2026 Session Reports

7/1/2026 – Berkshire Gamers Session Report #26-26

24 at the UNO Park Community Center in North Adams for a Request Night.
Welcome to Shon on his first visit and thanks to Cady for the referral.
7/1/2026 @ UNO Park Community Center
IN: Steve & Sandy, Norm & Hope, Jason & Sarah, Sean, Armando, Tim, Zach, Nicole, Chris, Tony, Matt, Rob, Danny, Julie, Cady, Reimi, Rachel P, Maggie, Carol, Sean K, Shon
ON OUR TABLES:
Vivo (led by Cady) 2024 trick taking card game, where each round starts by revealing a harmony type (Solo, Duet, Trio, Quartet). The harmony determines how many suits must be played in the trick—not being able to is considered playing “off-harmony,” making that player ineligible for points. At the end of the trick, the player who played the highest on-harmony card scores two points, and the lowest on-harmony card scores for the value of that card (those bass notes are so important!).

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/420242/vivo

Kites (led by Nicole) 2022 co-op game where everyone works together to keep all their kites — represented by colorful sand timers — in the air. Take turns playing cards, flipping the sand timers, and coordinating with other players to ensure none of the timers run out. If it does, a kite has crashed! Play all of the kite cards in the deck, and everybody wins. 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/348096/kites

Big Shot (led by Zach) 2001 Alex Randolph (Twixt, Raj/What the Heck/ Code 777) auction game in which a set of colored cubes is put up for auction each round based on a random die roll. Whoever wins the bid, places those cubes in areas on the game board. Once an area has seven cubes in it, that area is locked and no more cubes can be added. Whoever has the majority of cubes in that area owns it — except that ties for majority are disregarded, so in a spread of 3/3/1 cubes, the player with only one cube owns that area!

Players have a limited amount of money with which to bid. They can take one loan each turn, but the first loan gives them only $9 more, while the second loan gives them $8 and the third $7. At the end of the game, the player must repay $10 for each loan taken, with that money coming from the value of the property they now own.

At the end of the game, players tally the value of what they own (with some properties being doubled in value if the player owns that region’s doubler as well as areas within that region), then repay all loans. Whoever has the most money wins!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1125/big-shot

IsleBound: Emerald Edition (led by Sean) 2016 nautical fantasy game where players set sail in a mystical archipelago filled with bustling towns, sea monsters, pirates, and gold!  Players take command of a ship and crew and sail to island towns, collecting resources, hiring crew, and commissioning buildings for their capital city. Each building has a unique ability, and the combination of buildings can greatly enhance a player’s strength as a trader, builder, or invader. Players also recruit pirates and sea monsters to conquer towns, which, once conquered, allow them to complete the town action for free, and charge a fee to opponents if they want to use it. Alternatively, players can complete events that give them influence, which can be used to befriend towns.

There are many routes to success – be a ruthless conqueror, careful diplomat, or shrewd merchant in the race to the top? The player with the most wealth and most-impressive capital city will win the game!

Our group played on the 2024 reimplemented Emerald Edition which adds This edition of Islebound removes the book resource from the original game and replaces it with emeralds. Emeralds have different uses than books. Players collect them when visiting a player-owned town and when one takes over a town. Emeralds must be used to buy building cards, and they can also be used to perform special abilities, such as keeping pirates and serpents after combat! The building deck is revised to account for this resource change. It includes altered building cards from both the original game and some from the Metropolis expansion.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/401175/islebound-emerald-edition

Maskmen (led by Tony) 2014 Japanese shedding/climbing card game about Mexican Wrestling. Think of it as a mirror image of Cat in the Box. Maskmen has suits established but play determines rank each round whereas Cat in the Box has rank established but suit/color to be determined each round.
Hare & Tortoise (led by K-ban) 1973 David Parlett British racing card game that was the very first SdJ winner. Carrots are spent to move to available spaces on the board, lettuce are chewed and what looks like a children’s game is certainly not what it appears. The game has been republished numerous times….we used the 1987 Gibson’s English revised edition with the jigsaw board.
The Great Zimbabwe (led by Tim) 2012 game about building a trade based civilization in ancient Africa where players strive to construct the most impressive monuments to one god of their choice. They can choose this god themselves– each of the twelve gods offers a unique blessing, but each also requires a different amount of work to win the game. Building the monuments is done by developing a logistics network stretching across the region. Through this network, players produce and obtain ritual goods to raise their monuments and bring honour to the god of their choice.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/111341/the-great-zimbabwe

Wormholes (led by Armando) 2022 Peter McPherson design where players collect passengers from planets, each of whom have specific destinations they aim to reach. However, this pick-up-and-deliver process can be quite different once players establish wormholes between different points of the galaxy — and like any good business, services can be used by other players…at the cost of a few points. This winds up being route building set in space, combined with a logistics puzzle. 
King Domino (led by Chris)  2017 German game of the year (SdJ) winner. The game uses tiles with two sections, similar to Dominoes. Each turn, players will select a new domino to connect to their existing kingdom, making sure at least one of its sides connects to a matching terrain type already in play. The order of who picks first depends on which tile was previously chosen, with better tiles forcing players to pick later in the next round. The game ends when each player has completed a 5×5 grid (or failed to do so), and points are counted based on the number of connecting tiles and valuable crown symbols. 
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

 

Bus & Stop 2X (led by K-ban) 2024 Saachi card game in which players compete as bus drivers bringing passengers to their desired destinations, while avoiding overcrowding. On a turn, players either pick up or drop off. To pick up, a player chooses all of the passenger cards of one color from the row waiting at the bus stop, then seats them in their bus — that is, the area in front of them, which can hold at most ten cards. Senior citizens aren’t going far, so you score them immediately instead of placing them on the bus.

To drop off, choose a group of passengers on your bus that match one of the available destination cards and then remove these passengers and place them under the card. Players score points for each card depending on how many people you delivered at once. Whenever a player drops off, everyone else can make one of their matching passengers ‘skedaddle‘, removing them from the bus and placing them in a personal scoring pile with their senior citizens.

When the bus stop can’t be refilled with passengers or only a certain number of destination cards remain, the game ends. Players then tally their score, earning 1 point for each single card and the listed points for each destination card.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/418581/bus-and-stop

Splendor 2X (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. 
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

Ank’hor (led by Chris) 2019 quick-playing resource management game in which each player on their turn either collects three types of tokens (with an ankh being a supplemental resource) or buys a tile from a marketplace and adds this tile to their structure, trying to connect tiles of the same color or bearing the same scarab while doing so. By spending an ankh, you can shift tiles in the marketplace and change the cost and type of goods needed to purchase them.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/271530/ankhor

Chess (Jason & Zach) 1475 classic two-player, abstract strategy board game that represents medieval warfare on an 8×8 board with alternating light and dark squares.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/171/chess

Llamas Unleashed (led by Rob)  2019 retheming of Unstable Unicorns. It comes with 135 cards in a magnetic box, and has the same base mechanics, but with a few twists. The core mechanics are the same, but there are a ton of new card effects never seen before. In the game, players will find 4 types of characters: Llamas, Alpacas, Goats, and Rams. The goal is to get 7 animals into one’s field before your opponents – a task that sounds much simpler than it is with magic cards, instant cards and upgrade/downgrade cards.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/268936/llamas-unleashed

Steve

24 at the UNO Park Community Center in North Adams for a Request Night. Welcome to Shon on his first visit and thanks to Cady for the referral. 7/1/2026 @ UNO Park Community Center IN: Steve & Sandy, Norm & Hope, Jason & Sarah, Sean, Armando, Tim, Zach, Nicole, Chris, Tony, Matt, Rob, Danny, Julie, Cady, Reimi,…

24 at the UNO Park Community Center in North Adams for a Request Night. Welcome to Shon on his first visit and thanks to Cady for the referral. 7/1/2026 @ UNO Park Community Center IN: Steve & Sandy, Norm & Hope, Jason & Sarah, Sean, Armando, Tim, Zach, Nicole, Chris, Tony, Matt, Rob, Danny, Julie, Cady, Reimi,…

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