New to Me – July 2024

I knew July would be a bit of an off month for gaming, but it wasn’t too bad.

However, it didn’t really hit the “new to me games” jackpot, with only three of them to write about.

Funny how it’s still taken me longer to do that than normal?

Blame vacation.

What’s even more is that it wasn’t really that good of a month for new to me gaming, at least until the end.

One of the games, I don’t really want to play it again, though I will if it comes down to it.

Another is decent and fast, with “fast” being the word that will get it played more often than “decent” will.

Finally, though, I played a true gem and managed to actually get it played three times!

Though now I want to travel.

Damn it.

Anyway, the Cult of the New to Me was actually pretty chill this month, maybe because I was on vacation or maybe because one of the three games is from all the way back in 2012!

Of course, that’s the one that I don’t really want to play again, but don’t tell them that.

Some things are best left unsaid.

August is Dragonflight, so I’m sure next month’s post will be filled to the brim with new to me games!

But first, there’s July.

Without further ado (all of my ado was used to make that hideous dress that Ingrid is wearing anyway), let’s begin!

Couture (2023 – Allplay) – 2 plays

Designer: 佐藤 雄介 (Yusuke Sato)

Artist: N/A

Players: 3-6

Couture is an interesting little card game without a huge amount of substance but it plays quick and there’s some cool drafting/bidding decisions that bring it up a notch compared to some other games.

Ostensibly the game is about the fashion industry and how cutthroat it can be.

But it’s not a deep game like Rococo or anything.

It’s just cards.

Each player starts with a hand of bidding cards that are all the same.

There are three fashion shows each round, one in Paris, Tokyo and New York, and that’s what those cards in your hand are for.

Each round, three cards are dealt to each city.

Collecting these cards can get you direct points (if it has a red star on it, then it will get you some points), more powerful bidding cards (or maybe not as powerful but actually worth points), maybe some set collection cards, or what have you.

Or you might get a thumbs down card, a fashion flop card that will contribute to you getting some negative points.

You will then put together your bid hand to bid on all three shows.

You don’t have to put any cards in a show if you don’t want to, especially if you want to overload a show where you really want the cards.

For big points (or big negative points if you win fashion flop cards), you are trying to satisfy the conditions of two of the three final scoring tiles (the third one is for negative points, so you want to come in last for that if you have any!)

Depending on the number of players, the winning bidder for each show gets first choice of cards, second place gets second choice, and third place gets the remaining card (which may be bad!). If only two bid on a show, then the first player also gets the third card.

If only one player bids on the show, they get all of them, so watch out!

This is a really quick game, kind of fun but nothing really dazzling.

I’ll gladly play it if we’re at the “we have 30 minutes before the end of the day, want to play something quick?” phase of game day.

As long as there isn’t something else that’s even cooler as an option.

It’s a fine game, just nothing to write a fashion article about.

Ground Floor – 1st Edition (2012 – Tasty Minstrel Games) – 1 play

Designer: David Short

Artist: Ariel Seoane

Players: 2-6

Ground Floor is an economic game that’s kind of worker placement too, and it almost literally broke my brain (at least my head was swimming a bit afterwards).

(Ok, maybe not literally swimming, but you know)

You are basically trying to build a company from the ground floor up, selling…whatever it is you’re selling to get as much money and as many points as possible.

You start out with a company and each player gets an asymmetric bonus (which is basically “hey, I don’t have to actually pay to upgrade this department”) at the start of the game.

I didn’t have to upgrade my basic Advertising department, for example.

As with any beginning company, you start with a few employees and are trying to build your company up.

In Ground Floor, though (and I guess in life too), the more employees you hire to be able to do things, the less income you get every turn.

You start with few employees but a bunch of money!

As you hire them (and don’t forget you have to train them too before they will work for you next year, which takes an action), your marker goes up the track on the right. At level 1, you have three workers and you get $9.

At level 2, you get 3 more workers but only $6 during the income phase.

These workers, you will either be assigning them to rooms in your company (which can do anything from producing a good to getting you money or research capability, or you will be assigning them out onto the board to do something.

This could be either doing some marketing, or maybe some research, or maybe out there selling the good (whatever the hell it is) that you’ve produced!

Or you might spend the worker(s) to enable you to build up your company with better departments.

This is how you build your company, and can get you a lot of points. Not to mention getting you better departments to place your workers in and get better stuff.

In something that makes total thematic sense, when you build a new floor, your roof goes higher and you place your new floor underneath it.

I guess maybe it’s the “ceiling” of your company and not the physical ceiling of the building itself?

Yeah, that could work.

When you’re trying to sell a good (or more than one good if you’ve upgraded your Storage), you have to be aware of what the economic conditions currently are.

You will see not only what the current situation is but also the next round’s.

I wish our own economists could be that good!

This will tell you how many goods will sell.

It says nothing about what the price of your goods will be. That is determined by where you put your marker.

But if only one good is sold and three people have their worker on the “sell” space, only the top one is going to sell!

The others are going to get cheaper for next round by dropping to at least the next level.

You are also trying to make your company more noticeable to the hoi polloi by advertising and moving up on the track, which also determines turn order (whoever people know the most about gets to go first).

The game goes a certain number of rounds, unless somebody builds their 5th floor (which I’m not sure is possible unless you’re really trying for it and I wonder what you’re neglecting if you do that) and then whoever has the most points is the winner!

I didn’t really care for this game too much, and it’s not the game’s fault. It’s actually pretty good (though there is a 2nd Edition that streamlines a bunch of things and also adds a few, so maybe the first needed work?).

I’m not a huge fan of economic games to begin with because my brain doesn’t really work that way, and while this is also essentially a worker placement game, it just didn’t grab me.

I felt more frustrated than anything else.

Sure, more plays might help with that, but it’s not a game that made me want to replay it much.

Maybe the second edition, or if everybody else wants to play it.

I wouldn’t be against it.

I just wouldn’t vote for it.

Let’s Go to Japan (2024 – Alderac) – 3 plays

Designer: Josh Wood

Artists: Chaykov, Kailene Falls, Toshiyuki Hara 原としゆき, Magdalena Pruckner, Erica Ward

Players: 1-5 (though the retail edition, which I have, is only 1-4)

Let’s Go to Japan is a new game from Alderac and Josh Wood (designer of an old favourite, Cat Lady) that I heard so much buzz about that I finally had to buy it.

And that purchase paid off!

It’s a really fun, very quick (though teaching it takes almost as long as playing it) game about planning your trip to Japan.

It’s very easy to play, but explaining how to play is a bit of a chore.

Your board had six days on it, and you will eventually be putting three card events on each day.

There is one way that you could get 4, but typically you will only have 3.

In card drafting style, you will be drawing one or two cards each from the Tokyo deck and Kyoto deck and then deciding which activity to place on your itinerary and which one to give to one of your neighbours.

On some of the rounds, rather than drawing cards, you’ll be picking up and choosing from the cards that have been given to you.

Placing cards is where the interesting choices come from, because on any given day, you can put your card anywhere on it. You can make it your first activity, second, or put it on top and have it be your third.

You just can’t shift cards that are already played.

You will also get various bonuses for icons on the cards that you play, but I’ll get into that more in my review since I will be reviewing it soon.

Once your trip is planned, you execute it.

Each player can either just total up the points for each day or, if you have time, you can narrate your trip (On Wednesday, I will go to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, then spend some time at the Kyoto National Museum).

For each day, you will move the tokens for the icons at the top of the card, perhaps gain stress or happiness (maybe you had an amazing experience at a cheap hostel that eased your financial worries?), and gain points for each card, as well as points for the top card in the row if you meet the conditions of it.

Total up all of the days’ points, points for luxury trains, research tokens that you didn’t use, and how far each of your experience tokens moved, and whoever has the most points is the winner!

This is a really fun game and I understand how it is making some Top 100 lists.

I won’t know if it will make mine until I do my next one in 2026, but I do know that I really love playing it.

I’m also getting better at teaching it, so there is that.

Because it’s a bitch to teach.

Those are the three new to me games I played in July 2024.

Not a bad list!

What new to you games did you play in July?

Let me know in the comments.