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Camel Up

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Camel Up is a betting racing game, where you are betting on camels racing around the board, controlled by dice rolls from a novel pyramid. The game can play with up to 8 players so was perfect for a trip to our friend's place for games night, where we played with 6 people. Designed by Steffen Bogen, published by eggertspiele with art by Dennis Lohausen and Chris Quilliams. Players: 2-8 Suggested Playtime: 20 - 30 minutes. BGG Rating: 7.1 Having played Camel Up several times before, and with just two first-time players, we were able to quickly run through the rules and get started. With 6 players and a dramatic final couple of rounds we were on the upper limit of the 30 minutes. The game is built up of several rounds where each camel will move once, after which anyone with bets on that round will evaluate to see if their camels are in first or second, and win/lose their respect coin bets. The game ends when the first camel crosses the finish line - once this happens a...
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Everdell

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Everdell is a strategy game for 1-4 players which sees players drafting cards and placing animal-shaped workers through a charming forest themed world beneath the towering tree. The game is designed by James A. Wilson and published by Starling Games , with beautiful artwork by Andrew Bosley and Dann May. Players: 1-4 Suggested Playtime: 40 to 80 minutes. BGG Rating: 8.0 Danny had played Everdell once before in solo play, but MB had not played it before and we hadn't played it together. We watched the following "How to Play" video on YouTube: How to Play Everdell | Roll For Crit Game play gives you three action choices: Place a Worker, Play a Card, and Prepare for Season, and there are lots of different ways to gain points that add towards your total tally at the end. There are a few 'mean' cards which give you tactical advantages at the expense of other players, but for the most part we kept it civil and stuck with the more gentile choices as t...
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Kanagawa

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Kanagawa is a simple but fun game where you are artists painting a panorama and building your skills and supplies. It was created by Brune Cathala and Charles Chevallier, published by iello, and the artist is Jade Mosch.  Players: 2-4 Suggested Playtime: 45 minutes.  BGG Rating: 7.1 This was the first time that either of us have played this game and we watched two gameplay videos on YouTube: "How to Play Kanagawa by IELLO" by Zia Comics "Kanagawa, how to play (In English)" by Games4lifeBG Our first game took about 45 minutes and our scores were: Danny (33) and MB (28). We came back for a second game which was much quicker at a little over 19 minutes and our scores were: MB (36) and Danny (28). The game has a few key strategies you can take and enough different ways to collect points that you can't be sure of who actually won until you count them all up. The actions are a little confusing at first but once you get the hang of it ...
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Takenoko

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Takenoko is a game about Japan, China, pandas, bamboo, gardening, and a whole lot of cute. In this game you compete against one another to meet objectives as you cultivate plots, irrigate them, move a panda around to eat bamboo, and move a gardener around to grow bamboo. The game is created by Antoine Bauza and published by Bombyx and Matago t. This was our third time playing Takenoko and we decided against playing with the Chibis expansion this time. We had previously combined the expansion cards into our deck so had a little bit of a confusion trying to take the cards out. The artwork in this game is really lovely - with a main colour palette of green, pink and yellow that corresponds to both the plot tiles and the wooden bamboo shoots. Our play time was 53 minutes which was a little long, a little on the long side due mostly to us taking our time as we haven't played this in a while. Our scores at the end of the game were Danny (45) and MB (39).  Danny: ...
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Sunday Games: Unfair, Unfair Expansion: Alien B-movie Dinosaur Western, & Century: Golem Edition

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Sunday Night feat. Pizza and Board games. Tonight, being our first 'official' game play in our challenge, we were able to cross three items off our list which are recapped below. Game: Unfair & Unfair Expansion: Alien B-movie Dinosaur Western Unfair is a game for 2-5 players where you build a theme park, published by Good Games Publishing , out of Sydney, Australia. This is our second time playing Unfair together and we incorporated two decks from the expansion set: Dinosaurs (Danny), and Western (MB). The Dinosaur deck introduced dice rolls which was new for us. We were pretty tired tonight and started a bit late which is not ideal for board games! One of the few downsides to this game is that set-up is a bit complicated and pack down is a bit long as you have to assemble and reassemble the decks. The flip-side of this is that every game can play out really differently which is cool. Danny: Overall thoughts: A fun game - but quite punishing. Next ti...
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