2019 was a bit of a changing of the guard for me. After 30 years living in Berkeley, across the Bay from San Francisco, and after more than 15 years of gaming with friends at Endgame (and later Secret) on Wednesdays and at my house on Thursdays, I’ve moved to the Hawaiian island of Kauai. I’ve been here almost two weeks now, and I haven’t had time yet to search out my next board game opponents, but they’ll certainly be different from the friends I had out in the Bay Area. So here’s my last look at new games played on the west coast of the United States.
As usual, these are games that were new to me (whether they were quite new or quite old) and I’m listing my ratings of the games as a mid-complexity eurogamer. Your mileage may vary.
The Great (“I Would Buy This”)
Wingspan (2019). The hotness lives up to its hype. I’ve already written extensively about this game, but in short it’s a tableau building game where you improve the power of your actions, both by making them stronger and by giving them variety. And then you try and accomplish goals, some short-term, some long-term. This is all done through bird cards: you gather food, you lay eggs, you collect the bird cards and then you play them. The cards in turn can hold eggs, can generate actions, and can earn victory points. It’s a well-themed, variable, and enjoyable game that’s not quite like anything else on the market.
(And I can buy myself a copy now that I’ve landed in Hawaii and won’t have to ship it over in a container. I mean, if I can find one in-print.) Continue reading