3/25/2026 – Berkshire Gamers Session Report #26-12
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21 at the UNO Park Community Center in North Adams for a request night.
3/25/2026 @ UNO Park Community Center
IN: Steve & Sandy, Tony & Rachel, Nicole & Gus, Sam & Ruth, Tim, Zach, Armando, Chris, Julie, Reimi, Cady, Hope, Kelly, Sean K, Carol, Rob Danny
ON OUR TABLES:
Jungo (led by Zach) 2025 shedding card game. From a deck of 64 cards, with eight copies each of 1-8, players get a hand of cards that they cannot rearrange. The starting player leads a card or set of cards with the same value — but they can play multiple cards only if the cards are adjacent to one another in their hand. If cards have been played on the table, to play one must play the same number of cards with a higher value or a larger set of cards, e.g., 2 < 5 < 3,3 < 6,6 < 2,2,2 < 1,1,1,1. When you overplay someone, you can pick up the cards you beat and add them to your hand where you wish, or you can discard them.
If a player cannot or chooses not to play, they must pass, drawing a card from a facedown pile; some cards have two values on them, e.g., 1/2 or 5/6, and can be played as either number. Players either add this card to their hand where they wish, discard it, or — calling on the law of the “jungo” — play it immediately as part of a combination from their hand that beats what’s on the table.
If all but one player passes, clear the table, with the player who last played leading to an empty table.
Whoever first empties their hand wins! Alternatively, since the game is short, play multiple rounds, with the first player to win two rounds winning the game.
Bonsai (led by Tim) 2023 drafting and tile placement game about growing perfect miniature plants. Each turn players choose and perform one of two actions: meditate or cultivate. If players meditate, they choose one of the face up cards on the board and take it, along with any Bonsai tiles represented below the card drawn. If players cultivate, they can place their Bonsai tiles from their personal supply. When all common goal tiles have been claimed, then points earned for their Bonsai plants are totaled.
5X5 City (led by K-ban) 2024 30-minute city building tile drafting game (from the Japanese author of Bomb Busters), where players build various buildings in their city. Each player has a city board of 25 squares representing vacant lots, that are divided into various types of compartments depending on the city planning card selected at the start of the game. For each of 12 rounds, lots of building tiles are randomly drawn from a bag according to the number of squares in the specified section and drafted in turn order, then placed on the designated section of everyone’s city.
There are 10 types of buildings, each with its own method of scoring, depending on its placement.
Players have the option of turning a drafted building tile to the reverse side, as a park and after placing 3 parks have a single opportunity to swap the position of two building tiles. High score wins.
Tiny Towns (led by Nicole) 2019 Peter McPherson design. Players build their own town – which is represented by a 4×4 grid on which are placed resource cubes in specific layouts to construct buildings. Each building scores victory points (VPs) in a unique way. When no player can place any more resources or construct any buildings, the game ends, and any squares without a building are worth -1 VP. The player with the most VP wins!
Castle Combo (led by Tony) 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.
A new expansion, Out of the Oubliette!, has just been released, adding 12 new cards and a new rule: padlocks allow players to delay some card effects until a later turn, creating even greater combos.
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.
Splendor (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. We played on the neoprene playmat.
Pixies 2X (led by Tony/Nicole) 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… but watch out for those X’s (penalty points). The Flower Power expansion was used for this session.
Gizmos (led by Tim) 2018 Phil Walker-Harding engine-building drafting game. Players build their machines/inventions using a 3D marble dispenser that supplies the resources required to complete machines. Marbles selected are then used to buy cards. The cards slot into different sections of your tableau, are worth points, and additionally trigger their abilities when you select certain colors of marbles, or build certain types of cards. Combos are king here.
Web of Power (led by Nicole) Classic 2000 Michael Schacht area control/influence, drafting and network building game that has been rethemed/revised as China, Han and Iwari. Players struggle for influence over regions of Europe by placing two different types of control markers, Monasteries and Advisors. Monasteries are the basic placement, with the goal of securing a majority in a region or chain of monasteries or even decent points from second place. The placement of the Advisors is more restricted as the total number of Advisors in a region is limited by the majority player’s number of monasteries. The game is played in two rounds and is very fast paced.
Labyrinth Chronicles (led by K-ban) 2026 deluxe big box edition that includes a 3D version of both The Amazing Labyrinth and Master Labyrinth but most importantly includes a new co-op Campaign mode to one of the best-selling board games ever. Enter the mysterious Labyrinth with fellow adventurers to gather the resources required to help a nearby fae folk village. But beware! Inside dwell grasping goblins who want to snatch valuables before the team! As the team progresses among 12 adventures, they will rebuild the damaged village, meet new friends, unlock new skills, and much more! We played a single game of the stand-alone competitive Classic game when players insert an extra maze piece into the labyrinth shifting the walls of the maze in order to be the first to claim their 6 secret treasures and then return home. We’re looking for a team of 4 (plus 2 alternates) to start and complete the entire campaign.
The Gang (group led) 2024 cooperative 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!
It’s a Wonderful World (led by Zach) 2019 economic drafting and set collection card game, where players are an expanding Empire and must choose their path to their future. Players must develop faster and better than their competitors. Players will carefully plan their expansion to develop their production power and rule over this new world.
Each round, players will draft 7 cards and then choose which ones will be recycled to immediately acquire Resources, and which ones will be kept for construction to produce Resources each round and/or gain victory points.
When a card is fully built, it’s added to the player’s Empire to increase the player’s production capacity for each round. The mechanical twist being that the production phase works in a specific order. Plan your constructions carefully!
Steve
21 at the UNO Park Community Center in North Adams for a request night. 3/25/2026 @ UNO Park Community Center IN: Steve & Sandy, Tony & Rachel, Nicole & Gus, Sam & Ruth, Tim, Zach, Armando, Chris, Julie, Reimi, Cady, Hope, Kelly, Sean K, Carol, Rob Danny ON OUR TABLES: Jungo (led by Zach) 2025 shedding…
21 at the UNO Park Community Center in North Adams for a request night. 3/25/2026 @ UNO Park Community Center IN: Steve & Sandy, Tony & Rachel, Nicole & Gus, Sam & Ruth, Tim, Zach, Armando, Chris, Julie, Reimi, Cady, Hope, Kelly, Sean K, Carol, Rob Danny ON OUR TABLES: Jungo (led by Zach) 2025 shedding…