Who is Good Owl Games?
Antoinette Mason is an accidental board game reviewer who loves dry euro games and long walks on the beach. She lives in Cork, Ireland working on Good Owl Games as a way to tell people about fantastic board games and to work on her own mental health. She's very proud of her unbroken win streak playing Time of Legends: Joan of Arc and doesn't play favourites among her games, they're all special!
I don’t do Twitter or Facebook, but I agree – what matters is not the size of your collection but, er, what you do with it. All it takes to have a Wall o’ Games is money; but I aim for every box on my shelves to have a story, or at least some good feelings. (I suppose this is “curating your collection”.)
One game in particular, Startups by Jun Sasaki, has rules written very ambiguously. (And it’s quite a small game, so you wouldn’t think it would be super complicated.) I think I’ve learned something I’ve got wrong after each time I’ve played it.
I’ve heard other opinions of Tea Dragon Society that are quite similar to yours โ really nice concept and artwork (if that’s your style), but, well, where’s the game?
I’ve played Carcassonne a few times, but it always seems to take too long for my taste. There are two games that to my mind do the basic Carcassonne-style gameplay better: Isle of Skye and Cacao. If you do want to stick with the original game, there’s one expansion that I’ve heard fans say they’ll never play without, and that’s The River.
Yay for V-Commandos! I hope you both enjoy it.
I’ve played the old edition of Dead Men Tell No Tales, and I really wasn’t impressed – I can see the basic Pandemic idea of too few actions and too many things to do, but the rulebook was very unclear, and we just didn’t have much fun with it. But hey, as always, opinions differ.
Recent conventions for me: Stabcon, a long-running boardgame/RPG convention in Stockport, and Handycon, a newish convention that used to be local to me but has now moved a bit further away. (Where I won the Flamme Rouge tournament, yay.)
I feel the same way about my collection, everything is there for a reason and has a purpose. It’s not just a wall of things I bought! That’s pretty much what Board Game Inquisition is about, to have you think about your collection and to help you improve it!
I’m rather glad to hear other people make mistakes. I’m mortified when I find out this is the case, like I’m a terrible person because I couldn’t follow instructions correctly ๐
Tea Dragon Society reminded me of Splendour a bit (a game I’m not a fan of) and I assumed some aspect of it, other than the art, would make it its own game. It just fell so flat for me.
Carcassonne alternatives… I do enjoy Isle of Skye but find the bidding mechanism is less effective at two players. Cacao is one I’ve not tried but I like the idea of a short tile laying game. You’ll be glad to know the river expansion came free in the box!
V-Commandos is indeed the big hype here after your recommendation. I’ve decided even if it doesn’t work out it’ll have been worth giving it a go ๐ Dead Men Tell No Tales feels good at two players but the minute we went beyond that it felt unwieldy. I’m still deciding what my review will say about it.
Stabcon sounds like a friendly place :O and congratulations on your Handycon Flamme Rouge victory! Flamme Rouge is a game I need to play again, I wasn’t a fan the first time I played. Any tips for a pleb like myself?
Thanks as always for commenting, I love hearing about other people’s games and opinions!
Interesting that you like Realm of Sand but not Splendor – they feel very similar to me.
After that tournament victory I played another game of Flamme Rouge and was beaten by two people who’d never played before. So take my advice with quite a bit of salt. ๐
The way I think of it is: your rider has the same cards as every other rider of that sort, and is going along the same course. Apart from the interactions and a little bit of card luck, you’ll end up going just as far as them in the same number of turns. So winning the game is all about the interactions – the slipstreaming and the blocking. I’m not a card counter, though it would probably help if I were; but I try to get an idea of how everyone else is feeling, what they’re likely to attempt, and therefore where I’m going to expect them to be, so that I can make sure there’s room for me to tuck in behind them. Of course, they’re doing the same to me.
That’s really insightful actually. I’ll approach the game like that next time we pull it out! Thanks