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

IN: Steve, Sean, Tim, Zach, Matt, Chris, Norm & Hope, Fred & Janet, Amy, Rob, Tony, Danny, Sarah, Kelby, Sean K, Reimi, Carol, Maggie 

Honey Buzz (led by Matt)  2020 game where players continually expand their hive, forage for nectar and pollen, make honey, sell different varieties at the bear market, host honey tastings, and attend to the queen and her court. Players use their bees to get one of 6 action tiles, then place their tile. Actions are activated when a hexagonal hole is created, which can be filled with nectar producing honey. Honey can be sold or used to fulfil contracts.

Vivo (led by Chris)  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

Sol: Last Days of a Star (Tim) 2017 semi-cooperative network and route building game with action points, where players are each a civilization desperately trying to harness the last bits of energy from their dying star in order to build enough momentum to send their people out of the solar system to find a new home. To do so, players have to build infrastructure in and around the star to collect energy, build sundivers (workers), navigate deeper into the star and transmit energy to their ark. The twist is that all the infrastructure that is built is shared, and your mothership moves 1 space around the board in orbit after each turn. So the challenge is to maximize opportunities to use the infrastructure without giving too many bonuses to the other owners. As the game accelerates towards the end game, the very calm build up of infrastructure becomes a mad dash to squeeze out the last bits of energy from the fated star, which even includes destroying sundivers by hurling them into the core.

Wurfel Bingo/High Score/Knister (led by K-ban)  2007 dice puzzle game where each player takes a writing implement and a playing sheet with a 5×5 matrix. A round consists of 25 die rolls of two standard six-sided dice. After each die roll, each player places the sum rolled into one of the fields on their game board. After 25 rolls, each player tallies their points; each row and column scores 1-12 points depending on whether it’s filled with a pair of matching numbers, a triple, a full house, a straight, a five-of-a-kind, and so on, with points scored along the diagonals being doubled. After three rounds, whoever has the highest cumulative score wins!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/29355/knister

Power Grid – (led by Zach) 2004 Friedemann Friede (he of the green hair) classic network building and auction game that has spawned several editions and many expansions. The objective is to supply the most cities with power when someone’s network gains a predetermined size. Players mark pre-existing routes between cities for connection, and then bid against each other to purchase the power plants that they use to power their cities. However, as plants are purchased, newer, more efficient plants become available, so by merely purchasing, you’re potentially allowing others access to superior equipment. Additionally, players must acquire the raw materials (coal, oil, garbage, and uranium) needed to power said plants (except for the ‘renewable’ wind farm/ solar plants, which require no fuel), making it a constant struggle to upgrade your plants for maximum efficiency while still retaining enough wealth to quickly expand your network to get the cheapest routes. Our quartet played on the Northern Europe mapboard. The seven countries in Northern Europe use very different energy sources for their electricity production. Depending on which regions are chosen the players will be confronted with a changed set of power plants.

Hansa Teutonica (led by Sean) 2009 area majority/influence and network/route building game where players act as traders trying to get victory points for building a network of offices, controlling cities, collecting bonus markers, or when other traders use the cities they control. After controlling a line between two cities with one’s pawns, they can decide to build an office (and maybe also establish control and/or get a bonus marker) or to get a skill improvement from some of the cities.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/43015/hansa-teutonica

Mind Up 2X (led by K-ban) 2023 card game who’s mechanics are similar to the classic Take5/6 Nimmt and the recent Trinket Trove. Players start with a line of cards on the table, with as many cards as players. Each turn, players pick a card from their hand and simultaneously reveal it to make a new line, ordered from the lowest to the highest card. Each player then takes the card in the previous line at the same position as the one they just played, adding it to their tableau. These cards will score points at the end of the round, depending on their color and the order they were picked. After being scored, they become the player’s hand for the next round. High score after 3 rounds wins. If you like Take 5 you should like Mind Up as much or more.

Mystic Vale (led by Matt) 2026 deck building game that introduced John D. Clair’s innovative card crafting system, which lets players not only build their deck, but build the individual cards in their deck, customizing each card’s abilities to exactly the strategy one wants to follow. Players take on the role of druidic clans trying to cleanse the curse upon the land. On each turn cards are played into one’s field to gain powerful advancements and useful vale cards. Power should be used wisely, or decay will end one’s turn prematurely. Score the most victory points to win the game!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/194607/mystic-vale

Raj/ Beat the Buzzard/What the Heck? (led by K-ban) 1988 classic bluffing game. Rarely is a game broken down to its barest elements like this one. Players are given an equal deck of bidding cards from one to fifteen. Each turn, a prize tile is randomly selected from a pool. A prize tile is worth either positive or negative points (from -5 to +10). Each player is attempting to gather the most positive points from these prizes. Players secretly select one of their remaining bidding cards and reveal them simultaneously. For positive prizes, the highest card gets the prize; For negative prizes, the lowest card is stuck with the prize. However, if two people play the highest (or lowest) card, they cancel each other out and the prize goes to the next in line. The highest total score after all fifteen prizes are awarded wins. Good mindless fun with much laughter.

That’s Pretty Clever (led by Tony) 2018 dice drafting game  where players choose their dice cleverly to enter them into the matching colored areas on their score sheet, putting together tricky chain-scoring opportunities, and racking up the points! The dice a player doesn’t use are as important as those they do, because every die with a lower value than the chosen one can be used by the other players, keeping everyone in the game at all times.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/244522/thats-pretty-clever

Steve