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I haven't been able to post review in the last fiew days, life got in the way. Hopefully this week goes better!
Today's game is Lovecraft Letter.
TL;DR
Score: 9/10
Positives:
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Very easy to teach
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Very fast
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Light-hearted
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Very nice components
Negatives:
- Some folks really dislike "accusing", they won't like this game
The Review
Lovecraft Letter combines the classic Love Letter game with an H.P. Lovecraft theme. This isn't just one of those simple Batman re-themes, if feels more like an expansion to Love Letter.
Image credit to Petra on bgg, source here
The goal of the game is to be the last surviving person. In your turn you will draw a card and play one of the 2 cards in your hand. Each card has a number and an associated action that you can perform. For instance, the card number 1 lets you attempt to guess someone else's card and if you succeed they are out of the game. The number 8 card cannot be played and if you are ever forced to discard it you lose the game. Though the game has player elimination, the rounds are very quick and it won't take long before you play again. If there were no cards left to be drawn, the person with the highest numbered card wins.
In the base Love Letter game, this was the entire game and boy did we enjoy playing it. It felt really great to play after a longer and heavier game. It's just such a chill and light-hearted fun game. You don't have to think too much, we mostly didn't even care too much about odds or anything. Folks just like to accuse me of being a Princess and that was fun. Sometimes we ended playing Love Letter for the entire evening. It was great but eventually we burned out a bit.
That's when Lovecraft Letter was released. The game is essentially the same but it adds a push your luck mechanic. Now there is an additional 8 alternative, green cards (1 for each number). Playing or discarding one of these alternative cards will leave you insane. The green cards will now have VERY strong abilities at your disposal, however you will need to do a sanity check before each of your turns. For each green card you have played/discarded you have to flip a card from the deck... if it's a green or 8 card you just lose. It was such a simple and subtle twist in the game but it REALLY refreshed the game for us. If I have a green card in hand do I want to risk using its amazing power? It will certainly pay off.... If you survive long enough to use it!
The components are great for the price. The game comes with a really neat box, a nice organizer, sleeves and poker chips. You're set. If, for some reason, you don't like the push your luck component added in Lovecraft Letter, you can still play base Love Letter just by removing the green cards.
I have really great memories playing this game for so many evenings with my friends. I still don't get how such a simple game hooked us so hard, but it really did. You can teach this game to anyone, it's so easy and plays in like 5 minutes. Can't recommend it enough!
Context Information
Number of plays: Certainly 100+
Suggested player count: 4+
Average playtime: A single game is like 5 minutes and if you win 2 games as insane or 3 games as sane you are the ultimate winner. Sometimes it takes a while to find the winner, depending on the number of players, but each individual game is super fast.
Honorable mentions:
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Fantasy Realms - Trying to build combos is super fun
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Arboretum - I tend not to like "mean" games, but I don't think one is as mean as people make it out to be. I love building my Arboretum!
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I have four Uwe Rosenberg games. Three of those follow a similar format: game title on top, then a line, then some dude, another line, publisher logo. But Feast For Odin had to go and be all creative and unique.
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In order to promote discussion on Lemmy, I’m doing micro-reviews for my favorite boardgames by genre. Please join in, provide your reviews, flame me for my terrible taste or to suggest a category for tomorrow!
Today's game is Spirit Island
TL;DR
Score: 9/10
Positives:
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Gorgeous artwork
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Theme fits great in the game
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Very thinky
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Tons of difficulty adjustments and scenarios
Negatives:
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The upkeep of this game is very high
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Prone to Analysis Paralysis
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Quarterbacking/Alpha gaming is nearly impossible but it's still really important to discuss how to approach each turn; Not everyone enjoys that
The Review
In Spirit Island you play as a magical spirit of the island. Your task is to protect the land and its native tribes from the colonizing invaders. The objective of the game is to wipe the colonizers or inflict so much fear they give up. If the colonizers spread too much or you run out of time, you lose the game.
Image credit to Richard on bgg, source here
This game is really special. The artwork is absolutely amazing and fits the theme really really well. The Spirits feel REALLY different from eachother, they totally change the way you play the game. Some Spirits are more focused on defending the land from colonist attacks, others are really good at killing enemy units and others play more of a supporting role.
At the start of game you are very weak. You have very limited range, and your starting cards are probably not very powerful. It quickly starts to feel like it's an impossible task and you're going to lose. Part of the island is going to be permanently corrupted and it's going to feel bad.
It's nearly impossible to be an alpha gamer in this game because your decisions are already too complex, you would be totally overwhelmed if you tried to control everyone else's. That said, while all actions can be performed simultaneously, it's very important to communicate your intentions with your team mates. Say you can wipe 1 of 2 possible areas. It's important to communicate that ability with your team mates because maybe someone else is more restricted than you and can only deal with 1 of those areas. Not everyone enjoys this interaction but I truly believe it's key to success.
As the game goes on you will be spreading your influence across the island and acquiring new and more powerful cards. You will start to feel like a god and the game starts to feel easy. It's quite an interesting arc, really. The game comes with a ton of difficulty adjustments but the arc always seems to be the same: you start miserable and thinking the game is impossible but you clutch it out and win when game is nearly over.
I really love the hard decisions in this game. You want to save the entire island, you want to kill every colonizer, you want it all to be perfect. That's not going to happen, the game is designed for that not to happen. You're going to have to make sacrifices and try your best to deal with the threats while gaining some much needed power. I love that aspect of the game. The Spirits are really unique with clever little names. My favorite spirit is "Ocean's Hungry Grasp" and it's so fun because your gameplay neatly simulates the ocean waves. It's amazing.
The one thing that knocks a point out of this game is the "invader phase" upkeek. Spreading colonizers and disease is a REALLY boring step and very prone to errors. It doesn't seem too much in the first couple of turns but it really starts to become a dreadful task that you perform every single round. For this reason, I really don't recommend the first expansion. You need to add even more stuff to add to the board and has yet another upkeep step. There's a Steam adaptation of the game which probably solves this problem but I tend not to enjoy digital adaptations of boardgames.
Context Information
Number of Plays: 15
Suggested player count: 2-3 players, 4 is fine if everyone knows how to play and no one suffers from AP
Average playtime: 2.5 hours
Win-rate: 93.3%
Honorable Mentions
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Aeon's End: The New Age - Really fun deckbuilding game with the unique novelty that you DO NOT shuffle your deck. Once you play all your deck you simply flip it, no shuffle. Great game. There are a ton of Aeon's End games, I played The new Age and The Outcasts. I recommend The new Age, felt like a better game.
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The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine - Trick tacking games are played a lot in Portugal. Every family owns a deck of cards and everyone can play "Sueca". This game feels like cooperative "Sueca" and we had a blast playing it. I also played a bit of the second one but I find the simple design of the first one a lot better.
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The Shipwreck Arcana - Forgot to mention this one! This is a very clever cooperative deduction game. Small box, small prize, amazing game. It's a solid 9/10 for me as well.
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BTW: The black deck box is full of Unstable Unicorns and it's expansions.
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Finally got the Wingspan Nesting Box. It fits all the current expansions and has room for the future. I swear it must clock in at like 20lbs.
Still a little annoyed that all the Wingspan stuff that holds sleeved cards won’t fit the mote or less widely available and “standard” sleeves (Wingspan cards are not the same size as many other games) but thats not really anything a little 3D printing can’t fix.
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On a rainy day at the office I brought the board out and taught a friend. We can generally fit a full game into an hour. It's totally worth it for the weird looks everyone gives us.
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