps a little luck to finally reach the lost continent of Mu.  Trick taking and co-ops are rarely associated together, but The Crew works – whether in space or in the deep sea!

Castle Combo (led by Danny) 2024 tableau building card game. Each player will spend coins to draft 9 cards from 2 open markets on the table, with the messenger pawn, determining which market is open this turn – creating a 3×3 square of people interacting with each other to trigger instant effects and end-of-game bonuses. Each turn, players add a character to their tableau—a seemingly straightforward action that packs a punch regarding strategic decisions. Carefully managing one’s keys will be needed to carefully manage one’s Keys to influence the Messenger pawn at critical moments, as it controls which characters are available for recruitment from two different areas – peasants and nobles. Balancing one’s gold reserves is equally important, ensuring a player can afford the characters that best suit their strategy throughout the game. Selecting the right characters is crucial to maximising their immediate effects and the points they will contribute at the game’s end. Finally, carefully arranging these characters on one’s 3×3 board is key to unlocking their full potential. This is a very accessible game and was on the 2024 recommended list for SDJ honors (German Game of the Year). 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/416851/castle-combo

Point Galaxy (led by K-ban) 2025 card-drafting, sequence-building game game from the team that brought us Point Salad and Point City. The rules are simple: Take any two cards from the dynamic market and add them to your expanding galaxy. As you place cards, create solar systems by arranging planets in numeric order and earn bonuses by collecting suns, asteroids, moons, rockets, and research projects to score the most points! There are over 140 unique double-sided planet/space cards, so a completely different galaxy is created on every play. 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/431998/point-galaxy

Cat in the Box (led by Tony) 2022 trick taking card game that turns the genre’ on its ear – all 45 numbered cards (1-9 with 5 of each) are black and suit is determined by the card led. Players decide whether to follow suit or declare that they are void. Trumps can be led only after they’ve been broken. A round ends after all cards are played or a paradox is created (no legal card plays) 

Steve