Happy Christmas patrons!
I don’t know if it’s from making the video, but my Christmas spirit has kicked in early this year. I’ve been hunting down mince pies at local bakeries - and no-one has got any yet! What am I going to eat while listening to my Christmas music playlist?
My Christmas gift guide is in the can - it should be with you this week, long before a normal person’s Christmas spirit has activated.
I hope you enjoyed this month’s Couples Games video and provocatively titled Q&A. If you’re hunting for the Gramatik playlist I mentioned, it is here.
A couple of weekends ago, I went to Handycon in “Britain’s weirdest city”, to play a lot of games - so this newsletter, I’ll tell you all about that.
Actual Life
Huge news! I’ve signed a contract for my party game “You Know Me” to be published by Helvetiq (publisher of Bandido and Odin). It should be coming out in Spring 2027. I can’t wait to start demoing it at conventions!
Actual Games
I would usually expect an October convention to be full of new, Essen games for me, but I played a surprising number of older games, starting with…
The Pursuit of Happiness is a game I often threaten with the chopping block, because it’s ugly, and not “perfect”. But boy do I like the theme. And it tells a wonderful story. It is the modern version of The Game of Life - and every time you play, you’ll have different hobbies, career, partner, that keep you invested in the experience. I led a miserable life as a lawyer, I had multiple pets that died and made me sad, and I had lots of money, but it didn’t make me happy enough - and I lost! Lesson learned, follow your dreams next time!
Funny Friends was not received so fondly. An even older take on The Game of Life - with a very adult theme, you are having relationships and sex with each other, drinking, taking drugs, all in the pursuit of certain goals.
The humour is funny for a bit, but the auctions feel a little pointless, because you all want different things. I won’t be playing this one again. I’m sorry to anyone I’ve led astray when I’ve mentioned this in patron videos!
Take Time was the first Essen hotness. A cooperative card game with limited communication (think The Mind, or The Crew). Like, The Crew, you play across multiple chapters. And the goal is to play numbered cards face down around the clock, so that each section adds up to certain amounts - without talking. So you have to intuit what your teammates are doing, and try to communicate information with your choices. And we found it a bit flat. It doesn’t have the visceral tension of The Mind, and it doesn’t feel as clever or interesting as The Crew. I also didn’t enjoy the amount of mental arithmetic required. It was FINE, but I was expecting a lot more than fine.
Junta: Las Cartas is another game I haven’t played in years. A lighter negotiation game spinoff of Junta. The idea is very similar to Goodcrittters (Tiefe Taschen) - the President must divide up money amongst the players, and they will vote on whether they want that budget to pass. But in this game, voting against turns you into a rebels, and then you must successfully stage a coup, using military strength. And it becomes a game of two teams - and deciding which side you want to be on this round. We had fun with it, but it’s a little over complicated for the experience. I decided to move it on from my collection, in favour of other things. I still have Junta: Viva El President - another spinoff of that series, but may suffer the same fate.
Quest is another victim of its own convolutions. Except, it shouldn’t be. Quest is a simplified take on The Resistance: Avalon, from the same designer. And at its core, it’s a really fun hidden traitor game, which removes the slightly annoying voting phase in the original. But which version do you play? The publisher made the insane choice to put two sets of rules in the box - the publishers cut, and the designers cut. I actually think I prefer the publisher’s take on the game, but even then there’s special roles to include, and you end up playing through each version, to try and work it out, and I can’t abide that fuss. Underneath it all, there’s something cool in there - a different take on Avalon, that actually makes both sides need to bluff. But it’s not so transformative that it’s worth the hassle. Especially when Avalon is still great.
Ito is a cooperative party game that is very similar to Wavelength, but with a small deck of cards. You’re each given a number (1-100) on a spectrum (e.g. Famous People You Would Like To Be), and you have to come up with a clue for your number. Then you try to arrange your clues in order. It is okay - but I personally find the 1-100 scale to be way too big, and the game a bit dull. I prefer the all or nothing spectacle of Wavelength, or the humour of That Escalated Quickly, which I think is a much better version of Ito, with a 1-10 scale.
Hot Streak continues to entertain, with its fun take on betting on a race. It’s mostly luck, very silly, but I really like placing your bets and watching the chaos unfold. It will be on the channel shortly.
Emberheart is a new hotness - a family-plus level worker placement about collecting dragons. It’s a very impressive package - it comes across like a well produced, well thought out game - which I’m sure a lot of people will love, but I found it didn’t quite make it to the finish line for me. It’s got some cool ideas - especially the bidding with workers to be able to access spaces earlier, to get first dibs. But too often we felt those things didn’t matter, that the game was too forgiving, there wasn’t enough threat, or tension to make the bidding feel exciting. And I felt there were one or two mechanisms that added very little to the experience but complexity.
As dragon strategy games go - I much, much, much prefer it to Flamecraft, and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who likes it. But I was ultimately disappointed.
Merchants and Marauders is one of my favourite epic games, and it was fun to introduce it to new people. It’s a rich, deep sandbox game of being a pirate, of being a cowardly merchant, and comes with a lot of rules to make it all work. It definitely drags on - the port actions take a long time, and there was talk of house ruling it to lessen the downtime. But I find what everyone else is doing more interesting in this than other games. Partly because I’m watching them and deciding when’s a good time to attack them and sink their ship. I was victorious as the most legendary pirate, so a pretty successful afternoon.
Ratzia was a shocking flop, which makes no sense. It is an almost exact replica of one of my favourite games - Ra, by Reiner Knizia. In a smaller, card game form. And yet somehow the annoying (Rat mafia) theme, and cheap presentation soured us on the game. We may have also been tired or hungry, because I can’t explain it. It’s the same game! Hopefully it was a blip, because a small box version of Ra would be welcome.
Risk: Europe is the modern version of Risk (2015) that is always mentioned on Reddit, when people ask for an alternative, so I hunted down a copy to play it. And it is a much advanced take on Risk. But, I didn’t come away loving it. It introduces a lot of cool ideas - special powers you get from controlling cities, and different units which attack at different times. But the core is still very Risk-like, and I think that’s just not for me anymore.
Secret Hitler is my second favourite hidden traitor game, that I hadn’t played in years, and it was great to get back to the table and find it still holds up. We had a suitable amount of shouting and consternation. As a good guy liberal, I was able to guess who two of the baddies were, but I fiercely accused one of my allies until the end. And hopefully I apologised to him after. If you’re reading this - I’m sorry!
Here Lies was a surprise little game. It’s a cooperative murder mystery game. One player plays as the forensic scientist, who is told a murder scenario. And they will give clues to the detectives in the form of drawings and symbols and letters. It was a lot of fun trying to work it all out. It feels like a more grownup serious version of Paranormal Detectives. I had fun, but I’m also not racing to go back.
Campy Creatures: Season 1 was a game I’d always wanted to try. And within twenty minutes, I wondered why I’d bothered having it on my wishlist for so long. It is one of those games where you all simultaneously pick a role card and reveal (think Citadels, Libertalia), and you trying to get first dibs on cards to set collect. It’s simultaneously too light and too complicated. The fun can’t justify the faff, and the faff can’t deliver the fun. Pass.
A return to Q.E. the chaotic auction game where you can bid any amount of money was fun. This time with the Commodities expansion. Which adds some prizes for second place. I can’t really fault the expansion, but it also doesn’t feel needed.
Sunday began with some refreshingly light card games, starting with Fliptoons. This one of those strange auto-card games (see Challengers, Tag Team), in which you create a deck, and then automatically flip the cards, making no decisions while you do it. Fate was decided the order your cards will come out - all you can do is buy better cards and hope they come out in a good order next time. And in theory I don’t love that idea, but it is weirdly fun in practice. It feels fresh, and the artwork is very cute. I will return to this one.
Babel was a rash purchase for me at the con. It’s a cooperative limited communication game, that plays around the idea of language, but doesn’t really use it in an interesting way. You command your teammates to do actions to build the tower by using words. BUT your vocabulary changes as the games go on - so you need to adapt the commands you use. It’s a cute idea, but the actual puzzle underneath is really boring, and there are much more interesting language-themed games.
That’s Not A Hat Incognito was another rash purchase - but this one was a success. It has taken me a long time to embrace That’s Not A Hat - a silly memory game, that involves giving face down cards to each other, and trying to remember what they are. This version twists it by making you give each card names. “This is David Blaine” - is objectively (ok, subjectively), funnier and better than “This is a Hat”. I like it.
Bean Counters Inc. is a descendent of Cockroach Soup, Jungle Speed or a million other games, that involve you taking it turns to flip a card, and say the right thing - or you get punished and take the cards. Like a drinking game, it introduces new rules so you never get comfortable. This was a silly fun time. But some of the challenges were a little annoying.
Super Mega Lucky Box is a deceptively fun game from Phil Walker Harding, designer of Sushi Go. It is a flip and write game, that is the closest thing you’ll find to Bingo. You flip over number cards, which you can cross off on your bingo cards. Once you complete rows and columns, you get rewards - often to cross off other numbers, and it’s very satisfying. I really like this one.
The main event of the day was a game of Lords of Vegas, my second favourite game of all time. We almost played with an expansion, then got cold feet, because it really doesn’t need it to be amazing. It was a great time of negotiating, gambling, robbery and hijinks.
We finished the weekend with a lovely return to Stella, the perfect cooperative party game to wind down with a group of friends after playing together all weekend. Stella is a spinoff of Dixit - you have a big grid of Dixit cards, and a descriptive word, like “Wedding”. You have secretly choose which cards relate to “Wedding”, in the hope you will think alike with other players. It’s such a fun time, and so much better than Dixit. I won’t be taking questions on the matter.
Song of the Month - Man I Need by Olivia Dean
Video of the Month - Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists - Pixar Movie Writers Room
Go forth and eat a mince pie!
Actually yours,
Jon