#276 – Welcome to the Moon: I like roll and writes (and their various incarnations) and Welcome To was one of the classics for us. We played it a lot. I played over Zoom during lock down with friends, I followed along during virtual cons, I even bought a rare copy of the mini version of the game.

Then I heard about the follow up, Welcome to the Moon. This had a campaign mode and 8 different maps. I was intrigued. I picked up a copy and after playing a couple of the maps, we sold off our original and all the extra maps. It just does everything I like about the original, but better. The maps all have a different feel and a different challenge and the puzzle never grows stale. We’re halfway through the campaign and it’s been pretty evenly won for us which is nice in these kinds of games.

#203 – Carcassonne: Purchased probably in 2007, this is officially the oldest game still in my collection. Most of my games cycle in and out over the years as I tend to buy and sell pretty liberally. But Carcassonne has stood the test of time. Have I played it recently? No. Am I able to get rid of it? No. We pulled it out recently to just play with the pieces with our kid and we both looked at it at the end and said we couldn’t get rid of it.

We have about 7-8 expansions for it and I have yet to play with everything we own, but that does feel like a solid weekend plan one of these days to get another game of this logged. Just like with Parks above, Carcassonne almost needs Traders and Builders and Inns and Cathedrals. It’s not as required as Nightfall is to Parks, but boy these two really make the game something special.

#255 – Scout: This is one of our newer games. My friend Jon tried to teach it to us at Origins last year with a handmade set of cards, but it was too late for me. But his enthusiasm stuck with me. Jump forward a few months and Tom at Shut Up and Sit Down put out a completely manic review of the game that sold me. I watched and waited for the game to come back in stock. I even debated importing a copy from Japan. But eventually the reprint came out and I snagged a copy right away.

We’ve played this with a variety of players since picking it up and it’s always a hit. Lots of cheers and excitement when things go great and agony as you end up with too many cards at the end. It’s likely to stay in our collection for a long time.

#386 – Raiders of Scythia: This is one I didn’t expect to ever own. I have a hard time pinning down my “favorite game” but Raiders of the North Sea was consistently in the running for years. It was definitely my favorite worker placement and I would gladly play it right now if offered.

When Scythia came out, I thought, why bother with a retheme of your own game that is currently on the shelf? But years later I picked up a copy for pretty cheap on a flea market to see what made it justified to exist as well. And once I did I sold North Sea for one very simple reason.

The expansions for North Sea are good. I like the things they add. However, they always felt tacked on. Extra boards, new decks of cards, and such made it feel not as cohesive. Good gameplay but not as smooth. Scythia combines those expansions seamlessly into the base game and builds on it. The tweaks to the game are subtle enough but build up over time to the point it’s a more satisfying game for me to play. I still miss the Mico’s art on North Sea, but the gameplay matters more than art preference. The art of Scythia is also pretty good too though.

#384 – Altiplano: In a similar vein Altiplano was one I held off on for a while. I love Orleans and felt that I had my preferred bag building game by Reiner Stockhausen. When I saw Altiplano it felt kind of like Scythia did. But I saw more videos about it and in particular Matt’s Shut Up and Sit Down review of the Traveller expansion for the game sold me.

Once again I got a great deal on a flea market for it and the expansion, all unopened. We gave it a shot and was impressed by how it played. There’s a lot of decision to be made and room for everyone to try something different. The Traveller does improve the game play and add just that much more to it. I don’t play it that much, but I also haven’t played Orleans in a longer time so maybe this is just new game excitement or maybe it’s also kicking out the old guard.

#382 – Tiny Towns: Tiny Towns was a game I thought looked pretty good. It has some neat polyomino adjacent building. It’s a neat puzzle with fun buildings and a lot of variability. But that alone isn’t really that exciting. It’s the 4×4 grid you’re trapped in.

One of my favorite elements in a game is when you’re smoothly rolling along, everything is great, all the things are lining up just right. Then in one turn, everything goes crashing down and you stare at your board thinking, “What have I done?” That’s this game. Every turn you’re slowly building out and cramming more things into your tiny grid. You are hoping just the right pieces come up for you to be able to get things to work, but they never do. Something always goes wrong and you have to adapt and plan and figure a way out. It’s no wonder that Peter’s new game Fit To Print coming out this year from Flatout Games also has that element of gameplay and was an instant hit for me when I played a prototype of it last year.