Monday, February 3, 2025

My January Gaming

I didn’t learn too many games in January. However, I think I managed to hit a couple of interesting themes and ideas.

I learned:

52 Realms: Adventures
Trap Construction Corp 
For the Northwoods 
Downtown Las Palmas

52 Realms continues my exploration of Postmark Games. It’s a card-driven dungeon crawl. Dungeon crawls are not my favorite genre (My love of Dungeons and Dragons is apparently driven by collaborative story telling, not fighting monsters)  but the mechanics balance being light with being enjoyable. There’s a lot going on for a short time of playing.

I always try to learn a Roll and Write every month. Trap Construction Corp by Alexander Shen was January’s. And while it is very light and very abstract, I still got drawn in by it. Another example of how Shen makes games that look like anyone could design it are actually quite clever.

I actually have had the untrimmed laminated sheets for For the Northwoods at the ready for months. The game itself is quite interesting. I remember when a two-player trick taking game was extraordinary and now we have solitaire ones.

Downtown Las Palmas has me going back to the playtesting forum for Button Shy. I have found that I need to pace myself when it comes to playtesting. It feels like the easiest form of gaming for me to burn out. Downtown Las Palmas has been a good experience for me.

A lot of my gaming time in January was spent prepping Print and Play projects to make for the rest of the year. (And, yes, new projects will always show up) So I think February will see more game learning.

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