Architects of the West Kingdom

Bought #Patchwork for my mother for her birthday, taught it to her and promptly lost. She likes certain games and really doesn't like others so it's always nerve wracking bringing something to the table. Apart from only playing at 2 I still think it is one of the very best gateway games in existence.

Got in a four player game of #Mariposas. I was very concerned this game would be too light but we ordered it to support Elizabeth Hargrave. I was pleasantly surprised, action selection isn't a mechanism I particularly love, I feel like the only person on earth who thinks #Concordia is just an ok game, but this game surprised me. It is far from a heavy game but it does have a really cool decision space between trying to achieve goals, trying to collect sets for special abilities and trying to set yourself up to be able to make it back to the bottom of the board at the end of the game. It doesn't share much with #Wingspan but I do think it exists in a similar space of a game and theme that is appealing to non gamers and accessible but with interesting enough decisions for a heavier gamer. I was really pleasantly surprised by this one.

Played a two player game of #Everdell which is my wife's favorite, I like tableau builders but the mechanic in this game of going from feeling like you just don't have enough workers/actions to do anything to having a full city and resources and event cards etc is as good as any game, the snowball in this one when cards start comboing each other is great. Still looking for a house rule that better deals with the deck bloat and number of repeat cards but supposedly that will be addressed in the next expansion. It isn't my favorite game but one I always enjoy.

Played another two player game of #Pendulum on the advanced sides of the board. I really appreciate how unique this game is and what a puzzle it can be but, in my opinion, a change of pace from the typical decision making process I go through in a game. I really like this one as something different, still feeling out overall opinion on it. My big suprise has been that instead of the assymetric players giving some type of powerful advantage I find they all do a great job of disadvantaging different engine building methods and make you really puzzle around them. I really enjoyed that but do wonder if with more plays there will become a more prescribed way to play with each one and force a lot more intentional blocking amongst players as part of game strategy. 

Got in a first play of #Alma Mater which my wife was adament we get, she's a writer and wanted the book pieces even if the game didn't live up to its promise. I was concerned this would be a game that just wasn't particularly good at 2. While I still think it will shine at 3 the "dummy" player and deck were about as easy as it could get and made it an enjoyable game. The game worked much harder to be thematic than I expected and I really enjoyed every aspect of it but the research track, though i think that was my fault for not realizing that was something I'd want to mitigate with student pieces (they provide different engine building bonuses in the income phase of the game). The game has a variable market and real scarcity for both money and certain books and having a track that you need to move up to increase the value of your type of book but also being a MAJOR part of end game scoring that uses escalating amounts of already tight resources that allow you to perform the other actions in the game felt like an obstacle for the sake of an obstacle. I do think if you know this going in you can make decisions in the early game that make it less of an issue. 

We were able to see family and so played multiple games of #Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale and