Here are some thoughts on games I have played recently for the first time.
CATAN: NEW ENERGIES (2024): Rank 7470, Rating 6.9 – Teuber / Teuber
I have a soft spot for the classic Settlers game, though I don’t feel the need to play every single version that comes out. This one caught my attention, so we decided to give it a try. Beyond the standard rules you already know, cities now produce science cards. You use these cards to build power plants. These plants attach to your cities and settlements on the board and generate energy whenever you roll for production. This energy acts like a flexible re
Rating: 7
INDIGO (2012): Rank 1783, Rating 6.9 – Knizia
This is an abstract tile-laying game that reminded me of Ta Yu. The goal is to build paths using tiles similar to Tantrix style, directing them toward your exit spaces and away from your opponents’. Scoring pieces move along these paths as they are built, much like in Tsuro. You aim to move these pieces off the board at your specific exits to score points. Your main decision is what to prioritize; you cannot do everything, especially since you only hold two tiles at a time, which limits your choices. With two players, the game is straightforward. With more players, it becomes a negotiation-heavy affair. It worked fine, but I don’t feel the need to explore it further as future plays would likely feel very similar.
Rating: 6
MADA (2022): Rank 6420, Rating 6.8
A cute little card game. The cards are numbered 1 to 13. On your turn, you either draw a card (if you have fewer than three) or play a card that is equal to or higher than your previously played card. If you cannot do this, you must flip the top card of the deck. If that card is lower, you are out of the round, and everyone else scores points based on their last played card before starting a new round. There is joy in drawing a card that resets your sequence or allows you to swap, saving you from trouble. It is also satisfying to keep playing when everyone else has played high cards expecting you to fail, only for them to bust instead. It is very light, fast-paced, and has some nice moments.
Rating: 7
PAX ILLUMINATEN (2024): Rank 6257, Rating 7.4
Is this really a Pax game? It has some unusual rules and some dynamic elements that change the results. However, it lacks the feeling that the mechanics or cards bring a well-researched theme to life. It uses decktet cards and focuses mostly on matching colors of resources to cards to place influence markers on a grid. These markers generate something in the user interface that allows you to place more markers for area control points, but also to satisfy end-game winning conditions so you have a chance no matter how the game ends. It does feature the traditional Pax feeling of fumbling through the first game, trying to figure out how to make things work together, and then being unsettled by the way it ends.
Rating: 5
PINA COLADICE (2024): Rank 6412, Rating 6.8
A basic variant of Yahtzee. Sixteen contracts with various dice combination requirements are arranged in a 4×4 grid. You roll five dice, with two chances to re-roll, and place a token on a contract you have met to score its points. The goal is to get four contracts in a row, column, or diagonal as quickly as possible for an instant win. If no one does that, the player with the most points after the required number of rounds wins. There is nothing you can do on other players’ turns except watch. You simply make decisions based on the odds and hope for the best. But rolling dice is fun, there can be small races for the contracts you want, and the game ends quickly enough.
Rating: 6
RAILROAD REVOLUTION (2016): Rank 1283, Rating 7.3
There are only four actions: build a rail, build a station in a city you have reached for a reward, build a telegraph station for a reward, or get money. This doesn’t seem like enough to sustain a game, but it is enriched by the reward of gaining colored meeples. These improve each of the four actions in different ways, though it slows the game down as you now have to consider 16 possible actions. A main focus is building the things required to meet personal objectives for major points. However, these require you to discard colored meeples and sacrifice action power. Decisions come regularly on when the right time for that is, and that was the most interesting part of the game. It was all fine, but it became repetitively grindy spending every third action getting the money needed to conduct the point-generating actions for over 90 minutes.
Rating: 6
VEGETABLE STOCK (2019): Rank 2851, Rating 6.8
Each round, you pick a card showing three vegetables. Each vegetable on the card that is not taken will have its victory point value driven upwards. However, if the value goes over the top, it resets to the bottom. This is a significant swing in points and is usually outside your control. It is good to have the last pick so you have a little control, but that pesky start player marker keeps moving. The game is really random. Its major saving grace is that it is all over in under five minutes, but that begs the question of why bother in the first place.
Rating: 5
ZOMBIE DOT (2023): Rank 19082, Rating 6.5
A 1 versus 3 challenge. The three-person escape team each plays a path tile within a 7×7 grid, trying to keep as many path options open as possible. The zombie player plays a zombie tile through which the escape team cannot travel or extend a path, closing it off. The escape team wins if they can all legally play in round 10. There are special power tiles that remove or flip zombie tiles, re-opening options. I suspect the success of the escape team will depend on how many of these they draw. It was neat enough working out the best plays to ensure the future stayed alive, but it felt more puzzle-like than game-like, which isn’t quite my thing.
Rating: 6
Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:
Larry: I was very disappointed with Railroad Revolution. It looked really interesting and the designers had produced good games in the past, but it has a dominant strategy. What is worse, it is an obvious strategy to try and really cannot be beaten. It was honestly hard to understand how this wasn’t detected during development. Anyway, an expansion was released in 2019, called Railroad Revolution: Railroad Evolution which, supposedly, fixed the issue, or at least made the strategy not quite so dominant. Unfortunately, the first copies were snapped up almost immediately and the publisher, What’s Your Game?, has done a terrible job with releasing their newer games and may or may not still even be in business. So there is real doubt that I, or anyone else I know, will ever get to pick up this expansion. It would be nice to finally get to play the game in a way that doesn’t have an obvious path to victory, but it has been almost 10 years, so I am not exactly holding my breath for something that will probably never happen.
