Wilmot’s Warehouse (led by Tim) 2024 storytelling game where players work cooperatively to organize the warehouse, using memory, imagination, and silly stories the group makes up. Players draw product tiles from the stack, discuss what they look like, and place them somewhere they’ll remember. After each tile is placed, it is flipped over and can’t be looked at again until the end of the game. As a result, the team has to remember where previous tiles were placed as the group decides where to place new ones. At the end of the game, in a five-minute rush, the team has to match all 35 face-down tiles with customer cards. Consult the team’s performance review to see how well you did! Our intrepid quintet was 35 for 35 !!!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/424975/wilmot-s-warehouse

Cities (led by K-ban) 2024 drafting collaboration between prolific Australian designer, Phil Walker-Harding and Bostonian Dr Steve Finn. The game is played over eight rounds. Each round, players use their workers to collect 1 scoring card, 1 city tile, 1-2 feature tiles, and 2-4 building pieces. City tiles are made up of park spaces, water spaces, and building spaces. Building pieces are placed on building spaces of the same color to form buildings, which can be 1-4 stories high. Whenever a player fulfills an achievement, they place one of their wooden rings on the achievement board. At the end of the game, players add up the points they have gained from all of their scoring cards and achievements. We played in the New York City setting, with public rewards for skyscrapers and Central Park.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/402676/cities

Bloodstones (led by Matt) 2023 fantasy wargame that features area control/influence and tile placement. Players play for one of 6 asymmetrical factions with victory points gained by building their own villages and raiding those of other players and by winning battles.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/284587/bloodstones

Century: Golem Edition (led by Ethan) 2017 re-themed version of Century: Spice Road set in the world of Caravania. Each turn, players perform one of four actions:

Aguedo (led by Tim & Sandy) 2024 drafting and pattern building game inspired by the real life annual festival in Agueda Portugal called the Umbrella Project. Players will take on the role of festival artists decorating the city streets with their own colorful umbrellas to attract the most tourists to their streets. As an artist, players will need to balance the requests of the city, shops, and tourists to create the most stunning arrangement of umbrellas. Players will draft tiles from a central board, placing them in a row on their player street board. After placing their umbrellas, they will select one or two tourists and move them into one of their three rows of umbrellas to score that row. Careful placement of umbrellas will unlock sections of one’s tourist map, which will add more tourists into one’s pool to place on your board. Once a player has filled up their board, scoring of each player’s arrangement of umbrellas will be based on both the standard board scoring placement rules plus communal “Shop” cards with varying scoring objectives. A nice 45 minute gateway game with very tactile umbrella pieces that are colorblind friendly.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/317515/agueda-city-of-umbrellas

Mille Fiori (led by K-ban) 2021 Knizia point salad area majority, drafting and influence game set in the world of glass manufacturing and trading. It is really 6 mini-games, each with slightly different rules and ways to earn both VPs and bonuses. Devir will co-publish with Schmidt Spiele for North America in the Fall.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/346501/mille-fiori

Faraway (led by Amy) 2023 runner up Light Game of the Year as voted by BGG users. Players will play square cards as a row of 8 in front of them, from left to right. These cards represent the regions they will come across while exploring the lands. Characters on these cards will grant players victory points, but only score VPs if later cards fulfil the conditions they demand. At the end of the game, players walk back the same way, scoring cards in the opposite order you played them. There lies the heart of the gameplay. Throughout the game, the cards you play will serve both to set new objectives, and to meet the ones you played previously. On each turn, players select one region card from a hand of 3 and a clever priority system governs replenishment drafting. The first play in this 30-minute gem of a filler will likely make your head implode, as you wrap your brain around simultaneously thinking both forward and backwards on your journey to score VPs.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/385761/faraway

Harmonies (led by Tim) 2024 abstract pattern game, with simple rules, and a beautifully implemented nature theme. Players optimize by synchronizing, but at the same time try to outbalance luck by diversifying their scoring options, while growing a beautiful 3D habitat in front of them. Landscapes are built by placing colored tokens and creating habitats for their animals. To earn the most points and win the game, players must incorporate the habitats in their landscapes wisely and have as many animals as they can settle there.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/414317/harmonies

Cat in the Box (led by Tony) 2022 trick taking card game that turns the genre’ on its ear – all 45 numbered cards (1-9 with 5 of each) are black and suit is determined by the card led. Players decide whether to follow suit or declare that they are void. Trumps can be led only after they’ve been broken. A round ends after all cards are played or a paradox is created (no legal card plays) 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/345972/cat-box-deluxe-edition

Seikatsu: A Pet’s Life (led by K-ban)  2017’s tile placement game of birds and flowers that was re-themed in 2019 with pets and colored cushions in a living room. Players have a hand of 2 tiles (among 4 pets and wild unicorns in 4 colors) and each turn place one tile onto the board until it is filled. Interim points are earned for groups of the same animal, but the overwhelming majority of the points are from a triangular progression of pillows of the plurality color, but only from that player’s armchair perspective. 20-30 minute adorable opener/closer.  

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/216428/seikatsu

The Vale of Eternity (led by Matt) 2023 drafting and set collection game where players are tamers who hunt various monsters and spirits to tame them as minions. In this fantasy world, numerous creatures are living in harmony. Among them, dragons are the most valuable and noble ones, and all tamers dream of taming dragons. The player who manages to tame the most outstanding minions wins. The game includes cards of seventy creatures from myths all around the world.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/385529/the-vale-of-eternity

Steve