GAME 1: DAWN OF PEACEMAKERS
My wife and I enjoyed playing the Dale of Merchants series by Snowdale Designs and had learned through someone else’s BGG post that they had created a “legacy” game set in the same world which involves a few of the creature factions. Since my sister has grown to love legacy/campaign games we thought this one would be neat to play with her.
BGG Description
Dawn of Peacemakers is an evolving board game with a continuing campaign. Players take roles of adventurers attempting to quell the hostilities between two warring sides. You will have to trust and cooperate with your fellow players in order to reach a more peaceful conclusion.
The game consists of a number of scenarios which form an exciting story driven campaign. There are multiple secrets and surprises in the box to be unveiled in certain points of the story. This way each game is radically different from the last and no two games feel the same. However, none of the game’s components are destroyed or altered so you can replay any scenario as many times as you like.
Dawn of Peacemakers is set in Daimyria, the same world as both the original Dale of Merchants and Dale of Merchants 2. Although it takes place almost one thousand years before those games, you’ll be able to spot many familiar animalfolks. Are you ready to dive into the exciting world of Daimyria?
Players use cards to influence different sides of the ongoing war. Armies and player-controlled adventurers are represented with highly detailed plastic miniatures on a beautifully illustrated game board. All scenarios have their unique map which is built using modular terrain tiles.
Weight 2.93/5
What we like about the game
The first thing we like about the game is that once you play a few scenarios, you can play the alternate mode which is called skirmish. We will know more about this once we try it out in the future.
The next thing we like about the game is that you can fully reset the game and play the campaign over and over. None of the cards are thrown out or stickers placed on the board; everything is set up from scratch for each scenario you play.
Another part we like is that at the start of each scenario during set-up you add cards the specific cards to the deck based on what each army needs. This means you know exactly what cards and how many are in the decks so you can somewhat predict what cards will be flipped over.
The last thing to add is that we do enjoy that it is a co-operative game that really encourages, if not requires, player interaction with each other.
What we don’t like about the game
To be completely honest, the whole setup and introduction of the game for the first campaign was a big turnoff. It took us twice as long to read through everything then it did to play. Even with all the support text it was a bit confusing. My best guess is that as we continue to progress in the game things, will get clearer and maybe easier to play.
Overall Thoughts
Will there be other things to add after we play more, probably, but for now we are still just trying to figure out the best ways to prevent a full on war. If you did like the Dale of Merchants games and you like having a story to follow, then this game is a must-try.
***Update from when I first wrote this section***
We played the second scenario and felt that we had a better grasp on the game. We were able to better use the card mechanics and work together to get another victory. Set up was a little bit easier. We just wish that there were more of a certain card that would help us adventurers but we still have a long way to go and a lot more cards to go through.
GAME 2: BÄRENPARK
We own a few games that use polyomino tiles and have liked the gameplay of each of them. This game has gotten quite a bit of praise from people on the BGG Facebook page so we thought we would check it out for ourselves.
BGG Description
Up to two thousand pounds in weight and over ten feet tall, the bear is considered the biggest and heaviest terrestrial carnivore in the world. Of course, there is not just "one bear;" on the contrary, there are plenty of subspecies that differ from each other in various aspects. For instance, only the Kodiak bear (ursus arctos middendorffi) weighs about 2,000 lbs. The polar bear (ursus maritimus) weighs "only" 1,100 lbs., but gets much bigger than the Kodiak bear, being as much as 11 ft. tall!
Bärenpark takes you into the world of bears, challenging you to build your own bear park. Would you like another polar bear enclosure or rather a koala* house? The park visitors are sure to get hungry on their tour through the park, so build them places to eat! Whatever your choices are, make sure you get the next building permit and use your land wisely! (* No, koalas aren't bears but they're so cute, we couldn't leave them out of this game!)
In more detail, each player in Bärenpark builds their own bear park, attempting to make it as beautiful as they can, while also using every square meter possible. The park is created by combining polyomino tiles onto a grid, with players scoring for animal houses, outdoor areas, completed construction, and more. The sooner you build it, the better! Cover icons to get new tiles and park sections. The game ends as soon as one player has finished expanding their park, then players tally their points to see who has won.
Weight 1.64/5
What we like about the game
As you can see with the weight of this game, it is a light easy game to play. No complicated rules to bog you down and no complicated mechanics. You place a tile on your board and then pick new tiles based on which symbols you cover (and/or draw your next section of park). As you can read from above, the game ends when you fill your park. Need I say more??
Why yes, there is one more thing that we like about the game. If you do not want to or are unable to take a tile from one of the section you can trade down (tiles to the left side of the tile board). This is helpful when a section of tiles run out or if you have no space for the larger tiles.
What we don’t like about the game
***crickets chirping***
We can say that for the first time in a long time we find no fault in this game.
Overall Thoughts
We were able to teach my mother the game. She did grasp the game play pretty well so we asked her how much she likes it. Her response was not what we expected; since she has New York Zoo on her 10x10, she compared the games to each other and decided she liked New York Zoo better.
My wife and I enjoy both games and feel that besides the polyomino “Tetris” tile placement, each game is different enough and can be played by young and old.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This week’s two games were both fun and enjoyable.
One was harder to get into because the learning curve is much greater (the second time playing was easier but we still have much more to learn) whereas the other was really easy to learn and play and can be taught to others quickly.
We are really enjoying that so far this year all the new games/expansions that were selected have been a nice variety of game mechanics and weights. Some have been easy and short and some have been ones that take longer to learn and play. What will the next few weeks bring? We don’t even know until we grab something off the self. Can’t wait to see what’s next.
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