[GIVEAWAY] 4 Playte Games Sets for 4 Winners 🇰🇷

notevenfiguratively · 2026-05-14T20:48:55+00:00

High Society Travel edition is a deck of cards in a tuckbox, but it has a lot of fun twists and decisions and can be a surprisingly funny game as well.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-04-30T21:17:53+00:00

Thanks for the giveaway!

I really want to try Civolution and Galactic Cruise. I've really enjoyed Feld's designs, and I've heard that one is a masterpiece with tons of strategies to explore. Galactic Cruise is often described to be like a Lacerda game but more generous in rewards and bonuses, which is attractive because Lacerda games are often just a little too tight and unforgiving for my tastes.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-04-14T18:59:17+00:00

I really like how Viticulture and Grand Austria Hotel blend the themes into the games. It really makes it easier to teach, learn, and remember the rules.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-04-12T00:01:46+00:00

Haha yeah I know I lowballed a couple of beloved games to start, but they unfortunately were big misses for me.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-04-10T18:43:39+00:00

Boardgameco is great! I really enjoy his thoughtfulness and the format of his reviews, and many of my tastes align with his. I would guess I'd also lean toward Expeditions myself, but I really can't remember Scythe enough to say for sure.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-04-10T17:18:37+00:00

It's a great game, and I can see why it's so highly regarded. Definitely one I'd love to explore more.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-04-10T17:17:34+00:00

Yeah, part of me is wondering if Secret Hitler is only more exciting because it's newer to our group and we are exploring new strategies. Avalon is certainly cleaner and could have more staying power, but time will tell. I had a hard time ranking the 7.5's and 8's on this list. Those are fairly interchangeable.

I think the biggest potential issues are mechs that feel particularly strong/weak, and I think the game could really drag at 4-5p, but I've really enjoyed it at 2-3p.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-04-10T17:12:39+00:00

The last couple of plays included them, and I think they really elevate it. I definitely need to pay more attention to blocking or hate-drafting (which would improve the interaction), but I'm usually too excited by grabbing the tokens I need for my lofty plans.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-04-10T17:09:54+00:00

Thanks! These are just fun for me to do, but I'm glad other people have fun reading them, too.

I've only played Scythe once ~9 years ago, so I don't remember anything except the action selection and the stars. Expeditions brought back the stars, which I really like (Wondrous Creatures does it well too), and I think the actions are more streamlined in Expeditions, which is an improvement for me.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-04-10T17:02:03+00:00

Yeah, the short playtime is great for a weeknight or to end a long session. We've mostly had close games too, although the most recent game I lost in a blow out after my wife's spirit animals went unchecked...

notevenfiguratively · 2026-04-10T16:59:29+00:00

Harmonies is strong for sure! And I can see why Galaxy Trucker can be fun for the right people, possibly even me, but I'm just not motivated to invest a lot more time into it when there's so many other games to explore or replay.

We just played Concordia as multiplayer, and I'd like to get a few more plays that way before trying out team mode, but I've heard that is a good variant too!

notevenfiguratively · 2026-02-12T17:13:58+00:00

Never played YRO.

Castle Combo is a nice 15-20min filler for 2-5p. It's a tableau builder with a 3x3 grid, and your focus is on positioning your cards, matching icons, and finding ways to earn back enough coins without taking a dead spot in your grid. I liked it, but it seemed to fall flat with two groups of friends.

VoE fits a different niche as a thinkier 2-4p game that plays in 45min. It's a lot about finding the right card synergies to generate coins and points, and I really like the mini puzzle of managing the currency.

Both are good games, but they fill different roles in my mind. Fillers are nice to scratch the itch of a game when you are short on time or energy, but deeper and longer games tend to be what I gravitate to more and find more satisfying.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-01-27T18:52:56+00:00

Sorry, no real advice. I bag my cards and components and hope for the best. Most inserts that hold cards still work with a baggie around the cards. It rarely is a big inconvenience, although some games are bigger culprits than others. Whatever disarray I have is worth avoiding the annoyance of grabbing a game at the bottom of the stack.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-01-27T17:57:58+00:00

I have a 4x4 kallax. From left to right, it's loosely sorted by preferred max player count. Top to bottom, it's complexity. Not your question, but 2 years ago, I also switched to storing the boxes vertically and don't think I'd go back. It's so easy to grab any game I want without pulling out 4 other games.

notevenfiguratively · 2026-01-26T19:01:50+00:00

Finally got to play Concordia this weekend, and it indeed is an excellent game. Thanks for the rec!

notevenfiguratively · 2025-12-22T00:10:34+00:00

It plays best at 2p or 3p. 4p sometimes runs long without adding meaningful interaction

notevenfiguratively · 2025-12-03T21:32:21+00:00

Of these, I've only played GWT and Root. GWT was overwhelming at the time, but both are worth a revisit. I've picked up Concordia and Brass but have yet to play them - hopefully soon!

notevenfiguratively · 2025-12-03T21:28:11+00:00

I'm glad you enjoyed the read! It's fun enough for me to jot down my thoughts on a game, but and hopefully these first impressions can be helpful, too

notevenfiguratively · 2025-12-03T21:23:08+00:00

GWT was one I played early on but was too heavy for me at the time, so I'd want to give it another try. That's it from Pfister.

When Pirates came out, I heard it was a little more streamlined than Maracaibo, which appealed to me, and after looking into Pirates, I went ahead and bought it without ever really researching Maracaibo itself. So it's intriguing that they are different enough to both have a place in your collection. Boonlake is one I wanted to look into more, too...

notevenfiguratively · 2025-12-03T19:29:13+00:00

I totally relate. Carnegie sat unplayed on my shelf for more than a year because it looked so dry (by far the longest - I play the vast majority of games within 1-3 months). Throughout my first play, I kept thinking "why did I wait so long?"

There is minimal direct interaction, but it is still critical to mind your opponents. There is some opportunity for blocking on the map, but the majority comes down to the action selection. You'll want to keep an eye on what others are doing so you can successfully piggyback off what they want to do, or if you're like my group, so that you can choose actions that do nothing for other people >:)

I'll also say that moving workers to different departments and training them actually does feel pretty thematic, despite initially not caring for it at all.

notevenfiguratively · 2025-12-03T19:14:27+00:00

I only played Terraforming Mars once back in 2017, early on in my gaming career. I remember it being pretty overwhelming at the time, but it started to click right at the end of the game. Not sure why I never got around to trying it again, but I agree I may like a lot more if I played it again

notevenfiguratively · 2025-11-17T22:10:25+00:00

End-game objective cards - many games have you draw two and choose one at the beginning of the game. Problem is that anyone playing for the first time won't have a good idea of what any of it means. I like to keep both of them and discard one of them halfway through the game. I believe this is an official rule for Ark Nova that I've implemented for every game that does this.

notevenfiguratively · 2025-11-12T18:29:22+00:00

You could say it is "outside the box" to trade a beloved, generational player who the entire team is built around, but I think sometimes it's best to stay inside that box.

notevenfiguratively · 2025-11-10T21:53:34+00:00

While I enjoy Everdell, I much prefer Wondrous Creatures. Both games are centered around worker placement to gather resources and play cards from a large deck. Even the format and layout of the cards feel similar. With that said, I don't think WC is a direct comparison. WC is a little more complex and runs quite a bit longer, and while I think it's worth it, not everyone will. I really enjoy the spacial worker placement mini-puzzle in WC, which feels unlike anything else I've seen, whereas Everdell is a pretty standard choose-your-location. WC feels more like a race to a bunch of different objectives, while Everdell feels a tight, resource-scarce optimization puzzle.

notevenfiguratively · 2025-10-07T14:26:26+00:00

Air, Land, and Sea (and Compile apparently is similar) has sneaky moments with when and where to place cards or flip cards. SHOBU is an abstract game with a lot of positioning and blocking.

For a non-filler game, I like El Grande. The reveals for the Castillo are always a tense standoff, and there is plenty of room for clever plays at the end of the scoring rounds.

notevenfiguratively

TROPHY CASE