Hi all,
The other day, I was taking a game out of my collection and my eyes passed by one of those games I always enjoyed but haven’t played in years. We all know them: we keep them in our collection both due to fond memories and because a lot of people in the hobby simply don’t know them and they are thus hard to sell. Either they are old or fringe or whatever. Good games I would happily play but I just don’t.
So I thought let’s do an experiment. Step 1: put them all on a pile in my living room so I force myself to find new homes for them quickly. Step 2: Post on BGG and see if someone wants to take them off my hand 😀
This is a mix between mini-reviews of older games to introduce them to a wider audience, cull, and give-away. If anything peeks your interest, just drop a short comment why you are curious about that specific game in the comment section and you might get it. Like more than “I take it” and something that’s fun to read for all of us.
Ground Rules
- No guarantees 😀 I’m an individual who does this for fun and wants to get games to people that will play them. I might run out of packaging material, a friend might ask me for the game, shipping to your place to much of a hassle, etc … to make it short: just because you post won’t mean you’ll get the game or I even will be able to ship out all games shown here.
- You will have to pay for shipping, but not the game! To keep logistics easy, I’ll only ship with DHL and within the EU, sorry. So within Germany, that’s usually 7,69€, payable via Paypal Friends & Family.
- Condition: usually played but quite good, older titles might have storage marks, newer titles are usually pretty mint. But again: no guarantees.
- Language: Pretty much all of theses are in German! For those that are not, it should be obvious from the box.
- No DMs! Post in comment section and I’ll DM you if I plan to send you the game.
- Subject to change and arbitrariness: I see a heck of a lot things might go wrong 😀 So I might need to adapt this as I go.
- Yes, I have considered just donating them. Did that the year before last, now I want to try something different.
And with that out of the way, let’s have some fun!
The Games
Zaubercocktail
This is a crazy trading-shouting game where players try to create potions. The ingredient names are just ridiculous and you try to wheel-and-deal with the other players to at least get something worth some points before the round ends. Extra fun bit: it’s the other players that decide when they want to step out and end the round for everyone else. I’m surprised the BGG rating is THAT LOW and I actually had to take a picture because there wasn’t anything showing the game components at all. Well, it’s quite old …
Flick ’em Up!: Dead of Winter(gone)
I always enjoyed flicking games like Carrom and this one just sounded crazy good: flicking and flickin’ zombies! You move and shoot via flicking and the zombies move by placing them on a cardboard tower contraption and releasing the trap door. As a result, they sprawl all over the table. There is also an element of them being attracted by noise. The rule book is horrible though and one needs some browsing through the BGG forum to make it playable. But there is tons of stuff in there to build scenarios. Sadly I never really got around to play it much. One of those games I always wanted to play more but never had the right group for it.
Battle Sheep
Blue Orange games often has lovely productions, and this one fits right in. It’s an abstract blocking game where during setup a random map is built and then when it’s your turn, you take your stack of sheep (nice plastic chips), split it and move one in a straight line. The goal is to block your opponents in so you will be able to claim more hexes then them (because they end up with stacks of multiple sheep they cannot move/split). Always fun, this is one of those that is hard to part with 😀
Vinci
Small World before Small World. I played Vinci so much that I had no interest at all when later Small World came out as a fantasy re-theme. Still a very good game of starting of with a unique combination of attributes for your civilisation and inevitably having to let it decline because you’re constantly loosing troops and there is little in way of replenishing. But that’s the clue: how do you time it so your civilisation goes bust in a location where its remnants will remain and at a time where a particular juicy new civilisation is up for grabs?
John Company (gone)
I got myself a copy of the first edition because I enjoy the second edition so much. I was both curious to see what the changes were and at one point had hopes I might be able to convince Cole Wehrle to let me interview him. Sadly, that never worked out.
For me, 2nd is way better. I was surprised how much having the map and the event system added to the game, it’s just so much more evocative. The solo mode in first edition is also much more basic than what is in 2nd edition. Still, first edition also has its charm what with the much smaller box and a more distilled feel.
Corsairs
A great, fun little pirate game about placing the right cards on to ships to increase your chance of successfully boarding them. The fun part is that if you board a ship, other players might join in and steal it from you. Nice little dice chucker.
Torres
Gosh, what a great game. I played this via video chat during COVID times and my main thought was: why don’t I play this way more?!? You’re moving your knights and stacking castles in an attempt to be as high as possible and thus score more points than the others. Clever blocking, special action movements, there is lots to love here. I guess for modern tastes, it looks to abstract and people rather play Santorini.
Expedition to Newdale
This is basically Oh my Goods the board game. The mechanism have been expanded a bit so chaining is much more a thing you do throughout the game and not only in the last round. There is a Pfister-like minimal story with different maps in the box that all have small tweaks. Good fun to play but the story and map variations didn’t do much for me. I think I would prefer having my old copy of Oh my Goods with the expansions back instead of this.
Monkey Dash
Two competing warehouse workers moving crates around so their pet monkeys can get to the exit without getting cold feet. Okay, the premise is wonky, but this was surpassingly good fun. It’s an abstract 2p game where you fight over every crate to make a path for your monkey. There are special action cards that spice things up and everything. I liked it so much I even started developing in iOS app back in the days of iOS version 2 (!) but sadly once I got it working the designer stopped responding. Lesson learned: first do the license contract, then start putting months of development in a game!
Broken and Beautiful: A Game About Kintsugi
Picked this up at SPIEL 2024, simply because I liked the theme and the art is drop dead gorgeous. The gameplay is okay, it’s a rather simple card drafting where you try to pick sets and make sure the right-for-you card remains on the table as that decides which pieces to break. Only broken pieces can be fixed with gold and made even more valuable. Solid game but if it weren’t for the art it would be unremarkable.
Troyes Dice
I originally got this because I enjoy Troyes the board game so much. Both don’t have anything in come except for the art style though. It’s one of those typical roll-and-writes that came out when there were tons of roll-and-writes, quite enjoyable, but nothing that got me addictive. What was cool was that the designers kept pumping out scenarios and variants for a long time, keeping the game fresh. I know a number of people still play it solo, but I never was the type to enjoy roll-and-writes solo much.
Vabanque (gone)
Vabanque might be my favourite bluffing game. For its time, the production as awesome what with the nice chips and everything. Players are stacking ever increasing amounts of money onto tables and then it’s a bluffing game which one to pick as they can also place cards there. These might increase the value of a table or just mean whoever goes to trigger the table will get nothing and instead the person that played the card there will get it. Easy, simple, works, looks great.
Coyote
Have you ever tried to look up and see your forehead? Like 5 times in a as many minutes, even though you knew the first time it’s not possible? Every player gets a card with a number and places it in a head band. The goal is to guess what the total sum is but you can see everything except your card. Some cards might multiple stuff, others negate the max value. And then it’s a typical I’ll raise or doubt your bid type of game. Great fun, but I don’t play party games anymore.
The Great Dalmuti
I think this was one of the first shedding games I ever played and really liked. Haven’t played it for so long I can only remember the order of finishing influence your role in the next round, which was neat. Can’t really remember any details except that I was obsessed with this game for about a year or two 😀
Knights
Oh, this is a good one! When it’s your turn, you roll dice to create combinations like four of a kind to claim new castles, win tournaments, get catapults, and so on. You can either get something from the deck OR try to rob it from the other players but they can defend of course. It’s rather quick, but you can build your own little “engine” of special cards that might make certain attacks easier for you.
Sprawlopolis (gone)
This is on many top lists when it comes to small solo games, a super clever 18 card design of building a city. What I really liked was that the goals how to score are on the back of the cards and so you basically get a different combination every time. The game itself didn’t catch me for long, having the small promo-expansions helped because they added new limitations that made things more interesting.
Privacy Quickie
I bought this out of curiosity because a friend once told me they played it and it broke up a relationship 😀 This is the small version where it’s just a set of cards with questions of incriminating nature. Didn’t end up really playing it, but for the right group this might be a lot of fun.
Palm Island (gone)
Clever “hold the deck in your hand” solo game (though some editions come with 2p variants). Most cards allow you to rotate them to temporarily use as resources and spend on upgrading other cards. Once you’re gone through the deck a number of times, you score what you’ve got build on your island. The challenge here is to get the right combination of resources before they get reset to being upright cards again. Very clever, nice if you’re on the bus or otherwise on the movement. However, Legacy Kingdom has completely replaced this for me because it is a much meatier experience.
Die Erben von Hoax
This is one of the craziest games I’ve ever played! It’s a hidden role/deduction game where the actions you can take are associated with specific roles. E.g. the baker can gain two bread tokens, the judge can sentence someone, etc. The trick is: you can use any action you want, even if it doesn’t match your secret role, as long as people don’t doubt you. Like one turn you say you’re the baker to get that bread and next turn you say you’re someone else who can use that bread to do … . If you take it to far, someone will accuse you and then it’s for other people to jump in and again claim they are the right person to act on that accusation. Hilarious fun, I always liked this better than Werewolves. I don’t think this ever came out in an English edition.
Guillotine (gone)
It’s the French Revolution and you and your fellow executioners try to collect the best heads by manipulating the order of victims so the choice picks are up front when it is your turn to chop heads. Fun game, similar humour, lovely illustrations.
Queen’s Necklace
Old school Days of Wonder. I don’t remember much about this one except I was playing it over and over again online back when Days of Wonder was trying to establish their pay-for online boardgames gaming site by putting codes into their games. It’s all about market manipulation and picking the right gems. The surprising thing for the time was it actually came with a real little neckless! Played it a couple of years ago and still very much liked it, but it’s a game you need to play over and over again to really get the most out of it.
San Juan
It was titled as the card game for Puerto Rico but didn’t share much with it except for the action-selection mechanism which basically says you choose the action everyone does that round but you get a bonus. It was quite clever how cards represented everything, from the buildings you built to the resources you payed them with. Always liked playing it, but just doesn’t get to the table anymore.
Bongo!
This is one of those games you can drive people nuts with. Roll the dice and then be the first to shout the correct animal. It’s a typical “if you see three of the same then name that but if not name what’s not there” type of brain twister, with multiple levels of difficulty. Like you can add hunters that negate certain dice. I always loved it but people quickly didn’t want to play it with me anymore 😀
Morisi
Back in the days, this was my favourite game for a while. It’s an abstract where your pawn moves over the randomly constructed landscape to collect resources to turn those into a network of routes. Other players compete for the same resources and connections and you try to create the best network between cities. This is all about blocking and out-manoeuvring your opponents. I still remember sitting at Essen SPIEL, being blown away by the gameplay, and people would drop by: looks like Settler, is it similar? And I said “heck no!”
Souvenirs from Venice
I picked this up at SPIEL Essen 2024 because of the lovely theme. Each player is moving their condola through the Venice canals to quickly pick up sets of three matching gifts before your flight takes off. It’s cute, but in the end very simplistic. Feels like a good idea that ultimately is still missing it’s “and that’s why we have to play again”.
Hextremadura
Very interesting solo game concept that for some reason reminds me of Dorfromantik but not really. You place the hex tiles to create regions of certain sizes to match goals printed on the hexes themselves. Once all goals are complete, that hex is removed and put onto a pile to be used for a second round. This makes timing tricky because you’re disassembling the landscape you so carefully have crafted to be able to fulfil new goals. You also try to complete goals so you don’t run out of hexes to play. I quite liked this one, but unfortunately the scoring in the second half if a bit too easy once you have cracked the puzzle. With a few tweaks, this could have been brilliant.
Yin Yang
A beautifully illustrated abstract 2p game about flipping cards between their black and white side to gain majorities. As with Hextremadura, very nice production and art, a clever base idea, but feels like it wasn’t fully realised which is a shame.
Wrap Up
Puuh, that was a lot. Well, hope you enjoyed it and maybe learned about a new-to-you game you might want to look into. There are some very fun games in there, but they require the right group or I just have played them too much. So perhaps it’s something for you to check out!