Friday 30 December 2016

Brimstone Game Nights for January (7th and 21st)

Hey Windsor area gamers, come out to Brimstone Board Game Night! Meet other gamers, play some great games and maybe even win a game to bring home.

Brimstone Board Game Nights hit on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month. These events run from 5pm to 10pm and are open to all ages.

Every event will feature at least one game. There will be demo copies of the game available and someone on hand willing to teach the game so you can try before you buy.

You can win games just by coming out to play. At every Brimstone Board Game Night you earn tickets that give you a chance to win free games. Every event we will be giving away a copy of the featured game and some events will feature even more. 

Players earn 1 ticket for playing games, 1 ticket for purchasing a snack or drink, and 1 ticket for bringing 1 or more board games for people to play. Earn 5 more tickets for each game you purchase. First time players will receive 5 additional tickets.

You can find Brimstone at 1421 Tecumseh Rd. E. right next to Franco's. There is parking in back and there is a municipal lot across the street that is free after 6pm.

January 7th - Cry Havoc

Cry Havoc fantastic new area control game from Portal Games.

This is one of the most asymmetrical game ever made. It plays 2-4 players. Each player takes over a different faction trying to exploit the world harvest the most crystals. With 4 players one of the players is the native spices the Trog. Each faction plays very differently.

There are deck building elements, great looking miniatures, and one of the most unique and cool combat systems I've seen in a game here.




January 21st - Pandemic Iberia

Welcome to the Iberian Peninsula! Set in 1848, Pandemic Iberia asks you to take on the roles of nurse, railwayman, rural doctor, sailor, and more to find the cures to malaria, typhus, the yellow fever, and cholera.

From Barcelona to Lisboa, you will need to travel by carriage, by boat, or by train to help the Iberian populace. While doing so, distributing purified water and developing railways will help you slow the spread of diseases in this new version of Pandemic.

Discover a unique part of the world during a historically significant time period: the construction of the first railroad in the Iberian Peninsula during the Spring of Nations.


Wednesday 28 December 2016

The 16 best new (to me) games of 2016



Here is a list of the sixteen best games I tried for the first time in 2016. These games may not have come out in 2016 but rather this year was the first time I've played them so they were new to me. This list is in the order of when I discovered the games chronologically.

Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar - This is the oldest game on the list. I'm not sure what took me so long to try this game. Maybe it's the fact that I hate the cover for showing an Aztec Sun Stone on what's supposed to be a game about the Mayan Calendar. Mixed themes aside this is an amazing worker placement game. It adds a resource to a game I've never seen before. Time. As in real time, not time counters. The longer you wait to remove a worker from the board the better the result. This was fascinating to me.


Keyflower - Here's another great worker placement game that does something a bit different. In this game you use your workers to bid on tiles, either to add them to your personal territory or to use the ability on the tile. The neat bit is that the meeple are coloured and once there is a bid on a tile all future bids need to be made using that colour. This adds a ton of strategy to the game. There's empire building, set collection, tile placement, pick up and deliver and even more to Keyflower. It's a heavier brain burner and I love it.

T.I.M.E. Stories - This is the most unique game on the list. It's not often a game comes out that is something completely new. T.I.M.E. Stories is one of those games. It's almost more of an experience than a game. It's a co-op puzzle game that reminds me most of games like Myst or 7th Guest on the PC. Players work together to solve a mystery in a which-way style of game. T.I.M.E, Stories really uses the time travel theme where you will need to take multiple runs to solve each mystery using the information you learned on earlier runs to guide you through the next one. The one issue with this game is that it can be played once. It's a one time experience. Personally I thought it was well worth it and look forward to purchasing some expansions and running through those.

Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn - Magic the Gathering is still THE card game when it comes to battling wizards and I don't expect that to change any time soon. That said, I think Ashes is actually a better game. That's right a wizard battle, summon monsters and cast spells to beat up the other guy game that's better than Magic. Ashes has the added bonus (to me) of being non-collectible, Ashes uses dice to determine how much 'mana' you have each round and includes many rules that let you mitigate the randomness this causes. Spells when put into play stay in play and can be cast every round. Attacks can be made multiple times in one turn and with a mixed number of attackers. There are a number of other differences to Magic that I don't have time to get into here. I highly suggest checking it out.

Madeira - I have to thank the Heavy Cardboard podcast for this one. I love a good heavy game now and then. At local events we play a lot of shorter 1 hour games and it's very nice to sit down now and then with something longer and heavier. Madeira is just that, a nice heavy Euro that plays in about 2 - 2.5 hours. It's about the early Portuguese economy and the wood covered island of Madeira. A changing economy and randomized Crown Requests add to the replay value of this action selection and worker placement game. Unfortunately it looks like it may be out of print. Hopefully a new printing will be coming soon because if you like heavy Euro's this one is well worth checking out.

Above and Below - Yet another game that does something different. Above and Below combines a pretty standard action selection set collection game with an adventure game like Tales of The Arabian Knights or a Which Way book. In addition to collecting resources and building your city you can also send your workers to explore the dungeon below the city. There you have all kinds of adventures, find rare resources and expand the cave network allowing you to build better dungeon based buildings. I enjoyed the story elements of this game so much that I've even sat and 'run' the game like a GM in an RPG, doing all the reading from the adventure book while the other players enjoy the game.

Mombasa - This is another one I can thank Heavy Cardboard for. I first got to try it at Origins 2016 and was immediately taken by the very unique discard mechanic. Each round you play three action cards. At the end of the round each of these cards goes into it's own discard pile. Then at the start of the next round you only get to pick up one of those three piles. This adds a level of long term strategy to the game that I found fascinating. Along with this Mombasa is a very solid worker placement economic game where you are investing in up to four different companies while also trying to collect sets of resources for yourself. This one is another brain burner and not for everyone but if you like heavier games give it a shot.

Valeria Card Kingdoms - This was the best game I played this year at Origins 2016. It was also the first game I had to buy at the Con. I grabbed it right then and there, after doing the demo. I love this game. To me it's a mix of Splendor and Thunderstone Advance. I'm told by others that it owes a lot to Machi Koro and for many it's actually replaced Machi. Start with only two heroes. Roll dice to generate resources. Use those resources to hire more heroes or kill monsters in the dungeon. Eventually save up enough resources to buy kingdoms. Score points based on monsters killed, kingdoms collected and set collection based on what character you start with. I've played this game more than any other game in 2016, I can't get enough.

Onitama - For a very long time The Duke was our two player game. Any time my wife and I went anywhere together we brought it, from hotels and restaurants to coffee shops and even the beach. Onitama has become the new The Duke for us. I don't know if it will eventually replace The Duke, but right now it's coming out to all those places we used to bring The Duke. This game is brilliant. It looks great. It's so simple to teach and it's so damn tactical. The fact that you have perfect information every turn is what really makes this one. The game is chess-like, where you are moving pieces on a grid trying to capture the opponent's sensei (or get your sensei to the opponent's starting spot). The thing is that each game only uses five different possible moves, for the entire game. When you use one of your two moves, next turn it gets passed to your opponent for them to use.

1812: The Invasion of Canada - I am not a big war gamer. I like a few of them, mostly block games, but not a lot. I'm definitely not a chit based, Squad Leader style gamer. 1812: The Invasion of Canada is my kind of wargame. It has a lot of Euro game elements. It's a card driven cubes on a map game. It reminds me a little bit of the Richard Borg Command & Color system, a little bit, not a lot. The one downfall to this game is that it really does play best with exactly five players, and that's not always easy to come by. Players split into two teams: Two American forces and Three British (The British, Canadians and Natives). Each round turn order is completely random. On a player's turn they play one card. That will let them activate a number of armies. Armies are all the cubes in one area. You can only activate an area with your cubes. Combat is dice based with quite a bit of tactics due to retreats and "command decisions". Victory is determined by owning key spots in enemy territory one the truce is called which has to be done by one of the two sides playing all of it's truce cards.

Food Chain Magnate - This was the surprise hit for me. Quite a few heavy game fans suggested Food Chain Magnate and while it sounded good, I didn't expect it to be that good. It's one of the best and heaviest games I've played in a long time. Even I admit it doesn't look like much but, the gameplay more than makes up for the lackluster graphics. This is a heavy, brain burning, unforgiving, economic game. You start your empire with just you the CEO of a new food chain. Each round you will build your corporate structure and activate each of your employees (that aren't on vacation). They will do all kinds of things like make food, pick up drinks, hire more people, train existing staff, earn you money or launch marketing campaigns. Marketing campaigns are huge and determine what is in demand each round. After marketing campaigns are run the people go out to eat. You get paid for every household eating at one of your places but they will only visit you if you not only have exactly what they want but have it at the best value (based on price and distance). 

Between Two Cities - This is proof that I don't just like heavy games. Between Two Cities is my current favourite filler game. What I really love about this one is that it's a very good game with quite a bit of depth for such a short game and it plays up to 7 players. The neat bit here is that you are building two cities at once, in a team with the players on your left and right. At the end of the game though the only one that scores you points is the one worth the least points. The actual gameplay is tile drafting and tile placement that's mostly about set collection. While drafting you cannot talk to your fellow builders but once you see what tiles everyone has picked you then work with both of them to try to build the best cities you can.

IceCool - When I first heard about this one it didn't sound like something for me. It was huge at GenCon and every podcast and reviewer was going on about IceCool. A flicking dexterity game with penguins? I already have PitchCar, do I need another flicking game? Well it ends up that yes, I did. IceCool is fantastic. Don't get me wrong, it's uber light, there's not a lot to it, but it's just so much fun. It's the way the penguins are weighted that makes this one so much fun. You can pull off really cool curved shots and even make the penguins jump. 

Star Wars Rebellion - Many people are calling this one "the original Star Wars Trilogy in a box" and I'm inclined to agree. This is Star Wars on an epic scale. A small band of Rebels is striking out from a hidden base and the evil Galactic Empire is trying to find them. This is a huge game with a huge board that takes a long time to play. Designed for only two players it can be played with three or four in an interesting team based variant. Gameplay is a mix of worker placement and dudes on a map where players use Heroes to complete missions or move units on the board. What really makes this game is how well it sticks to the Star Wars theme. Rebels can move their base, they can build shield generators on Hoth (or any other planet), they can steal the plans and blow up the Death Star. The Empire can capture the heroes, they can build a second (or even third) Death Star, and they can blow up systems. If it's in the Star Wars trilogy it's probably represented here somewhere. 

Orleans - There was a ton of buzz about this game last year and for very good reasons. I personally didn't get to try this amazing game until 2016 but after only one play I fell in love. I've played more games of this in the last couple months after discovering it than any other game. I can't remember the last WGR event I didn't bring it out to and it's been played every time. A worker placement bag builder, Orleans is just a very solid medium weight Euro. It's almost Feld-like in the variety of viable strategies. Engine building, set collection, bag building, it's all here and expertly balanced. I am looking forward to adding expansions to my copy soon.



Thunder Alley - If you had told me at any time in the past, that I would be putting a NASCAR based game on a best of list I would have assumed you were making a joke. I am not a NASCAR fan. I'm not even a racing fan. It's a sport that I care pretty much nothing about. Yet I really enjoyed Thunder Alley. This is by far the best racing game I've played. I used to think Formula D was the pinnacle of racing games. No longer. Not even close. Formula D is a push your luck dice game, where as this is a real game. Instead of just racing one car you race an entire team. Actions are card based, determining how far and what type of movement you will use each turn. It's the movement system that's brilliant. Using drafting, leader and chase movement you often end up moving an entire pack of cars at once, not just the one vehicle you activated. Added to this is a very well done "component wear system" combined with a brilliantly simple pit system that constantly has you weighing your options. I never though I would like a race game this much, especially one about tuning left over and over :D

So there you have it. The best new (to me) games of 2016. There are so many more games I was tempted to have on this list. When I first sat down to work on it I had thirty-five amazing games on it. It took quite a bit of thinking to get that list down to sixteen. What were your top games of 2016?

Friday 11 November 2016

Extra Life 2016 wrap up


Extra Life 2016 happened this past weekend (November 5th and 6th). For this year Windsor gamers returned to Brimstone games for 24 hours of gaming. I thought I would take some time today to re-cap the event.

This year the awesome gamers of Windsor Ontario raised $2819 USD for The Children's Miracle Network of Hospitals. This money went to the Children's Health Foundation in London and Sick Kids in Toronto. This brings us to a grand total of over $11,000 USD raised for Extra Life by members of the Windsor Gaming Resource since we started participating four years ago. 

A large chunk of the money raised this year came from the live gaming and geekery auction which was held at 8pm on November 5th. The auction alone raised $1419 CAD and I would like to personally thank everyone who donated items to this auction. Also eight local gamers joined the online Windsor Gaming Resource team and the highest earner from this group was David Hutchinson who raised just over $500 USD. Congratulations on your first Extra Life silver metal David! The rest of the money was raised through the sale of baked goods and The Cheat Box.

The Cheat Box is something I encourage anyone hosting an Extra Life event to have. For a $1 donation to the Cheat Box, a game player can cheat in their current game once. Discard and draw an extra card. Re-roll a die. Ignore an event for one round. Etc. All players playing have to agree to this when it's done but remember it's all about having fun and helping kids.


A shout out to our awesome sponsors:


The biggest thanks goes to Brimstone games which hosted the event for the fourth year in a row. Special thanks for letting our auction winners use your debit machine :D 

This year I approached and was approached by a variety of local companies to be sponsors. This was fantastic to see The Cheese Bar, Robbie's Gourmet Sausage Co, Little Foot Foods, Rogues Gallery Comics, The Walkerville Tavern, Villains Beastro, The Coffee Exchange and Hidden Trail Escape Rooms as sponsors. All of these great Windsor small businesses stepped up and offered their support in the form of cash donations or gift cards which we used to reward participants who raised money for the event. 

We also had the support of some fantastic game companies who provided us with cash donations, games to play and games for our auction. Big thanks to CMON (Cool Mini or Not), Stronghold Games, AEG (Alerac Entertainment Group), Rio Grande Games and USAopoly

It's not too late to show your support!


If you couldn't attend the event or didn't hear about it in time, it's not too late to show your support through an online donation. Donations for this year's event are open until December 31st 2016. To donate click here and choose one of our team members to donate to:

Next year I hope to see even more local support, even more gamers out gaming for this great cause and even more money raised, For The Kids!

Sunday 6 November 2016

Extra Life 2016 - gaming for a great cause on November 5th and 6th


November 5th and 6th 2016 members of the Windsor Gaming Resource will be gathering at Brimstone Games to play games for 24 hours in support of Extra Life. 

This is our fourth year in a row supporting Extra Life as a group (some individual members have been doing it longer). Over the last three years we have raised over $8700 U.S. for the Children's Miracle Network of Hospitals. This year we are striving to break the $10,000 mark!

What is Extra Life?


Extra Life was started in 2008 by the Sarcastic Gamer Community as a tribute to one specific leukemia victim: Victoria Enmon. The group created a 24-hour long video game marathon to raise money for the hospital that treated and fought beside Tori. 100% of the funds raised went to the local Children's Miracle Network. 

Now thousands of gamers have joined in this annual event. In 2009 the event spread allowing participants to donate to the Hospital of their choice and now hundreds of websites and tens of thousands of gamers will take part in this charity event this year.



What is the WGR doing for Extra Life?


As many members as possible are going to head to Brimstone Games at 10:00am on Saturday November 5th. Once there it's simple: we game, and we game for 12 hours straight. Then we repeat the same thing on Sunday November the 6th, at 10am, gaming for another 12 hours straight. That's 24 hours of gaming total! We will be playing board games, miniature games and maybe even some pen and paper roleplaying games.

In addition to all the gaming, at 8:00pm on Saturday night we will also be hosting a live game auction. Anyone is welcome to attend this portion of the event. We've got a great selection of games to auction off and 100% of the proceeds will be going to Extra Life.

You can find Brimstone at 1421 Tecumseh Rd E, Windsor, ON N8W 1C2. Parking is available in back.


What can you do to support us?


Come play games: You should come join us on the day of the event and play some games! Even if you can't come out for all 24 hours it would be awesome if you could stop in and show your support. While there play a game or two. We would love the support and encouragement. You can show up at any time during the event. Stop in after work, say hi at lunch, whenever. 

Join our team: Extra Life lets groups of participants make a team page and we have one for the Windsor Gaming Resource. Even if you aren't going to actually come out to Brimstone and play with us, if you are going to participate at home or at your own FLGS we would love to have you on our team. Click here to join up!

Sponsor a Windsor Gaming Resource member: Any amount helps, even a buck, and the Extra Life site has a wide variety of payment options even including a monthly donation deal. They also offer charity receipts.

Participate in the live auction: The auction will be held at 8pm on Saturday November 5th and there will be a wide variety of new and used games and other geeky items on the auction block. All money raised will be donated to Extra Life through the group page.

Donate games: Are you a game publisher? Do you have too many games and don't know what to do with them? How about donating your games to the cause. You can either give them to us to play during the event or you can donate them to be sold at the live auction. Any donations can be dropped off at Brimstone Games up to and including the day of the event or contact gilvanblight(at)gmail.com to make arrangement before then.

Thanks to our sponsors:


While organizing this event I sent out emails to a variety of game companies asking if they would be willing to support the WGR in this effort.

Huge thanks to Stronghold Games for supporting us four years in a row!

Thanks to Mantic GamesAlderac Entertainment GroupRio Grande Games and Hidden Trail Escape Rooms for supporting us again this year.


Sunday 16 October 2016

Reducing the Pile(s) Of Shame

Over the last week I've done a lot of work reducing my pile of shame. A pile that is actually four piles. It's more like a wall of shame. Heck, I could probably make a fort of shame at this point.

What is a pile of shame? That pile of games (and expansions) you own that you haven't actually played yet. The games that make you feel extra guilty buying new games because you have perfectly good games sitting right there waiting to be played but you are ignoring them for the new hotness or some good deal. The pile of games that makes you feel shame for buying them but not actually playing them. 

In an effort to feel less shameful and, with the ulterior motive of needing to learn some donated games before our Extra Life event I put together a special gaming event at my place last Monday: Thanksgaming.  We managed to get 6 games off the pile that night. I also bought a bunch of games off the pile to board game night at Brimstone Games last night and managed to knock another two games off the pile . Thanks to that I've reduced the pile of shame by a whopping 8 games in the last week.

Here's a short review of each of those games:

Lost Legacy: Flying Garden - Kindly donated by AEG for our Extra Life event this year. I'm not a huge fan of Love Letter and I'm wary of any games that are isotopes of Love Letter. This worry was misplaced in Lost Legacy. I don't know exactly what makes Lost Legacy better for us, but it just is. I love the investigation bit at the end. Do I try to keep a low card so I get to guess first? Do I make sure I know where the legacy is but have to worry that someone will guess it first?

Gameplay is pretty much the same as Love Letter. Start with a card in your hand. Each turn, draw a card and then play one card. Each card has an ability that goes off when played. Try to end the round with an advantageous game in your hand and not get elimited before that. The big change in Lost Legacy from Love Letter is at end of the round. Instead of the player with the highest card winning, players instead enter an investigation round. Starting with the lowest numbered card and going up, players need to declare where they think the Lost Legacy card is. If they are right, they win. If not, then it goes to the next player to guess. No one wins if the Lost Legacy is not found.

Lost Legacy: The Starship - Kindly donated by AEG for Extra Life. I knew there was more than one Lost Legacy game but didn't realize how different each was. The cards and card abilities are very different in Starship from Garden. This is rather cool. I also really dig the way you can mix and match. Between the two The Starship is much more take that with a lot more abilities that affect other players hands.With this series of games you also have the option of combining two decks. All you need to do is remove one of the two Lost Legacy Cards. This also allows the game to be played with up to eight players. I haven't actually tried this but plan on it during Extra Life.

Tiffin - Kindly donated by Rio Grande Games for Extra Life. This was a very solid card based area control game with a cool theme. Each player represents a company helping to deliver lunch Tiffins in Mumbai. Each turn players either add a Tiffin cube to a new route or play cards to a add cubes to an already started route. When routes are completed players get points based on their contributions and points for having Tiffins on the routes. Player get new cards by drafting from a face up row Ticket to Ride style. There is also a take that element where each player has a flat tire and shortcut card they can use to modify the length of a route. To keep things interesting there is also a ghost player, The Competitor, that will add neutral cubes to routes when triggered by player card play. I really dug the theme on this one, which somehow comes through even though it's really an abstract card driven cube pusher.

Dark Seas - Kindly donated by AEG for Extra Life. This pirate themed game was way more fun than I expected. I've seen it deeply discounted online and just assumed based on that, that it wasn't very good. I was wrong. Dark Seas is a unique tile playing game where each player builds his own set of pirate islands. The really neat bit in this game is that each turn the start player rolls a set of dice (with one possible re-roll) to determine which actions are available that turn. Once determined, every player is stuck with that specific set of dice results for the entire round. Actions include discarding tiles from your hand that match a die rolled this round to get resources and moving your pirate ship around your island. As your ship stops at each port it activates the tiles attached to it. At the end of the round you can add a tile to the port your ship is at. Your Captain can be used to get new tiles or assist in getting your ship around the island. Through all this players are collecting money, pirates and treasure tokens. Pirates are placed on your port and usually enhance the attached tiles (with things like get 1 coin for each pirate). Money is used to upgrade Pirates to Dread Pirates which are worth more points and for end of game scoring. Players try to complete sets of treasure tokens with four of a kind being worth the most points.

Overall the game is a quick to teach, humorous take on a set collection and area control game with a very cool mechanic I've never seen before.

Greedy Greedy Goblins - Kindly donated by AEG for Extra Life. This game is frantic, hilarious fun! Another surprise hit from AEG. Greedy Greedy Goblins is a real time set collection games with some of the nicest tiles I've ever seen in a board game. Each turn players simultaneously grab tiles from the center of the table and place them onto various mine cards. At any point instead of placing a tile a player can place one of their goblin tokens on a mine to claim it. At that point no one can add more tiles to the mine. Once everyone has placed their goblin tokens you start figuring out exactly what was in each mine. Gems are worth points. Monsters eat gems. Minions give you special cards that can modify a mine's final score. Torches reveal one other tile in the mine during tile placement. The last tile type is dynamite. Reveal 1 dynamite and the mine score is doubled. Reveal 2 and the mine score is Tripled! Reveal 3 or more dynamite and the mine collapses and kills your goblin (you get nothing from the mine and also have to pay 5 points to the bank to hire a new goblin). Minion cards break the rules in various ways and each player gets bonus points on a specific type of gem. You can expect to see this one out at many WGR events.  


Rails of New England - Kindly donated by Rio Grande Games for Extra Life. This was the most intimidating game of Thanksgaming. Explaining this game was not fun. A lot of that had to do with how horrible the rule book is. I've not seen a rulebook this bad in years. There are a ton of components that come in the box that aren't even referenced in the rules and aren't even listed on the component list. I had to go on boardgamegeek.com to figure out what some of the stuff was. During the game we also had to google rule clarifications multiple times. This is near unforgivable. The thing is: the game was really good.

I don't think I can call Rails of New England a "Train Game", despite the name. It's a lot more like Power Grid than say 1830 or Empire Builder or Martian Rails. It's an economic game about owning businesses in New England and dealing with a changing economy and a slew of interesting events affecting the area including snow, floods and fires. The rail part only comes in when you build depots which give you bonus income for business that are "connected," meaning that there is a depot in the city the business is located in and one in the three major delivery cities of New York, Boston or Montreal. Along with building business there are government subsidies that can be claimed, mail routes to complate and, historic rail routes that can be claimed for having depots in specific sets of cities.

This is a big, chunky Euro with a lot going on. Far too much to really get into here. Overall it seems excellent but I've never seen a game screaming for a second printing so badly. An updated map with a better font, a re-written rulebook, business cards that give you some hint as to where they are located on the map and tokens for marking where the events are taking place would all greatly improve the game. If you ever pick this one up make sure you go to BGG and find the FAQ and the much improved rulebook.

Luna - I'm a huge Stefan Feld game and Luna has been on my wishlist for quite some time. I was very excited that TMG has finally gotten it back in print. I really dig the theme in Luna. Each player is the head of a druidic order attempting to collect influence in order to become the next Moon Priestess. As typical of Feld, this is a point salad with many ways to earn influence (points). The gameplay is a pretty unique worker placement system where players move initiates to various islands circling a main temple. Removing workers from an island lets you use that islands unique ability. Abilities include sending initiates to the main temple, moving between islands, building shrines and more. Overall Luna is rather light for a Feld point salad which is quite refreshing. The game is fairly easy to teach, rather quick to play and looks pretty cool set up on the table.

Dice City - wow this game takes up a lot of room. The player boards are the same size as the main boards in some other games and each player needs one. In addition there is a card drafting area required with full sized cards. So think of playing Dominion with four other board games on the table at the same time.

Assuming you have the space, Dice City is a very cool game. Each player board has a 5x6 grid of action spaces. Each row is tied to a colour of a D6 and each column a number on a D6. Each round players roll 5 dice, one of each colour and place them on their board BINGO style. They then spend the dice to activate locations. Most locations give resources but some give army points or victory points. Army points can be used to attack barbarians for points or to attack other players disabling their buildings of stealing resources. After any attacks, players spend resources to build new buildings from the card supply or fulfill trade contracts. Buildings replace locations that are on the players boards. Gameplay involves rolling your dice, placing them on your board, spending them to get stuff to either improve your board or earn points. It's all very elegant.

So how big is your Pile Of Shame? What games have you gotten off of it recently? What game is gong to be played next?