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A Gaming Life
New to Me – December 2024
It’s a new year, and coming up on my 8th blog anniversary in March!
One thing I forgot to mention in yesterday’s Blog in Review post was the fact that, in those 8 years (or at least since I started, which I think was almost near the beginning), I have not missed a “New to Me” post, no matter what my internal posting struggles have been.
Some have appeared quite late in the next month, but I made it!
Of course, I’ve skipped months during the COVID lockdowns when I didn’t actually play any new to me games, but if one was played, it was recorded here!
Which brings me to December, when I thought this was going to be a month that I had to skip.
I had no new to me games as of December 22!
But then Abi and Cal came to that Sunday’s game day.
Lo and behold, I now had four games to write about.
Thank you, guys.
Not only that, but while two of them are brand new games, two of them are really old.
Older than me!
Ok, nothing’s that old, but they did come out in the first decade of the century.
That made the Cult of the New to Me very happy.
So happy that they decided not to rebel as a late Christmas gift to their dear leader.
(That’s me, if you couldn’t guess)
There’s always January, though.
All four were very good games that I would like to play again (some more than others, of course).
So, without further ado (all of my ado was stolen by a mad computer and used to simulate building a civilization anyway), let’s get started!
Read MoreBlog in Review – 2024
Happy New Year, everybody!
I hope you had a safe and happy New Year’s Eve celebration last night, or at least just spent the changeover with your loved ones.
Some of you may even have been asleep!
As I did last year and for the five years previous (really, that long?), I wanted to do a bit of a retrospective for my gaming and this blog, letting you now some of the highlights, the stats, and just what stood out to me.
This won’t be a year in review in general because, well, the year wasn’t that great!
The dumpster fire in November and everything that led up to it, bringing on chaos, confusion, fear and anxiety, those have been examined elsewhere and I don’t think I could do justice to them.
Personally, however, 2024 wasn’t as good as 2023.
I had more mental health issues, mainly anxiety and self-regard issues that led to a few blog outages as well as just bad feelings in general.
Getting sick and missing my 25 year anniversary at my job celebration really hit me hard because I’d been looking forward to it all year, but at least we had an office party for me the week before which was very nice, including a speech from a man I consider a mentor and good friend who I have worked with for 18 years now.
But yeah, missing the actual celebration sucked.
However, upwards and onwards and I’ve been feeling better the last couple of months, or at least I’ve been dealing with the anxiety better and not letting it overwhelm me.
Which has resulted in a great two months of blog posting recovery, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
Read MoreDecember 2024 Gaming
There was no way December was going to top November, what with Bottoscon and all.
But I did want to get a good variety of games in, and I think I did a pretty good job with that!
December was a weird month, though. Between vacations and work activities (including our holiday lunch that ended up being at the same restaurant where we do our Sunday gaming), there wasn’t a lot of work gaming.
Only 6 plays!
But overall, it was pretty good, even missing a Sunday (thanks, Taylor Swift!).
Here’s what I played in December.
And here it is in grid format.
A nice mix!
Fifteen unique games (and nineteen plays of those games) was pretty good.
It helped that a bunch of them were really fast card or tile-laying games (or even an area control game!).
Many thanks to the wonderful Boardgame Stats for their help collating this data!
What were some of the highlights?
Read MoreNotable Books Read in 2024
Once again it’s been a great year for reading books, which is my other major passion besides gaming.
Last year I did a “5 Great Books Read in 2023” post, but this year I’m going to turn it on its head a slight bit.
I read a lot of really interesting books this year!
So I’m going to do more than five and divide them into History and Fiction (I didn’t really read much notable non-fiction that wasn’t History).
I did do another Goodreads Reading Challenge, once again setting my goal at 55.
And I made it with a 57-book read! (I’m currently reading something, but I don’t think I’ll finish it before New Year’s, so it will count towards next year’s Challenge).
Which actually brings me to a bit of a caveat, in that the first book I read in 2024 actually started in 2023! But it still took me until January 11 to finish it, so that was something.
Considering two of the books ended up taking up a total of 11 weeks, I was amazed that I was actually able to meet my goal.
History Books
Let’s start with the History books, and the most notable book that I read this year, mainly because it took me a whole seven weeks to finish it!
Heart of Europe, by Peter H. Wilson, is a monster of a book about the Holy Roman Empire that was published in 2016.
I started it on September 4 and finished it on October 18.
This is a massive tome, chiming in at 1008 pages (though I would say about 40% of that are notes and other things, like a much-needed glossary, but the notes are worth checking out).
It’s dense, it’s very detailed, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it takes you a long time too (though maybe not seven weeks).
However, it is so interesting!
Read MoreLifting the Vale – Vale of Eternity Review
There’s something about relatively quick card games that just grabs me. I’m not sure what it is, other than getting the chance to play a bunch of games in a game day, maybe?
However, card games can become a bit rote with small variations of the mechanics that can just get a bit boring sometimes.
When a game offers a couple of interesting twists on those mechanics, though, I stand up and take notice.
The Vale of Eternity is one of those games.
Designed by Eric Hong with artwork by Jiahui Eva Gao, Gautier Maia, Stefano Martinuz, Erica Tormen and Jens Wiese, the game was published by Mandoo Games (and Renegade Games Studios over here in North America) in 2023.
The Vale of Eternity is a card game where you are drafting cards each round, and then either summoning them to your tableau, “taming” them into your hand for later summoning, or selling them for crystals (I prefer to think of it as “releasing them and in gratitude they are giving you a gift,” but that’s just me).
The drafting system, summoning system, and the crystal/money system are all actually very interesting and what makes this game shine.
Read MoreReview – Civolution
(Edit: 11/10/25: I’ve upgraded this post to a review of the game, rather than a “first impression,” since I’ve now played it four times. I would not change a word of it, though. I did manage to score 194 points in one game! But have hovered in the 130-140 range in the other three.
Now that I own the game, I do love the storage solution provided by the publisher. Everything is clearly marked and there are even marks in the box for where everything goes.
It’s a bit of a bear to teach and to set up, so if you have any new players, keep that in mind as well. If you just have one newbie, have one expert set up the game while you’re teaching. Win-win!
I’ve left the post below fully intact with no edits)
Welcome to another First Impressions post, this time about Stefan Feld’s latest point salad monstrosity (I say that with affection), Civolution.
As I mentioned in my Friday Night Shots post about doing first impressions posts, this isn’t a review because I’ve only played the game one time. My feelings may change, especially if I had an especially good/bad experience the first time.
These are just my initial feelings about the game.
In this case, my copy of Civolution is waiting for me with a bunch of other pre-orders, so I don’t even have my copy yet. We played a friend’s copy this last weekend.
I am hoping to play the game enough times to eventually review it (or at least update this post if none of my feelings have changed), but I know it will be a long while before I get that many plays of it in and I’d like to comment on it while it’s hot.
With that being said, Civolution has art by Dennis Lohausen and was published by Pegasus Spiele in 2024.
Feld is very famous for designing games where almost everything you do can get you a few points, so the trick is to find out what is going to get you the most points.
A friend of mine said (paraphrased) “You can get points in a Feld game for just remembering your name.”
Given my first play of Civolution, I think I have forgotten my name!
Is it Bruce?
Baldric?
Earl?
I don’t know!
Will that affect my impression of the game?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreLet’s See What’s Out There – Faraway Review
Today’s review has its roots in a couple of recent posts by me, though I’ve been wanting to review it for a while now.
Faraway is a card game designed by Johannes Goupy and Corentin Lebrat with artwork by Maxime Morin. It was published by Catch Up Games in 2023.
How does it fit into recent posts?
A week or so ago I wrote about lunchtime games and Faraway is perfect for that!
At around 20 minutes, you could get 2-3 plays of the game in a good lunch hour.
Even four if your boss wasn’t watching that closely (or if you are the boss so it doesn’t matter).
Then there was Friday’s post about theme.
Faraway is a game with a theme, but the theme isn’t really that important. It’s the mechanics that make this game shine.
What do I mean?
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – How Important is a Game’s Theme?
Hi-di-ho, neighbour!
Welcome back to the bar, this time for a regular post!
(anybody who can tell me what that welcome is from, I will give you…well, my undying admiration. You are official old!).
Yes, it’s been less than a week since last week’s post was on Saturday, but I’ve sort of taken the week off.
I would like to say for bar repairs, but really it’s because I was so entranced with Rise of the Tomb Raider that I had to finish it.
I’m finished now, though I have some clean-up to do as far as finding stuff. But the story’s done!
Anyway, between that and some inspiring talk with a friend, I decided it was time to get back to this and reopen the bar.
Grab a seat and I’ll get you a drink!
The jukebox is still out of order since it just kept playing Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer over and over no matter what buttons I pushed.
Tonight, let’s talk about themes in games. Just how important are they?
I did one of these Friday Night Shots posts about nature-themed games, but surprisingly have never talked about just what theme brings to a game and whether or not it’s a make or break for it.
So let’s get started!
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Lunch Time Games
Welcome back to the bar!
I know it’s Saturday. So sue me.
It’s been a couple of weeks, but we got flooded last week so I couldn’t open the bar up at all.
I saw you looking through the window wondering why the door wouldn’t open.
This was our basement!
Amazing that it’s all spotless by now. My clean-up crew is wonderful and just made everything disappear.
I should probably pay them, shouldn’t I?
Or maybe that’s where all the kegs went?
Anyway, sit right down and let me grab you a drink before the rain starts again.
I’d turn on the jukebox but it was stuck on the Osmonds’ Greatest Hits album and wouldn’t change no matter what I did so I just turned it off.
Let’s talk about board games!
Namely, those lunch time games that make a perfect break from the tedium joys of the job.
Working in the West Kingdom
This story takes place in the game Architects of the West Kingdom. The letter below was found in a church and was translated by somebody very talented yet also very vindictive. He modernized the language of the letter and, when reprimanded for that, destroyed the only copy of the letter. Thus, the letter below is his translation. He has now been sacked.
Dearest Mother,
I have arrived in the city and I am doing well. Thank you for encouraging me to make my own way in the world.
It has been my greatest honour to be employed by one of the finest architects anywhere in the West Kingdom, Fara. I’m not sure why she never gives her last name, but they do say that the powerful people are often strange in many ways.
When I first arrived, Fara’s administrator had me running around the city delivering messages and the like, but after two months, I had graduated to the inner circle of Fara’s workers.
This means that I am often tasked with going to a location in the city or its surroundings and doing a specific task.
No more messages for me!
I must say that the work has become much more rewarding since I joined this inner circle of 20 people.
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 