New to Me – July 2023

July was yet another weird month for games, as I explained in last week’s “games played” post (sorry this one took so long after that).

Even with that, I was able to get six new to me games to the table.

Granted, three were quick card games, but still…

Not only did I get six games played, but three of them are from 2020 or older!

That made the Cult of the New to Me happy.

They even threw me a party!

Maybe that’s why this post was so late.

But I always persevere!

Anyway, without further ado (all of my ado disappeared with a bike thief anyway), let’s get started!

Trailblazers (2023 – Bitewing Games) – 1 play

Designer: Ryan Courtney

Artist: Seth Lucas

Players: 1-8

Trailblazers is a route-building tile-laying game where you are trying to build three different paths that will score you points at the end of the game.

This kind of game is usually my kryptonite, since it involves having to visualize paths in your head.

But I actually won this game!

By a lot!

You start with three camp cards: biking, hiking, and kayaking.

Each round, you place one of these camping cards into your tableau.

You are trying to connect routes of the appropriate type leaving the camp and then returning to it in a loop.

You’re given a hand of 8 trail cards and you will play two to your tableau. The rest are passed to the next player.

You can play over another card as long as you haven’t placed an animal on the original tile. (We used the Animal expansion, I guess).

The tile will tell you if you can place an animal.

There are also goal cards that you are trying to meet to get points.

Hint: I totally ignored them…and I won! But ours were quite difficult.

Each of the first three rounds, you will place one of your remaining camps in your tableau.

On the fourth round, all you are doing is trying to connect them.

Scoring is 1 VP for each length of each completed loop (keeping in mind that the trail has to be all of one colour and it has to be the same colour as the camp it’s connected to). Animals will give an additional point value based on how many different animals are on the loop.

I got 63 points on the above trail, with no goal scoring bonuses in there!

This one burned my brain because I had to picture routes in my head.

But it was enjoyable for the genre it is, and I can definitely see why people like this game.

It’s also pretty short, another perfect lunch time game!

Brian Boru: High King of Ireland (2021 – Osprey Games) – 1 play

Designer: Peer Sylvester

Artist: Deirdre de Barra

Players: 3-5

The first in a July trick-taking extravaganza!

Of course, there’s a hook involved.

It wouldn’t be interesting if there wasn’t.

In this case, it also comes with a board.

The board is of Ireland and there is some area control involved.

There are 25 cards in the game in three different “suits” or colours.

Each card has a value and then a primary (top) and a secondary (bottom) action.

The map is also divided into regions, and these are the area control elements of the game.

Each round, players are dealt cards. They will keep two and pass the rest on.

The cards you choose will form your hand for the round.

The player with the Active Town Marker will then choose a town on the map that people are playing for.

They will then lead a card from their hand. Others will play a card as well.

The highest number wins the trick! They will do the primary actions of their card, which always includes placing their own control marker on the town in question.

The other players will all do the secondary actions of their card. This will often be gaining viking tokens, gaining influence in the church, or maybe even move your disc up on the marriage track, trying to get a favourable marriage for your family!

The secondary action can also give you money, which is definitely needed.

Once all but one card is played, round scoring and region control is done.

The marriage track is adjudicated, the Vikings raid (if there are any tokens left), the church influence is done, and claiming regions.

Once all of the marriage cards run out (so the set number of rounds in the game), scoring is completed. Most coins gets a point, active town marker scores a point, renown tokens, region control, as well as the number of different regions in which you control at least one town.

The interesting twist with this trick-taking game is the board and area control, but also how losers of the trick will still get their secondary action.

And unlike Diamonds, the specific card you play dictates your secondary action.

Many times in this game, you don’t want to win the trick. Instead, you want your secondary actions (though it’s hard to get area control without winning at least some tricks).

I really enjoyed this game and it’s one I’d love to play again.

The choices are interesting and the card drafting makes it so you’re not totally dependent on the luck of the draw.

A winner for me!

The Guild of Merchant Explorers (2022 – Alderac Entertainment Group) – 1 play

Designers: Matthew Dunstan, Brett J. Gilbert

Artist: Gerralt Landman

Players: 1-4

I’ve never been a huge Roll and Write fan, but what about a “flip and then place cubes” game?

The Guild of Merchant Explorers is a game where players are exploring the world and trying to connect the cities they discover so that they can be joined in one vast merchant empire.

The conceit with this game is that while there only a set number of cards drawn each turn, each player is going to have one, two and then three special powers to do on their turn.

That’s what makes the game neat, in a way.

Each player gets an identical map (like above) and they will be starting from the central city (on this map, on the central island).

There are five basic exploration cards that will be included with each round.

In addition, each era will have an “era” card which lets each player do their Investigate special action from that era (players drew two and kept one at the beginning of the first three eras).

Thus, the first era will have 6 cards (the basic plus Era 1). The second era will have 7 cards (the basic plus Era 1 and Era 2), etc.

What happens when a card is drawn?

You will be placing exploration cubes out following the rules of the card.

So if the mountain card was drawn, you’d place a cube in a mountain hex that is adjacent to one of your villages or one of your exploration cubes.

If you cover up a treasure hex, you will get a treasure card.

These cards may be endgame scoring or may give you a one-time special ability.

You may get set collection like the cards on the left, or maybe money for each village in rocky terrain.

If you cover a village hex, you can establish a village there, which will help you branch your exploring later.

You will also get points (money) for connecting the village to the rest of your market.

At the end of each round (when all of the exploration cards are flipped over), you remove all of your cubes, but not your villages, trading posts, or markers for ruins/towers.

You will have to start exploring again next round, though you can start from any of your villages/trading posts.

The Investigate cards giving you your special power are the heart of the game.

The Investigate card you’ve chosen for each era will get played when that era’s card comes up.

Things like being able to explore a sea space (which has to be next to one of your cubes/villages/posts) and then up to 5 spaces around it, can be quite handy!

Of course, you may suffer like I did, when you need a Rock card to come out before the grasslands because that will let you explore a long way, but you get the grasslands first so you have to explore in a direction you don’t want to go because those are the only grasslands adjacent to you.

It is luck of the draw, but that’s one way this is a great flip & write/roll & write!

There are also goal cards in play (three of them) that you can get money for depending on how quickly you complete them compared to other players.

You get money for everything, as money is points (so you’re essentially getting points for everything) and whoever has the most money at the end of the game is the winner!

While I would not say this game is a favourite of mine (granted, only one play), it is definitely something I would be willing to play again. It’s a fun little diversion, takes only about 45 minutes, and doesn’t tax your brain too much.

And there is no spatial ability required!

Or not much, anyway.

Bring this one out again and I’ll play it.

Schadenfreude (2020 – Studio Turbine) – 1 play

Designer: ctr

Artist: (uncredited)

Players: 3-5

Short little trick-taking games are always fun to learn, even if they’re not something that stays with you after a play or two.

I haven’t played one of these without getting at least some enjoyment out of them.

Schadenfreude is an unusual beast, though, because you don’t want to win!

Well, you do, but if you get the highest score, you don’t win.

Instead, the first person to hit 40 points triggers the end game. They cannot win.

The highest score under 40 is the winner of that game.

There are 50 cards in the deck. Four suits of 12 cards and then two Wild cards.

The suits come in numbers -3 to -1 and then 1-9.

The two wild cards are 0 and 10.

The game follows normal trick-taking rules, with one exception.

Whoever plays the second highest card in the led suit actually wins the trick.

Players will place the cards won in front of themselves, but if you’ve captured two of the same number, they cancel each other out.

At the end of the round (all cards have been played), players score the cards that are still in front of them.

If somebody has broken 40, the game ends and the player with the highest score not above 40 will win the game!

What’s even more cool than that?

If there is a tie for the highest score under 40, they both lose and the next highest score wins!

Wow, that’s rough.

This is a really fun trick-taking game that I would definitely play again.

Like I said in my Cat in the Box review, trick-taking games nowadays need some kind of hook, and the “2nd highest wins the trick” hook is pretty damned cool.

Hopefully I will get more chances to play this one. It only took about 30 minutes, which makes it great for lunch time.

Seas of Strife (2015 – Rio Grande Games) – 1 play

Designer: Mark Major

Artists: Klemens Franz, Beth Sobel

Players: 3-6

Seas of Strife is another trick-taking game with some interesting mechanics.

And an interesting pedigree.

It was formerly known as Texas Showdown and the Rio Grande edition of Seas of Strife actually have the original published rules for the game, which are slightly different.

I’m going to describe my play of it, though.

In this game, there are 60 cards in 8 different colours.

The numbers are unique and separated by the colour/suit.

For example, the Orange (Doldrums) suit has the numbers 0-10. The Red (Reef) suit has 11-20.

Each card has a number of flags showing how many cards that suit has and where this card is positioned.

For example, the 74 Kraken is the highest card in the 4-card suit, as shown by the triangles on the side.

Once a card has been led, players have to follow the same suit if they can.

If they don’t have any cards in that suit, they can play other suit they want.

The hook in this game is that after that happens, other players can follow any of the suits that have been played. They don’t have to follow the original one.

Once all players have played a card, the winner of the trick is the one who played the highest card in the suit that the majority of players have played. If two Reef cards and three Kraken cards have been played, the highest Kraken card wins even if Reef was led.

If there’s a tie for that, then the highest card played in any of the tied suits wins.

Usually the player who won the trick leads the next trick. However, if they won with the highest card in that suit, then they get to choose who leads.

Another hook is that you don’t want to win tricks!

You get a penalized one point for each trick won.

Once somebody has reached a certain number of points at the end of a round (depending on player count), the lowest score wins!

This is another great idea for trick-taking, though I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as Schadenfreude. It does have an interesting twist and I would like to play it again with the proper rules (we didn’t play with the “you can follow any suit that has been played” rule).

Maybe even play it with the Texas Showdown rules!

Tricks & the Phantom (2017 – Oink Games) – 1 play

Designer: Takashi Saito

Artist: Jun Sasaki, Yog Akase (赤瀬 よぐ)

Players: 2-4

Tricks and the Phantom is actually not a trick-taking game!

Instead it’s a Deduction game, and it’s kind of a brain burner (if deduction games burn your brain, anyway).

There are 11 cards in the game, with roles 2-10 and then two 1 (Phantom) cards.

Each round players are dealt two cards.

The second Phantom card isn’t used in a 4-player game.

There will be two cards left, so nobody will actually know what roles those are.

In turn order, players will place one of their two cards in front of them, then placing the “hint” token of the same colour on top of the card.

If you choose the 1 (Phantom), then you can place any of the hint tokens.

This indicates what type of card you played (unless it’s the Phantom, of course).

Once everybody has played a card, in reverse turn order players will then guess who the culprit is (not sure what they did, but they are the culprit!)

The culprit is whoever played the highest card is the culprit, though each one has an ability and some of those will cancel other ones out.

For example, the Barkeeper (2), will cancel out the Politician (10) and the Barkeeper becomes the culprit (called criminal on the player aid, confusingly).

Of course, the Phantom can be any colour, and if you play the Phantom, you get 1 VP for everybody who guessed you (and they lose 1 VP for guessing you).

After this, each player plays their second card (beginning with the first culprit). So players will already know a number of the roles that are not in play already.

But there are still the two hidden ones in the middle!

Phantom scoring is mentioned above, but also each player who guess correctly gets points based on how many guessed correctly and how many players are in the game.

So in a 4-player game, if two guessed correctly, then each player who guessed correctly would get 2 points (4 players – 2 who guessed correctly).

When somebody hits 10 points at the end of a full round, they win (or the highest score if more than one hits 10).

Otherwise, start the whole process over.

This is a really interesting deduction game, and one that I didn’t really mind. I’m not usually into deduction games.

There is one thing you have to be careful of, though. If you save the Phantom for your second card, know in advance what colour you want to pretend to be.

If you have to think about it, everybody will know you’re the Phantom (since nobody else has a choice so they don’t need to think about it)

This game can give you lots of laughs and I did really enjoy it.

I would easily play it again.

There you have it. Six new to me games in July! Even with a small sample.

Small card games definitely help with that.

What new to you games did you play in July?

Let me know in the comments.