May 2025 review

As usual, here are a few words on each game I played this month. Everyone's schedule has been hectic, but we managed to play some classics.

Tales of Red Dragon Inn 🔗

We played a few scenarios in Chapter 3. It's a fun game, but also simple enough that we can go months without touching it and ease straight back in when we feel to. That's what we usually do. I appreciate how each scenario has a simple mechanic that if you don't pay attention to, like for example, you just bum rush the monsters, you're going to lose. All hail to Zot, the all mighty powerful wizard!

Marvel Champions 🔗

I've played several games of Marvel Champions with my friend over the years. This game never fails to deliver. We introduced the game to one of our regular gaming partners. He is not into superheroes, and it had kept him away from the game until then. Good news, he liked the game! He found the puzzle aspect of MC interesting to solve, he appreciated how he had always something to do on his turn and how different each of our decks were playing.

Quacks and co: Quedlinburg Dash 🔗

I played a few games of this family-friendly game with my 5-year-old nephew. It's a bag building racing game with cute farm animals. The advanced version adds a special effect to each vegetable you draw, the game comes with nice, big chunky reminder tiles. I highly recommend this game.

Courtisans 🔗

There was a lot of hype surrounding this game, I can understand why after playing two games. It's well-designed, has gorgeous art and plays fast. This type of game doesn't play to my strengths, but it doesn't matter in a short game.

Master Word 🔗

It's another variant on the word-guessing theme. While I don't dislike the game, I'm not a fan of this particular genre. It falls in the category of "I'll agree to play a few rounds, but don't expect me to play all night". It could be a great hit in some family, not doubt about it.

Trailblazers 🔗

That's a nice little game. My friend has it in a pocket-size box, which is very thematic. Building the different paths would be basic, but I think the game becomes interesting when you are trying to complete the different objectives.

The Crew 🔗

It's a classic in our group. Whenever we have time left in a gaming session, we can easily get the game to the table, play a few rounds and have a big smile with how fun it is.

Defenders of the Wild 🔗

Sometimes I try a game, and I'm simply indifferent to it. Does this happen to you too? Defenders isn't a bad game, it also didn't move me. No complaint about the production, maybe on the harder side of coop games, mainly because of the randomness of many elements. I wouldn't mind playing it again, but I would not go out of my way either. As the youngling would say: it's pretty mid.

Freedom Five 🔗

We introduced a new player to this game, another resounding success. Well, on making this person like the game, not in the scenario. We played the 3rd scenario, we felt the difficulty significantly ramped up. We were caught in a self-sustaining loop of Mastermind track increases and lost. We'll have to try it again, especially now that we know we neglected removing the Mastermind tokens, while it seems key to this scenario.

Star Wars Outer Rim 🔗

While I like this game, especially with the expansion if only for the added cards in each deck, I wish there was a way to speed it up a bit. It can be fairly long for what it is, and it's not particularly exciting in the first arc. This critic is especially visible with players that less into board games than you and I. Anyway, I still had fun, have a cool story to tell about how Cad Bane looked lost for the majority of the game, until he won. Veterans of this game, if you haven't played Cad Bane yet, I highly recommend it, his limitation on fame game is a nice brain twister.

This wraps up the month of May. There probably won't be a similar post for June, I will rather do a recap of all the Summer months later. My gaming groups pause regular meetups during the limited weeks of nice warm weather in our area.