Ordered a Wooting 60HE a while ago and it finally got shipped to me. So far love the keyboard; especially setting the lekkar switches actuation point (you can customize how far you need to press the key to activate it). More thoughts to come as I get some gaming time with it.
Happy New Year everyone and welcome to 2023. One of our household traditions is to play Axis & Allies & Zombies .... and... I wanted to share my Axis victory image from last night. As my son would annotate his version of the picture "w for dad"!
This should teach him not to get greedy with the Soviets in future games. Moscow can fall quickly and is the most reasonable target for the Axis to win. In the picture you will see black (Germany/Axis) in Moscow where a hard fought battle was won after a northern blitz move.
It was looking pretty bleak for the Axis before this which is why my son tried to start pushing into eastern Europe with the Soviets. A move he certainly regretted when the tanks rolled into Moscow.
What a great way to start off 2023 (for me at least)!
Gone from the original is the perfectly square map and in it's place is a New York shaped map. This fits the theme but I feel like it gives up a bit of the "chess like" feeling of the original. There are nooks on the board that a player will get stuck on (or at least did in our first couple of games).
Also added to this version as a required feature are role cards that are played each turn that require/allow a player to take a unique action. The twist is that if the card says "must" the player "must" take the action or lose a worker. Simple to start but later in games this can be a real problem if, for example, you only have Subway Operators left and there is no free spaces to move to... goodbye worker (of which you only get two!).
The roles add some variety to the game and unlike the original where the cards were optional rules they are a core part of New York. This makes the game a little harder to teach to anyone that has never played Santorini but for our family who are Santorini veterans it took no time to pick up.
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| Grrrrr... Statue of Liberty!!!! |
In summary the game is fun, but would not be one I recommend someone get if they don't have the original. The original is superior; mostly for the "no god/role cards: version that is easy to teach/hard to master. With that said, if you own the original and enjoy it, then New York is worth getting as it kicks it up a notch.
In Planted players are raising house plants and working to keep them fed and watered so they grow up and score lots of points. Throw in some decorations (pots, shelves, hanging baskets, etc) for bonus points. The game is played over four rounds in which players select a card before passing the remaining cards left or right similar to Sushi Go.
Our family really enjoyed the game. It is light weight and plays quickly (~30 minutes in our experience). It is easy to learn but requires some skill in planning out what you want to focus on each turn.
Only persistent cards like tools carry over between rounds so each turn is mostly self contained. This can frustrating if the cards dealt that round don't support what you are working for with your plants, but there is a catch all mechanic where unspent resources at the end of the round can be turned into extra victory points through a mechanic known as propagation. This was very useful in the early rounds when I didn't have many plants and thus wound up with more resources than I could use and when victory scoring came it was the difference that put me over the top!
The artwork and components are top notch. We especially loved the water tokens. The plants featured are all real and we found a few of our own houseplants dwelling in the mix. "Hey is this the plant we gave grandma?" is the quote of the night; thats how good the artwork is of the plants.
Over all a big thumbs up for Planted. Anyone looking for a light weight family game this is it.
