This week in development
Not much development this week as I’m having a bit of post-game-completion break. I’ve had the occasional idea but not gone any further than that.
This week in games
At Waterstones on Wednesday, I broke out Mysterium for the first time in a while – with both expansions added in (but no voting to speed things up). We used the story cards (from Secrets & Lies) instead of the objects. I think they’re slightly more difficult, as there’s more going on than single objects.
As the ghost, my cards weren’t the best, but everyone got there on the last round and got the overall answer right (despite only one of the cards I gave really working as a clue).
Finished off with a few quick rounds of Monikers. Including a terrible sound effects round. I am somewhat ashamed of what I did to represent “man from Nantucket” …
On Sunday, we finally got that chance to play Cyclades. Only 3 players, but still fun. A couple of attacks by Alex left me with only one boat and one infantry on a sole island. I considered trying to build back up, but decided it was unlikely to lead to a win, even if everything went right.
Instead I used Apollo to build up a nice stack of cash (while also wasting some of the other players’ money). Then I used Poseidon to get some boats, before speding the rest of my money zipping around the board, destroying other boats until I ran out of my own. Not at all a winning strategy, but a lot of fun!
Then we played Not Alone – also for the first time (despite me owning it for about 9 months). I think it might work better with more players. Alex and Oz had almost no discussion, so my alien had nothing to go on. I did well to begin with, but they quickly turned it around and I lost.
Then Oz left, so we played Altiplano with just 2. Another one I’d like to try with more players. As it was, our starting powers meant I was focused on farming and Alex was focused on mining, so we kept out of each other’s way. My more plentiful goods (and a handy extension that let me store them before scoring) gave me the win.
We finished off with Skulldug, a silly pulp adventure game I haven’t played in ages. It’s very light, but a lot of fun. I got three treasures early on, so Alex was left to focus on stopping me making it out. He almost succeeded, but with one HP left, I lucked into a tile with no hazards and made my escape.
In game-buying news, I backed a couple of Kickstarters this week. Songbirds is an odd little game that reminds me a bit of Arboretum (sadly out-of-print right now). The art is lovely and it has a crow! (And a shrike, which will surely give nightmares to anyone who watched the Animals of Farthing Wood as a kid.)
And just now, I backed Village Pillage, from the excellent Jellybean games. After thoroughly enjoying the Lady and the Tiger, this was a no-brainer.
Oh, and I bought a whole box (90 packs!) of Marvel Dice Masters because it was only £30 and I’m weak …
This week in everything else
Oh God, my life is dull. The most exciting part of my week was buying trousers and boots (which sadly didn’t fit, so I need to wait for an exchange), and trying in vain to fix the springs in our sofa.
Oh, and watching too many Lindsay Ellis videos.