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Happy 2025!!!
Welcome to another new year and another year of board gaming!!
Our Christmas game haul was lighter than usual because, with Selena out of the house and Julie struggling to deal with all that life keeps throwing at her, our gaming has become less frequent…
I’ll start by repeating one from the end of last year…
As I’ve done since Selena was little, there was a package under the tree marked to be opened Christmas Eve… it was getting late (by my schedule) as Julie finished her wrapping… she knew it was a game (I’m that predictable I guess) and recognized it as soon as she opened it and, even though we were both tired, we had to play a few games of Flip 7!!
(from the publisher): Flip over cards one by one without flipping the same number twice.
Sound easy? Think again! This isn’t just any deck of cards… In Flip 7 there’s only one 1 card, two 2’s, three 3’s, etc. plus a bunch of special cards that can score you extra points, give you a second chance, or freeze you or your opponents in your tracks.
Are you the type of player to play it safe and bank points before you bust, or are you going to risk it all and go for the bonus points by flipping over seven in a row? Press your luck meets strategy in this addictive card game that’s sure to be the greatest card game you’ve ever played!
Why (we wanted it / like it (or don’t): This game had caught my attention a while back but didn’t make my shopping list until a few weeks ago when we were in bed watching various YouTuber’s games of the year and this came up a couple different times and Julie thought it looked like fun… and it is!! We played 3 games on Christmas Eve though both of us were exhausted… it’s such a simple concept that I have to wonder why no one thought of it before… the special deck with twelve 12 cards, eleven 11’s, ten 10’s on down to one 1 and one 0 card plus various bonus / screw your opponent card makes for a Blackjack meets Farkle style game… we love it! Such a great game!! I stopped at Mom’s facility on the way home from work and introduced it to her and she flipped (sorry) for it!! I’ll be bringing it by when I can because she trounced me this time… 🙂
Let’s start with the newest game entering the collection… Windmill Valley!!
(from the publisher): It’s the late 19th century, and more than 9000 windmills dot the landscape of the Netherlands, some of them purpose-built to dry the lowlands, called polders. In the polders between these windmills are fields filled with colorful tulips—the flower that once was a part of the turbulent history of the first financial bubble but is now simply a quintessential part of the Dutch landscape, especially on the famous Bloemen Route (or “Flower Route”).
In Windmill Valley , a game inspired by the Bloemen Route, you and up to three players take on the role of tulip farmers and entrepreneurs. You will build and enhance your windmills, look for new tulip bulbs in foreign trades or among local vendors to buy and plant, and try to get an edge with hired help and lucrative contracts. Let your blooming fields make your competitors green with envy!
During their turn, players choose the action by rotating the wheels on their windmill board. During the game they can:
Enhance their wheels, by adding enhancements, to build their engine
Plant tulips in their fields, which will score VP at the end of the game
Build windmills on the main board to activate rewards from adjacent fields
Hire helpers that provide bonuses for certain actions
Get contracts for endgame scoring
Visit the local market and conduct a foreign trade
All in all, Windmill Valley is a lightweight game with quick turns, a smart action-selection mechanism, multiple options to build your engine, and a lovely setting.
Awards & Honors
2024 UK Games Expo Best Boardgame (Euro-Style) People’s Choice Award Winner
2024 UK Games Expo Best Boardgame (Euro-Style) Nominee
Why (we wanted it / like it (or don’t): I thought Julie would like this game for the bright colors if nothing else… and maybe the cool action selection gears… I knew I’d like the gameplay but I didn’t expect there to be this much going on… 🙂 I can’t wait to learn it and get it to the table!!
Next up… my Christmas present to myself from Julie… the 3rd game in the South Tigris trilogy… Inventors of the South Tigris.
(from the publisher): Inventors of the South Tigris is set during the height of the Abbasid Caliphate, circa 850 AD. Over the past decades, Baghdad has become home to thousands of mathematicians, astronomers, chemists, and physicians. As inspired innovators, players are eager to develop clever contraptions to impress their peers. Will your ingenious devices adorn the House of Wisdom, or are they destined for dust and decay?
The aim of Inventors of the South Tigris is to be the player with the most Victory Points (VP) at the game’s end. Points are primarily gained by Inventing, Building, Testing, and Publishing Devices. Players can also score points by training their Craftspeople, developing their Workshops, Researching, and Influencing the 3 scientific Guilds.
Why (we wanted it / like it (or don’t): If you’ve been on any of the game pages you probably already know the answer to this… I’ve loved everything that Shem Phillips and Sam McDonald and Garphil Games have put out since I first found Architects of the West Kingdom in their 2nd trilogy… I haven’t played this one or even read the rules yet but I’m already looking forward to the 4th trilogy which I expect to be announced in the next couple months. I’ll follow up once I get it to the table either with Julie or the local game group which also has a huge Garphil fan… 🙂
The rest of our Christmas haul are some older games including one that I was so excited to give Julie that I may have gone off the deep end… I told a friend what I’d done and he paused then remarked, “Don’t get the bends on the way up!” 🙂
But first, let’s go back to 2019’s Tiny Towns…
(from the publisher): You are the mayor of a tiny town in the forest in which the smaller creatures of the woods have created a civilization hidden away from predators. This new land is small and the resources are scarce, so you take what you can get and never say no to building materials. Cleverly plan and construct a thriving town, and don’t let it fill up with wasted resources! Whoever builds the most prosperous tiny town wins!
In Tiny Towns, your town is represented by a 4×4 grid on which you will place resource cubes in specific layouts to construct buildings. Each building scores victory points (VPs) in a unique way. When no player can place any more resources or construct any buildings, the game ends, and any squares without a building are worth -1 VP. The player with the most VP wins!
Awards & Honors
2019 Board Game Quest Awards Best Family Game Nominee
2020 Spiel der Spiele Hit für Familien Recommended
2020 Origins Awards Game of the Year Winner
2020 Origins Awards Game of the Year Finalist
2020 Origins Awards Best Board Game Winner
2020 Origins Awards Best Board Game Nominee
2020 Nederlandse Spellenprijs Best Advanced Game Nominee
2020 Gouden Ludo Best Family Game Nominee
2019 Mensa Recommended
2019 Meeples Choice Award Nominee
2019 Golden Geek Board Game of the Year Nominee
2019 Golden Geek Best Family Board Game Nominee
2019 Cardboard Republic Architect Laurel Nominee
Why (we wanted it / like it (or don’t): Julie loves Tetris-y type games and this fits that with a bit of a twist…
Before we continue, I should mention that I also picked up the Tiny Towns: Fortune expansion as well… of course I wrapped the expansion and the original game in the same paper then taped them together just to make Julie wonder… 🙂
(from the publisher): The smaller creatures of the forest have created a civilization free of predators, and they look to you as mayor to guide their growing and thriving town. However, the area is small, and resources are scarce. The clever use of limited resources will determine the most successful tiny town.
In the expansion Tiny Towns: Fortune, the creatures of the forest have found a way to trick each other into thinking shiny bits of metal have arbitrary value. It’s very useful — so much so that you can use this thing called “money” to get other creatures to give you almost anything in return for the right number of shiny bits. If only earning money weren’t so difficult!
Why (we wanted it / like it (or don’t): This was a no-brainer because it adds in seamlessly and provides a way to mitigate when your opponents are purposely NOT calling out the resources you need… 🙂
Next up, another game from about 5 years ago that I was turned on to by the Elementary Technology teacher at school… I thought it was so clever I had to find a copy… that’s Hey Robot!! NOTE: I couldn’t find a video review of this that didn’t give away a bunch of the cards included with the game so there are no links for this… sorry.
(from the publisher): Hey Robot is a party game where two teams compete to get a smart speaker (like Alexa or Google Home) to say specific words. It can be played by any group size, from 2 players to as many as you can fit around a table.
You start the game by laying out a 4×4 grid of word cards. Cards have a point value from 1 to 3. Teams take turns trying to capture one of the cards by asking the speaker a single question, without using any form of the word on the card. If the speaker says the word in its response, the team captures that card and scores the points.
Whenever a team misses with their question, they must add a bonus point token to the card, increasing its value. Whenever a team captures a card, they add a bonus point token to any of the cards next to the captured card. The first team to score 16 points wins the game.
Hey Robot rewards general knowledge, linguistic dexterity, and the ability to reverse-engineer the algorithms that power the smart devices we’ve brought into our homes. It’s the first board game designed for humans and AI to play together.
Why (we wanted it / like it (or don’t): As soon as the teacher told me about this game I wondered why I’d never heard of it but knew I had to find a copy… 🙂
And lastly, a game that’s been on my radar for some time now… the game many think of as the old game ‘Life‘ but redesigned for modern board / Euro gamers… a game that’s 10 years old… a game that I was so convinced would be Julie’s new all-time favorite (knocking off Carcassonne), that I went waaaaaaaay overboard (I hope I’m right)… a game that Luke Hector of the Broken Meeple gushes over still… that game is The Pursuit of Happiness!!
(from the publisher): We all have one common desire: the desire for happiness. As we build our life, taking steps towards the pursuit of happiness, we come closer to the realization that happiness lies in the pursuit.
The Pursuit of Happiness is a game in which you take a character from birth and you live the life you always wanted. Using a worker-placement mechanism with time as your workers, you can take on projects, you can get jobs, you can buy items, you can establish relationships, you can raise families. The possibilities are endless as you live the life you have always wanted.
How much will you be able to achieve in just one lifetime during The Pursuit of Happiness?
Awards & Honors
2016 Cardboard Republic Daredevil Laurel Nominee
OK – this sounds like a better version of the game Life from back in my youth… but why now?? Why after all these years?? Well… because I stumbled on an online store selling the Big Box version that was Kickstarted back in 2020!!
(from BGG): The beloved thematic worker placement board game ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ now in a big box containing all 3 expansions, Community, Experiences, Nostalgia, and the 4 Kickstarter promos KS1, KS2, KS3 and KS4!
The Pursuit of Happiness: Big Box is a storage option for all The Pursuit of Happiness material released to date. Inside The Pursuit of Happiness: Big Box you can easily fit all material of The Pursuit of Happiness core game, The Pursuit of Happiness: Community expansion, The Pursuit of Happiness: Experiences expansion, The Pursuit of Happiness: Nostalgia expansion and all mini expansions including KS1, KS2, KS3 and KS4 Promo Packs, Thug Life, Out of this World and more. The Big Box also fits all standard or deluxe components of the game. The Pursuit of Happiness: Big Box includes a 2-level plastic custom tray and a consolidated rulebook for all The Pursuit of Happiness material.
Since the box has room for everything ever created for the game (and more), and because too much is never enough as they say, I set out to find anything and everything that WASN’T included in the Big Box edition… I found it all on the game’s publisher Artipia’s website… ordered some… then went back and ordered the rest (hence my going overboard)… I didn’t realize until the first package arrived and I had to sign for it that the company is in GREECE!! It got me even more into the Christmas spirit – the anticipation of watching Julie as I had wrapped the Big Box by itself then each expansion, promo pack, the game mat and upgraded components all separately (but in matching paper of course)… then I got to tell her how a lot of it came directly from Greece… that’s how much I love her… 🙂
So in total, here’s what we have for the game… the Big Box includes:
The Pursuit of Happiness (base game packs 1 and 2 – that’s 180 cards just to start)
The Pursuit of Happiness: Community (expansion pack 3)
The Pursuit of Happiness: Experiences (expansion pack 4)
The Pursuit of Happiness: Nostalgia (expansion pack 5)
The Pursuit of Happiness: KS1 promos (pack 6)
The Pursuit of Happiness: KS2 promos (pack 7)
The Pursuit of Happiness: KS3 promos (pack 8)
The Pursuit of Happiness: KS4 promos (pack 9)
The big box also includes a custom insert (which is very nice), cardboard tokens and wooden cubes (these won’t do if I’m going all-in for her)…
My first Artipia order to ‘complete’ our set:
– Pack 10 – Promo Pack (ALL promo cards ever made and some never seen before)
– Pack 11 – Holiday Pack
– Pack 12 – Gratitude Pack
– Pack 13 – Thug Life
– Pack 14 – Out of This World
My second Artipia order was for the giant neoprene game mat (that includes expansion boards ON IT)…
And ALL the deluxe components which upgrades the cardboard AND CUBES from the base game, the Community, Experiences and Nostalgia expansions AND includes larger versions of existing wooden components (hourglasses, etc.) and includes:
– 45 wooden hourglasses (9 Red, 9 Green, 9 Blue, 9 Yellow, 9 Grey – replaces the smaller hourglasses)
– 21 wooden palm trees (4 Red, 4 Green, 4 Blue, 4 Yellow, 4 Grey, 1 Purple – replaces the player’s score and track cubes)
– 1 wooden star (first player token)
– 30 wooden hearts (desire tokens)
– 45 wooden arrows (level indicators – replaces black cubes)
– 4 Wooden unavailable action indicators
– 36 plastic creativity tokens (12 large (5 value), 24 small (1 value) – a little hard to tell apart without the 1’s and 5’s on them)
– 36 plastic knowledge tokens (12 large (5 value), 24 small (1 value) – a little hard to tell apart without the 1’s and 5’s on them)
– 36 plastic influence tokens (12 large (5 value), 24 small (1 value) – a little hard to tell apart without the 1’s and 5’s on them)
– 44 plastic coins (16 large, 28 small – probably the only disappointing part of all the upgrades… I ordered generic metal ones)
Why (we wanted it / like it (or don’t): Knowing how much Julie likes the original game ‘Life’, this has been in the back of my mind for quite a while so when I found the Big Box for sale I had to get it. We did get a game in a couple days after Christmas (I chose to start with the base game only) and we loved it but more importantly, SHE loved it!! Unfortunately, she’s still struggling with the loss of her baby brother (27) from brain cancer and the seemingly never-ending family drama that sadly came with it but I’m hoping to get it to the table again and again in the future so we can get comfortable with it then start adding in expansions… 🙂
And that’s our Christmas haul for 2024!!
January 17… a couple friends at work gave me Amazon gift cards for Christmas and today I put them to use for (what else?) another game… this time I set my sights on Fromage…
(from the publisher): You are a French cheesemaker in the early 20th century making, aging, and selling your artisanal cheeses. Become the most prestigious cheesemaker in all of France by running a highly successful creamery and crafting exceptional cheese.
Fromage is a simultaneous worker-placement game where players place Workers to make cheese and gather resources from the quadrant of the board facing them. Once all players have placed their Workers, the board rotates, aging any cheese that was made, and presenting each player with a new quadrant to place Workers into. Score Prestige Points by selling cheese to the four locations, and by efficiently managing and upgrading your creamery.
Why (we wanted it / like it (or don’t): This is very similar to Windmill Valley in that the game plays fairly quickly and is easy to play but hard to do well at – at least at first… it’s a unique theme with interesting gameplay and one I was confident we would enjoy. Had I honestly known about the various ways the game can be setup that adds to the replayability, I’d have been even more excited before I ordered it.
January 20… tonight I attempted something I haven’t done since about 1972 or 1973… at any rate, it’s been over 50 years since I tried to BOWL!! A couple friends and coworkers from school are in a league and they needed a sub… they’ve been trying to convince me to join them for a year or two but, aside from embarrassing myself, I didn’t want to risk an injury should a new band come knocking… I strapped on my knee braces and added a back wrap for good measure and headed for the lanes in Saratoga
I found a 12 pound ball that I thought fit my hand and the first ball I threw with my 3 step approach was a strike!! I knew better than to expect more than one or two more during the 3 game match… I managed to break 100 in the 1st game which was more than I’d envisioned but by the 2nd my wrist was hurting and I couldn’t straighten the middle two fingers without pain all the way to my elbow… I finished the 3rd game and it wasn’t pretty by any stretch… now I’d wait and see how long it took to recover… this may have to be a one-time deal…
January 24… Julie finally felt up to a game… sort of… her desire to play was sparked by her admitted need for a distraction as tonight was the calling hours and funeral services for an Uncle she liked who recently passed… she really wanted to go but one of the others in attendance would be another relative who frequently sexually abused her as a child… Selena and Mike and I we got her through her Grandmother’s services last year with him there, but she couldn’t deal with seeing him again right now… I wish it was under different circumstances but here was our first game night of 2025…
I had been working on Windmill Valley (see above for game description) and, at one point, even had it setup hoping she might see it and be interested… or at least for me to make a solo attempt… it was a week or so ago but I ran out of gas after a long workday and ended up going to bed… I hadn’t finished my teach notes but I was able to get her dialed in and started the game…
Turns are quick!! About the only thing that slows things down is if a player chains a couple moves together or gets a double action… we loved the thematic nature of everything and how it tied together… we played one rule in the Market incorrectly where players are instructed to plant a certain color tulip… I interpreted it to mean take that color FROM THE SUPPLY and plant it in your field… I couldn’t find it in the rulebook but I ended up filling my field and coming away with a crap ton of points at the end of the game… Julie hadn’t taken those as many of those actions in the Market but when she did, I had her play it the same way… I ended up winning by 60+… the next day I went to the BGG forum and found a thread where others had asked this question and confirmed that it is NOT in the rulebook… but the question was answered by non-other than designer Dani Garcia himself!! It’s meant to plant the specified color from the PLAYER’S STORAGE to their field… if you don’t have the specified color in storage, you can’t take that action.
January 27… Another bowling night… I’m subbing with a different team which has me even more nervous because these guys can bowl and the guy I’m subbing for has several 300 games… they were great guys – very supportive and even offered some tips that had me lined up better with more positive results… had everything not been hurting again despite going to an 8 pound ball, I might have rolled significantly better… however during the week that followed my back went out for the first time in 20+ years and I had persistent pain and discoloration in my right wrist that bothered me when I tried to sleep if I moved wrong… not good for someone who’s hoping to make a return to drumming this year…
January 29… After some begging, I was able to convince Julie to get a game in before bedtime… I’d been reviewing the rules and videos for Fromage (see above for game description) and felt like this might be the simplest game we’ve ever played…. that was until I started explaining it without any notes… 🙂 The most difficult part is probably wrapping your head around how the 4 quadrants of the board play as each plays differently AND that, on your turn, you can only play the one directly in front of you… and I didn’t realize that the Structure section of the player boards are different on each board until I started explaining them to Julie… the game includes 30 or so structure tiles for a slightly advanced mode where we’d get to select which structures we’d play with each game… you can randomly order the quadrants, change the difficulty of each via inserts and randomly place the resource selection area in the middle so the same resources don’t line up with the same quadrant from game to game… these things combine to add an albeit minor level variability which adds replayability to the game.
In our first play, Julie totally smoked me by 24 points – completing several contracts (the more you complete, the higher they score) and racking up 24 points in one quadrant alone!!
We both loved it!! Now that we know it, we could probably set it up and play a complete game in an hour… excellent game!! 🙂
January 31… I had to pickup a bunch of prescriptions for Julie and while was there I picked out a wrist wrap… I put it on as soon as I got home and it was feeling much better by bed time…
February 1… I thought I was in for another boring weekend… the local game group had nothing scheduled so, with a small storm overnight. it looked like the highpoint might be seeing how my messed up back and right arm would fare after shoveling the decks, firing up the snowblower and raking the roof… turned out I got through it all just fine and in only about 90 minutes… a shower and a nap and I was feeling pretty good… 🙂
Later that afternoon I took the dogs out and contemplating supper… Julie was still half asleep but I convinced her to get dressed and we’d load up the dogs and go hit a couple of our favorite places in Hudson Falls for dinner on the fly… she wanted a double smash burger from DiLo’s (a came out with a scrumptious strawberry cheesecake) while I opted for hot dogs for me and the dogs from Mandy’s…
When we returned home, Julie wanted to play that cheese game again… of course I had something else in mind and had setup Tiny Towns) see above)… We almost played it once before… I’d setup the base game and Julie came in, sat down but I could tell she felt rotten and sent her to bed… this time I set it up again but added the Tiny Towns: Fortune expansion which adds the ability to gain a coin if you build two buildings on the same turn… spending the coin provides the option to ignore the resource that’s been called and choose any other…
We played 3 full games with different buildings each time… she trounced me by 24 the first game, then I made it close in the second before running away with the third… by then we were getting pretty good at it too!! Obviously we loved it and with that, we’ve played all but 2 games from our Christmas additions.
February 2… I slept in until about 6:30 then started the van and got dressed before venturing out in the -5 cold for some grocery shopping… Julie and the dogs slept almost the entire day… they didn’t even hear me unloading from the store and going in and out… the dogs had to go out just after lunch then went back to sleep… I started preparing for work just before supper and grabbed a shower before I ate… by then Julie was awake and, much to my surprise, asked to play a game… the dogs wanted to go out in the snow so while she took them out, I disconnected our Alexa from the bedroom and hooked it up in my office / game room so we could try Hey Robot (see above)!!
This game was a hoot!! You’re asking questions to Alexa (or any Smart device – Siri, Google, etc.) and trying to get them to say a word on one of 16 cards worth various points… we quickly learned that wording and phrasing is very important… 🙂 we had a blast and probably played 4 or 5 games straight before switching to Flip 7 for a couple games before calling it a night – capping off a fun weekend for me and leaving just Inventors of the South Tigris (see above) as the last remaining game from Christmas to be played… I don’t feel like I’m even ready for Inventors rulebook yet – let alone the game… 🙂