New to Me – August 2024

July was not a great month for new to me games, but I had a feeling that August would make up for it, with a convention going on and everything.

And it did!

August was great for new to me games, with seven of them played.

That’s why this post is so late!

However, the Cult of the New to Me was not exactly happy, even with so many games played.

Why is that?

Because the oldest game played was from 2021, and everything else was either from 2023 or 2024.

I didn’t have much of an explanation, other than the fact that conventions typically bring out all of the new stuff and there wasn’t much chance to play anything else that was new to me.

Thankfully, I told them that I would make up for it in September and I already have. One of my new to me games already played from this month is from 2012!

They were mollified.

For now.

So without further ado (all of my ado was blown into irradiated dust anyway), let’s take a look at what was played!

Radlands (2021 – Roxley) – 3 plays

Designer: Daniel Piechnick

Artists: Delia Arnone, Lina Cossette, Damien Mammoliti, Manny Trembley

Players: 2

A really great 2-player battler, but I won’t talk about it here.

Because I’ve reviewed it already!

Pirates of Maracaibo (2023 – Capstone Games) – 2 plays

Designers: Alexander Pfister, Ralph Bienert, Ryan Hendrickson

Artists: Christian Fiore, Odysseas Stamoglou

Players: 1-4

Pirates of Maracaibo (I keep wanting to type Pirates of the Caribbean, what is wrong with me?) is the only game I played twice at Dragonflight last month, and it’s not just because I wanted to atone for my horrible performance in my first game (though that was part of it).

It’s also because it was a very cool game!

Much like its parent game, Maracaibo, you get to move your ship up to 3 spaces towards the (mythical?) city of Maracaibo.

In this game, you are going to be stopping on cards that are either improvements for your future voyages, or maybe an island that you can pillage in some fashion, or maybe even a card that lets you establish a residence for points!

If you stop on an improvement card, then you take that card and it’s replaced by another one, as long as you can afford it. This card will give you some ability going forward. Maybe it will make future cards cheaper!

Yes, you do have to pay for these cards, either improvements or residences.

Some of them will also give you either points or doubloon income once the round is over.

The cards above give you 2 VP and 5 doubloons when income hits.

There are some other cards or effects that let you trigger your income (or part of it) immediately, getting you more stuff!

Islands will let you improve your ship for free (what evil god did we sacrifice to in order to find a game that lets you improve something for free?) as well as giving you some other effect.

If the island lets you pillage, you roll the dice and then choose a coloured die and get pillaging effects based on the number you rolled (plus bonuses).

One of the standard pillage actions is to take a cube (good) of that die’s colour off of the island on the board.

Taking the good is beneficial because you have another of that good!

However, the more you take, the less value it will have, so you have to hope you can replenish the stock on that island so the value of the good goes up.

Another important part of the game is moving your explorer on the main island (beyond Maracaibo? The board is next to the city, so maybe?).

Moving your person along the track will get you benefits as well as endgame scoring based on how far you’ve explored.

I’m not sure how it makes sense thematically, but there you are.

Each time somebody reaches Maracaibo (and it takes two turns to get there, so other players can plan accordingly), the round ends, income is taken, and we start all over again!

(I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of Maracaibo itself…but rest assured, it is there.)

After three rounds of this, the game ends and all of the VP are added up, both endgame scoring as well as what was collected during the game.

There’s a bunch more stuff that you have to take into consideration, and that’s what I failed to do in my first game of it where I was far behind the leader.

In my second game, though, I was 6 points behind the leader!

I would really like to try this at least one more time. Not just so I could review it, but also because it’s a fun game and I really enjoyed my two plays of it.

Mistwind (2024 – First Fish Games) – 1 play

Designers: Adrian Adamescu, Daryl Andrews

Artist: Gordon Oscar

Players: 1-5

One of my first games ever played in my modern gaming era (as opposed to when I was a kid) was Merchant of Venus, a classic pick up and deliver game.

Mistwind isn’t anything like that, except that it is a pick up and deliver game.

You’re taking your flying whale(s) around the board, picking up a good in a city and then taking it to a city where’s there’s demand for it.

That’s so Merchant!

But there’s so much more to the game than that.

I had never heard of Mistwind until Josh wanted to play it at Dragonflight and I thought it would be cool to try it out, especially because it’s from a local Vancouver game publisher.

And it’s actually pretty good.

It also has a bit of action selection too, in that each player will have four actions in a round. You can place one of your markers on an action and take that action.

But there are limitations.

You can’t place your marker where somebody else already has (yay, typical worker placement blocking!) and you can only place one of your markers on each side of the board, except one (yay, typical…wait a minute…)

In the picture above, if you need resources, you place your 1-5 token on the 1-5 space that matches, and you get those resources.

But you can’t place a second token on any of those spaces.

The only exception to that is on the actions where you will place an outpost onto the board, which is also the only exception to the “you can’t place an action token where somebody else has already placed one” rule.

Each of the random cards each round placed on the top of the board (based on my picture, anyway), you can place multiple action tokens, as each one will allow you to build an outpost on that space on the map.

Those spaces each have a bonus action which is awarded at the end of the round…which is awarded to the last player to place a token there.

This could let you do a bonus deliver or pick-up action, or maybe get another character card, or whatever.

One side of the board where you can place an action token has character cards that you can hire, which will either give you an ongoing benefit, a one-time action, or perhaps some endgame scoring.

These can be quite valuable. In my game, I was the only person to have three whales on the board, and one of them was only because I hired a character who let me put one out for free (the other was created on my last round because I needed connections).

Some of the point bonuses and objectives require connected routes of outposts and/or whales that you have in a row, which is interesting because this means you don’t have to have all the outposts built to get them!

You will also get bonuses when delivering based on whether or not that market wants the good, or maybe really wants the good.

The game ends after 4 rounds (or 5 rounds in a 5-player game, like we played).

It’s a really interesting game that kind of fools you a little bit.

I didn’t think I was doing very well and none of us seemed to be scoring many points, but I managed to chain a few things together and others did to a lesser extent, and I ended up winning, which was really cool!

My score was 35 with the others in the 20s. I’m not sure how good or bad that is.

But the game looked really neat, with 3-D flying whale miniatures that made the board pop!

What’s even cooler is that you have to feed your whales to move (rather than just feeding them at the end of a round, which would be annoying). The kelp they eat is flying, because of course the whales are flying!

The components to this game are amazing, and it was a fun game, though half the time I wasn’t sure what I was doing.

I would be interested in playing it again just to see whether my first impressions stand.

Rock Hard 1977 (2024 – Devir Games) – 1 play

Designer: Jackie Fox

Artist: Jennifer Giner

Players: 1-5

Rock Hard 1977 is a game designed by Jackie Fox, the bassist for the 70s band The Runaways. If anybody’s going to know about forming a rock band in the 70s, it’s her!

I have this coming to me shortly from Boardgame Bliss, but I managed to get a game in of somebody else’s copy at Dragonflight, which was cool!

In the game, you are a young rocker with a backstory and some skills, trying to form a rock band while trying to stay financially afloat and also lead your band to rock stardom.

One really cool aspect of the game that immerses you in the theme is that each character not only has a skill or ability, but they have a backstory that’s on the back of the card.

The game takes place in rounds going from January 1977 to December 1977, though it could end early if somebody reaches 50 points during a round.

Each round (month), you will have three actions: a day action, a night action, and an after hours action.

These actions will let you build up your band, maybe rehearse or play a gig, and then visit some after hours hangouts (or maybe create a demo tape or just go to bed early so you’re first in turn order next round).

During the game, you’re trying to increase your stats (Chops, Reputation, and Songs) to make it so you qualify for certain gigs that will get you even more fame and fortune.

The day and night actions are pretty basic, basically giving you increases in some stats or maybe getting you a record deal or some publicity.

It’s the after hours where things can get interesting (and random!).

You can go to a hangout in the after hours, and each hangout location will most likely give you boosts in certain stats (apparently these are only in the rulebook and not in a player aid, which is too bad).

This also contributes to a set collection mechanic, where you are trying to collect either sets of the same symbol or sets with all four different symbols to get points.

I’ll go into more detail when/if I review the game (I will own it, so I hope I get enough plays to review it), but one thing I have to mention is the use of “candy” to get yourself extra actions, and perhaps penalize you if you overdose on it.

I know it’s supposed to represent anything that you can get addicted to, like an adrenaline rush or fame or whatever, but the most apt comparison to candy in real life is drugs, which of course fueled a lot of the 1970s rock culture.

Making it “candy” allows it to be an almost PG-13 game instead of an R game.

In the game, you can eat candy (if you have any) in order to take an extra action during one of your phases. As long as you don’t OD, you can take candy in each phase (day, night, after hours) and take a bunch of actions!

But each candy moves your Craving up by 1 and you have to roll a die. If you roll lower than your Craving level, you essentially hit your sugar limit and you can’t take any more candy that day.

Not only that, but during the next day, your Day action has to be going to Recovery, which will lower your Craving by 1 and remove the penalty, but also deprive you of any other Day action you might want to do.

It doesn’t set it back to zero, though, which means you will still be playing with fire if you take more candy.

It’s nice that there’s a way to take extra actions, because there’s no way you’re winning only taking 3 actions a day. It’s also cool that the types of candy actions are limited (you can’t play two gigs in the same night, for example).

The game ends either at the end of the day when somebody hits 50 points, or after the December round (I can’t even imagine any game ending the latter way).

Total up some of the endgame scoring and whoever has the most points is the winner!

This is a really thematic game, just immersing you in its setting. There are so many cool nods to 70s rock culture that you do feel like you’re trying to form a rock band.

I would say that I liked my play of it well enough to buy it, but I had already bought it before playing it.

But I can’t wait to get more plays in!

Then I promise to review it.

River Valley Glassworks (2024 – Allplay) – 1 play

Designers: Adam Hill, Ben Pinchback, Matt Riddle

Artist: Andrew Bosley

Players: 1-5

When we played River Valley Glassworks at Dragonflight, my first impression after hearing the rule explanation was that this sounds a lot like Subastral, but with pieces instead of cards.

Then I discovered that two of the three designers are actually the designers of Subastral!

That made it a lot more palatable, making it so I didn’t think they were ripping off a great game.

In the game, you are collecting glass from a flowing river by placing some of your own glass in a river tile and collecting glass from one of its neighbouring tiles.

The shape of the glass you place has to match the symbol on the tile, so you can’t just place willy-nilly.

When you take glass, you have to put it on your player board. Once glass is placed in a column, only glass of that colour can be placed there.

There is one (or two in a 5-player game) less column than there is colour of glass, so there is one colour you won’t be wanting to take!

If you do take it, then you have to put it in your overflow area, which will cost you points.

But sometimes, especially late in the game, you can’t help it and you have to.

The game continues until somebody has collected 17 pieces of glass. Then one more round is played, with those having fewer than 3 glass pieces in their storage (in order to place glass out on the river) drawing some to replenish.

Which is only fair, but really adds to the randomness of the game because you could draw a number of the same shape, letting you place anywhere (that’s another way you can place, if you have two of the same shape, you can place them anywhere) or maybe you’ll draw the shape of glass you need to make the perfect combo for you!

Scoring is straight out of Subastral, though.

For each row, you score from left to right until you reach a gap.

So the picture above, only one row would score because only one row has a piece of glass in the first column!

However, columns are scored by the two highest columns and how high they reached, with ties going to the column on the left. The further to the right your column is, the higher it’s going to score.

So scoring the last column like I did above is very lucrative!

I enjoyed River Valley Glassworks, but for some reason it felt even more random than Subastral, and that’s a card game!

It was still fun and I can see why it’s getting some hype, but it’s not something that I need to play a lot of.

It is a quick game, which is a bonus!

Faraway (2023 – Catch Up Games) – 1 play

Designers: Johannes Goupy, Corentin Lebrat

Artist: Maxime Morin

Players: 2-6

Faraway is an engine-building card game with a bit of a twist.

I’ve played it on Boardgame Arena a few times, but the scoring really made no sense to me so I didn’t do very well.

After I was able to sit down with it at Dragonflight a couple of weeks ago, it finally does!

Not sure that I’ll still do very well at it, but at least I get it!

The unique thing about Faraway is that you are playing a card to your tableau each turn, but you have to plan your scoring accordingly.

That’s not new, but how you do that is new.

You’re playing your cards left to right, but once you’re done, you actually score your tableau right to left.

The first card you play is the last card you’ll score.

Scoring on the cards often requires certain symbols before the card will score. You will have to have those symbols on cards that you played later, or perhaps on special cards that you might pick up during the card play.

These cards may give you a bonus of some kind, or maybe some points of their own, or maybe just symbols that you need for scoring, because these symbols count for all of your cards.

The game is extremely easy as far as gameplay mechanics go, but the way you have to look at scoring is something that might give your brain fits.

I really enjoyed this one.

Now that I’ve played it live, I might actually be able to play it on Boardgame Arena!

This was so cool that I bought it last week and I’m going to have it this week for taking to our Sunday game days.

Maybe it will burn their brains too.

Kutná Hora: The City of Silver (2023 – Czech Games Edition) – 1 play

Designers: Ondřej Bystroň, Petr Čáslava, Pavel Jarosch

Artists: Roman Bednář, Štěpán Drašťák, Dávid Jablonovský, Jakub Politzer, Milan Vavroň

Players: 2-4

This is a game that I almost forgot about, mainly because for some reason my BG Stats app didn’t mark it as “new to me” when I recorded it.

Economic games aren’t typically my jam, which is probably why I did so poorly in this one.

But it was still cool with some interesting mechanics that set it apart from other economic games.

First, one of the things you are trying to do is build buildings out on the main board, but you have to reserve a space for yourself first, and building something that doesn’t match one of your three guilds will do you no good!

You are also trying to increase the income of your various guilds so that when you take an income turn, you will actually get some money, because money is everything in this game.

That’s right. You’re not collecting resources.

Instead, each resource has a variable cost that depends on how the market goes when other buildings are built.

Rather than “spending stone” to build buildings, you will instead pay what each resource costs in money.

On your turn, you’re going to be choosing one of your double-ended cards to do the appropriate action.

Since you only get so many turns in a round, and once you play a card, it’s played and you can’t use the other end, you have to really choose what actions you’re going to need to do.

The interplay between what you need to do and what the cards you’ve played will let you do, is so intriguing. You have to plan your entire round in advance because you don’t want to play the wrong card and then not have that action available!

There’s a bunch of interesting stuff in the game. Taxes that you have to be prepared to pay at the end of the round (which can go up depending on certain actions during the round), building mines in the silver mining area (which isn’t that lucrative, as I found out, but I just don’t think I played very well in genera), and lots of other things.

Actions in this game can often depend on other actions and somebody doing something before you can really screw up your game.

Whether or not that’s good or bad is up to you, but I enjoyed it.

It’s a bit too much for me, though, as my brain doesn’t really work with these kinds of economic intricacies, but overall it definitely felt like a really good game if you’re into that kind of thing.

I’d play it again.

Maybe only once, because it may cement itself as a game that’s not really in my wheelhouse.

But it was fun.

There you have it.

A bunch of new to me games played in August, almost all of which were at Dragonflight.

It’s September now and I’ve already played two new to me games, so next month is shaping up to be pretty good too!

What new to you games did you play in August?

Let me know in the comments.