A Tribute to Hearts Passed

 I Heart You

This is a post that is going to be very difficult for me to write, and yet I know that this is really important and so I'm doing it here and now. It is not a subject that is easy to write about, but as I know how much it would mean to her, I am going to be writing a tribute post to the one who taught me how to play card games and originally sparked my love of board games: my grandmother. I'll be combining this with a review of a game to keep my normal schedule, but this one will be a bit more biased than other reviews for reasons that you will find below.

I won't go deeply into her life and her history here since that's not what I want to focus on, but I will say that she was the epitome of what you expect a grandmother to be. The memes about going to grandma's house and her feeding you because you "looked skinny," I'm pretty certain originated with my Grandma Rita, as she always had fresh baked cookies, brownies and homemade fudge for us when we came to visit. She was so sweet and always was excited to hear about our adventures, even if she had no idea what we were talking about. She was the most incredible and thoughtful woman ever and I am so thankful that I got to spend summer days at her house, helping her with her garden (read: eating the tomatoes), playing in the woods behind her house, and generally getting into mischief and chaos in her basement that was always open to us kids.

All of these things stand out to me very strongly about my grandmother, and yet there's one thing that stands out even more: her love of Hearts. I remember as a little kid, watching my mom play card games with my grandmother and their favorite one to play as a family was Hearts. I believe that every single time we went to my grandmother's house, we had at least one game of Hearts that we played and, inevitably, lost to my grandmother.

She had the best poker face out of anyone that I have ever met and she would joke quietly as we were playing the game, which would belie the fact that she was about to absolutely trounce us in points. We could be playing a game, fully expecting to win the hand and my grandmother would throw out a card that would undercut everyone else in the game and give her the win. Time and again we would be playing well, only to tally up the scores at the end of the round to find that my grandmother had outstripped each one of us with points gained (or not gained in this case) during the round.

What really made us worry was when she would start giggling at the start of the round when the cards had been dealt and passed, because we knew immediately that we were in trouble. Often times that would portend my grandmother "Shooting the Moon" (which I will explain in detail later), resulting in an almost inevitable loss to her. She was normally a very quiet, reserved individual, with a gentle sort of humor, but there was something about Hearts that brought out her competitive side.

I think it was playing card games with my grandmother over and over again that really sparked my love of board and card games, as we could spend hours playing Hearts with her. When she got her first computer, the first thing that she asked us to do was help her to learn how to play hearts on the computer, which I happily assisted with. I'm not certain of her statistics, but that was definitely the program that she used the most, the second being Patience.

House Ruling

Over the years, my family and I would make Hearts a regular part of our game night sessions. While we would play with my grandmother whenever we went to visit her, we also would play the game at home, since all it needed was a deck of standard cards. Our family was extremely competitive when playing games and Hearts was no exception. Time and again we would play, with each person vying to remain the lowest score and ultimately win the coveted prize of "winner" at the end of the game when the threshold for points were met.

It was after several years that we played Hearts at home that we began incorporating new rules into the game, which we fondly called "Bazil Rules" (after my uncle who first introduced a house rule to the game). Rules like "if you hit 100 points exactly, you go back to 0 points immediately" or changing up how the passing of cards worked (my favorite was "take three of your highest cards in your hand and place them on the table; pass all the other cards to your left/right/across the table"). We even had provisions to play hearts with up to 8 people by incorporating an additional deck into the game, making it so there was a possibility of getting a whopping 52 points in one round. We of course raised the limit of the score to 200 to accommodate the change, but an 8 player game of hearts is wild.

This was my first introduction to what I would later learn as "house rules" and I didn't realize that we had already been playing with house rules with my grandmother. Sometimes when we would play at her house, we would have an odd number of players playing Hearts and would need to ensure that the game could be enjoyed by all. That was when we played with a "blind," or any cards that were left over when all players had received an equal amount of cards. That "blind" would be "won" by the player who took the first trick and could have anything in it, including the dreaded Queen of Spades.

It was a wild experience when I started playing the game on my computer and learned that all of the rules that we played with in our family weren't technically the true rules of the game. Sure, there were some things that we got right, like passing cards and the highest card of the played suit winning, but there were other rules that were introduced in our games, such as being able to choose where and how many cards to pass to another player or playing hearts the first round, that weren't officially in the rules.

I think it was this realization of how much fun house rules could be that really formulated my view on house rules while playing games. I believe that house rules can be a great addition to a game, especially if they are making the game more fun to play or offer more variety. While there is an inherent "correct" way to play a game as intended, making the game your own is absolutely something that I can get behind and have experienced the fun of growing up with my grandmother.

Trick-Taking Chaos

Now we get to the meat of the post: the review and breakdown of the game Hearts. I personally love Hearts and would easily award it a 10, but that mainly stems from my history of playing the game. It has been the result of many hours spent playing the game with family and having so many wonderful experiences while playing the game, both correctly and with added house rules. If anyone asks for a game of Hearts, I'm immediately up for it and will never turn down a game. In fact, I'll usually suggest a game while with my family, because we love this game so much, and have so many fond memories playing with our grandmother.

The rules for Hearts are fairly simple and I'll see if I can break them down:

- Cards are shuffled, with jokers being removed, and dealt to each player. In a traditional game of Hearts there are four players and each one will have 13 cards each.
- Players choose two cards to pass at the beginning of each round to the next player, first left, then right, then across, and then keeping the cards that are dealt to them in the fourth round.
- Play begins with the player who has the Two of Clubs in their hand and proceeds clockwise around the table. The player who plays the highest card of the same suit that was led wins the trick and all the cards with the trick. The winner of the trick then leads the next trick and play proceeds until all players have voided their hand of cards.
- If a player doesn't have the suit in hand, they are able to play another card from another suit, in an attempt to avoid points.
- Only cards in the Hearts suit are worth points, with the exception of the Queen of Spades, who is worth 13 points. When players "win" a trick, they earn as many points as are in that hand at the end of the round.
- Players can seek to obtain all 14 cards (totaling 26 points) in one round and "Shoot the Moon" if they manage to do so. This results in the player that did so earning 0 points and all other players taking 26 points.
- Due to the difficulty of this, it rarely happens in a game and is considered a very lucky break if it does.
- Once one player's score has hit 100 points, the game ends and the player with the least points totaled at that time is considered the winner of the game.

It's a really simple and yet really fun card game, especially if you're playing with the right people. There's a surprising amount of strategy that comes into play with the game, and part of the fun that I've had is attempting to outwit my family as I play the game. Often times, I'll try to void my hand of a certain suit in order to more easily get rid of high cards, but that will sometimes backfire on me when I'm passed high cards of that suit from my brother to my left.

The game itself is nice and portable as well, requiring only a deck of cards and a way to track point totals for everyone playing the game. With the advent of smartphones, this is even easier to keep track of and allows the game to be that much more portable.

A Final Goodbye

It is very poignant to me that my love of games came from such an incredible woman. My grandmother passed away on March 1st of this year, on my daughter's fourth birthday, after a long battle with dementia, and it was hard to see the woman who was so sharp and quick with a card game, lose her ability to even remember who we were and where she was.

While Hearts may not be the game that everyone will willingly play over and over like my grandmother, to me, it will always be a reminder of the amazing woman that not only opened up my eyes to the world of card games, but also taught me to laugh when you're about to smother everyone else's plans during a game. The game will always be something special to me and I will pass it on to my kids as they get older, in honor of my grandmother, to give them a little portion of who she was.

I love you Grandma, and every time I play a game of Hearts, I'll remember you and play in your honor.

Forever in our memories:

Rita Anne Bazil
B. September 12, 1931 - D. March 1, 2024

As always, thank you so much for checking out this blog. If you liked it, please hit the green thumb at the top of the page and feel free to leave a comment on the post. I appreciate all interactions and will respond to everything that I can. If you really liked the post and want more ramblings, feel free to subscribe and get new posts every Monday/Wednesday/Friday.

*Originally posted on BoardGameGeek on 7/12/2024*

June '24 in Review

It's that time of the month and I get to go through all of my games that I played in June and give some brief thoughts on them. Again, I post more detailed descriptions of my games on the What Did You Play This Week Geeklist (subscription thread here) so if you'd like to read about my exploits every week, check out the list! 

The Games

Deliverance (13 all-time)
Deliverance is an interesting beast. We played a skirmish game to introduce a new player to the game and it ended up taking close to two and a half hours to finish the game (and we dind't even beat the final minions after killing the boss). The campaign missions are definitely quicker, but i love the experience gain of the skirmish mode. There's an update to the campaign coming later this year so I'm expecting to play that and finish up our campaign (which we're at mission 8 of 15 right now) once that comes. I love the theme and game itself, but it's a longer one and will take up an entire night if we play it, making it get to the table far less than I would want or expect.

Clank! In! Space!: A Deck-Building Adventure x2 (20 all-time)
Ah, the perennial favorite game series makes it's first appearance on the games I played this month. I have thoroughly enjoyed the Clank! series and there's just enough different between Clank! and Clank! In! Space! to make them both worth owning. The first game was a solo play as I'm proceeding through the included campaign on the companion app, and the second was my second time losing the game to Sarah. I really enjoy this game and I think I'll be picking up the Pulsarcade Expansion up for it soon to add some more variety.

Wyrmspan (6 all-time)
Another game of Wyrmspan and I am finding that I like this game significantly better than Wingspan. I personally find that the level of strategy that goes into building up your cave is significantly higher and I love the feeling of building out your cave to it's maximum depth to get an extra coin for another turn or to entice that dragon you've held in your hand for some time. While resources tend to be tighter with this game, I find that I'm enjoying myself significantly more and more each time I play this game. I am so glad I picked up a copy of it.

Magic Maze (35 all-time)
I played a solo game with the Maximum Security expansion included. The game feels significantly more challenging with the tension that's introduced by the guard and I really enjoy how well they did with introducing new mechanics to the game with the expansion. With the alternative solo rules that I've been playing with, I found that the game was really quite fun and felt significantly more up my alley. The time limit is still stressful, but the lack of having to flip the cards over and over, really helps reduce down-time.

Welcome To... x4 (25 all-time)
Probably one of my favorite flip and writes ever. I played both the Outbreak and Summer thematic neighborhoods in addition to a few games on BGA to really get a feel for the game. I enjoyed playing the game with the additional tension of both, but I still enjoy the base game as well. There's only one objective I don't care for (I'm looking at you "Fill all pools and parks on the second street" objective) but overall, the game feels so good and clever when everything falls into place.

Patchwork x4 (6 all-time)
Two games of Patchwork with Sarah, one with a coworker, and one on BGA leads up to the 4 total games that I had in June. I'm still working on a strategy for this one and I find myself getting thrown off by players that have a bit of a better knowledge pool about the game than I do. There's a surprising level of depth to Patchwork and I think I'm a bit surprised with how quickly this game can go out of hand. Still, I think that I'll be playing more and more of the game now that I realized I can play it on BGA.

Chronicles of Crime x2 (8 all-time)
I played the final two missions from the base game and I still have both the expansions in the box to play through, but I'm having trouble with the style of missions and missing some questions that I didn't think were that obvious. I'm a bit frustrated with the game having questions coming up with the "Solve" portion of the case that I didn't know that I needed to focus on with my investigation, but we'll see how that changes with the expansions.

Cartographers x8 (37 all-time)
With 37 total plays, Cartographers has shot to the top of the games that I've played the most. Clank! is close in second this year with 29 total plays for the year, but the availability of the game on BGA and Tabletopia make this one that I can play quickly when I don't have time for much else. I definitely want to get the sequel and some map packs for it to add alternative objectives and will continue to play my best online as much as possible. It's a nice filler and one that's good for playing when I have some down time during the day.

Bandida NEW!
This was an odd little game that I picked while perusing Tabletopia for potential games to play. It wasn't anything that was terribly amazing, but it was nice for a quick little play. I played the "Trap Bandida" mode and managed to get the game completed fairly easily. It's not anything that I think would have any long staying power for me, but it would be fun to bring to the table every once in a while.

The 7th Continent x3 (9 all-time)
This game absolutely floored me. I wasn't expecting to enjoy this game as much as I did, especially since I was on the fence about a truly solo experience. I knew that there was a ton that came with the game, but after opening both the base game and expansion, The 7th Continent: What Goes Up, Must Come Down, I found that there were close to 1500 cards in the game with those two packs. I completed the first curse this month after 12 hours and 8 sessions and still feel like I only saw about 10% of all of the cards in the game. It's amazing and I'm so excited to see what else is available as I dive in again next month with a new curse and new character.

Flamecraft x4 (15 all-time)
Four games in order to finish my 10x10 challenge for the game and I found that I really enjoy the cute, lightweight gameplay of Flamecraft. There's something just so charming about the game, especially with the fantastic artwork that just oozes fun, and the game is quick enough that I don't feel like I'm burning my brain whenever I play. There's still a few solo achievements I have yet to accomplish, so I'll be playing it a bit more later this year once I finish the rest of my 10x10 Challenge.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea x9 (28 all-time)
The idea of a cooperative trick-taking game just sounds super odd to me, and yet it works so well. I absolutely love how fast this game plays and even though I've gone through the first set of missions in the logbook three or four times now, each mission has been different due to the objective cards being pulled for each one. With a massive pile of objectives, there's so much replayability and I expect that once I finish the game, I'll be playing more without the logbook because it's such a great and simple to teach game.

Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure x5 (29 all-time)
Most of my games this month have been with Clank!: Adventuring Party included, but that's only to add more variety to the game. I have three separate expansions for this game and will probably pick up the other two later this year, but I really am enjoying the fun of finding something new each time I play. Clank! is one of our favorite games to play and Sarah and I usually have at least one game of Clank! that we play a week. I'm close to 30 total plays for it and I expect by the end of the year we might be close to 60 or 70 if we keep up this pace.

Lords of Waterdeep NEW!
I was able to grab a completely unpunched used copy of this game this month and it immediately hit the table the night after. I was so impressed with the game and how good it played. It distilled the worker-placement genre to it's basics and I believe that it was the originator of the genre. After playing the game, I can absolutely understand the rating for the game and I'm really excited that I was able to add it to my collection.

Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar x2 NEW!
This game is pure fun. There's not much strategy and there's not really much going on besides move and pick up treasures, but it is supremely fun to send fireballs flying down the sides of the mountain towards your opponent. My inner five-year-old loves this game and while it's extremely stupid, I have a ton of fun playing the game and that's really all that matters to me to be honest. Is it a solid 10/10, would play every time I wanted to play a game? No. Is it dumb, and fun, and I get to launch fireballs out the maw of a giant stone head on the top of a huge island? Yes.

Tantrix NEW!
Sarah had a small 10-tile version of this game from a long time ago and I pulled it out to try to see if I could finish the little missions. I managed to get all seven of the missions done in one sitting and realized that the game is not really something that I want to play anymore. It probably would be better with the bigger set, but there's only one solution for each puzzle, so I doubt that I'd play it too long.

Everdell: The Complete Collection (14 all-time)
Sarah suggested this game after we had an argument one night and I thought "why not?" We then proceeded to have one of the best games of Everdell ever and Sarah and I got extremely close with a two-point difference at the end of the game. It turned out that the game not only helped us to cool down, but also to get into a mindset where we were competitive enough that the game was extremely close. I love this game and that was a really fun way to experience it.

Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game x2 NEW!
After having this game on my wishilist for about a year and a half, I finally got a copy of the game for free after passing up on it a few times. I am glad I did as my patience was rewarded with a really fun and clever card game where I found myself balancing the dungeon building aspect with attracting heroes. I look forward to playing the game more with my friends and family and hope to expand it a bit more as it feels like it's missing that je nes se quois to push it over the edge to something great.

Dinosaur World x3 (14 all-time)
This one is an absolute beast (or should I say "dinosaur") of a game. And I still have four games of it left for my 10x10 Challenge. I don't know what I was thinking when I said that I would get 10 plays of this game in this year since I'm running out of steam and don't really want to play four more games right now. However, Mama didn't raise no quitter, so I'm going to power through and get those four plays done, hopefully by the end of July. It's a great game, just way too intensive to set up and tear down for me right now so I'm definitely running out of steam for this game.

Dice Forge (5 all-time)
I played this again with Sarah to see how it felt before we bought the expansion for it. Unfortunately, that play resulted in both of us having the most abysmal scores ever and we saw the dark side of the dice so to speak. It definitely made me realize how swingy this game could be and while that doesn't dampen my love of this game, I do want to play it a few more times to see if I want the expansion. Fortunately, I found out that there was an option to play on Tabletopia and I'll definitely be trying it with the expansion when I play a few more games.

Terraforming Mars x2 NEW!
After five years of hearing about this game, I was finally able to get a chance to play it not once, but twice in June. It was a fantastic experience and I can't believe that I haven't played this yet. There's such depth of choice to the game and while the cards themselves are a bit "meh" in the art direction, I still enjoy the gameplay. It's been something that I'm definitely going to be playing more games of and I cannot wait to see what else the game has in store for me.

Weirdwood Manor x2 NEW!
This was the first of two Kickstarter games to deliver this month. While this was originally expected back in April of this year, a delay in production led it to be delayed to the backers and I got this mid-June. I had an opportunity to play it twice and while it is difficult, once one gets past the significant upkeep for the game, it actually is fairly intuitive. I really enjoy the cooperative nature of the game and it feels like a more tense and clever Horrified with quite a bit more character agency. The time-based powers are also interesting and the boss gets more and more difficult as the game progresses, making each turn mean more.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal x2 (12 all-time)
Both games were teaching Sarah how to play one of my favorite racing games that I've had the opportunity to play. The first game we were able to get one lap of two done before she had to leave the table due to feeling sick. The second game we played was much better and Sarah ended up just losing to me because I had two more speed than she did on my cards after the second lap. She began to understand the game a bit more at the end when we played, and she seemed interested to play more.

Lost Cities: The Board Game x2 (3 all-time)
While I was initially on the fence about this game, the last two games that we played in June solidified this as a solid "6" in my mind. I'm just not a huge fan of the card drawing mechanic as it felt far too luck of the draw for me to complete the things that I wanted to do during the game. I like it much better than the card-game version, but that's not saying much. It's just not really for me and I'm glad we were just borrowing it, rather than owning the game.

Trailblazers x5 (12 all-time)
Five games of Trailblazers and I still only managed to win one of them solo. I don't know what it is with this game, but I'm just not seeming to get the gist of it. I finally was able to get the required 50 points for the third mission of the solo campaign set, but I immediately failed mission 4 on the third round due to not having the required point total for my hiking trails. It's a brutal game that is hiding behind some fun and brightly colored cards.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition NEW!
After enjoying Terraforming Mars so much, I was over the moon to find a copy of Ares Expedition for $10 that had the Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – Foundations expansion included as well. I quickly played a solo game of it and found that while it had the basic aspects of the main game, everything was distilled down into something much smaller and quicker. It was a nice addition to my collection and I'm so happy that I have the game to play anytime I want to now, even if it is just the card game version of TM.

World's Fair 1893 NEW!
Anthony got a copy of this game and when I picked it up on his behalf, I immediately knew that it wouldn't be my cup of tea. It was an area control game that had you submitting inventions to various locations in the 1983 World's Fair. There was a lot of history that was attempted to be baked into the game, but I just found it more distracting than anything and I didn't really enjoy the game. It felt that every time I attempted to plan, I had the rug pulled out from under me and I was not able to make any progress. I lost handily and I was not a big fan of the game overall.

Long Shot: The Dice Game (2 all-time)
This one is a bit of a mystery to me. I really enjoyed my first game of this, but this second game I played this month ended up with me losing awfully. It didn't help that I was the only one who had a bet on the #5 horse and it ended up being pushed back thrice by the other players to let their horses win. I think it would be fun to play this at a higher player count because there might be more of a give and take with the horses rather than ganging up on one person's horse to make sure they lost.

Dead Man's Draw (8 all-time)
Ironically, the only game that I won the day that I played the other two games was a pure luck-driven game. I love this game, but sometimes it can feel a bit frustrating to win the game only because I had the best draws. Still, it's fun being able to fire a cannon to destroy an opponent's top card and I'm never going to say "no" to a game of Dead Man's Draw.

Unpublished Prototype x3 (5 all-time)
I've been steadily working on my game and have playtested it a few times this month to see how it feels. I'm still not terribly happy with how it is going, but slow progress is better than no progress. There's tweaks that need to be made and I'm still working it all out in my head to see what best can be done with it all. I might spring for some cardboard backing for the game tiles to see if that helps with keeping things in place, but I don't want to do that until I finalize the rooms. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Yard Builder x2 NEW!
This was a nice little roll and write that I found here on BGA and I used it as a simple test for my paper sleeves and dry erase markers. It worked fantastically, and it also didn't hurt that the game is fairly fun to play as well. I'll definitely be pulling this one and a few more games in October for the solo play challenge to get the necessary 31 games to do the hardcore version of the game. It's also a great travel game so I might bring it and a few other roll and writes to play while I'm out and about this summer on vacations.

Paper Pinball: Sorcery School Sleuths (3 all-time)
Another PNP Roll and Write. I took time to play this one again and really enjoy the simplicity that it offers. It's one of over a dozen different tables that are available to play and I enjoyed the clever nature of using the dice to mark off various bumpers and score markers. It's quite fun to play and although this is the 1.0 version of the game, I colored it in with colored pencils, so I don't think I'll upgrade to the 2.0 version for that reason.

Mini Rogue: A 9-Card Print-and-Play Game NEW!
This one had been sitting in my PNP binder for about eight months and I had yet to play it. I finally pulled it out and was treated to a really clever dungeon crawler that was punishing in it's difficulty. This is the 9 card version of the game that was originally published before the fuller 2020 version (which is later on in the list). I played it on the easiest difficulty because I didn't know what the game had in store for me and I'm glad I did. I won, but there was lots of blood, poison, and horrible dice rolls that came between me and the dungeon end.

Reiner Knizia's Decathlon NEW!
Another PNP Roll and Write by the doctor himself. I'm a little bit less of a fan of this since it's designed with two players in mind and there are some rule clarifications that need to happen before I play again. It also requires 8 dice per person in order to play and while I'm a bit of a dice hoarder (because I am a DM for D&D), I don't have 8 D6 laying around and would have to dive into another game to get the required dice. I may have to pull out Sagrada for the dice...

Paper Pinball: Wolf Hackers (3 all-time)
The updated 2.0 rules system was played with this version and I'm not sure how I feel about it. The points from dice rolls are dropped in favor of filling in dots that you fill in based on the dice roll that filled in the square. I'm not really sure if I prefer this over the straight numbers as there's a higher total you get from the dice rolls versus the dots, but there are some additional mechanics included in the 2.0 version that I like better. It's an interesting tradeoff and I'll see how I feel about it after a few more plays of the game.

PARKS x3 (15 all-time)
Three plays of PARKS to finish off my 10x10 Challenge list for it. All three were done in a single day as I played it solo back to back to back. I think by game three I started to understand where I would lose points and I tried more and more to make each turn earn as much points as possible when trying to fight the scourge that is the Park Rangers. Overall scoring is lower in a solo game versus a multiplayer game and it still throws me off that 30 points is considered "Excellent" versus a multiplayer game where that might net you last place. Still, I'm glad to have that over with and move onto other games.

Life in Reterra NEW!
This was a new game that I picked up from Target this month with their "Buy 1 Get 50% Off" sale as I had it on my wishlist ever since it was announced here on BGG. A lighter game from Eric M. Lang seemed like a cool idea and I loved the thought of building a tetromino city from the ruins of civilization. The first play of the game yielded some very positive thoughts on it and I'm curious to try out some of the other setups that come included with the game before I build my own sets. It felt close to Kingdomino without copying it and I'm glad that I was able to add it to my collection. I look forward to teaching my daughter to play as she gets a bit older.

Oceans (2 all-time)
I played both the digital and physical version of the game and it's no surprise to anyone that I enjoyed the physical version significantly more. There was something so fun about playing the game at the table with Anthony and his kids and stealing fish from his son, who inevitably would complain that I stole more fish from him with my predators. It was a great game and I definitely would be up for another play of it with Anthony and his kiddos if offered again. While not my favorite game, the player interaction was fantastic and definitely made me enjoy it immensely.

UBOOT: The Board Game NEW!
As my first foray into the "simulation" genre of games, this was an absolute blast to play. I watched the initial "how to play" video before coming to the party that we had scheduled early one Saturday morning and I was floored with how much fun we had. It was app-enabled and while I'm wary of games that require an app to play, having it projected onto a screen so we all could see enemy ships blow up in real-time, was a really fun experience. Just the initial mission took about three hours to complete, so we put a pin in the game and will probably revisit it at a later time. It helped that each person only had one set of actions that they were responsible for as I cannot imagine trying to do this all as one person.

Sagrada x2 (3 all-time)
I borrowed Sagrada from a friend to try with Sarah and ended up playing it twice solo to start. I had played a two-player version last year on my birthday and wasn't as much into the game as he was. It was a dice chucker that had me place and move the dice on my own player board and while it was clever, I still was left feeling like I missed something. My two plays solo helped me understand the game a bit more, but I still feel like my scores overall were too low. I'm glad I'm borrowing this because I need to play it some more before I make a final decision on how I feel about it.

Mini Rogue x2 NEW!
Two attempts of the updated version on BGA left me realizing how difficult this game is. I tried twice to make it even to the third floor of the dungeon but failed to beat the boss on the second floor and lost to the boss on the first floor the second game. It's a brutally difficult game and yet I can't help but want to come back for more as I know that I could do better. I'll probably attempt it a few more times on BGA to see how I feel and this might be my go-to quick game for the next month or so.

Azul x3 (13 all-time)
As someone who thought that they knew how to play Azul well, I played a few games on BGA expecting to do fairly decently. I was wrong. The first two games saw me get absolutely obliterated in points and I realized that I had to readjust my strategy to be more clever. My third game, my strategy worked a bit better, but only just. It's astounding to me the level of depth that this game has and I'm definitely looking at it in a new light. I may have to pull it out at home to attempt it again with Sarah to see if we feel differently about it.

Gizmos (2 all-time)
Another game on BGA and I was excited when I found out that I could play in real-time with others. I knew that there was a bit more to this game than I originally saw and playing again, I realized that I have yet to develop a strategy for it. It feels like an updated and more complicated version of Splendor with the picking and engine-building mechanics, and I'm still figuring out the best way to start and maintain that engine. Still, I'm glad I get to play it more on BGA and it's one of the reasons I might get a premium membership to be able to play it with Anthony and his kiddos.

Fairy Trails NEW!
A really fun and simple Uwe Rosenberg game that I stumbled upon on BGA. While the premise is simple (complete paths of your color to fill in the houses that sit on the path), the execution is not as there are often twists and turns as well as additional paths that your opponent can add. Each player is attempting to get rid of 19 tokens on their houses, and that's not the easiest thing to do when your opponent adds an extra exit to a perfectly perfected path with one exit left. It's simple, but very fun to play.

Dungeon Kart NEW!
Take Mario Kart, add a dash of Boss Monster with the characters, allow players to design their own courses, and throw it on the table, and there you have Dungeon Kart. It's a wild formula that works extremely well with just the game that I played while playing all three characters in the race. It's easy enough to figure out how to play the game and with the ability to design your own courses (for better or for worse) there's a ton of creativity and replayability with this game. Add in the ability to play with up to 8 players (which might take a bit longer), and there's a ton of fun that's to be had with this box. I cannot wait to play it more with friends since I know it's going to be total chaos and fun.

Spynet NEW!
A Richard Garfield card game that is fairly clever in it's implementation. It's not terribly deep, but playing with two players and only getting two choices with your turn allows for a really interesting game of cat and mouse. While I haven't played with four players, that adds a twist of being able to share cards with your teammate and teams score together at the end of the game rather than each person scoring separately. It's a really interesting game and easy enough to teach that I expect it will be a big hit when I bring it to play with family. There's quite a bit of "take that" in the game, which I know my family loves, so I expect we'll be playing it a few times this next month when we all get together.

Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition (13 all-time)
We played a three player game of this on our Friday lunch game session at work and it always astounds me how different it feels from two to three players. With three players, you aren't guaranteed to cause a paradox, like you are with two players, and the betting system at the beginning really makes for an interesting mix when you're placing your tokens on the observation board. It balances clever design with science and I can't get enough of how good it feels.

Apiary (6 all-time)
For my final entry of the month, I played a game of this with a good friend. I taught him how to play the game and it ended up being around two and a half hours that we played this game. Apiary is a great game, but it is definitely one that can potentially go on longer if you allow it. The bumping mechanic is an interesting idea and it allows for a unique spin on the worker-placement genre. The more I play this game, the more I realize that the initial review I read was true: there's not really much balancing that went into the game and that's what makes it even more fun.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I played 101 different times in June over 48 separate games. My highest played game was The Crew: Mission Deep Sea at 9 plays with Cartographers (8) and Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure (5) not far behind. While H-Index isn't the most important thing to me, I do find it interesting to look at for statistics, and it sat at 4 for the month, versus a 6 for May, which saw the same amount of plays. It is extremely fascinating to me that I was able to play more games in June, yet I had a lower overall number of games that I played multiple times that same month as compared to the previous month.

I'm at 466 plays for the year so far and I've well overshot my estimation of 365 games played by the halfway mark. If I continue my trend of games played in the next few months, I think I'll probably be close to 700 games sometime in September and I'll have hit my goal of 730 plays for 2024 in that timeframe as well. It's staggering to me to think that I'm averaging about 2.5 games played per day right now and that's most likely to only increase in the next few months as I play more and more on BGA.

I'll likely be participating in the Solo-Tober challenge, looking to play 31 separate games solo during the month now that I have more of a collection of solo games to choose from. I'm also hoping to complete my 10x10 Challenge by the end of the summer, but with Dinosaur World getting in the way with four plays left, it's a beast I'll have to conquer and set time aside for. Still, I'm sure I can do it if I put my mind to it and if I remain focused and work hard, I believe I can do it.

I still don't have a premium membership on BGA, but it's something that I want to get when I have some spare cash for it. It's not a large amount that I would have to spend, but that would probably mean that I forgo an upgrade to a game or a new game for a month or two. It's not a big deal, but I do have trouble spending money when there's something that I'm hoping to purchase, especially when it comes to board games and not having a lot of disposable income right now. My brain is weird sometimes, but that's the reality that I have to live in.

Give your thoughts:What are your favorite games that you played in June? What are some of your favorite experiences when you played games this month? Are there any new standout games that you played that you'd like to share?

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*Originally posted on BoardGameGeek on 10/6/2024*