22nd January 2025
Fifteen gamers made it past the traffic complications in St Ives to join the session and play seven different games.
Three tables got stuck straight into some long games whilst the fourth table played a series of shorter games.
The Castles of Burgundy Special Edition had its first outing at club, nice to finally have this classic game on the tables. Each player controls a small princedom, trading and mining goods and trying to build settlements and castles.
Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon is played in 3 rounds of 3 phases. In the first phase of each round, you choose one of the shuttles – all with 6 astronauts, but with different resources. There are 3 types of astronaut, and the shuttles have differing numbers of each type. In the action phase, you deploy the astronauts – to build, to gather resources or fund projects (for corporations). A game uses 3 of the 7 corporations - so the nature of the game changes with different corporations.
Points are gained in various ways, but mostly in end game scoring. I (Graham) struggled to follow the rules in the initial explanation, and my gameplay was correspondingly limited - concentrating on resources and building, whilst others invested more in projects. I enjoyed the game and was astounded when the final scoring showed that I had won (only by 2 points). All our scores were in the range 60-80 – but the game tiles allow for scores over 200 – so I think we all have opportunity to learn more about this game!
The Gallerist was the final long game chosen, this was its second time at club having first been played fairly recently in sesssion 85. This is a euro game where players take on the role of art gallery owners, seeking to promote and sell artwork to gain fame and money. Designed by Vital Lacerda, the game involves acquiring art pieces, managing artists and selling some art to make money. Players must carefully balance their investments in artists and artworks while expanding their influence in the art world. The game combines elements of resource management, economic strategy, and tactical decision-making, with the ultimate goal of becoming the most renowned gallery owner by the end of the game.
In this game of The Gallerist, three players managed their own art galleries, each with their own unique style. Neil O was the bargain hunter, snapping up art left and right, hoping to flip it before the artists got too popular — because who doesn’t love a good art investment that everyone else eventually wants? Simon W was the influencer, going all in on making a couple of artists the next big thing - flooding social media with lots of hype. But then there was Jyo K, playing it like a seasoned art dealer — cool, calculated, and balanced, snagging just the right pieces and boosting the right artists.
The key moment came at the end of the game during the auction for a masterpiece, which Jyo K won. This crucial acquisition boosted her earnings by allowing her to complete an additional set for her art dealer, allowing her to secure victory by edging out Simon W by a few points.
Mysterium Park is the slightly shorter version of Mysterium that has been played once before at club. One player is the ghost that has witnessed a murder at the creepy circus/amusement park and tries to give clues to the others via a series of abstract images. The other players have up to six rounds of visions in which to narrow down the line up of nine fairground workers and nine locations to just three pairs of possibilities. Then everyone can cooperate in viewing a final two images to narrow things down to the actual murderer and location. The four gamers had two attempts; ghost one just managed to get on the right wavelength and get to the final round and then found some excellent cards to convey the necessary visions and solve the murder. Ghost two struggled a little more and the final location was not eliminated and the murderer got away with it this time.
Fantastic Factories was selected next for its fourth time on the club tables, this game was first played in session 45 which covers the basic rules. This time Richie added in the Manufactions expansion to add some per player unique abilities and some extra cards. The trick to winning this game is all about building an engine out of factory cards you play that can produce resources to enable you to build more buildings and create goods. But there is an element of luck with rolling the dice and then utilising these with the buildings you have, but with the expansion a new resource of vitamins can help adjust your roll. It was these vitamins that helped Richie utilise his buildings to produce 12 goods before anyone else. Kathy, Jeremy and Joe were not far behind, but this triggered the final round and everyone scrambled to utilise their factories to best add final points by building or production. Even with that final push, Richie managed a win by a few points over second place. Its a fun game with some interesting card, dice combinations that keep it a close game until the end.
Zuuli is a nice pass and play game about fitting animals into your zoo, following certain rules about what type of terrain they prefer, how much space they need and not putting carnivores (or fierce creatures) in with the vegetarians (friendly). This game was quite popular during COVID times when club games were played online using Board Game Arena so all the players knew the rules. Played over three rounds Kathy J. got caught out in round one with not enough enclosures for all her animals leading to many negative points, whilst Jeremy J. had acquired a shoal of angler fish cards for a nice combination bonus. In the final round the tables were turned with Jeremy and Richie W. being caught with too many animals for the space available but Jeremy’s mostly aquatic based points could not be beaten.
Scout was the last short game of the night, this simple set laying card game was back at club for its fourth play having first debuted in session 65.
The next session is the 5th February, join us to see what games will be brought along or follow the pre-session discussions on Discord to suggest a game or see what is being proposed.
- Total Session Attendance: 15
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Board Games: