I wrote back in the Spring about Board Game Arena being one of the best places to play games online during the pandemic. As the year has gone on the website has added some tremendous games to their library, and for less than the cost of a single board game you can sign up for a premium membership to play them all. Given the coming winter and the fact that more people will be stuck inside as case counts go up, BGA has seen fit to send us all a care package of fun by releasing a new game on the service every day of December.
As one of those people are stcuk at home, I plan to learn and play each new game and report back here. While the blog posts may not be daily, I will cover all 31 games on this site. If one peaks your interest feel free to jump in and even challenge me to a round!
The first game of this board game bonanza is Thurn and Taxis. A game about… the founding of the German postal service. Sometimes, you don’t play a game for it’s theme, but simply because it’s fun, and that’s certainly the case here. The gameplay here sings, so much so that the game won the Spiel des Jahres or German Game of the Year award back in 2006. Each turn you must draw a city card, and play a city card to your postal route. You may then optionally finish a route and place houses. Three core rules, seems pretty simple, right? That’s where it gets devious. Each card you play in your route must be adjacent to a previous city you have played. And there’s a spatial element here as well as route cards can be played to the left or the right of the current route you are working on. Think of it like building a sequential set of cards in a game like solitaire. You are often looking for very specific cards to continue your route, and there’s often only one or two cards that would work. AS a result there is a push your luck aspect because if you can’t continue your existing route, you have to start a new one and lose all your current progress. So you may want to complete a route if you are not sure you can continue it in the next round. However, the longer the route, the more points, so maybe you take a chance and just hope the right card comes up in the next draw…
Board Game Arena has a fantastic tutorial that will teach you all of the basics, and the interface makes it very clear what your options are on your turn. Better yet since it is a digital version of the game playtimes are way down and there’s no set up or clean-up. Check back in later this week for more micro-reviews and if you’re bored at home give BGA a try.