Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
First Impressions – Sanctuary
It’s time for another “first impressions” post about a game that I’ve just played for the first time but which I may not play enough to eventually review.
Or maybe it’s just new enough that I want to get my impressions out there and I may eventually play it enough to review.
If that happens, I will update this to say that!
Long-time readers of Dude Take Your Turn (and you should join! We have coffee and biscuits in the janitor’s closet at our local Canadian Legion) know that Ark Nova has been one of my top games for a while now.
Some people say it’s too long, and I can’t totally disagree with that, though it’s good enough that I usually don’t care about that.
It has inhibited playing it sometimes when we don’t think we have enough time.
Sanctuary is a bit of a tile-laying, streamlined version of Ark Nova with some of the same symbology and not many of the same mechanics.
In fact, it’s almost a totally different game, though you can see the DNA running between the two.
Sanctuary was designed by Mathias Wigge with art by Dennis Lohausen, Christof Tisch and Felix Wermke. It was published by Feuerland Spiele and Capstone Games in 2025.
As I said, it’s a tile-laying game rather than a Tetris-style game where you are building up your zoo by placing differently-sized habitats for the animal cards that you then play.
Is it too streamlined?
Does that matter when both can exist independently of each other?
Does it give you the same experience in a shorter time?
You’ll find out in the next episode…damn, I used that joke too recently.
Never mind.
Let’s just get to it.
Read MoreNovember 2025 Gaming
I knew November would be much better than October for my gaming, because there’s a really nice 4-day convention in November.
I didn’t expect that it would be this much better, though!
In November, I managed to play 36 games a total of 57 times.
That’s way more than October! (17 games 27 times)
Yes, that is what conventions will do.
In addition to all of that, there were 12 new to me games (which I’ll talk about later, but it may not come right away because that’s a long post to write!) along with some old favourites that I haven’t played in a little while.
Let’s look at the games I played.
And here they are in grid format, with two pictures because there are so many!
Many thanks to the wonderful BG Stats for the app that produces these statistics.
There are, of course, a few reasons why I have so many plays, not including the convention.
Let’s take a look at all of that.
Read MoreRIP (Revenge in Peace) – Final Girl – Slaughter in the Groves Review
One of the big horror movie tropes over the last 50 years (going back to Poltergeist, which was the first horror movie I saw, even if it was only PG-13) is the “oh my god, we’re building on/visiting/desecrating some religious space/burial ground/whatever” reason for why everybody is suddenly getting horrified and killed by ungodly creatures (or ghosts).
Wow, that was convoluted. Sorry about that.
Anyway, having done many other horror movie tropes, Final Girl now gives us an example of that with Slaughter in the Groves, a feature film that includes religious spaces and angry deities who don’t like normal people desecrating those spaces.
I have to say before starting that this has to be the hardest feature film yet that I’ve played in the Final Girl franchise.
But there are ways to mitigate that, which I will get into.
This feature film was designed by Evan Derrick with art by Tumo Mere. It was published by Van Ryder Games in 2021.
The main reason for how brutal this film is (compared to the ones I’ve done before, so take that for what it is) is that the two main mechanisms the location and killer introduce, combined they just make it really, really difficult to succeed.
Then again, I managed to do some damage to the killer, so maybe I just need to get luckier?
Let’s take a look at what we have here.
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 1101 Through 1200 – Thoughts
Last week’s post talking about some of the games just outside of the Top 1000 on Boardgame Geek seemed to be a big hit.
Maybe not in terms of visitors to this site, but with friends of mine, sparking some discussion.
In the hopes of maybe converting that into more blog hits, let’s try the next batch!
This series of posts has been inspired by the This Game is Broken podcast, who recently did a game where they guessed “higher or lower” rankings of various games ranked between 1000 and 2000 on BGG.
Today we’ll be talking about those games ranked 1101-1200, keeping in mind that these rankings are ever-changing and some of these games may not be in this range if you’re looking at this post in the far future.
Like Saturday.
This is just going to be some random thoughts about some of the games; games I’ve played and games I haven’t and really want to.
So this post doesn’t become as long as War & Peace, let’s begin!
Read MoreBook Review – When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi
I’ve been a big fan of John Scalzi’s books for quite a while now, ever since I gloried through Old Man’s War and its many sequels (I’m not even sure I’ve read them all).
There was also Redshirts, a book that highlighted those crewmembers in some Star Trek-like universe and actually made them people. I adored that one.
And Starter Villain, which I thought I had reviewed but I haven’t, but is probably my favourite Scalzi book.
(I should rectify the lack of review, but I’m not sure I can do a good review since it’s been so long since I’ve read it).
When I got the chance to read When the Moon Hits Your Eye, though, where the conceit is that the moon has suddenly turned into cheese, I had to jump on it.
The book was published in March 2025.
The interesting thing is that, while there is plenty of humour and hilarious situations, this is actually kind of a semi-serious take on how the world (and the people in it) would react if suddenly the moon turned to cheese and everything people thought they knew was turned on its head.
What a weird concept!
And a brilliant one.
Read MoreMaking Everybody Hate You – The Prodigals Club Review
Anybody who has followed this blog for any length of time knows that The Prodigals Club is one of my favourite games.
So this review may be a bit superfluous.
However, I’ve never really talked in detail about the game, so why don’t we rectify that?
The Prodigals Club was published by Czech Games Edition in 2015 (wow, 10 years old now!).
It was designed by Vladimír Suchý with wonderful artwork by Tomáš Kučerovský.
Suchý has gone on to design so many wonderful games, some of which are near (if not in) my Top 50 games that he’s close to my favourite designer (though I guess Shem Phillips and SJ MacDonald from Garphill Games probably steal that category).
This was an extension (not an expansion) of the wonderful Last Will, in which you are trying to blow all of your money, just like in the movie (both of them) Brewster’s Millions.
In fact, you can actually play Last Will as the Possessions module in The Prodigals Club! Though I’ve never tried it.
The Prodigals Club takes that basic premise and expands on it.
Not only are you trying to go broke (though you are), you are also trying to have everybody hate you in the political sphere (getting down votes) as well as your position in society (exemplified by your standing with four friends, two male and two female).
In classic Knizia fashion (or at least some of his games), these three spheres are all scored and your score is the most of the three.
Unlike Knizia, though, you want a low score, so the one you score is the highest.
Trust Suchý to turn even that on its head.
It’s hilarious that you are trying to engender the hate that others want to avoid.
How do you do all of this?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 1000 Through 1100 – Thoughts
Recently the “This Game is Broken” podcast did a “Higher or Lower” game based on games in the Boardgame Geek rankings from 1000 to 2000.
(You should really check them out, by the way. Hilarious boardgame podcast)
During the Covid lockdowns, in order to get some actual articles posted, I did some posts about the Top 300, but I stopped there.
These posts were about how many I’ve played and how many I would like to play, but I didn’t really go into too much detail and I stopped at 300 so any games in this one will be new!
We talk about the Top 100, or even the Top 1000, but don’t always realize that there are some really good games down deeper in the rankings that we don’t really think about as often.
Today we’ll be talking about numbers 1001-1100. (keep in mind that BGG rankings do change and it’s very possible that one or more of these will not be in this ranking group if you’re reading this blog a year from now)
Of course, considering there are 1710 pages of games on BGG and this range is on page 11, I think it’s safe to say that even these games are well-regarded.
I’d like to highlight a few and bring them to your attention.
Just to give me something new to write other than reviews!
Let’s get started!
Read MoreHave Fun Storming the Castle! – Doomlings-Castle Glass Bolster Pack Review
In a lot of card games where cards just keep getting issued and issued and issued and issued and…
Oh, sorry. Thank you for that.
Anyway, in a lot of card games that keep getting cards added to them, it’s not always that you get a brand new mechanic added as well.
Doomlings – Castle Glass, however, is that bolster pack that does it.
Castle Glass is another 37-card bolster pack (like the Shadow Puppets one) to the whole Doomlings card game franchise.
That’s because, for the first time in this game system, set collection has become a mechanic.
If you read all of my Doomlings reviews, you’ll see my concerns about deck bloat and adding too many cards.
Castle Glass just takes that to the extreme.
I’ll try to be less dense about it than Inigo.
Read MoreCombat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 42 – Rumanian Defiance
One of the main rules of Combat Commander is “Anything can happen, so don’t give up.”
Obviously the caveat to that is “unless all hope is lost,” but in Combat Commander, that “lost” level is much higher than in many other games.
My November ladder game is a testament to that old philosophy.
But let me start the right way.
Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, the monthly tournament of one of the greatest games out there. The ladder is administered by the stalwart Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame.
In another rare occurrence, I actually did play this game twice this month, doing a training scenario with my good friend Zilla Blitz on November 1.
The meat of the matter, however, was on Saturday, where I faced off in a scenario that I’ve played before, just over 2 years ago.
I lost that one, but would this be different?
My opponent this month was David S-P, a guy who I’ve played once before, three months into my Ladder career back in 2021.
I lost that one, but would this time be different?
The scenario is from the Stalingrad battle pack and features some feisty Rumanian troops (I kept the old spelling of the scenario) against an oncoming horde of Soviet troops as they were in the middle of routing the Germans after the Battle of Stalingrad.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up)
The Rumanians (greenish – Me) set up first within 12 hexes of the left map edge, and they are also using the Italian deck of cards.
There are a couple of setup special rules which are handy.
First, the Rumanians can give up the Initiative to use German machine guns instead of Rumanian ones.
They will still break easy (the Italian deck breaks weapons a lot more easily) but they are easier to repair and have a bit more firepower and range.
That was an easy decision for me to make.
Secondly, they get any combination of 7 Wire and Foxhole counters.
I used one Foxhole and then put the 6 Wire as shown, slowing down the northern Soviet force (which I knew would be coming).
The Soviets (brown – David) set up last within 2 hexes of the right edge.
The other special rules are that it’s Winter time, so fields don’t exist and the orchards are -1 hindrance instead of -2 hindrance.
Oh, and I get some reinforcements at Time 4.
Anyway, let’s see what happened!
Read MoreCreating a World From Scratch – Ecos: First Continent Review
There was a farmer had a dog and Ecos was his name-o.
E..C..O..S….Uh, Mr. Clair? We need another letter please?
Thank you.
Why do I reference this old children’s song?
Are you a fan of Bingo but think you need something a bit more cutthroat that doesn’t involve old grandmothers “accidentally” knocking their neighbour’s bingo chips off of their card?
(Really, Grandma was ruthless)
Ecos: The First Continent may be the game for you.
Ecos: The First Continent is a world-building game (or continent-building, I guess. Maybe the other continents are already there, whose inhabitants are just waiting to exploit this one once it’s complete? Is that too dark?).
You are playing cards in front of you, having elements shouted at you, and then when the card is full, implementing the card.
(Hopefully they’re not actually being shouted at you).
The game was designed by the incomparable John D. Clair with artwork by Sabrina Miramon. It was published by Alderac Entertainment Group in 2019.
It’s also tile-laying as you build the continent with grasslands, oceans, and deserts (Oceans? So maybe those other continents don’t exist yet? It does say “first continent,” after all)
Confused?
You won’t be, after the next episode of…wait, sorry, wrong segue.
Let’s just get on with it, shall we?
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