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A Gaming Life
The Glory of Misfortune – Schadenfreude Review
You would think with how much I talk up some games on this blog that sometimes I might want to actually submit a formal review of them, right?
I mean, I don’t want them to feel bad and left out.
It’s like singing the praises of one of your children to anybody that you can talk to, but only when they’re not around to actually hear it.
For that reason, I present to you another trick-taking card game review, this time of my favourite game of the genre (at least right now), Schadenfreude.
Schadenfreude has a pedigree that I’m not really familiar with, as Boardgame Geek gives the designer as “ctr”, doesn’t have an artist, and says the publisher is Studio Turbine, a publisher out of Japan (which doesn’t have a web site, so I’ll link to their BGG page).
Which is a shame, because I would like to give a ton of credit to the designer(s) and artist(s) on this game.
It was published in 2020 and sadly hasn’t made it over to North America yet so I can’t get my hand on a copy.
It plays 3-5 players.
For a primer on trick-taking games, check out this post.
Read MoreI Predict That I Will Not Win This Game – Seven Prophecies Review
Another day, another trick-taking card game.
What are the odds?
These days, trick-taking games need some kind of hook to avoid being boring trash.
Yeah, I know I’m repeating myself.
But it must be emphasized!
We’re in the middle of a trick-taking renaissance (thanks, Mike Delisio!) and small publishers are doing a great job of keeping that alive.
New Mill Industries has been doing their part in getting trick-taking games, as well as other types of small card games, out onto the market.
My first purchase from Daniel, after the obligatory “It’s Edward’s fault” from watching it played on Heavy Cardboard, was Seven Prophecies.
This is a brilliant trick-taking game designed by 折口 日向 (Hinata Origuchi) with artwork from Newman, Imogen Oh, Tomohiro Tsugawa and Osamu Inoue (井上磨).
It’s a 3-4 player game.
It was first published in 2017, though I don’t know when New Mill brought it over to North America.
(if you don’t know trick-taking games, how about a handy primer?)
Bidding is actually fairly common in trick-taking games (he says, hoping that he’s actually right about that “fact”).
It’s almost always “how many tricks can I take?” and if you don’t make it, then something bad happens.
Or, if you’re in the quantum realm, you just don’t get bonus points.
Seven Prophecies takes this just a couple of steps further, upping the complexity of the decision-making without really upping the complexity of the game itself.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Game Moments That Make You Go “Wow”
I know you keep walking by this bar every Friday night and are constantly amazed when you see the big neon “Open” sign.
Especially given my history the last few months.
But this is now the fifth weekend in a row where you get to join me at the bar to talk about boardgames.
How’s that for consistency?
So sit your butt down at the bar and let me get you a drink!
Or, you know, coffee.
I don’t judge…much.
But geez, it’s Friday night!
Let me unplug the jukebox, just because I don’t think we want to hear from the Royal Bagpipe Brigade of 4-Year-Olds anymore.
I just had that on to reset my brain since we didn’t have any customers.
Strange, that.
Anyway, let’s talk about boardgames!
Mainly, moments in boardgames that just made you go “wow,” both in a positive and negative way.
Read MoreNew to Me – May 2025
May was a very good month for new to me games.
I got one of my new games to the table, played a couple that I’ve been dying to play for a while now, and was introduced to a few that I didn’t even know existed.
That’s the best thing about being part of the Cult of the New to Me!
New games are great, but new to me games are just priceless.
Even better when they are both, am I right?
This month has a smattering of everything, from a small card game to a new take on an old sci-fi book franchise, to classical music!
The Cult wasn’t very happy about all of the games being from the 2020s, but since only one was actually from 2025, that appeased them somewhat.
It did help that I bought them all cars, so that should satisfy them for at least this month.
My wallet isn’t very satisfied, though.
Think of all those new games I won’t be buying!
So without further ado (all of my ado was eaten by a vicious sandworm anyway), let’s begin!
Read MoreMay 2025 Gaming
I wasn’t expecting too much out of my May gaming period, mainly because of Mother’s Day and two Vancouver marathons meaning that we didn’t have our usual Sunday gaming place for three straight weeks.
Suddenly, though, the light appeared and we had an alternate location for two of those three Sundays!
Granted, one of those days there was no way I could really get out of downtown Vancouver so even an alternate venue didn’t work.
Combine this with me going to another game night on two Fridays, a month at the office where we played a fair number of games, and me doing a few quick online Boardgame Arena games with strangers to pad my stats, and I ended up with playing 20 games a total of 25 times!
There also ended up being seven new to me games, which I’ll talk about next week.
This beat April by a wide margin (16 games 20 times).
I thought my gaming might be lacking a little bit, so thought I would try some Boardgame Arena games, mainly those I’ve played before (so they wouldn’t show up as a “new to me” game) and games that don’t take very long, especially playing them online.
That ended up being four games (Point Salad, Gizmos, Castle Combo, and Go Nuts for Donuts), so factor that into the stats above.
What pleased me is the BGA games (along with one other one) hadn’t been played in quite a long time!
So let’s get to the meat of what happened in May.
Here’s what I played last month.
And here that is in grid format.
Many thanks to the wonderful BG Stats app for getting these beautiful pictures and allowing me to keep these stats for at least 10 years!
Along with the new to me games, there were some definite other highlights as well.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Games & Changed Opinions
Can I really go a month combining drinking and posting?
Yes, I can!
It’s been a month of posts, and thankfully you’ve managed to find your way back to the bar each week, even though historically I’ve been having trouble meeting this quota.
That says a lot about you as a customer.
Yes, it’s another Friday night, with comfortable drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and lots of great conversation!
Because obviously I don’t have any other customers to deal with.
One would wonder how this bar stays open when you’re the only customer.
I always enjoy these boardgame conversations with you, especially when we’re spared from the jukebox that spews endless Free Bird because it appears to be broken yet again.
I’ll just unplug it.
Have a seat and let’s talk about games that maybe you’ve changed your opinion about, and why that might be?
Because I have a few.
Read MoreClank Under the Sea – Clank: Sunken Treasures app expansion review
I keep saying this, but Dire Wolf Digital is putting out some amazing boardgame apps, even though sometimes a new app has a couple of faults that were present (and fixed) in previous apps, so I’m not sure what’s going on there.
They do fix them fairly quickly, though.
The recent Clank app has to be one of my favourite apps.
I typically don’t play apps solo very often. Only enough to maybe review them or learn the game.
My main method of playing is asynchronous online multiplayer.
However, Clank is one of the rare exceptions, as I play solo games against the AI all the time.
So when Dire Wolf Digital announced that the first (of quite a few, I believe) expansion for the boardgame was coming to the app, I was very enthusiastic.
Clank: Sunken Treasures adds a bunch of new cards, two new maps, and a couple different mechanics, none of which add too much complexity but do add a lot of entertainment value to an already great app.
(This review will be for both the app and the expansion itself, so stay with me if you’re only interested in the board game).
As with the base game, players are adventurers delving into the depths of a dragon’s lair, though this time it’s a sea dragon and players are exploring a shipwreck and under a seaside castle.
Journey into the depths, find an artifact, and bring it up to the top!
Read MoreDune Imperium – Immortality Digital Expansion Coming Soon
(Edit 6/4/25): Wow, that was quick. They’ve now announced it will be available on all platforms on June 10!
Two posts in a day, but this one excites me and I’ve just had time to actually write it up after a few days.
Hence why the “news” here is more “what excites me” and not “breaking and you must read it here first!”
Dire Wolf Digital is knocking it out of the park recently in the digital realm.
Wednesday is going to have a review of the latest Clank digital expansion (check it out when it drops!), but last Friday, news was released about a new digital expansion for their other hugely popular boardgame adaptation, Dune Imperium.
Yes, after the wonderful Rise of Ix expansion, the other Dune Imperium expansion is going to be dropping sometime in the next few months.
See their announcement here.
Dune Imperium – Immortality adds the Bene Tleilax and genetic modification, letting you move along the Tleilax track for important benefits, as well as graft certain cards to other cards, enhancing their effects.
The expansion adds 48 new cards, 30 of which are new Imperium cards.
Many of these have the “grafting” mechanic, where you have combine the effects of both cards.
From the announcement page:
“Graft cards can’t be played alone; they must be combined with another card. But once grafted together, both cards act as one, granting you access to both of their Agent icons and card effects for the turn. “
Why you would want to trash the Sardaukar Legion, I don’t know? But this illustrates the effects of grafting nicely.
It also introduces two new tracks, a Research track and a Tleilax track. The latter is actually similar to the other faction tracks, except you can’t gain an alliance with them.
They will work with anybody.
Tleilax cards can be purchased separately using “specimens” rather than the usual cost.
These go into your deck just like regular Imperium cards, but they just have a different way of getting them.
Finally, it adds “Family Atomics,” which basically allows you to, once per game, wipe the Imperium row if you don’t like the cards that are available for purchase.
On the table, this should be used no matter whether you’re playing with Immortality or not, but in the app I assume you have to be playing with that expansion before it’s implemented.
It works nicely with Rise of Ix, but you’ll also be able to pick and choose which expansion you play with.
Best of all, when you decide to just play with one, you won’t have to go through the entire deck and remove the cards you’re not using!
I have both expansions in my table copy of the game, but I haven’t played with them yet.
I’ve played with Rise of Ix on the app a lot, however.
I’m really looking forward to when this one drops.
Wishlist it on Steam today!
Though it will probably come out on all platforms at the same time like the new Clank expansion did.
However, there are no guarantees.
Also, check out the announcement for more because I didn’t mention everything!
I wanted to leave something for their article.
The Eternal Artifacts – Vale of Eternity: Artifacts Review
Sometimes game expansions add some much-needed variety to a game that enhances it, maybe fixing something that players have found wrong or missing in the base game.
Other times, an expansion adds some unnecessary junk that makes a game more complicated or less enjoyable due to more and more things you need to keep track of.
The Vale of Eternity: Artifacts expansion is a little bit of both (without the “things found wrong in the base game” aspect, which didn’t really need fixing).
The Artifacts expansion for The Vale of Eternity was designed by Eric Hong and Mathieu Rivero, with artwork by Jacqui Davis, Jiahui Eva Gao, Gautier Maia, Stefano Martinuz and Erica Tormen. It was published by Mandoo Games in 2024.
It adds a load of new cards to the game, enhancing that “building your tableau” feeling to even greater heights.
But it also adds valuable artifacts to the game, items that you can use during your turn (or at the beginning of it) to enhance your play.
It also bumps the endgame threshold to 80 points instead of 60, something that I’m not sure is needed though more plays may help determine that.
Read MoreCombat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 118 – No. 4 Commando
Combat Commander can be a weird duck sometimes.
One day, luck is swinging wildly like a drunk pool player swinging his stick around because he scratched on an easy 8-ball shot.
The next day, things pretty much go in a straight line, from one end to the other with no deviation, like Johnny Fever after a few drinks.
(10,000 points if you get that reference in full, not just the name)
Today’s ladder game was one of the latter.
In other words, welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of one of the best games out there.
Run by the miraculous Patrick Pence (he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials on Youtube), the ladder gives you a chance to test your mettle against over a hundred different possible opponents on a monthly basis (that’s one a month, not hundreds all at one time. We’re not Rambo or anything).
This month’s mission is from a series of scenarios published in the C3i magazine.
And it is also my 4 -year anniversary on the ladder! I started playing this great game regularly in May 2021.
It’s been a wonderful 4 years.
My opponent this month was Frank E, another eastern opponent so we made a Saturday morning work for our game.
The scenario takes place during the Dieppe commando raids on the coast of France in 1942. A group of intrepid Brit commandos (and one US consultant team) face off against a small group of German defenders.
Here’s the initial setup.
Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up.
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 