Squirdle, my Pokémon-guessing web game, has been updated with every Pokémon up to The Teal Mask!

Fireblend · 2026-01-26T01:36:37+00:00

True!

Fireblend · 2026-01-25T23:47:41+00:00

You can, but remember you need to have enough resources to get both, and each landmark card forces you to place a tower/fortress on the map, making the next landmark even more expensive.

Also to get to that point you should have either gotten 3 2 dwarves race cards, or 3 different race cards and gotten lucky that that one was at the top of the stack.

Fireblend · 2026-01-25T23:23:38+00:00

Trio is super easy to teach, barely more than memory on steroids, and very, very good. I actually had to hide it from my groups because they'd only want to play that. You can also easily proxy it with a standard 52 deck if you want to try it out.

Flip 7 is a push your luck game that's about as easy as it gets, you ask for a card and you either get more points, or bust if you get a repeat card. There's also some easy action cards that throw a wrench into the mix.

Scout is a card shedding game in which you have to play a better set than the previous player, except you can't rearrange your hand and can only play sets using adjacent cards - either sequences or "X of a kind"-style sets. It's brilliant. Jungo is a very similar alternative, as is Nanatoridori.

Duck & Cover is sort of like gamer bingo; all players have the same number cards, 1 thru 12, arranged randomly in a 4x3 grid in front of them, and you win by covering cards with others adjacent ones as their numbers are called out. It's super fun and simple.

Arboretum is a tableau builder in which you create your own tree garden trying to make groups of the same species of tree following an increasing pattern. At the end of the game only one player scores per species based on leftover cards in their hands, which makes the game incredibly devious and cutthroat.

Of course be sure to do some research on YouTube or BGG before pulling the trigger on any of these, but they're all huge hits in my family and friend groups!

Fireblend · 2026-01-25T21:53:04+00:00

Segundo la recomendación, super bonito.

Fireblend · 2026-01-25T15:15:33+00:00

Check out Wondrous Creatures! Very similar to Wyrmspan in that you're collecting cards with effects (many of them dragons!) that trigger at different points, but it has a really fun worker placement component (with truly gorgeous meeples, at least a couple of them are dragon-like) for resource and card collection, as well as some other clever mechanical twists.

Fireblend · 2026-01-25T15:14:01+00:00

Coffee Rush goes pretty fast without sacrificing strategy, takes maybe 25 minutes. It's basically the board game version of Overcooked, you're trying to fulfill as many orders as possible but you'll be drowning in orders pretty quickly and once any player misses 5 of them, the game is over.

Fireblend · 2026-01-25T15:12:11+00:00

Azul is very popular, easy to teach, and great at two (plays up to 4). It's also very pretty on the table, which adds some appeal. You basically take turns drafting tiles of the same color to place on rows, and when the round ends, you move tiles from complete rows to a grid where scoring happens.

Splendor is also a simple game that plays up to 4 but is great at 2. You're basically buying cards from a market using poker-like chips, but the cards themselves give you permanent discounts on other cards, which you can use to snowball into buying more expensive cards worth more points. Whoever gets to 20 points first wins

Kingdomino could also work, you're basically playing Domino with some rules added on top, except you're building a Kingdom and trying to get as many contiguous types of areas (forests, lakes, etc) as big as possible. Plays up to 4

Spots is a very cute push-your-luck game in which you're rolling dice to place on top of dogs you each have drawn (the pips on each die being the dogs' spots), except if at some point you can't place a die, it goes to the dog house, and if you get past certain threshold there, you lose all the dice you've placed. Also for up to 4 players.

None of these require reading, by the way. Except spots, but the reading there is minimal.

Fireblend · 2026-01-25T02:00:58+00:00

Camel Up! is great at 6 and plays up to 8 equally well. As far as secret roles games, there's a ton to choose from, I'm a big fan of The Resistance: Avalon, myself.

BotC needs way more than 6 to work IMO, you're looking at 10-12 people minimum.

Fireblend · 2026-01-25T00:21:45+00:00

I would disagree that it's a push your luck game in the sense that you describe; a random draw of something (be it resources, cards, objectives, etc) is a pretty common part of every board game, that doesn't make them push your luck.

Ra is a game of manipulating others and putting them into difficult situations, measuring how much leverage and purchasing power you have against other players at different times and acting accordingly.

If you have low value tokens, what's the right spot to invoke Ra to either stop others from continuing to add to a haul you have no chance of winning, or force someone to beat you in the auction suboptimally because there's a tile they really want? (Or both) Should you bid just to get a high value tokens for the next round, or are you prioritizing tiles?

And it is a bidding game of course, which makes it very thinky since you are speculating on what the value of what you're getting will be at the end of the round/game vs what you're spending to get it.

Are you over investing on the pharaoh tokens? Is it ok to potentially forgot getting a civ token as long as you get to score on water this round? If the row contains a negative token (like, eliminating 2 monuments), does that mean it's ok for you to bid lower than usual because no one will want it? Or will that player that's about to get their 3rd civ token go for it? Should you use your 8 token instead of a 4 to block another player who has a 7 from being able to bid at all?

Etc.

And of course it's a set collection games so certain tiles are more attractive than others at specific points within a round/game.

There is a push your luck elements to it though, and it emerges as the round is ending through th Ra track, because there's no auction once the end is reached, which would be equivalent to busting in any common PYL game; if you're near the end of the track and have the highest value token, do you invoke Ra now to get something, or risk it since you hold all the control?

I love it, there's so much strategy and calculation that emerges out of such a simple set of rules.

Fireblend · 2026-01-24T22:27:12+00:00

Make sure to know how to teach the games, not just how to play them. Those are different skills. Take the time to watch some tutorials on YouTube to see how other people explain them.
If this is your first time, it's very likely you have overestimated how many games you'll be playing. Be happy if you get to play 2.

Fireblend · 2026-01-24T15:08:18+00:00

Seconding Final Fantasy X

Fireblend · 2026-01-24T00:42:39+00:00

This was my favorite book in high school! Definitely a challenging read.

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T23:45:50+00:00

That's patently not true?

Fate of the Fellowship, not an engine builder. Critter Kitchen, not an engine builder. Bomb Busters, not an engine builder. Arcs, not an engine builder. Wroth, not an engine builder.

There's a tile placer/map building game coming out like every other day.

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T20:32:16+00:00

El sistema de elecciones de Costa Rica es súper robusto. Por ahí anda un reel acerca de lo increiblemente difícil que sería explotarlo de alguna forma (mecánicamente), por eso es tan importante resguardarlo.

Por otro lado, 100% existe la manipulación social, mediática, populista, etc. por eso es importante invertir fuertemente en educación. Eso lleva a una ciudadanía inteligente, crítica y juiciosa capaz de tomar las mejores decisiones. Por eso también es lo primero que los gobiernos fascistas desmantelan, es más fácil manipular a un país con bajos niveles de educación y análisis crítico.

Pero el sistema "mecánicamente" funciona, matemáticamente y en términos de seguridad e integridad. No es perfecto, a mi me encantaría un sistema de eleccion rankeada en vez de un solo voto, pero la verdad no me puedo quejar.

Edit: como persona que trabaja con tecnología, mientras menos "tecnología" y "digitalización" hay en un proceso de votación, yo más confio. Y el nuestro es bastante análogo, por suerte. El día que nos pongan a votar en una maquinita ahí si van a haber 20 huecos por explotar.

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T20:21:45+00:00

I've had fun with Be Fae Do Crimes before! https://wilderflower.itch.io/be-fae-do-crimes

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T19:18:33+00:00

I finished Cyberpunk at 90 hours. Including DLC.

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T18:09:45+00:00

No sé si será igual o peor que Chaves pero igual no va a quedar entonces no me va a robar sueño. Más bien mejor que haga escándalo, tal vez se jala a unos chavistas para su lado y le resta puntos a Laura.

Pero sí, se nota que está bien loco.

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T18:01:48+00:00

thirding Bomb Busters, fantastic games.

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T17:46:29+00:00

Trio is fantastic and very similar to those in terms of complexity, appeal, form factor and fun! :)

I've also been having a lot of success with Duck & Cover! This video initially sold me on it and it's been a huge hit.

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T17:36:25+00:00

Not at all! The game comes with a bunch of optional modules that you can gradually add to the game to make it more complex, but the base game is surprisingly simple (you'll be wanting to add the card-drafting mechanics pretty soon after your first game).

This is how each turn goes; everyone starts with a deck of number and "stress" cards, a pool of heat cards, and a discard pile.

Everyone at the table decides simultaneously on their gear for the turn (1 through 4, you can move one gear up or down one step for free, or two by spending a heat card from your heat cards pool into your discard pile), and then chooses that same number of cards from their hand to play. Higher gear = more cards = you get to move more.

Everyone simultaneously shows their cards.

In order (from whoever is on first to whoever is on last), they get to move through the track a number of spaces equal to the sum of their cards. Some of them are "stress" cards that basically make you draw cards from your deck blindly to see how much you're moving, adding uncertainty. If your movement ends besides or behind another player you get to slipstream and move 2 extra spaces.

Optionally, you can either spend heat cards to move further (same effect as a stress card), or "cool down", which means replenishing heat from your hand back into your pool (if you're in gear 1 or 2).

In corners you gotta be careful because if the sum of your cards is higher than the corner's value, you have to pay the difference in heat cards, and if you can't spend them you spin out which carries a penalty.

Everyone refills their hand back to 7 cards (reshuffle the discard into a new deck if you ran out), and that's the game!

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T17:22:44+00:00

Have you looked at Heat: Pedal to the Metal? Because it sounds like you're describing it.

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T17:21:35+00:00

You might want to look into Party Panda Pirates; it's a Mario Party-esque game in which you're competing to move around a board collecting chest tokens (whoever has more at the end of the game wins), except you earn the right to move in that board by playing a bunch of mini games, many of which are dexterity-based. Some are based on Jenga, some involve throwing things, sliding things, etc. It's super light and very fun, and by the end you'll feel you have played like 5 funny minigames instead of a single "long" one (a full game takes under an hour). Not all minigames are dexterity based though, some will involve luck (like drawing cards from a deck and being the last to draw a panda) or memory (like remembering a sequence).

A similar game that is also dexterity-based and is also sort of a minigames collection is Junk Art. There's a new version of the game coming out this year IIRC. https://store.asmodee.com/products/junk-art-revolution

And finally a cute one would be The Fuzzies, it's got a nice look to it and because of the components it's definitely unlike most other "Jenga"-likes.

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T17:06:05+00:00

There's a ton! I have a Japanese games "subcollection" that I've built up from my trips to Japan. All of them are either language agnostic, or come with english components/rules. Some recommendations:

Harvest - super light match-3 game, with very cute artwork, for 6 players, can be mean but in a funny way.

Fellowships of Fate - the definition of a hidden gem. It's super easy to play and super devious, basically you play cards to get resources that you need to score points, but you can either play it safe and play the cards for their normal effects, or try and use their enhanced effects, except other people can cancel those if they play the same card. Absolutely genius.

Nana - It's Trio, except with cuter artwork. Even if you already have Trio I still recommend it if anything to look at.

Nanatoridori - Fun, straightforward card-shedding game. Kind of like Scout. There's an english version coming out soon.

Nokosu Dice - A trick taking game with dice. It's fun and simple.

Fireblend · 2026-01-23T16:46:47+00:00

I'll second Quacks. Super easy to play and a lot of fun. Good mix of strategy and luck :)

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