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November 2024
Welcome board game fans! This month we take a look at planning your holiday board game events. We update you on the latest additions to the library as well as bring you reviews of Windmill Valley and Root. Lastly, shop customers can get 10% off stocking filler games with an exclusive discount code for newsletter readers.
Happy board gaming!
Making a list, checking it twice:
Our guide to planning your holiday board game events
With the holiday season fast approaching, it’s the perfect time to plan some board game events to bring friends and family together. Here’s our “nice list” of ideas and tips to help you plan your festive gaming this season.
Fast and Fun Family Game Night
For a lighthearted evening everyone can enjoy, set up quick, easy-to-learn party games like Codenames, Sushi Go!, Dobble, or Just One. These games keep the energy up and laughs rolling, without long setup times or complicated rules.
Strategy Game-a-thon: Battle of the Brains
For those who love a challenge, plan a strategy game marathon! Pick three games like Scythe, Terraforming Mars, or Wingspan and crown the top strategist at the end of the day. The overall winner can be given a small prize (in addition to bragging rights).
Holiday-Themed Games
Set up a cozy atmosphere, put on holiday music, serve festive snacks and warm drinks and bring out themed games like Santa’s Workshop, Articulate Christmas, or Santa vs. Krampus.
Advent Calendar Escape Room Games
Gather family and friends together for a daily huddle around the popular EXIT: Advent Calendar series, where you’ll tackle a new puzzle each day, as you work together to solve a Christmas mystery. It’s a unique way to create a shared holiday experience. (The latest instalment in the series, EXIT: Advent Calendar - The Missing Hollywood Star is available from our shop.)
Big Group, Big Laughs
For larger groups, social deduction games like One Night Ultimate Werewolf or The Resistance keep everyone involved, with plenty of tension and laughter as players try to identify traitors among them. The more, the merrier!
Some additional tips for your event:
a. Know your crowd: Arrange a mix of games and plan ahead to cater to different interests.
b. Set the mood: Have cozy seating, drinks and snacks to hand (go for “clean-finger” foods)
c. Limit downtime: Encourage quick turns to keep things moving.
d. Careful with player elimination: Choose games where everyone stays involved, or where eliminated players don’t have to wait long.
Holiday game nights are about bringing people together for laughs and friendly competition. Whatever games you play, enjoy the time with friends and family—it’s the season to celebrate!
New Arrivals
Here’s a quick overview of the latest arrivals to the My Board Game Library rental collection:
Windmill Valley
Windmill Valley is a beautiful looking game with quick turns, a clever action-selection mechanism, and multiple paths to victory. As aspiring tulip farmers you’ll be bulding windmills, shopping for new tulip bulbs to plant and trying to get an edge on your competition by hiring helpers and fulfilling contracts. See our full review of later on in this month’s newsletter.
Root
Root is a game where 2-4 players battle for control of a forest. Players choose which of the four unique woodland factions to play - each faction will have its own rules, play style, special powers and victory conditions. The varying abilities and goals makes for a surprising and complext strategy game that belies the innocent looking theme of the artwork. See our full review of later on in this month’s newsletter.
Monster Inn
Finding the right team isn’t easy—especially at the Monster Inn! As dungeon bosses, players bid to recruit the strongest monsters to defend their dungeon while trying to avoid ending up with the puny humans! Each round you’ll be revealing creature cards (which may be Human or Monster) with players bidding gold coins or gems to win the revealed cards. However, the Humans must always be auctioned off first! Can you outsmart your rival dungeon bosses and fill your dungeon with the fiercest monsters to fend off pesky intruders?
T.I.M.E Stories
(base game : Asylum scenario)
T.I.M.E Stories is a co-operative narrative adventure game where players travel to different times and realities to prevent threats to humanity. Players take on "hosts” (characters in the story) and carry out a “run” back in time to explore different worlds, solve puzzles, and complete missions from the perspective of that host. Each run has a fixed numberof Temporal Units (TU) that represent the time players have to complete that run. If TU runs out, players are returned to base, armed with knowledge from their experience that will make the next run more effective. The challenge is to complete the mission in the fewest runs possible, exploring new cards, uncovering clues, and overcoming obstacles along the way. Each game is an engaging, story-driven experience. The game includes a save feature, so players can pause their progress and pick up where they left off at their next gaming session.
PS. @ Library members: You can add these games to your rental playlist now and we will ship them to you on the next rental slot where they are available.
Review:
Root
Cole Wehrle
2-4 Players
90 minutes
Root is something truly unique—a game that combines adorable animal characters with some very intense strategy and competition!
At first glance, Root’s world of woodland critters seems charming and friendly, but don't be fooled! Underneath its cute art lies a highly strategic and competitive battle for control of the forest invovling assymetric player abilities and individual win conditions.
In the base game, there are four unique factions, each with its own capabilities, goals, path to victory and play style:
Marquis de Cat – The ruling power, they maintain a tight grip on the forest, managing resources and building infrastructure.
Aerie Dynasty – A proud bird faction aiming to reclaim their ancestral homeland.
Woodland Alliance – The rebels, sparking uprisings wherever they go.
The Vagabond – A solo adventurer who interacts with everyone and who can choose to aid or sabotage any faction.
Each faction plays differently, so it will take some time to become familiar with how the factions work. Expect the first few games to be mainly about learning the factions and figuring out how to stop others from getting too far ahead. Once your group has the hang of it though you’ll soon be delving deeper into faction-specific strategies.
The genius of Root is that it caters for vastly different play style and strategies, from constructing buildings to crafting items to launching surprise attacks, from forging alliances to inciting rebellion and even going it alone as the Vagabond playing all sides of the conflict for his own gain, while trying to complete a mysterious quest.
The complex stratefy and fairly steep learning curve might deter some players but the game can be rewarding with the rigth group. Playing Root is all about balancing friendships and rivalries (with a touch of cutthroat competition!). If your group enjoys games with surprise-factor, evolving strategies, and unpredictable outcomes then Root will be a welcome addition to your collection.
(Root is available to rent from My Board Game Library or buy from our shop)
Review:
Windmill Valley
Dani Garcia
1-4 Players
90 minutes
The Netherlands of the 19th Century was dotted with thousands windmills these were primarily used to pump water out of the flood plains to allow crops to grow in the low-lying fields. In Windmill Valley you'll be constructing and operating windmills to grow and harvest the colourful tulips that grow in the valley.
The game features a unique player action board comprising two interlocking wheels that serve up the two available actions each player gets to choose from on his or her turn. During the game players get to upgrade one or more segments on their action wheels to gain access to more powerful actions.
In addition to upgrades, players will be trading for tulips at the central market, hiring helpers, venturing out into the valley to build windmills, and carefully managing the flood water level which governs the number of spaces your action wheel must turn.
As you plant and grow tulips you'll be paying careful attention to creating neat rows of matching colours, taking care also to not repeat the same colour in each column.
The different elements of Windmill Valley come together in a tight and satisfying strategy game which as each player seeks the best route to the highest score. The game also scores highly on player interaction in that your opponents actions will inadvertently and inevitably cause ripples that change the options available to you on your turn so players will have to adapting their carefully laid plans as the game progresses.
Windmill Valley is terrific fun and a really well-thought out game. The art is vivid and colourful, the component quality is excellent and the gameplay and strategy are tight. The rulebook is also clear, making the game easy to learn. The only negative we can think of is the amount of real estate the game requires (between the large main board, and the space needed for each player’s player boards and action wheels this is definitely not one to pull out if you're at a small table. Even so Windmill Valley is highly recommended!
(Windmill Valley is available to rent from My Board Game Library or buy from our shop)
Special offer for newsletter readers:
10% off Stocking “Filler” Games
A "filler game" is a quick, easy-to-learn board or card game that usually takes 15-30 minutes to play. Fillers got their name because they are often played to pass the time between longer, more complex games, or when players are waiting for everyone to arrive or get ready.
Filler games have simple rules, minimal setup, and are designed to be lighthearted and fun, making them perfect for warming up a game night or filling in short breaks.
…they also make perfect stocking fillers!
Examples of popular filler games include Dobble, Love Letter, Sushi Go!, and Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.
Newsletter readers can use their voucher code to apply a 10% discount on any purchase of one or more small games from our shop.
Exit: The Game, Advent Calendar
The Missing Hollywood Star
There is still a limited stock of this year’s Exit: Advent Calendar.
(If they do sell out plase get in touch via email and we will see if we can get restocks in and out to your before 1st December 2024.)
Exit: The Game – Advent Calendar: The Missing Hollywood Star is an Exit puzzle game and a 24-part adventure story in one. To unravel the mystery, you open a little calendar door every day, behind which you will find a new puzzle, the solution of which will help you to move onto the day’s puzzle.
Only if you follow the clues and solve all 24 puzzles will you find the missing star...
(The Exit: Advent Calendars are available on our shop page.)
Setting up a Rental Playlist on My Board Game Library lets you play many different games without spending a fortune! It’s wafantastic for adding variety to your board game group without having to invest the full cost of a game.
Renting our board games is a great way to try games before deciding if you want to buy them. That way your personal collection contains only the games you really love!
Renting from My Board Game Library means you’ve no need to store a large (and mostly un-played) game collection. You just return the games when you're done playing them, revclaiming that storage space for your home!
If you have any questions, suggestions or would like more information on any of the games mentioned in this newlsetter just drop us a mail and we will be happy to help.
It’s all part of our friendly service!
support@myboardgamelibrary.com
“No individual can win a game by himself.”
– Pele.
[clearly not a fan of solo-play! -Ed.]
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