In anticipation of this years Essen Spiel 2023, which games have you played last week? Any nice discoveries, interesting mechanisms, reviews, warnings and experiences are all welcome!
We have had some busy weeks last weeks, so the amount of games is liwer compared to normal. This weekend we finally had some time again ^^
We played 2 games of good ol’ pandemic, which we horribly lost. Mostly due to the lab expansion, which we hadnt played in a while and forgot the proper strategy for.
We also played a game of Theotihuacan, but it isnt my game. We have played it a couple of times now, but I am tense the whole way through, as there are so many actions and every single one counts so much. If anyone has some experiences with this game and can tell me your experiences I would love to hear. It is a game my fiance loves, and I would like to at least like it as well…
I really wanna try Pandemic at some point but am afraid of quaterbacking. Do you see this as a problem?
If you are the dominant player then one way to handle it is to look at the other players’ “mistakes” as part of the challenge. Let them make the mistakes and play well enough on your turn to win regardless.
I am not fully familiar with the term quarterbacking, but I assume it is where somebody effectively plays the whole game and tells everybody what to do?
I think if you are aware of it, it is easier to stop quarterbacking. When I play it I try to give advise on hotspots for problems, but I wont plan somebody elses turn. But they decide. But the game can be prone to it. You could always play with your cards closed, then people have less information, which prevents 1 person from figuring it all out, but might complicate the game some extra as well
you got it spot on! Yeah, at some point I should really give it a go but I am a bit afraid of ruining it :D
The highlight of the week for me was our two games of Tiletum. The game is all about the combos you get from bonus tiles, almost feels like a combo-tastic roll & write in that sense.
We also played some more Taverns of Tiefenthal, Living Forest, Sea Salt & Paper.
And finally two plays of a new new-to-us game, Carthago. Took a chance on this because of a ridiculously good sale earlier this week and it paid off, can’t wait to explore it some more. The rules are slightly weird and there is some minor fiddliness to the way the action board works but overall it’s a nice little small-ish box euro. Not too many of those out there.
We played some more Castles of Burgundy with two players, it was a tight race with only 2 point difference!
We also played some Exploding Kittens with 5 and I will never like this game. Its super random and not enjoyable.
We also played a 5-player game of 7 Wonders which was a bit chaotic because we had not played it for a long time. Its still a good game for the casual crowd (better than exploding kittens for sure)
We also played one 2-player game of Ark Nova. Still enjoy every game as much as the last