What I bought last week

Our credit system worked out pretty well in January and definitely helped us stick to a budget, we gained enough credits to get Downforce and Deckscape: Test Time, which we even found time to play (yay for not adding more games to our shelf of shame!) so you can find more details on these games further below!

The Shipwreck Arcana

2-5 Players | 10-30 minutes | Meromorph Games

We received our Kickstarter pledge for The Shipwreck Arcana and it is one of the most beautiful games I’ve seen in a while! The quality is also outstanding, and it even arrived a month early!

The Walking Dead: No Sanctuary

1-4 Players | 45-120 minutes | Cryptozoic Entertainment

We also received our pledge for The Walking Dead: No Sanctuary, but weirdly we received the expansion boxes about a week before the base game… I’m trying really hard not to judge the game too much before playing it but I am beyond disappointed by the quality of this game. I’ve heard good things about the gameplay so I’m hoping that will balance out my feelings for it. Right now though I’m feeling pretty ripped off!

What I played recently

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

2-4 Players | 30-60 minutes | USAopoly

Wednesday 31st | 2 players – We hadn’t played this since April 2017 (where does the time go?!)! But we finally opened up the 7th box and had a roaring victory to finish the game! We prefer to play this game with all four character, so we play two each, hence the slightly weird set up I have here… Hopefully we’ll add the monster expansion soon to get a bit more play out of the game.

Barenpark

2-4 Players | 30-45 minutes | Mayfair Games

Friday 2nd | 2 players – This was one we got for Christmas so it wasn’t on the shelf of shame for too long… I really enjoyed this game despite missing out on fitting that last perfect piece into my park!! It was agony.

Race for the Galaxy

2-4 Players | 30-60 minutes | Rio Grande Games

Sunday 4th | 2 players – Speaking of that Shelf of Shame… Race for the Galaxy was a game we bought over 2 years ago. TWO YEARS! And we only just got round to playing it. How does that even happen?!

So many of the ladies from the World of Women network love this game I figured it was time to try it out. We only played the one game and it was ok, but I didn’t love it. Definitely need to give it a couple more goes as I think I was just really unlucky, no matter how many times I explored I just couldn’t get a producing planet in my hand and it feels like those are pretty important!

Campy Creatures

2-5 Players | 20-30 minutes | Keymaster Games

Wednesday 7th | 5 players – Wednesday game night started with a quick game of Campy Creatures, which is always good fun. I’ll never get bored of this artwork!

Downforce

2-6 Players | 20-40 minutes | Restoration Games

Wednesday 7th | 6 players – Daniel really wanted Downforce and I knew it would be loved by our friends and family so we got it and I was right, they all absolutely loved it! So much so that we played 3 games back to back. All of which I found utterly frustrating… I don’t know if I was just in a bad mood or what, but the complete lack of strategy in this game just infuriated me for some reason. Hopefully on a different day i’ll learn to love it because I can see this one being requested often!

I do however love what Restoration Games have done with it, the components and art are all great quality and as a family game I would highly recommend it.

Daniel insisted that I also mention the fact that he got a perfect score in his second game, which can only be achieved by purchasing a car for the minimum of $1m, betting on yourself on all 3 occasions and then coming first in the race… He’s never gunna let us live it down and we’re never gunna let it happen again!

When I Dream

4-10 Players | 20-40 minutes | Repos Productions

Wednesday 7th | 6 players – I can’t believe I forgot to take a photo of us looking like idiots in the sleep mask but I was enjoying the game too much!

We finished the night with When I Dream, which was our first time playing and everyone really enjoyed it. As social deduction games go, it’s pretty laid back which is a nice change of pace. I can see this one hitting the table often, especially as it can play up to 10!

The Shipwreck Arcana

2-5 Players | 10-30 minutes | Meromorph Games

Friday 9th | 2 players – We decided to play a ‘learning game’ of this as a 2p before introducing the game to more players, but not really expecting it to play that well as a 2p. However I was pleasantly surprised to still find the game fun at a low player count.

It’s a pretty unique deduction game, quite mathy and thinky but very enjoyable. I look forward to upping the player count and seeing how it improves!

Deckscape: Test Time

1-6 Players | 30-90 minutes | dV Giochi

Friday 9th | 2 players – So again, I have no pictures or spoilers for this one, but incase you don’t know of Deckscape, it’s another line of escape room card games, like Exit or Unlock. They are kinda difficult to get hold of in the UK at the moment so when this one became available we grabbed it to see how they compare. It was… just OK.