This time of year the days grow longer.
The days become lighter earlier, the weather improves, there’s beautiful blue skies, and the sun doesn’t dip until the back end of the evening. People spend more time outside. They go for runs, they have fresh strolls along the beach, they gather in small hoards in gardens to BBQ food which on the outside looks like scorched wood and on the inside has the capacity to send everyone to hospital. They’re all in the open air, having gatherings in parks and chatting and drinking and laughing.
Stuff them all. They can keep it. We want games!
Under The Mango Tree
Let’s start with something both cute and meaningful. There’s a rich seam within the board game hobby from which plenty of great nature-themed games are being mined over the last couple of years, and the majority of them come with a social conscience element. Nothing wrong with that (anyone dares moan that this is ‘woke’ (as if that’s a bad thing) then let us part ways immediately and never darken each other’s lives again). It can only be a positive if we’re having fun and thinking about what we can do better with our lives. So, what we got here?
Under the Mango Tree is a card-drafting game for 2-4 players from Deep Print Games in which you’re going to have to step up and take some responsibility (yes, you). Let’s have some scene-setting, courtesy of the publisher: You stand before a small slice of Australian wilderness that’s entrusted to your care and brimming with potential. Heaps of litter mar the landscape, waiting to be cleared. A once-majestic mango tree yearns to bear fruit again, its branches aching for the playful chatter of animals in its shade.
That’s got you in the mood, right? You’re here to breathe new life into this patch of nature. On each turn, you and your fellow players simultaneously select a card from your individual hands, then pass the rest to the next player. The twist: Each card you choose has two halves. You tuck one half under your board, removing it from the game, while the other remains visible to score points. This adds a layer of strategy as you must consider not only which halves to use for yourself, but also which to deny your opponents. When all cards have been played, the player who has created the most vibrant and point-rich ecosystem around their mango tree wins. If you’re after cute and meaningful fun, then head to this page and check out the game.
Skull Tales: Full Sail (2nd Edition)
I’m supposed to present a non-biased round-up of the most interesting recent and upcoming releases. Supposed to. But I’m biased. I am. I can’t help it. Certain themes draw my eye more than others, and this compulsion to add them into the next Hoard overwhelms me. Cats? Get it in there. Anthropomorphic animals running businesses in a cute village? I’m having it. Pirates? It’s got a space pre-booked in the Hoard. I know, it’s not right, it’s not fair, but let me tell you what it is: tough. I do this my way.
Skull Tales: Full Sail! from Draco Ideas is described as a pirate life simulator for 1-5 players. It’s essentially three games in one, with each game phase containing plenty to do, and you’ll find yourself enjoying dozens of hours of story-driven swashbuckling adventures. During the
Adventure phase, you explore mysterious islands, dangerous caves, abandoned temples, and pillage colonial villas. Amazing treasures and legendary artefacts that no man has ever laid eyes on await you in this phase of the game. In the Journey Phase, you form part of the crew of “The Southern Lady” sailing the menacing seas of the Caribbean in search of valuable treasures. You will board ships and face all kinds of dangers like the most-feared creatures of the seven seas and the possibility of mutiny. In the Port phase, you walk the streets of Tortuga, finding adventure along the way and meeting characters who can teach you their skills. There’s a whole lot of game here.
You have 12 different pirates to choose from, and you’ll be able to take them through an exciting narrative story in which your character grows in skills and equipment.
You’ll need to cooperate with your crew if you’re expecting success, although only one can be the Captain.
You need to see how much content is in this game to believe it. Head over to the crowdfunding page for more info, and prepare for your timbers to be shivered.
Six Sojourns
Sojourn translates as ‘temporary stay’. I’ve just had one of those in York. Loved it. Recommend the Ghost Bus Tour (a fairly demented experience). Back to work now. Boooo. I want another sojourn. I’ve only done one shift and I’m already fully prepared to sojourn the heck out of here. A sojourn to Albufeira sounds nice. As does one to Gran Canaria. You know what? I won’t be happy until I’ve had six… (I know, worst intro yet, get over it.)
Six Sojourns from Red Raven Games is a reimagining of Ryan Laukat’s third published design, Eight-Minute Empire. It’s a short area control game for 2-4 players that should run about an hour and is full of tough choices, creative strategy and tactics, and high player interaction. Your goal in Six Sojourns is to grow your family and broaden their influence (I’ll chip in here to say that my family has grown enough, thanks, and we’re already past the Christmas budget limit. Any more members, and we can join together and call ourselves a state). Players take turns selecting a card from five on display. Each card has actions that let players build houses, gain ships, move, and gain new family members.
The cards you use also have special abilities and sets of icons that represent your family’s expertise in various trades: cooking, carpentry, sewing, shoe-making, art, blacksmithing, and jewellery. (That’s a heck of a lot of skills for one family to have. My Other Half is an amazing artist and very crafty. I’m capable of very little, other than dropping a witty line every now and then. See? We can all bring something to the table.) Each game, you only select nine cards, and you’ll be faced with meaty choices each turn as you focus on trades, abilities, or the map.
A whole bunch of improvements and upgrades and tweaks have been applied that differentiate Six Sojourns from its predecessor Eight-Minute Empire, not least of which is a larger board. This time around, people can be moved in groups, instead of one at a time, allowing for more dynamic play. Another addition is the ability to build ships and travel the seas, moving between regions. Players can also pay you to use your ships for travel over the water.
If you’re in the market for a fresh update to a great game, head on over to this crowdfunding page now.
Quorum
What have the Romans ever done for us, eh? Apart from being the basis for one of the great scenes in comedy cinema of all time, that is. (See what I did there? (What do you mean you’ve never watched The Life of Brian? Stop reading this right now and go do your homework.) I’ve always been keen on ancient history, particularly the Roman stuff, to the point where I helped out at a dig in my neck of the woods during my late teens. Thought I’d love it. I hated it. Boiling hot in the middle of summer, brushing and brushing and brushing at dirt, then I snapped the handle of an ancient buried jug, and never went back. Now you know why I haven’t named the dig site. Anyway…
Quorum is a 2-4 player card game from Devir, in which you’ll take on the roles of Roman senators who share the power of Rome and its provinces, with the aim of acquiring the greatest amount of influence possible. You’re aiming to become the most powerful and influential senator by gaining victory points, which are awarded in various areas of influence over the twelve rounds of the game.
On their turn, players take and play a card in front of them to affect one of the provinces. The turns continue in this way until all the players have twelve cards in front of them. At the end of the game, the combination of cards played and the influence accumulated in each of the provinces will award players victory points, which will then decide who wins. Ready to dominate the Empire? (Of course you are, who isn’t?) Go here and get it.
Dragon Derby – The Sport of Wizards
It’s about time somebody came up with this.
Sometimes you look at a game and think, how comes I didn’t create that years ago? King of Tokyo is a great example: I basically devoured Godzilla and Ultraman movies in the 80s and early 90s thanks to Channel 4’s movie seasons and some dodgy VHSs. Horrified is another one: I watched Universal horrors back to back until I didn’t sleep right for a month. Then there’s dragons. I ate and drank and breathed Dragonlance. I could have got to these ideas first! So why aren’t I rich already? My own worst enemy…
Dragon Derby is a fun and fast-moving family tabletop game for 2-8 players, with a playtime of around an hour. Now, the official storyline is that you and other powerful wizards have gathered at the Castle Keep for the Annual Dragon Derby Festival! Will strategy, timing, spellcasting and a wee bit of luck bring you victory? If you bet on the right Dragon you may just take home the largest coin purse and maybe even get dragon… um… bragging rights!
There’s a whole bunch of actions to choose from. You can cheer the dragons on (of course you will). When the player Wizard loudly calls out “Huzzah!” (shout it loud and proud, people) and reaches into the Bag of Holding, where they will draw a random 6-sided die to roll. The color of the die determines which dragon moves next. You can place a wager, by either placing an official “First Place”, “Last Place”, or “Across the Board” wager with the court, or place a side bet with another player. You can also cast Wild Magic, which as the name suggests is somewhat unpredictable. Even an experienced Wizard will find that spells frequently go awry with results that might be humorous, helpful or devastating. Come on, you know you want to race dragons as much as I do. Go here to check it out. You don’t have to be a wizard, but it helps.
Starline Hill
We’re ending on a bit of a belter here. No messing, this looks amazing, and you gals and guys can do what you want, but I’m probably going in on this. Right, calm down, introduction time.
What do you think of when someone says ‘cozy game’ to you? No need to answer, I know what you’ll say. Something based on a farm. Something with dragons in, the kind of dragons who run bakeries. Or cute witches making nice deliveries. Well, there’s more to the world than farms and dragons and witches! (I know, it’s hard to believe.) How about the sky up above? How about that sky at night?
Your goal in Starline Hill is very simple: earn more Points than your opponent by claiming Constellations. Take turns placing Stars pieces in the night sky. One player will have red Stars, while the other will have yellow. Match your Stars to a Constellation card’s pattern to claim it, earning Points. The bigger the Constellation, the more Points you earn! After you claim a Constellation’s points, blue Neutral Star pieces are left behind which block parts of the Sky. Surrounding Neutral Stars with your own Stars allows you to draw a Line over large portions of the Sky in a single turn. While you race to match Constellations, carefully control your territory to ensure you aren’t blocked from continuing your adventure.
Sounds pretty simple, right? Often, the best games are those that are easy to learn, simple to teach, quick to pick up and play, and have surprising depths of strategy. Get yourself over here and have a good hard look at this very pretty game.
Usually I’d stick around with you guys briefly to chat about what we’ve seen and what comes next. Unfortunately I’ve got to abandon my responsibilities today – I need to have a long hard look at my finances, choose which games I’m buying or pledging for, and decide which one of my cats has to go because I can suddenly no longer afford to keep them both. Tipsy might be 19, but I’m sure she’ll be fine out in the wild…
Steve is currently a freelance board game blogger, but often dreams of life as a pirate, or as a ghost herder in the Lake District, or as an evil estate agent who sells haunted houses for his own dark pleasure. Instead of figuring out how to do these jobs in real life like a normal lunatic, he tries to write about them instead, and releases the resultant books upon the unsuspecting world via famous digital bookstores. More books are bound to follow. Find this peculiar entity here: www.instagram.com/positively.board
