25 (enough for a baseball team’s roster) at the UNO Park Community Center for a request night. We had 11 different table leaders – thanks to all who stepped up.

IN: Steve & Sandy, Ethan & Amy, Tim & Khalid, Elliot & Lauren, Anna & Peter, Tony, Rachel & Stuart, Armando, Zach, Chris, Julie, Nicole, Reimi, Danny, Rob, Sean K, Landon, Edward & Quinn

Rumis/Blokus 3D (led by Chris) 2003 3D spatial tile placement abstract pattern matching game where players construct an Inca building with their stones. All players receive three-dimensional pieces made of wood or plastic, which they will try to position adjacent to already placed pieces of their own color. All of their own pieces are of different shapes, which is a challenge to the three-dimensional imagination.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6411/blokus-3d

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

Parks (led by Nicole) 2019 worker placement and trak movement/turn order game where players will take on the role of two hikers as they trek through different trails across four seasons of the year. While on the trail, these hikers will take actions and collect memories of the places that their hikers visit. These memories are represented by various resource tokens like mountains and forests. Collecting these memories in sets will allow players to trade them in to visit a National Park at the end of each hike.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/266524/parks

Rock Hard 1977 (led by Tim) 2024 worker placement and set collection game with variable powers where players are up-and-coming musicians, dreaming of making it big with their band. The game was designed by a member of the band, The Runaways. Players will rehearse, play gigs, write songs, and promote their band. With careful planning and a little luck, players will earn the most fame and become the best new artist of the year.  The game is played over a maximum of nine rounds, each representing a typical day of one month in 1977, from April to December. The game is won by accruing the most fame by increasing reputation, chops and songs; achieving production, performance, and publicity bonuses; getting record deals and earning royalties; playing concerts; and hanging out at the hottest after-hours spot.

Lords of Baseball (led by K-ban/Zach) Crowdfunded 2024 card driven financial game where players are owners of one of the charter franchises of MLB from 1911 – leaders with the money and vision to grow the game into its modern form. This is a game about building a baseball dynasty, not a simulation. Striking the optimal balance between team strength, stadium features, front office, fans, manager and farm system will determine a player’s VPs. We played the short 3 game years version (vs 5 medium or the 7 season long game) .

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/97155/lords-of-baseball

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (led by Anna)  2019 cooperative trick-taking card game where players attempt to achieve missions together utilizing limited communication. The team successfully completed 1 mission over 4 tries.

Agent Avenue 4x (led by Edward/Danny) 2024 2-player card game of bluffing and set collection. Players assume the roles of retired spies in a suburban neighborhood, outsmarting each other with cards that can score points or trigger special effects. Players utilize the “I split, you choose” mechanic to play one card face-up and one face-down each turn from a 4-card hand. Your opponent chooses one, and the divider winds up with the other -influencing both player’s strategies. Cards feature different agents and tools that impact scoring and game progress on a track, advancing the “catch me” race to uncover the opposing spy. Very addictive 15-minute filler that elicits much laughter due to the bluff/double bluff aspect.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/422732/agent-avenue

Sleuth (led by Tony) 1971 Sid Sackson deduction game – identify the missing gem (of 36) by type, setting and color using a 54-card  search deck.  This was part of the classic 3M game series.

The Gang (led by Armando) 2024 co-operative version of Texas Hold’em where players bet on how good they think their hand of cards will be relative to the other players, then try to make their predictions a reality. Early in a round, without talking to each other, each player chooses a chip indicating how good they think their hand is. Then they begin dealing cards into the middle of the table and have a chance to reassess their hands as more cards are revealed. At the end of the round, players see whether they correctly evaluated their hand. If all players did, you get to open one of the bank vaults! If not, you trip the alarm! If you manage to open three vaults before you trip the alarm three times, your gang wins! The Gang has become our group’s closer game of choice.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/411567/the-gang

Dro Polter (led by Peter) 2023 small box Japanese real-time pattern recognition dexterity filler game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/405537/dropolter

The Gardens of the Alhambra (led by Ethan) 1993 abstract influence game from Dirk Henn where each player is represented by plants of a particular color. Using tiles with all four colors on them, the players place them onto the board in fixed locations. In doing so, they try to surround victory point markers and capture them. Of course, since each tile has all of the player’s colors represented, every tile placement must be carefully thought-out so that you maximize your points while minimizing them for your opponents. Ties disqualify players – and so the next highest color total will earn the points. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game is the winner.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/405537/dropolter

Steve