17 at the UNO Park Community Center for a request night.

IN: Steve, Sean, Armando, Tim, Tony & Rachel, Ethan & Amy, Chris, Anna, Nicole, Danny, Julie, Reimi, Rob, Rachel P, Sean K

Hutan: Life in the Rainforest (led by Tim) 2025 drafting and tile placement game where all players have their own rainforest patch, where they will plant sprouts and flowers that over time grow into towering trees. When a habitat is created, an iconic forest animal arrives: the orangutan, the sumatran tiger, the rhinoceros hornbill, the cassowary, or the sumatran rhino. The game plays over nine rounds, and all players have two turns each round. On a player’s turn, they take a flower card from the shared market pool and place the flowers into their rainforest. If a flower is placed on top of a matching flower, a tree grows. When an area is completed with trees, the last tree is replaced by an animal. At the end of the game, the player who grew the best rainforest and attracted the most animals will score the most points and win.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/419130/hutan-life-in-the-rainforest

Tipperary (led by K-ban) 2023 tile laying and drafting game where players are challenged to create their perfect vision of an Irish county by placing polyominoes and thus collecting sheep, castles and whiskey. The linchpin is a ‘magical stone circle’ that decides which of the tiles you can choose from. After twelve rounds, one player will be named chief of Tipperary.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/378983/tipperary

Polaris (led by Sean) 2025 area majority/influence game where players form constellations by placing stars and achieve personal goals by creating patterns. A game consists of 5 scoring phases. On a player’s turn they can choose from 3 actions: take 1 action card, play 1 or more action cards, or take 3 shooting star tokens. There are always 4 basic action cards in the open supply, which players can take for free. For the 2 advanced action cards that are open, players pay 1 shooting star. One can play as many action cards, as long as they are in the same moon phase. If a player wants to change a moon phase, they pay 2 shooting star tokens per card they want to change. Players may then place one or more stars in the correct area (of that moon phase). After each scoring, the ring around the game board is rotated and the moon phases in the areas change. Each area is scored in a different way (different in each game due to different cards). If a star is placed on a red square, it costs 1 shooting star token, but on a white square players get one. If one or more cards have a ‘dawn’ symbol, it is placed on the dawn track. When this is full, scoring takes place and a phase is over. During the game, players try to complete goals before the ring shifts, complete their personal goals as often as possible, and form one or more constellations that are as long as possible. The player with the most VP after 5 phases wins.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/410774/polaris

Cities (led by Ethan) 2008 tile laying and puzzle game where players take on the role of architects trying to build a city that is the most attractive for tourists. Tiles are called out one at a time for all to place in x 4×4 city. Players try to position attractions close together as they build parks as large as possible and place terraces close to the water. Players guide tourists to their favorite spots, because only through them can points be earned.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38657/cities

Knitting Circle (led by K-ban) 2025 stand-alone puzzle game set in the Calico world (so there are felines). Players are knitters competing to create the coziest, most beautiful assortment of garments. Rounds are simple – collect yarn from the central basket (a rondel of sorts) and knit it into garments while trying to get one’s color combinations and patterns just right! Earn victory points by completing garments, adding buttons, and fulfilling bonus scoring goals. Along the way, your furry feline friend can help you out by reaching their grabby paws into the bag to secure the best yarn! We played the base game, but will add the variable scoring goals, and dozens of unique template cards to future sessions, adding new spatial puzzles to the challenge.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/421606/knitting-circle

SCOUT (led by Tony) One of the 3 finalists for the 2022 SdJ award for best family game. It is a shedding/climbing card game with unique double numbered cards that can be flipped. Cards have two potential values, players may not rearrange their hand of cards, and players may pass their turn to take a card from the current high set of cards into their hand. More specifically, cards are dual-indexed, with different values on each half of the card, with the 45 cards having all possible combinations of the numbers 1-10.  Once each player has been dealt their entire hand of cards, they pick up that hand without rearranging any of the cards; if they wish, they can rotate their entire hand of cards in order to use the values on the other end of each card, but again they cannot rearrange the order of cards in their hand. On a turn, a player takes one of two actions:

The Last of Us – Escape the Dark (led by Armando) 2024 cooperative storytelling game where players are a group of survivors, who weave their own unique story of survival and companionship as they explore an open-world map. Beginning their journey in a forsaken quarantine zone, their goal is to travel to the reputed safe haven of Jackson while keeping everyone in the group alive. Players carefully plot their routes through the troubled landscape, resolving immersive Chapter Cards at each location to gain vital information, weapons, and equipment. Survival will depend on making difficult choices and tactical use of item cards and custom character dice to overcome a variety of threats including Hunters, FEDRA agents, and the dreaded Infected.Endure and survive!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/374593/the-last-of-us-escape-the-dark

Looot (led by Sean) 2024 tile and worker placement game where players are Vikings on the Common board, conquering a new territory, which allows them to recover resource/building/objective tiles. On a player’s Personal board: they build their village with the tiles previously recovered from the Common board unlocking victory points. The game rewards optimization logic, favoring the best combinations in this race for victory points.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/410991/looot

Just One (led by Tony) 2018 co-op that’s become our group’s favorite party game. The group scored 9 of a possible 13 points.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/254640/just-one

Pixies (led by Tony)  2024 drafting, set collection and connections card game, where players move through the seasons to meet little creatures emerging from a flower or sheltering in the hollow of a tree. Choose one of the revealed cards, but be careful which ones are left to your opponents! Place that card in your playing area according to its number. Cards placed one on top of another are validated and earn players points at the end of the round, as do the largest color zone and spirals. 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/411875/pixies

Steve