'New to Me' 1 year ago [February '17] - Did they stand the test of time? | Garrett: Games Addict (2024)

As we play most of our games 2 player, all of our games are 2 player friendly. However, many of those games are built just for 2 and as February is generally considered to be couples month, all of our selections (both old and new) were '2 player only games'. How many of those newbies managed to stand the test of time?

Axiom is a unique brain bending 3D abstract strategy game that the box says can last 2 mins to 2 hours. Takes some getting used to with the 3D element...a turntable or Lazy Susan would come in handy. Looks and feels like Monument Valley...in a way. Rules were simple and easy, but the associated picture examples contradict some of the stated rules so for more clarity I'd recommend going to the Axiom website or ignore the examples altogether. Our first game took about 3 mins and our second about 20. Experimented with a couple of different setups which can make the game more interesting, or variable, or difficult. As we didn't know what we were doing, we were just playing around. Has a nice level of thinkiness. Components are hella cool. Getting the pieces back in the box can be a puzzle in itself!
Plays Then: 3
Plays Since: 0

Could take it or leave it. I still own it, and have tried a couple of times to get it back to the table, but my gaming partner has been trying to actively avoid it, and we generally have so many games that we are both excited to get to the table that this one has fallen by the wayside. Have put it up for trade a few times but the problem with weird, obscure, abstract games is that they don't generally get loads of interest!

Babel is a highly aggressive, cutthroat Uwe Rosenberg set collection offering. Build up your temples, watch the other person tear them down or steal your work using the powers of their biblical tribes. Repeat until one person has 15 points and the other less than 10. If one person already has 10, then the first to 20 wins unless somebody drops below 10. Different and clever system of play which relies heavily on the right cards at the right time.
Plays Then: 3
Plays Since: 2

Traded it. We found our first play was enjoyable, but neither of us was completely sold on it, and thought it needed more plays to make up our minds. After a few more plays we found it had one or two nice ideas but thought it felt rather simplistic overall which leads to a kind of unfinished feeling. Half the card powers don't seem that interesting, it feels quite dependent on the cards that you draw or that you place out in the temple stack at the end of your turn, and even when we could use the destructive card powers to destroy a temple, or to make the other person discard half their hand of cards we tended not to exercise the option. We felt that it just prolonged the game into a needless back and forth and the game simply does not have enough elements to make it interesting enough to drag it out. Too simple, and too much 'take that'. Just not our preferred style of game.

Balloon Cup is a popular member of the Kosmos 2 player family, and is a race game where you compete to collect cubes of various colours that let you qualify for trophies by paying in the required number of cubes. The first to collect 3 trophies wins! Simple to learn and play, can be relaxing I guess, but just be prepared to be screwed by both the card draw (you are required to have ultra high or low value cards so the middling ones don't really do you any good) as well as the other player (instead of playing cards on their side they can play cards onto your side to mess up your qualification for the win).
Plays Then: 1
Plays Since: 12

Sold it. I was very excited to finally get this in trade. I have a nice collection of the Kosmos/Mayfair 2 player series and this is one of the most recommended couples games I've come across on BGG. It is often touted as 'wife friendly' and a nice evening or coffee shop game. I found it highly irritating, very luck dependent, somewhat mathy and frankly rather basic and pedestrian overall. The deck of cards is small so there is a lot of shuffling during the game which breaks it up and doesn't make it play as smoothly as it could. We tried the 'designer variant' where he says he intended the game to be one where you play all the cards on your own side first and only then do you qualify to play cards on your opponents' side. Impossible to believe, but that made it even more boring and luck dependent because then you had the lack of tension of whether your space would still be free to place a card, and you were forced to play sub-optimal cards on your own side. What's also weird is that for a race game it doesn't really feel like a race, but more a tug-of-war.

I also played this a few times on Yucata.de to see if maybe I was missing anything or if my experience would differ with different players. Nope, still found it annoying.

Carcassonne: The Castle is Reiner Knizia's spin on Carcassonne but built for only 2p. Has some different elements to regular Carcassonne such as building within a grid instead of organically, a scoretrack which has stops where you can earn bonus tiles that mix up the scoring conditions and add replayability eg. taking 2 turns in a row, scoring for uncompleted features (which do not score in this game unlike regular Carcassonne), double points for scoring a particular feature etc.
Plays Then: 16
Plays Since: 15

[Permanent Collection] Love it!. A fast playing fun game in the Carcassonne family! Does not feel like the base game at all which is great as we are not big fans of the original. I felt it was more interesting than regular Carc - having to balance wanting to get those bonus chips and scoring little and often, with wanting to create a large area of something and scoring larger but later in the game and maybe having no access to bonuses. I love the quirky art and the mystery of the hidden tiles plus the puzzle of trying to get to them to improve your scores. It took us a few games to warm up to it (and I think I still love it more than my gaming partner), but the combination of the funky art, the unique element of playing within a grid and the puzzle of getting to the bonus tiles as well as trying to build up the city inside the castle walls has a certain charm and just works harmoniously.

Carnac is a 3D abstract strategy game of using your megaliths which are standing stones, to form dolmens which in reality are megalithic tombs with a large flat stone laid on upright ones (but in the game a group of at least 3 adjacent squares of your player colour). The first player places a stone standing up, then the next player must tip it over in order to be able to place another stone also standing up, or forfeit their turn. Play continues until all stones have been placed or there are no more legal moves. The person with the most dolmens wins the game. There is one board included in the game but you can play on one of 3 different board sizes – small, medium and large – which give you different play experiences and changes your strategy slightly.
Plays Then: 3
Plays Since: 22

[Permanent Collection] Love it!. Found this game through an obscure abstract games geeklist and have not regretted it for a single moment. Although it is available to play on boardspace.net, the interface is a bit clunky for this type of game and to be honest there is nothing like playing in person with those nice chunky pieces! They have a really great feel to them, and everything is of very nice quality. The game is super fast, and very fun, and also ended up being my biggest surprise abstract game of 2017. While it wasn't my favourite of the month, it is a solid favourite now, and one of the stars of our abstract strategy collection.

Die Pyramiden des Jaguar is yet another rare game from the early Kosmos 2 player range, and this one is also rarely spoken about. In fact, it is so under demanded that even though it was published back in 2002, copies can still be had New in Shrink from Germany in the range of 3-10 euros. Playing feels like a cross between The Game, Qwixx and Lost Cities with an 'I choose, you assign' mechanism involved. On your turn you choose 2 cards from your hand and place them next to the board, your opponent will choose one of the cards, place it in their pyramid and then you take the remaining card and place it in your pyramid so that the values increase from left to right, and from level to level. Play goes back and forth like that, and depending on the consequences of your placement you may get to move your explorer token deeper into the jungle where you can encounter events such as removing a card from your own or your opponent's pyramid or removing a card from your opponent's hand etc. At the end of every round there is a 'jungle test' and if certain game end conditions are fulfilled the person with the explorer deepest in the jungle wins!
Plays Then: 7
Plays Since: 3

Could take it or leave it. The first few games were fun, and we had a good time placing our numbers out in the pyramids because we both like good puzzle games. The game has a nice level of tension (deciding what cards to select, the puzzle of where to place your card, the jungle test etc.) and the game in general has a nice pace and flow to it. Super easy to learn, fast and fun to play, and the jaguar stones are very cool! However, all of your strategy, tactics and clever card play can be negated by a card flip which decides if the game continues another round or ends immediately so the end game can be a bit anti-climactic. This last aspect (the unsatisfactory ending) has been grinding on us the more we play it, so we try different ways of ending the game for variety. It rarely comes out anymore as we have more games we like better in the categories of 'puzzle games', 'quick games', '2 player only games' etc. and I'll probably end up axing it. It was nice while it lasted though.

Galaxy Conquest is a space themed Print 'n Play game. You are trying to be the first to win 3 planets by placing your unit tokens on the planets, and utilising the abilities you earn during the game to turn the planets to your control. The first to gain control of 3 planets wins the game.
Plays Then: 1
Plays Since: 0

Could take it or leave it. The game is super simple to learn and play as it's only got one sheet of rules, and it was a little bit of fast fun in 10 mins. Unfortunately it's very simple. There is not a lot going on in the game and I think you've seen all there is to see after 1 or 2 plays. Nothing that I feel bad about playing – it's a pleasant enough pastime, but nothing to recommend going out and making either. Hasn't seen any more plays since, but I'll definitely be looking into tightening up my PnP collection later this year and will try to play it again then. With over 70 games made though it's got some stiff competition!

Onitama is an abstract that's like Chess...but with cards that determine movement options. I made my own set (pictured) using Ninja Versus Ninja figurines and the board, cards and rules are all housed in that box.
Plays Then: 2
Plays Since: 4

[Permanent Collection] Like it. I like the idea behind it, and it's a cool little abstract once you wrap your head around it, but it is very AP inducing having to analyse what moves you can make, versus what moves your opponent can make against you if you use a card. Had I not made my own set it's a game I'd probably trade. So I like it fine, but I could take it or leave it as well. We have other abstracts that we like a lot better that we play a lot more frequently. This just comes out on occasion for a break from those.

Ride the Rail is a Co-op Tile Placement Worker Placement Resource Management Train Race Game for 2. This is a game where it's you both against the rich and powerful Rail Baron and you are trying to help out the fine folks of Middleton by building a railroad line to the towns of Eastport and Westgate before he does. You will need to manage your resources of coal, steel and wood, hire workers, navigate difficult terrain and build trading posts. The Rail Baron is always doing underhanded things to stop you such as sabotaging your engines, organising train robberies and poisoning your contacts so they won't help you. The game ends when both players trains reach Eastport and Westgate, but can also end if you run out of tiles to draw (either for track or resources/obstacles). You must match or exceed your total resources (where your workers are placed) to the total resources of the Rail Baron (cards drawn during the game) to win.
Plays Then: 1
Plays Since: 0

Like it. We liked it, but (as with most of my PnPs) I don't intend to get rid of it so it wasn't pressing that I find a way to shoehorn it into my play schedule as I was mostly concerned with streamlining my commercial game collection. It should see more play later this year when I focus on all my Train Games, as well as try to streamline my PnP collection.

Trambahn is a multi-use card game that I tend to describe as 'Lost Cities with trains'. Play your multi-use cards as passengers, stations or money to make the most points from 10 scoring rounds, and plan to trigger extra scoring rounds for yourself only during the game.
Plays Then: 6
Plays Since: 5

[Permanent Collection] Love it!. I love multi-use card games, and in Trambahn the decisions are interesting and sometimes really tough – whether to hold back cards to start a new line, which ones to play as passengers or save to increase the value of your line, which ones to keep as money, which lines to invest in, how often to score etc. Luck of the draw can be frustrating – sometimes you can't get any cards in the colour your opponent is scoring, or you only get really high cards and then the decision becomes whether to turn them into money or play them knowing you can no longer expand that line, sometimes you only draw a hand of cards that will help your opponent when you play them as passengers so you just have to suck it up. You can catch up by saving money and buying the more expensive trams which have higher scoring multipliers but then you have to be aware of the timing and can't hold back too long otherwise it won't pay off if you can't score them enough. Very tense sometimes! Have recommended it to quite a few people who have all loved it and now recommend it to other people! I was torn between this and Carcassonne the Castle as my favourites of the month, but this one won out.

Until next time,
Games Addict signing out...