Entry 75- Week 30: Boonlake

        Since our move out of the old place is done and we are still trying to settle into the new place, our daily game play has taken a huge downturn. The total games played for the month can be counted on one hand… yes, you read that right, one hand. From the creator of Maracaibo, Great Western Trail, Broom Service, and Port Royal comes the next great heavy Euro game from the Austrian called Boonlake.

BOONLAKE (2021) 

BGG Description 

With a group of pioneers, you have left civilization behind to settle along the shores of Boonlake, a long-forgotten region inhabited by humans long ago. This unexplored area beckons you! Become part of a new community and commit yourself to the common good. Explore the landscapes, build houses and settlements, raise cattle, produce raw materials, and develop an infrastructure. Do your best to automate these processes. Seize the opportunity to make the best of your new life in Boonlake. 

Boonlake is an expert game in which you are finding yourself improving your life — and your group's life — in this new territory...but how you accomplish this is completely up to you! Due to a novel action mechanism, each game progresses differently. Each action needs to be considered carefully since the other players also benefit from the action you choose. Besides this, the action determines how far you may move your ship — the further and faster, the better! 

—description from the publisher 

Weight 3.75/5 

 A Little More Info 

        The following is the opening statement from the manual:

        “Finally, you have arrived at Boonlake. The abandoned region along the shore of the lake of the same name almost seems uninhabited; there is only a small group of people, watching over nature and trying to develop life according to their own ideas. The land has hardly been explored, but the gorgeous surroundings will provide valuable opportunities to improve the lives of Boonlake‘s inhabitants. On your turn, you have to choose one action, and all of you will benefit from it. Exploring, settling, breeding cattle, hiring, modernizing, building, sailing… What goals will you pursue? It‘s all up to you – in BOONLAKE” 

        Let’s see if I can explain this heavy game in a nutshell. The game is played over two rounds with two interim scoring in each round plus a final scoring period. The end right? Oh, you want to know more about the gameplay itself too? Okay here is my attempt to explain it. 

        Each players turn has three phases (A,B,C). Phase A is where you select an action from the action strip and carry it out from left to right (more on this soon). Phase B is where you move your ship down the river up to the maximum number of spaces allow by the position of the action you took from the action strip (more details coming). Phase C is the easiest of the three, all you do push the action strips up from the bottom of the action board and pass the turn to the next player. 

        More about Phase A: There are seven different actions strips that are constantly moving around. Two strips for each of the day (pioneer and cattle breeding actions), sunset (progress and region scoring actions), and night (hire and settle actions) and one strip (builder action) that is more specifically for playing cards. Each player selects one of the action strips, places it at the bottom of the action board, and then takes the actions from on it from left to right. Now I want to make this clear… players MAY take the eligible actions on the action tiles but can opt to not take them. 

        For each of the strips that correspond with a time of day, you begin by either playing a card (day, sunset, night) that matches action tile or discard a matching card to earn 2 coins. Then you take the main action(s) that apply just for yourself. Then every player takes the action(s) on the right side of the tile, except for the Pioneer strip (the active player doesn’t take the actions). 

        For the Builder action strip, you gain three coins and then can either play a card or draw two cards and then everyone may play any card or discard any card for two coins. 

        I will talk more about playing cards further down but for now let’s look into Phase B. 

        Phase B: Based on the position of the action strip you took, you can move your boat anywhere from one (lower part of the action board) to four (top spaces on the action board) spaces on the river. If you have more than one movement available you do not have to use all the spaces. 

        The river also provides you any one of six different rewards. Spaces on the river cannot be shared unless you are in a harbor space. 

        Once the first player passes one of the locks on the river, the interim scoring takes place. After the first scoring, you follow the river to the left (the head of the boat direction, towards the middle of the board); after the second scoring, you move all the ships back to the start area to begin the second round (except in a four-player game you move down the river a little further to start). The third scoring period (same location as the first) you take the right side (again nose of ship facing downward). After the last interim scoring is the final scoring. Just take note that leftover coins and card have no value in the final scoring. 

        And before I forget, a little about the cards. Each card has requirements to play them listed on the upper left of the cards. Typically, the cost includes coins, resources, and/or vases that you collect. Most cards have your victory points on the bottom that you score at the end of the game (some cards have instant points awarded). Speaking of rewards of the cards, they fall into three categories: instant, in-game recurring, and end of game scoring. 

        Now the resources. You move your canoes around your player board to “activate” the resources, everyone starts out with one basic resource of each of the four types plus one of the +1 production sites upgrades giving you a second resource of one type (you decide which you want after looking at your cards). Throughout the game there are ways to acquire the additional upgrade tiles and also to flip them giving you up to four of each resource.  

        There are also lever tokens that you can use throughout the game that provides you various benefits as well. You gain these with by selecting the progress action strip.

What we like about the game 

        The biggest thing that we absolutely love about the game is that there is little player downtown. On each players turn all players will have something that they can do. 

        We love that wooden components and even the cardboard ones are well made. The players boards are dual layered (you put it together) so that the pieces are nice and secure and won’t slide around. 

        The variety of the cards in the game allows you to play different strategies to gain an upper hand over your opponents. What may work one game may not work the next; an aspect that we do like. 

        Next, the learning curve to play the game is quite low. Once you get the basics of the symbols down, the gameplay goes fairly quickly. As with all new games, just be prepared to take extra time to learn the game; after the first game, you can complete it within the estimated play time. 

        Last thing to point out is that we like how the resources are played out, you have them without having physical pieces to mark them. Your canoes do all the work for you keeping track of what you can use. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        The one thing we don’t like about the game is that there isn’t anything we don’t like. Alexander Pfister had created a well round game that keeps all players busy. Most of the longer heavier games involves a lot of player downtime and this game does not. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

        For a heavy Euro and worker placement game, we found this to be one that we could play over and over and not get “board” with (pun intended). We have played the game at two and three player counts and found both to be enjoyable and are excited to try it four players, heck, I might get ambitious and try the solo play too. 

        A lot of people do prefer light to medium weight games to play and are turned off by heavy games, for us, this heavy game is fun and enjoyable and not a “big and scary” one such as the Twilight Imperium games. 

        Are you willing to help settle Boonlake and save humanity as we once knew it? Come take a trip down the river and see.

Entry 74- Week 29: Cauldron Master & My Father’s Work

        Since our move out of the old place is done and we are still trying to settle into the new place, our daily game play has taken a huge downturn. The total games played for the month can be counted on one hand… yes, you read that right, one hand. 

        To try to get back into our game playing routine (which is still a struggle) we decided to play a new game right away for the week, a simple card game (Cauldron Master), and later in the week we played another new game that was much more time consuming (My Father’s Work). We also returned to our favorite gaming pub up north and played a game on our 10 x 10 list (Merchants Cove) on Saturday. We are working on doing better and are excited to get back into our gaming routine. With that being said, here are the two games for the week. 

CAULDRON MASTER (2017) 

          We got a jump start on playing games for the week. On Sunday’s we go to my parents house for family dinner which usually involves playing a game. My wife wanted something light and I wanted something new, so after about ten minutes debating which direction I wanted I saw Cauldron Master by Alley Cat Games (the publisher of one of our favorite island hopping games Tungaru) on a shelf still in shrink and grabbed it so we got something light and new. 

BGG Description 

        Play as a coven of witches conniving to concoct potions to entrance the local population in Cauldron Master! Each turn players choose from one of their 5 witches in a blind reveal mechanism. Each witch allows the collection of ingredient cards (to collect as sets) and condiment cards (to increase the value of specific sets). However, each witch picks specific types of cards and incorrectly deduce who earlier players pick and you may be left with nothing to pick up! The "recipe" cards included also give secret bonuses for concocting specific ingredient/condiment (potion) combinations which allow for great replayability and strategic depth. 

—description from the publisher 

 Weight 1.67/5 

A Little More Info 

        The game is simple and easy enough to play and does not take long at all to go through a deck. Our two player game took about 15 minutes and that was doing things turn-based. 

        How does the game play? Each round has five phases that goes quickly and is the following: 1) Select a witch, 2) Player Order, 3) Pick ingredient cards, 4) Create potions, and 5) End of round. 

        Each player has the same five witches and on a turn you select one of them and place it face down in front of you (phase 1). Once everyone has selected, the cards are revealed. The person who played the lowest number gets to do the selected action first (phase 2). If there is a tie for order, the player with the “Favour of Hecate” card goes before the other player who played the same number. 

         The person with the initiative then gets to select cards according to the action on their witch card and put the cards into their personal cauldrons (Phase 3). Each player has a cauldron that holds two, three, and four ingredients in it. If you fill up a cauldron to its capacity, you proceed to the scoring section of Phase 4. Scoring is easy because each ingredient card tells you how many points each set is worth. There is also bonus points for completing a recipe from your bonus card. 

        After this is done, Phase 5 consists of discarding your witch you played (don’t worry, you get it back after the 5th round), replenishing the ingredient pool and passing the “Favour of Hecate” to the next player. The game is over if there are not enough ingredient cards to fill the pool and complete another round. The winner is whoever has the most points from completed cauldrons. 

What we like about the game 

        The game is your typical set collection game that plays extremely fast. The rules are simple and not hard to follow at all. It is small and portable and does not take a lot of table space. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        This is our personal preference, but it has no effect on the actual game itself… 

        There are three types of red cards with three of each, there are four types of orange cards (more yellow to us) with four of each, and five types of green cards with five of each. 

        With knowing this you need to strategize ahead of time which witch to play so you don’t miss out of the card you may need to complete a set. But again, you never know what ingredient cards are coming until Phase 5. 

MY FATHER’S WORK (2022)

        This was a major Kickstarter project that we backed and I believe the only (maybe we have one other, but I would have to check) game that requires an app to play. We like games that don’t rely on technology so we can “disconnect” and enjoy face-to-face interactions with other people. So how did we like this game? Read on, my friend, read on. 

BGG Description 

The walls were lined with iron shelves, each metal slat overfilled with glass jars containing formaldehyde and grotesque curiosities within. Pristine brass tools and refined metals of a quality I had never before laid eyes upon were strewn across sturdy slabs of rock and wood, their edges sharp with use. However, my eyes were soon drawn to a sturdy writing desk, its mahogany eaves inlaid with thin strips of copper, the center of which contained a well-worn leather-bound book. My father's journal — passed down to me and representing years of knowledge and countless experiments. And inside that weathered tome, atop the pearly parchment oxidized yellow at its frayed edges, were the deliberate quill marks of a crazed genius outlining the ambitious project he could never complete in one lifetime — his masterwork. 

Without realizing it, my hands were shaking as I clutched the book to my chest. At once, I felt an ownership and anxiety for the scientific sketches scrawled so eloquently on those frayed sheets. It was at that moment that I began my obsession: I would restore this laboratory to its former brilliance and dedicate my life to completing my father's work! 

In My Father's Work, players are competing mad scientists entrusted with a page from their father's journal and a large estate in which to perform their devious experiments. Players earn points by completing experiments, aiding the town in its endeavors, upgrading their macabre estates, and hopefully completing their father's masterwork. 

But they have to balance study and active experimentation because at the end of each generation, all of their experiments and resources are lost to time until their child begins again with only the "Journaled Knowledge and Estate" they have willed to them — and since the game is played over the course of three generations, it is inevitable that the players will rouse the townsfolk to form angry mobs or spiral into insanity from the ethically dubious works they have created. The player with the most points at the end of three generations wins and becomes the most revered, feared, ingenious scientist the world has ever known! 

—description from the publisher 

Weight 3.2/5 

A Little More Info 

        The game is a story driven worker placement that does take a long time to play because you are playing through three generations of storyline. Each generation contains three rounds to complete. 

        As you progress through the storyline, the rounds do tend to get quicker as you become more familiar with what each location does. Oh, did I also mention that the town map changes throughout the gameplay too? 

        The best way I can tell you more about playing the game is to refer you to this video by JestaThaRogue. This will explain enough without spoiling the storyline in the game for you. He maybe a quick talker but this is one of better explanation videos we have seen. 

What we like about the game 

        WOW! Where do we start with this? 

        First, the box is be-a-u-ti-ful and sturdy. The game materials are top-notch for us. From the cards, to the boards, to the miniatures, to the resources, and much, much more. On top of it all, the Game Trayz organizers allows the game to stay neat and organized and allows for quick and simple setup and take down. 

        Speaking of the miniatures, we love that you can selected which miniature will take the role of yourself, your spouse, two servants, and two caretakers. With a variety of male and female characters, you can mix and match who gets what role. There are a total of six different characters (four of each) so if you are playing with fewer than four players, you could double-up on a character. The roles of each miniature is distinguished by what base you attach to it. This also means that you can select a husband-wife, husband-husband, or wife-wife combo. The choice is up to you and is not pre-determined.

 

        The next thing that we absolutely love is that the Village Chronicle Book (the town maps) is a spiral bound flip book and not one in which you attach stickers to alter the map permanently. Instead, as instructed, you flip from one page to another in between rounds. We really love this feature of the game. 

        Since we are a fan of sleeving the cards in our games, the Game Trayz organizers do allow sleeved cards to fit nicely in them (the exception are the four tarot sized player aids just sit on top of one of the organizer trays so the are not snug in place). 

        Now to address the resource items from the game. The knowledge cubes are your typical see-through colored cubes. The ingredient resources are awesome. From the glass bottles, to the metal gears, and the wooden animal and body (coffins) resources, each are made really well. We love that coffins have different patterns on them and the animals are not just paw prints but are a variety of different animals. The coins in the game are a nice-weighted metal coins and not cardboard or wooden and the metal gears are all different as well. 

        The player boards are dual-layered boards so you can set game components in them without having to worry items sliding out of place. The only minor drawback is that your journal markers are tall and can be tipped with a major bump of the table, so a lot of people just lay them down. 

        Now for the “elephant” of the game, the app. Most Kickstarter backers wanted to get their hands on the game before the app was completed so Renegade sent out the games. To “make up” for the app not being ready, they released a web-based text only demo scenario as an introduction to the game for those who wanted to play a game right away. (Click here to check it out.)

        We waited for the app to be released before playing the game since we wanted to see the game with “all the bells and whistles.” As of right now, the Android app is still pending release but the Apple and Amazon apps are up and running. 

        Also for us, we were very apprehensive about playing a game that requires an app but we feel that this game is great with it and the app allows the stories to be told and altered without having to rely on multiple books and manuals to do the job. Thus making the focus on the game play itself and not page turning. 

        *** Sidenote: I love that the music from the app helps set the mood in the game. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        There are just a few items to address here. 

        We do wish that there was an action summary card provided that would briefly explain the actions. This would have made our first game go a bit quicker. Early on we made a few mistakes. 

        And second, the printed knowledge cube icons needed to be done better. The white cubes that signify any color can be easily mixed with the grey occult cubes. Trying to figure out which is which did take up a few moments of time with each occurrence. 

        Those are really the only things we are not liking with the game. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

        We enjoyed playing both games for this week. From the quick and easy Cauldron Master to the long and horrifying (theme of the game) My Father’s Work, each game was a fun experience for us. 

        The one thing that I would say about playing an app-based game is that you should pick on by a company in which is well established and has a good record as a publisher. This is a main reason why we backed My Father’s Work. You want a reputable publisher that you know will be able to maintain the app for years to come. 

        Yesterday we were also able to show off the game to a member of our gaming group and was able to talk about the details of the game that we could without spoiling the game and they are excited to be to play the game with us in the coming weeks. They pointed out some of the same details about the components as we did. 

        It doesn’t matter if you want a long game to play or just a quick short one, keep on gaming and enjoy the time you have spending it with family and friends. During our move we missed this and it definitely showed. 

         I will say it again, we are looking forward to getting back into the habit of daily game play. Until next week, “keep your stick on the ice” (oh wait, that was Red Green, maybe I need to find an idiom).

Entry 73- Week 28: Meadow

        We finally got everything moved and for the most part items put away and organized to the point where we finally were able to sit and start playing games again after an almost two week break. 

        I know that I owe you all some write ups from what I missed and I will integrate those into the next few weeks’ worth of entries but for this week because we played our game only last night, I will just write about a beautiful game that people in the industry have been raving about which is called Meadow by Rebel Studio. 

MEADOW (2021) 

        This is a nature based game in which you are building up your personal meadow filled with different types of grounds and various other items that you may find in a nature-scape. 

BGG Description 

Meadow is an engaging set collection game with over two hundred unique cards containing hand-painted watercolor illustrations. In the game, players take the role of explorers competing for the title of the most skilled nature observer. To win, they collect cards with the most valuable species, landscapes, and discoveries. Their journey is led by passion, a curiosity of the world, an inquiring mind, and a desire to discover the mysteries of nature. The competition continues at the bonfire where the players race to fulfill the goals of their adventures. 

In this medium-weight board game for 1-4 players, you take turns placing path tokens on one of the two boards. Placing a token on the main board allows the player to get cards, but playing them requires meeting certain requirements. Playing a token on the bonfire board activates special actions (which helps to implement a chosen strategy) and gives the opportunity to achieve goals that provide additional points. Throughout the game, players collect cards in their meadow and surroundings area. At the end, the player with the most points on cards and on the bonfire board wins. 

Meadow also includes envelopes with additional cards to open at specific moments... 

Weight 2.23/5 

A Little More Info 

        The game looks a bit much at first but after just taking a few turns the game was easy to grasp. Each round has a total of four turns (five in a two or three player game) which is based on the path tokens you have. 

        Placing the tokens on the main board allows you to collect a card X number of spaces away in a row or column and you can play one card from your hand (optional). 

        Placing a path token on the campfire board (bonfire board as in the description, rulebook says campfire) allows you to take the specific action on the token which are playing two cards, collecting two road pieces, taking any card from the main board, and drawing three cards from a specific deck and keeping one. The fifth path token for the two and three player game is a wild that allows you to copy any of the other actions. Also you can fulfill a goal (optional) if you meet the requirements. 

        Halfway through the game (when you pass the hourglass) the South and North decks get switched out and the main board gets completely refreshed. The number of rounds played is based on the number of players (six in a 1-3 player game, eight in a 4 player game). 

        Final scoring is simple. You just add up the point showing on the cards you played and the bonus points for completing the campfire goals. 

What we like about the game 

        The artwork on each card in the game is beautiful. It immediately drew us into the game and we wanted to dive right in a look at all the cards in the game. 

        We also loved that though it is a medium weighted game, it is not complex to play at all. Even with the 20+ symbols in the game, the game play itself is easy to understand. With four categories of cards in the game, understanding the purpose of each type is not hard at all. Collecting and playing the cards wisely is the tricky part. The above pictures show the observation cards (added to the ground cards [not pictured] ), landscape cards, and discovery cards (added to the landscape cards). 

        Next thing we like about the game is that it really does not take long to play. Even with our “normal” distractions, we completed our first game (2 player) in about 45 minutes. 

        Another thing that we love, really love, about the game is that it is not a table hog. You can comfortably sit around a normal dining room table and have space for everyone’s meadow to grow. 

        The last thing we want to mention is that the five bonus envelopes add more cards to the game and only one of them add a new symbol and new mechanic to the game. We will slowly integrate each set into our game play. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        After just one play, they only thing we currently do not like (this might change after a few more games) is that we feel certain symbols are much harder to come by. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

        Is this game worth the hype that it has received? We tend to think so. 

        Is the game worth the retail price of $55 USD? I would wait until you find it on sale for around $40. 

        This game will get tabled more and we will introduce it others that we feel would be able to grasp all the symbols in the game.

***Endnote: There is an expansion coming soon for the game... Meadow: Downstream***

Entry 72- Again, no post.

 Hi everyone,

    Sorry to inform you but this week I have nothing. Last week I made a trip to Urgent Care and have been recovering and we are trying to finish our move still. Still have a few things at the old place and trying to clean up the new so we can walk and not trip over things.

    I promise that I will write again soon.

Entry 71- No post this week

Happy Independence Day (tomorrow) to everyone in the United States of America!!!!

This week I decided not to do a writeup. Next week I will discuss two week's worth of new games.