One New Game a Week - On Mars (Digital)

by Jordan Thomas

This week has been interesting and I’ve gotten the opportunity to play a lot of games, but at the same time being so busy! I am also an artist and the holiday season is always busy with Christmas Art Markets, so I spent several days making blankets, soaps, jewelry, and mosaics for the sales this month, and spent last Saturday at a market all day.

However, I’ve grown to appreciate Turn-Based games on Board Game Arena. Initially, this was not my idea of fun. I get involved in the game and don’t like stepping away. And to be fair, it’s still not my favorite thing, as it’s hard to remember exactly what I was doing. I’ll just be honest and say I lose even more games than normal playing turn-based, but it’s an opportunity to play more games. Especially this week where things have been crazy, I’ve been able to play a bunch of games turn-based, in between everything else!

Anyway, let’s jump in!

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Ticket to Ride - Days of Wonder
Physical / Board Game Arena - 100+ Plays

In this game, you’re collecting sets of colored trains in order to create connections across the United States. Different connections will require either a specific color and number of cards, or will allow any color of a specific number of cards. Most routes are single use, so when another player has used that connection, you’ll have to find another way around, but at larger player counts, some routes allow two players to use it. The goal of the game is to complete destination cards that score you points for connecting certain cities to each other.

This is such a classic and fun to play in both the physical and digital versions. I also enjoy the Steam Digital Game and App versions of Ticket to Ride. I have not played a version yet that I have felt doesn’t do the game justice. Also, many of these implementations have some of the other variations of the game, like Europe, Nordic Countries, India, and many more.

Once you know how to play this is a quick and easy game to run though in moments of spare time. I particularly love the app for these purposes, but I can also play a game on a background browser while accomplishing other tasks on the computer (like writing this post).



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La Marche du Crabe - 2Tomatoes Games
Board Game Arena - 5+ Plays

This game is one of the Board Game Arena Winter of Games Advent Calendar. It is a two player cooperative game where the players take on the role of smaller crabs trying to rescue their buddies from the trash on the beach, while avoiding the bigger, meaner crabs and lobsters. Each player is a crab that can either only move up and down or left to right. Taking turns, players place a new baddie on the grid, then move in their particular movement patterns. But watch out, certain trash can hide baddies! If you can save eight of your crab buddies without running out of shrimp (which you lose when encountering a baddie), you move on to the next level, where more dangers await.

I enjoy this game even if I don’t exactly understand how the game records a win versus a defeat (I’m happy that Board Game Arena handles that). The movement rules make the game thinky and puzzly. It’s quick and easy to learn. And adds new rules as the players reach higher levels in a way that is easy to understand and builds on the difficulty of the game.



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Similo - Horrible Guild
Physical / Board Game Arena - 50+ Plays

Similo is a fun cooperative card game based on similarities and differences between a variety of characters in a 12 card grid. One player is the clue giver, while the rest of the players receive the clues. The clue giver will play cards indicating that the secret character is either like or different from the character on the card they play. Players will then select a character to eliminate. Each round, they will eliminate more characters. As long as they do not eliminate the secret character, the game will go until there is a choice between two final characters.

I love this game, but the concept tends to unfortunately trip up a lot of non-gamer to light gamer friends I have played with. The idea of having a secret character you don’t want to eliminate seems to work against people's instincts, then taking the cards and figuring out the similar and different gives them trouble. For me, this one made perfect sense from the start, but my husband, who is also a strategy gamer, took a dozen or so plays before it really clicked for him.

Despite difficulties teaching, I still pull this out frequently, because once people get it, they do have fun. And I own most of the different types of decks. I’m excited for the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts decks coming out, but less enthusiastic about the art. I wish they’d have kept a similar style to the base games.




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[thing=206327]
The King’s Guild - Mirror Box Games[/thing]
Board Game Arena - 3ish Plays

This is a hand-management, resource management, set collection game in which you play the role of a Guild leader working to collect the most prestige for your guild though building equipment for different quests. During the game, you take actions to collect resources, build equipment, increase the size of your guild by purchasing additional rooms, and recruiting specialists to your guild. Each quest card has specific icons that designate which kind of quest it is, whether it is a warrior quest, mage quest, or other. Master rooms can be purchased and added to your guild, giving you bonuses for collecting sets of quest types. And treasure cards are collected when completing quests, giving players additional ways to earn points.

I’m lukewarm about this game. I want to like it and it does a lot of things I like. Also, I definitely like it more at 3-4 players, than at 2 players, which I really did not like. But there is something about it that is just really not sticking for me and I can’t really put my finger on it.



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[thing=286096]
Tapestry - Stonemaier Games[/thing]
Physical / Board Game Arena - 30+ Plays

Tapestry is a civilization building game in which most of the game play takes place on four different tracks on the board (five with the Arts & Architecture expansion). The four tracks are Technology, Science, Exploration, and Military. Players spend resources to move on the tracks and take benefits and sometimes bonuses for each spot on the track. Player’s civilizations will grow through inventing technologies, advancing science, exploring the world, and conquering locations. This is a free-for-all of points, as each action will advance the player’s civilization and the player with the most points at the end wins.

This is one of my favorites to play both the physical copy with the two expansions and the digital copy on Board Game Arena (though I want the expansions!). It’s not just for the pre-painted miniatures, though I am in love with those as they bring a lot of life to the game. I love the game play, the back and forth on the tracks and with technology and tapestry cards.

I do not love the ‘neighbors’ mechanic though, so I prefer to play this game with only two or three players. Four drives me crazy, as more than one player can get the new era bonuses if they happen to sit next to the right people.




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[thing=13]
Catan - KOSMOS[/thing]
Board Game Arena - 20+ Plays

So, I’m not quite sure why I even play this game anymore, but I do. In Catan, players select spots to build settlements and roads along the edges of a grid of hexes with numbers and different resources on them. Each turn two dice are rolled and players with settlements on a hex with the number gain that resource from that tile. Pretty simple and straightforward, but also a very brutal game in my opinion.

It’s easy to get screwed by the dice in this one and even easier by the players. The robber, who activates on a 7 can easily shut down a player's production and stall them out for most of the game. I don’t mind some take that in a game, but man, this one feels brutal.

This used to be a favorite when I was just getting into the world of board gaming. I think I still try to play this one based on nostalgia from time to time, but quickly remember why I have moved on to other types of games.



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Get on Board: New York & London - IELLO
Board Game Arena - 10+ Plays

So, previously I had the physical copy of Let’s Build A Bus Route, which was the version from Saashi & Saashi. The digital version of Get on Board plays exactly like this previous game, but it’s been localized and the city boards are New York & London. This is a flip and write (or flip & fill if you prefer) style of game. A series of cards with numbers links up to a diagram on the top of your board that tells you how many spaces you get to move and what the shape of those spaces is (straight line, u-turn, curve, etc). Pick up students, business men, tourists, and old ladies along your bus route to score points, as well as working towards public and secret objectives.

This game is great in both versions. I can see how the New York and London versions are more accessible to gamers in the Western world, but didn’t feel like the ‘location’ of the game was really something that you connect to in the game. It’s just a series of icons and stop lights. The theme isn’t super heavy, but that doesn’t detract from the game for me.




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[thing=123540]
Tokaido - Funforge[/thing]
Board Game Arena - 15+ Plays

This is another one I used to have the physical copy of (honestly, my collection pre-covid was kind of ridiculous in side and I’m not ashamed to say that if I had the money to do so, I would likely re-acquire most of the games I had to give up during the plague). Anyway, in this game, you are trying to have the best experience. Eat at the best spots, stop at the best views, enjoy the hot springs and tourist traps, etc. The main mechanic in this one is that the person who is last is the next player. It ends up being a lot of “who can go the slowest!”, but that isn’t always the path to victory.

I greatly enjoy the theme of this one, and it’s always amusing to watch everyone fight over every single space to see who can do the most. It’s a pretty good entry level game for people new to the hobby, but can be enjoyable for heavier players. It just isn’t one that I would end up playing often on my own or with my husband.

I ended up playing this one this week because I jumped into a turn-based game (one of 30 or so I had started). I was literally willing to play any game I knew how to play. I’m glad I did, because playing it does remind me that I enjoy it though.



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Boomerang: Australia - Grail Games / Matagot
Physical / Board Game Arena - 50+ Plays

Boomerang is a little card drafting, pencil and paper style game. Each of the cards in the game are multi-use. Cards will show a location in Australia (grouped by number) and might have an animal, activities, and collections. Each section scores a bit differently and the first and last cards in your draft row are your throw and catch cards (boomerang - get it?!). Person who scores the highest in the game is the best tourist.

I love the original version of this game, but the newer version isn’t bad either. The only thing I can tell they changed from the original is the throw and catch cards. Previously, you would need to catch a card with a higher number than you threw to score points. In the newer version, you simply score points based on the difference in points between the throw and catch cards. While I feel like it makes it “too easy”, it does make the game more approachable for newer players.

I’ve still got the physical copy of this one and my husband and I play it two players often. It also often comes out when we have guests, as it’s easy to teach to both gamers and non-gamers. With the newer version of the game, I think they also added America and Europe as locations.



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On Mars - Eagle-Gryphon Games
Tabletopia - 4+ Unfinished Plays?

So we are still trying to get through this came without messing up something that we have to call it a draw. I’m going to say it though, compared to Board Game Arena, Tabletopia is very lack-luster. Yeah, it looks good, but man is it unwieldy. Additionally, I did not really consider how much work learning such a big game on an online platform was going to be! It’s nice to be able to try the game before deciding if we want to purchase in this mode, but it’d be nice if it felt a little more user friendly.

This is our new game together this week. We went ahead and went digital instead of physical as my game table is currently occupied with my newest snowboard mosaic in process. I am not confident in a summary of this game until I can get through the game without breaking it by missing rules, so I’ll revisit this at a later date.



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This is coming out later in the day than usual with being busy and all, so this is all I’ve got for you today. More to come next week!