Ra is another long-time favorite. Short and sweet auctiony goodness. Perfect with three, decent with four or five, pointless with two.

Today, I went into the third epoch with the 2, 3, and 7. I fully expected it to end badly, but not this badly! I pushed my luck searching for a flood at the end, but pulled two disasters instead.

I prefer this classic art design to the reprints, but I did upgrade the basic black draw bag to something sturdier and more thematic.

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This evening we played the last of the Q games we own, The Quacks of Quedlinburg.

If real-life rats were as adorable as the ones frolicking around this scoring track, we'd all have rat feeders in our yards.

@peterdrake really should have won tonight's game, but he forgot to use his flask at the end, so I won by a whisker.

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To me, The Quest for El Dorado and Flamme Rouge are members of the same found family. They're both card-driven racing games, but in Quest you build your deck up, while in Flamme you spend your deck down.

The track itself is a lot more important in Quest, though. In tonight's game, I should have bought more water cards, but a humble Jack-Of-All-Trades paddled me over the finish.

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Qwirkle is another rainbow of a game, slightly simpler than Ingenious, but with the same arithmetic gymnastics as you try figure out how to maximize your own points while blocking your opponent. @peterdrake scored 2 of the 10 six-tile bonuses this evening to win handily.

I like the rainbow patterns and hefty wooden pieces. The drawstring bag that came with the game did not wear well, so I made a much nicer one to replace it.

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#3GoodThings

1. Found three pairs of shoes that I desperately needed to replace others that have been worn until they are falling apart.
2. Found a near mint condition box set of A Series of Unfortunate Events hardcovers for my nieces' upcoming birthday. The good ones, with no movie or TV tie-in art or stickers!
3. Playing Pirates of the Spanish Main as part of our #BoardGamesAtoZ challenge made me remember how much fun we had collecting the ships and playing with friends back in the day.

Closing out our P weeks with Pirates of the Spanish Main, one of the few war games that I like. We own an embarrassing number of ships and also enhanced it with an ocean tablecloth and 3D islands.

I always forget how important pinning and ramming are in this game since you can't move a ship and fire its cannons on the same turn.

I took down more masts than @peterdrake, but he managed to deliver the decisive extra points of gold to his home island for the win.

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My two feats of gaming this month were: (1) playing Nemesis for the first time and (2) playing all of the O games we own for our #BoardGamesAtoZ challenge. Even, shudder, Ogre. Twice, no less.

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Ohanami is an easy, quick, and beautiful card drafting game. It's in the same league as Floriferous, but a bit simpler still. On each turn, you may add the cards you draft to your gardens, but only if the card number is higher than the top card of a garden or lower than the bottom card of a garden.

In this particular game, my advantage in water features and cherry blossoms overwhelmed Peter's plants.

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I don't like hex encounter war games such as Ogre, but since we own the giant Designer's Edition, it was really the only choice for starting our O weeks.

@peterdarke@qoto.org almost managed to immobilize my Mk III Ogre by focusing his fire on my treads, but I held on long enough to eliminate all his units.

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New York Zoo is heavier than all those cute animeeples make it look. It took quite a few plays for me to wrap my head around the rules for breeding and moving animals around, perhaps because they slightly differ depending on the number of players, but I think we're finally playing correctly.

Tonight's game was a nail-biter as I beat @peterdrake to victory by a single square.

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A few more Nemesis thoughts:

The soundtrack really added to the experience with a couple of well-timed clanks and screeches.

It definitely had a solid crescendo of action and mayhem as the clock ticked.

I had four contamination cards at the end, but they were all clean!

I really enjoyed the full co-op experience, but I doubt I would like semi-coop with its hidden objectives.

I would not suggest playing it again, but would join if someone else did.

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@peterdrake won Nemesis in a raffle. I don't really like this style of game, but agreed to try it full co-op for N weeks.

Everything was going our way at first. The ship was already pointed to Earth. We found the Engine Control Room early and two of the engines were already functional. No intruders appeared until late in the game. We destroyed the Nest easily.

And then... intruders showed up in force, killed Peter, life support failed, and the ship blew up.

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Magic Maze is a co-op with a sand timer to create tension. The players share control of the pawns. Each player can move any pawn, but only in a certain way, and you aren't allowed to talk to coordinate.

The first two "easy" scenarios were very achievable with two players. I bet it would be both harder and more fun with more.

It reminds me of Space Alert, but simpler. Because it's quiet while you play, it's less of a sensory assault.

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Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper is definitely in my top five games. And I'm not just saying that because I crushed @peterdrake 115 vs. 25 this evening.

It plays great with any number. A hand is a satisfying length. The Ripper can escape, but it's hard. The cheerful colors are a bit incongruous with the theme, but in a good way! Its only flaw is an infamously horrible rule book.

We own two copies so that we're prepared when the first eventually wears out.

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Men at Work is a dexterity game that I think I like watching more than I like playing.

I've only played it about half a dozen times. Every time it has ended not because someone collected sufficient Employee of the Month points, but because everyone else loses their safety certificates. Thinking back, I'm not sure I've seen anyone survive long enough to earn Employee of the Month...

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Kanagawa is another beautiful game that we hardly ever play. It's fine with two, but the drafting mechanism would undoubtedly be most fun with four. It's very luck-based, mitigated somewhat by being allowed to know the backs, and thus categories, of the lesson cards that will be coming out.

@peterdrake thinks the wooden brush pieces look like caramel apples.

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Jaipur could perhaps be thought of as a stepping stone to Splendor. It's quick to set up and an entire game will take less than 30 minutes. The swap-to-make-sets game play is super simple. But probably too simple? My dad could handle it, but there are plenty of other two-players that @peterdrake and I would choose before this one. If the cards weren't so beautiful, and the box so small, I don't know if it would have survived our occasional cullings.

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Der Igelwettkampf is a very simple game that fits in a little tin and plays in a few minutes. Its main selling point is the tiny cuteness of it all.

On your turn, you roll the die and pick one of your hedgehogs to move around the circle. The first person to get all three of their hedgehogs in the same stack wins.

I imagine only very small children would get real enjoyment playing it. But since the pieces are clearly choking hazards...

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We played Innovation on Board Game Arena today with a friend who had never played before. This was not a good choice.

It's a slick implementation. But for new or rusty players, maybe a little too slick. The software handling all the tallies and interactions sped up the game, but it took a lot of scrolling to see what dogmas people had and the resolutions of said dogmas zipped by too fast to track. I need more time to truly savor the lamentations of my opponents!

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We wrapped up our H weeks with The Hanging Gardens. The spatial aspect is fun, but the success of the set collection aspect depends greatly on the player count. Two works fairly well, because you play more cards and collect more tiles during a game, but with four it's almost all luck.

In last night's game, I was feeling pretty good about three Gate tiles until one of my opponents got lucky and snagged the sole Guard.

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