For many people, the beach is the epidemy of rest and relaxation. The sun, sand, and ocean waves can wash away the stress of our everyday life. I’m not in that group of people. Sand and myself are mortal enemies that have been in a battle since my teenage years. Thankfully, games like Beach Day from CakePie Games exist so I don’t have to actually be on a beach to enjoy this atmosphere.
Beach Day is a tile placement game for 1 to 5 players that’s illustrated by Ammon Anderson (Gnome Hollow) and designed by Brennan Smith and Josh Bowman. This small box game brings all the joy of the beach as you chase victory points and stay away from pesky sand.
Fun in the Sun
Each player is adding cards to their own beach tableau on their turn, chasing five global goals and their own unique goal. You’ll receive two crab cards at the start of the game, discarding one and keeping the other. This is a personal scoring goal that is unique to just you.
Everyone starts with a single tile 2×2 card that is marked with a sea turtle in one of the corners. This sea turtle is important and can never be covered by another card.
On your turn, you can take two cards from the top of the draw pile, placing one and discarding the other to one of the two discard piles. OR, you can take and place one of the top cards on either of the discard piles. In adding a new card to your beach, you can place it adjacent to another card or overlap another previously placed card. Overlapping is generous in this game since you can cover one or more of the four squares on a card. You can never place a card diagonally adjacent or tuck a card under another previously placed card.
Beach Activities
On the cards in Beach Day, you’ll find beachballs, sand castles, pools of water, shells, sand dollars, and even trash. Each item on the beach has a different method of scoring based on the goal cards that were chosen at the start of the game. Beachball halves need to be paired with another half in order to be scored. Sea shells score the most when grouped in contiguous paths.
Don’t forget about your crab card! That secret scoring criteria can be helpful in outscoring your opponent. Players will watch how each beach is being built at the table. In many of our games, the score has been tight and competitive which is exactly how we like our games.
Since the goal cards in the game are double-sided, players can pick their favorite scoring cards each and every game. Once you get a couple games under your belt, you’ll start to enjoy some goals more than others. The game gives you the agency to just pick your favorites and run with it.
After the draw pile is empty, players score based on the goal cards and crab card that each player has. The highest score wins.
Final Thoughts
Like a day at the beach, Beach Day is a relaxing and breezy time at the game table. The small box makes this a great game to throw into a bag or to play over a meal. It’s easy to understand how everything is scored and the placement rules are straight-forward.
Beach Day is a filler game that is going to check a lot of boxes for anyone looking for a quick game that you can take on the go. The gameplay and theme absolutely go hand-in-hand with this release.
Beach Day is being funded through Kickstarter starting in June from CakePie Games. Check out the campaign today.
A prototype of the game was provided for this coverage. Components and rules covered in this preview are not finalized. Read more about our preview policies at One Board Family.
Everdell has been a huge presence in the hobby since its release in 2018. With more than half a dozen expansions and multiple editions of the game, it’s tough to know where to jump into this award winning worker placement game. Thankfully, Everdell Duo is a less intimidating 2-player game that seems to be a prefect ramp into this universe.
Woodland Communities
Everdell Duo is a 2-player focused experience where players are building their forest focused communities over the series of four seasons. One player takes the role of the tortoise while the other player plays as the hare. In the competitive play mode, players work to build out their woodland village with structures and inhabitants. You’ll have three workers to place and a variety of resources that can be earned and spent.
Cards are available from a draw deck or from the central board. These cards each have a cost that has to be paid before they are added to your tableau. Cards offer end game scoring, new worker placement spots, resources, or coins (which are your victory points). Like it’s older board game sibling, Everdell Duo is an incredibly cute game. With artwork from Andrew Bosley and Enggar Adirasa, this game draws you into its nature themed world.
The Sun and the Moon
Each round of Everdell Duo is tracked using a sun and moon token that moves through the center of the board. When players place a worker, the moon token moves along the track. When a player plays a card, the sun token moves along the track. Picking up a card from the deck or meadow (board) allows the player to advance either token, their choice. These sun and moon tokens keep the game moving and have strategic value as you try to lock out your opponent from using their final worker.
There are standard worker placement spots on the board along with two river spaces that get swapped out each round. Players are primarily collecting resources from these spots. Berries, twigs, pebble, and resin resources are used throughout the game to pay for cards and add them to your tableau. I’m a big fan of how tactile these resources are.
Cards are either categorized as creature or construction. These cards offer new worker placement locations, production bonuses, additional resources, coins (victory points), and end gaming scoring. Finding synergies across these cards is a big part of the game.
Seasons Come and Go
Across the top of the meadow is a set of locations where players can claim events that are randomly chosen at the start of the game. Players can claim these events if they meet the requirements of the tile, resulting in additional victory points. Since these are first come, first serve, players want to commit to chasing specific tiles as they build out their tableau.
At the end of the fourth season, players count their victory points, coins, bonuses, awarded events, and any end game scoring from cards.
Everdell Duo is a really straight-forward 2-player experience with great components (for the most part). While I love the high quality resources in the game, it feels like the sun and moon tokens could have been a little better. These are just cardboard trackers and pale in comparison with the resource components.
The sun and moon tracker is being moved each and every turn and is an important part of the game. It’s also the item that is forgotten about the most often. I’ve played Everdell Duo against four different people and moving these trackers are forgotten about a few times each game. It’s an upkeep step that is often tough to remember.
Cooperative Gameplay
In the cooperative game mode, both players are working together to build a single city that is flourishing with life. Players work their way through a book that has over a dozen chapters which guide the players through a story. You’ll have goals to achieve, and the setup will be slightly different each time.
Players will deal with skunk tokens that block out different locations during the course of the game. The skunks get in your way and keep you from getting exactly what you need. You can choose to take on a single chapter or work through a campaign where you name your city and track your progress over time.
This co-op experience is a great option for players who are looking for a new way to play. It works really well and is perfect for players who don’t mind working together with another person. This is also a great option for anyone who wants to play the game with a younger gamer. Some chapters allow you to share resources or cards, while other chapters are more restrictive.
Final Thoughts
Everdell Duo has quickly become part of our weekend gaming rhythm. Erin and I really enjoy playing this game over breakfast during a chill weekend. The game has enough cards that it’s impossible to see all the cards during a single game. There is a lot of replayability because event cards and the river location tiles are randomized each game.
With two different ways to play, Everdell Duo is a great option for players looking to change things up after a couple of games. While jumping into Everdell feels a little intimidating, Everdell Duo is a fantastic way to experience this world as a newcomer.
If you already own Everdell (along with some of the expansions), I’m not entirely sure Everdell Duo is a must buy. This new game does a great job of removing some of the “fluff” of the original and streamlines the game in plenty of ways. The setup and speed of play is the biggest selling point when compared to the original. If these aspects are important to you, you should check out this release.
For gamers who play games at the 2-player count often, Everdell Duo is an excellent purchase. The setup is quick, the mechanics are clean, and the game is one that we’re going to enjoy for a long time.
My left hand opponent dealt and bid one diamond. Partner passed. My right hand opponent bid one spade. I wanted to double one diamond, but not one spade, with the following hand: ♠KQT5 ♡K92 ♢2 ♣ KT653.
So I passed. Left hand opponent rebid two diamonds. Partner and right hand opponent passed. Now I doubled, because the last opposing bid was diamonds.
Partner’s distribution was 4-3-4-2, with xxx in hearts and Qx in clubs. She passed because she had four cards each and her remaining seven honor points in suits bid by the opponents, and she thought she was "playing defense." She didn’t want to bid one of her short "round" suits (clubs or hearts)to take out my double.
I told her, "I had four spades to support a spade bid, and a only a singleton diamond opposite your four diamonds. We were not strong enough to defend, but we were strong enough to play two spades" (RHO opponent had five little ones for his bid).
Partner thought that my double showed shortness in both the opponents suits. I say that my bidding pattern showed shortness only in diamonds and suggested strength in spades. Are either of these interpretations more nearly correct than the other? Or do some world class partnerships use one, and some the other?
Parks was a monumental hit for Keymaster Games when it was released in 2019. We backed the original printing while on Kickstarter and it quickly became a game night staple. Parks is still one of my wife’s favorite games of all time.
The second edition of Parks was released this Spring and this box contains more than a minor facelift for this modern classic. In this review, I’ll cover some of the changes to the game and hopefully help you decide if this new edition should hike its way into your collection.
A Hike in the Woods
Throughout a game of Parks, players are hiking trails, collecting tokens that can be turned in to experience National Parks that roll out during the game. There are gear cards that help you along the way. Players can take photos that are worth victory points at the end of the game. In the original game, you would hike the trail a total of four times, with each trail being slightly longer than the last.
In Parks Second Edition, you can tell that time and experience has led to a tighter and more refined game. First off, the rulebook has been tweaked, refined and structured in a way that is easy to digest. Instead of taking four hikes on trails that grow throughout the game, players now hike three times on a trail that has a set number of spaces. The overall playtime doesn’t seem to be impacted and we never felt like we were missing out on the fourth hike of the game.
The trail is now built into the central board and the perks at each trail site are tied to tokens that are distributed before each round. You still get the variability, it just happens differently. Players are still given two hikers to walk the trail, with the ability to extinguish their campfire if you want to share a space with another hiker. Landing on a trail site lets you take the action on the token and collect any weather tokens that are available from the trails setup at the start of the round.
As you reach the trail’s end, you’ll get to determine what final action your hiker takes and gain a bonus if you’re the first to take that action. Once there is only a single player left on the trail, they proceed to the trail’s end to take their final action(s).
New Additions
In the six years since Parks original release, we’ve seen two different expansions that add new mechanics and depth to the game. Inside this second edition is a good chunk of the content from those two expansion. Some of the cards from the Wildlife expansion is present in the game as well as the camping mechanic from the Nightfall expansion. Keymaster Games has also included a specialty die that was part of the Trails game published in 2021.
Not every element from these expansions came over and I think this is a good thing. It feels like the best parts from each of these properties made the final cut. The Camping Mode is something that you can add into your game or leave out entirely. Your choice.
When your hiker lands on a trail site with a tent token, you can take the normal resources on the site or utilize the tent to take the resources on any open Campsite. Adding in this bonus content and rebalancing the game feels really good.
Players will notice a new Passions card in this new edition of the game. This replaces the goal cards from the previous edition and is given to players at the start of the game. Completing a Passions card allows the player to earn a gear effect or earn an end game bonus.
The Upgrades
Let’s talk about some of the upgrades that Parks Second Edition brings. First off, I really love the player boards that come with this new edition. These boards show a backpack representing the number of tokens you can carry along with your canteen on the left side of the board. Visually, these are excellent and the canteen mechanic has been revamped.
When gaining a canteen, players now add a token from the central board onto their player board. When you add water to your canteen, you can trigger the tokens in that row, earning those bonuses. This gives players more control and agency as they plan for future rounds. Each canteen has three rows, allowing for three different combinations of tokens that can be paired up.
The camera from the original Parks has been replaced with the Shutterbug token. This token gives the player holding it the ability to take a second photo each time they are given this opportunity.
Probably the most divisive change in this new edition has to be the art and illustrations on each of the sixty-three parks cards. The original game was built off of the Fifty-Nine Parks series. This series of art prints brought together some incredible artists that has raised more than $225,000 for National Parks since 2016. This artwork is beautiful, inspiring, and at times, inconsistent.
This artwork was part of a licensing deal that made Parks stand out within our hobby. While I loved the original art direction, I think that the artwork from Josh Emrich and Lisk Feng is stunning. As a package, the artwork and design works together so well. Each National Park card feels unique but there is a cohesiveness that wasn’t their in the original game.
Art is so subjective and every person will have an opinion on which version they prefer. I personally feel that this game is more consistent throughout because of the focused work of the two illustrators who worked on Parks Second Edition.
Final Thoughts
As a fan of the original Parks, this is an easy game to suggest for nature loving board gamers. I think the changes inside this box make sense as Keymaster Games moves away from licensing agreements that could challenge future printings and expansions of the Parks game line.
Parks Second Edition is a streamlined, well built, and cohesive game that improves on the original. The MSRP of $50 to $59 for this new edition may feel like a lot for a person who owns the original. The first edition of Parks is not broken and is still a fantastic game. More than anything, this new edition feels like an upgrade that is preparing for more Parks content in the future. That’s something I’m excited about.
I was playing Wounded Waters Bleeding for the first time yesterday, and noticed an odd wording discrepancy in the Serene Waters Healing Card (included below). I couldn’t find anything directly addressing it in the FAQ. If I push Dahan into multiple different lands with one Power (assuming they’re all my lands), do I get to downgrade multiple Invaders or just one? (The "one of your lands" phrasing in the Dahan pushing sentence that isn’t in the Invaders pushing sentence is tripping me up.)
Specific example: assume for this example all lands have at least one of my presence. With one Power (i.e. Swirl and Spill), I push 2 Dahan and 2 Towns from one of my lands, each into different lands. Do I get:
4 downgrades (the 2 towns and 2 Invaders in the Dahans’ new lands) – pretty sure not this one
3 downgrades (1 town and 2 Invaders in the Dahans’ new lands)
2 downgrades (1 town and 1 Invader in one of the Dahans’ new lands)
The dark and creepy fishing game Deep Regrets is one of our favorite releases this year. But sometimes, you’re looking for a shorter fishing excursion. That’s were Shallow Regrets, a new wallet game from Button Shy Games, comes in handy. This eighteen card experience was created and illustrated by designer Judson Cowan and offers a bitesize experience of its more robust sibling, Deep Regrets.
Catch of the Day
Shallow Regrets plays two to three players and takes only fifteen minutes to play. In this fishing filler game, players can cast into six “shoals” in the center of the table. Each shoal is a pile of three cards that contain fair or foul creatures or objects from the ocean.
Cards have a coin value (victory points), catch difficulty, and unique ability that can be activated when you have the card in your possession. Some cards contain fish hooks on the left side below the coin value. These hook icons will give you the strength to catch larger creatures as you fish the briny deep.
Players are given information on the size of the fish based on the size of the shadow that’s shown when it’s on the top of the shoal. There’s also a hint at the bottom of the card back that gives you the range of strength you need to reel in that catch.
Throwing Back Your Catch
On your turn, draw two cards from the top of the shoal(s) in the center of the table. You can catch one of the two cards you picked up and must toss the other back. The rejected card is placed back on top of a shoal or in an open space if all the cards of a shoal have been fished. Players can strategically toss back a card to cover a card that another player was potentially planning to catch.
Shallow Regrets is all about gaining strength as you gradually work your way up to catching bigger and more valuable creatures. While the coin value is victory points, sometimes the special ability on the card can be extremely advantageous. You can use a cards special ability by exhausting it (turning it sideways) at the start of a turn. You’ll be able to look at more cards on your turn, swap a creature for another players, pass a card to your neighbor, or even flip over the top card of each shoal.
These abilities are really helpful in getting just the right cards in front of you. As a seasoned fisher, you want to dabble in catching foul fish, but you definitely don’t want all the foul fish! The foul fish in the game can give you the hooks you need to reel in a big catch. But, most of these come with negative coin values that will bring down your score.
Fair fish have some of the highest coin values but may not give you any hook icons to increase your strength. The game has a nice balance and forces players to keep a variety of fair and foul creatures. The game ends when all the cards have been taken from the shoals or when players don’t have enough strength to catch the cards that are left.
A Stench Most Foul
The player who reeled in the most foul fish will have two points deducted from their score at the end of the game. Players count the points on their cards, even their exhausted cards, to get a final score.
Shallow Regrets is a really enjoyable, ultra condensed fishing experience that we really enjoy. The player count is small, supporting only three players. This has been the game Erin and I choose to bring on date nights because it’s such a tight and casual experience. When players lean into using the card abilities, the game is a little mean and that’s a big part of why we like the Shallow Regrets so much.
Judson Cowen did an excellent job with illustrations. The creatures feel like a more cartoony version of their Deep Regrets counterparts. As many times as we’ve played Shallow Regrets, we still get excited when one of us finds and is able to reel in the five point Kraken card. This is an easy filler card game to suggest to anyone who has fifteen minutes and a couple friends to play with.
Shallow Regrets is on Kickstarter through May 17, 2025. Check out the campaign today!
A prototype of the game was provided for this coverage. Components and rules covered in this preview are not finalized. Read more about our preview policies at One Board Family.
I’m a sucker for a good fishing themed board game. For some reason, fishing of the cardboard variety is far better than the real-life kind. Conservas is a solo bag building game from Scott Almes, a designer that I really enjoy. Even though I’m not a fan of solo gaming, Conservas has its hooks in me and keeps reeling me in.
The Daily Catch
In this game, you’ll run a fishing and canning operation off the coast of Spain. Each season starts with a single boat, some cash in hand, and a bag of tokens that is dictated for that season. Conservas takes you through 12 months of fishing using a spiral bound book. Each month will have a unique win condition, some have special rules, and two difficulty goals to reach.
In each round of the season, you’ll draw five tokens blindly from the bag for each boat you own and the Open Water card on the table. You’ll have to assign the five tokens before drawing five more, eventually filling each available card.
Each boat in the game has a catch requirement that has to be met. You can meet this requirement with fish tokens or the worthless water tokens that are clogging up the bag. All the other tokens are placed at the bottom of the card, showing that they are still in the “open water” and not on the boat.
To Can or Not to Can
As you pull the sea life on board, you have to make decisions on how to use these tokens. Each season has spots in the book that pay cash if you choose to can your fish. Money can be tight in this game and you’ll need cash to purchase new boats to expand your saltwater empire.
The canning requirements can sometimes be a single fish type, or multiples of a specific fish in order to get paid. In some seasons, you’ll earn more money as you can specific types of fish. In other seasons, you can saturate the market, earning less money if you keep canning the same type of catch.
Your fish tokens can also be spent on Upgrade cards which give your operation some nice perks. Conservas does a great job of giving players multiple avenues to solve the puzzle. Some Upgrade cards definitely feel more powerful than others. You’ll start to look for some of these after your first couple games.
Before the end of each round, you can purchase a new boat and wipe the Upgrade and Boat cards to get a fresh set of three on the table. During the night phase of the round, you’ll spend your cash to maintain your fleet of boats as you head into the next day. By the way, the punny boat names in the game are fantastic.
Conservation is Key
The fish you catch in Conservas is almost as important as the fish you leave in the sea. During the night phase of each round, any fish that were in the Open Water (this includes the fish under the boats that were not caught) will spawn new tokens. If you leave three mussels uncaught, you’ll spawn that number of mussels minus one. This is vital to making sure that you have fish in the bag as you move from round to round.
Conservas is all about making sure that you don’t overfish the sea and long term planning to meet the goals of that season. In my first two games, I bought a fleet of boats too early and sold every fish I could. I found myself grabbing water token after water token, unable to fulfill any orders and failing pretty quickly.
Since Conservas is a bag builder, a big part of the game is keeping a mental tally of what you believe is in the bag. Unless an Upgrade card gives you the chance, you cannot look into the bag to survey what’s available.
Trial and Error
While I love the artwork and I’m a fan of the designer, I was immediately repelled because it was a solo game. I’m an extravert that loves this hobby so much because of the social atmosphere that gaming brings. I gave Conservas a try and it’s been one of my favorite gaming experiences this year.
Each game of Conservas takes around twenty minutes and there are times when you know the mistakes you made in round four are going to sink your operation. The game plays quickly and I’ve gotten into the habit of playing back to back games because of it. Also, because I’m terrible at the game.
I only found success after five attempts at the first season of the game. Since then, I’ve crawled my way past three more seasons. The game is tough and sometimes I’m just barely clearing the standard difficulty. Each time I fail a season, I take a look at where I went wrong. Most of the time, it’s a mix of overfishing or not using the Upgrades that were available to me.
There’s an economy to Conservas that works really well. It’s a tight game that rarely leaves you confident that you’ll succeed until the last final round of a season. This is why coming back to the game and enjoying its twenty minute playtime is so enjoyable.
Final Thoughts
Conservas is a perfect storm of theme, art, and gameplay that has me excited every time I sit down with the game. I could never see myself playing solo games on a regular basis, but Conservas has shown me how enjoyable they can be. My time with A Gentle Rain, another amazing solo game, was all about relaxing and finding a moment of peace. Conservas is all about pressing my luck, practicing moderation, and finding a delicate balance to succeed.
If you had told me a couple months ago that a solo board game would be one of my biggest surprises of the year, I would have laughed in your face. But here I am. Sitting alone at my kitchen table, smelling like an old sea captain, playing a board game by myself, and loving every minute of it.
The historical power struggles occurring during the period covered by Baltic Empires (1558-1721) did not happen in a vacuum, but were of great importance to the interest to major powers on the edges of the map of Baltic Empires: England, France, the Netherlands, the Habsburg-controlled Holy Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. Each of these powers were in their own way affected by affairs in the Baltic region, and in turn attempted to influence events there to their own advantage by various means. The scale of this ranged across the spectrum from minor trade deals to outright invasions and attempts at dictating foreign policy. The focus on this article is therefore on these foreign powers and how their interference and intervention in Baltic affairs are represented in the game.
The map of Baltic Empires has many areas that are uncontrolled by the playable powers at the start of the game. These are called Independents, and most can be conquered by the players. Along the edge of the map there are also some special areas that can never be entered or controlled by the players. These are the “Habsburg Lands”, the “Ottoman & Tatar Lands”, and in the North Sea, the “Maritime Powers” – an amalgamation of France, England and The Netherlands. Independent units start in these areas and more can be placed each round by the Prussian player (see my previous article on Prussia in Baltic Empires for an explanation on how and why). During their turn, players may spend thalers (the money resource of Baltic Empires) to ally with Independent units and control them during their turn. This simple mechanism in itself does a great job at representing the minor interventions in Baltic affairs, where rulers could secure outside assistance in their wars.
The Dramatis Personae (DP) mechanism, where players add a card to their Power Mat and gain the abilities of that card, adds another layer of showing the actions of admirals, rulers, and diplomats from these foreign powers that played a major role in the history of the Baltic region. In addition to the DP cards mentioned in this article, there are several other DP cards representing individuals from outside the Baltic region who were not representatives of these major powers, but rather of the major banking houses of Europe or simply individuals whose deeds as merchants, industrialists or military thinkers had a big impact on the events covered by the game.
The Maritime Powers(The Netherlands, England, and France)
The Sound Due was a source of immense wealth to the Danish kings, as the flow of trade between the Baltic ports and England and the Netherlands all had to pass through the narrow Danish-controlled waters. It was collected at Kronborg Castle in Elsinore (of Hamlet fame) and was from 1548 onwards based on the value of a ship´s cargo. In order to combat fraud, the local authorities there were authorized to buy a cargo at the declared price if they had a suspicion that it was deliberately set lower than the market value (the effect of the Sound Due in Baltic Empires, and how it generates thalers for Denmark is described in detail in my earlier article on Denmark-Norway). This toll was a source of immense irritation to the maritime powers who were heavily dependent on their Baltic trade for timber, flax, hemp, grain and various other goods to sustain their fleets and growing urban populations.
In Baltic Empires this trade with the Dutch and English is represented in the “Maritime Trade Phase”, where players may trade a number of their collected goods depending on their position on the Mercantile Hegemon Track, and in exchange draw an equal number of special Maritime Trade Goods. These are either rare Goods types not found on the map (and thus valuable for the players since you pay for things with sets of different Goods) or Thalers (which are even more valuable as they are wild-card goods and are the only resource you can use to pay upkeep and repay loans). Besides its economic importance, the Baltic region was an integral part of the European balance of power. As such the region was of interest to major powers such as France, whose very active policy of subsidies and alliances meant that several of the wars fought in the Baltic during the period covered by the game (1558-1721) were to a large degree proxy wars or parallel wars to those fought by Louis the XIV in western Europe.
Cornelis Tromp(1629-1691)
Tromp was a Dutch naval officer sent to Denmark during the Scanian War against Sweden (1675-79) to serve as an admiral in the Danish Navy. He performed well in this role and was instrumental in the victory in the battle of Öland in 1676. As an officer Tromp was infamous for his insubordination. He was a very aggressive commander who relished the fight, and as a result often had to change ships during battle, but he was nevertheless popular with his crews despite the danger he put them in. At home, without fighting to distract him, he had the reputation of being a heavy drinker, so much so that many inns at the time were named after him.
In Baltic Empires, the Tromp card represents an alliance with the Dutch, rewarding you with a special Leader unit. Leader units move and fight as normal units of their type (in this case a Ship of the Line), but with some benefits that either effect the unit or all friendly units with it, as detailed on the card. Tromp´s skill as a successful naval commander is represented by an ability which transforms one enemy “Probably Hit” result into a “Miss”, thus potentially reducing friendly losses when Tromp. This might seem counterintuitive considering Tromps record of daring and danger, but these exact qualities also ensured that naval battles would be decided far quicker and in a more decisive manner, which ensured overall lower losses than those seen in a protracted battle.
Another benefit to this Leader unit is that, for most Powers, the cost of a Ship of the Line unit is higher than the cost of a Dramatis Personae card, so if you were considering building ships anyway, the draw of a card that gives you an even more potent unit for a lower cost is often a welcome bonus.
A painting of the battle of Öland (1676), showing Dutch and Danish ships fighting against the Swedish navy
Coenraad van Beuningen(1622-1693)
Van Beuningen was the Dutch Republic’s most experienced diplomat, burgomaster of Amsterdam for many years, as well as the director of the Dutch East India Company. He keenly understood the importance for the Dutch Republic of not having a single power controlling the entrance to the critical Baltic region and is credited with saying that: “The keys of Öresund lay in a dock in Amsterdam”. Van Beuningen was a highly intelligent man with interests in art, theology and natural sciences, but also with a strong interest in mysticism, astrology, dream-interpretation, and supernatural wonders. The shock of losing his fortune through speculation in shares in 1688 made him bipolar, and he was locked up after writing letters to the ecclesiastical authorities about the coming apocalypse and painting Kabbalistic signs on his house. He died in poverty, leaving only a cape and two dressing gowns, a few pieces of furniture, and “a man’s portrait” by Rembrandt valued at seven guilders (three dollars).
In Baltic Empires, Coenrad van Beuningen directly reflects Dutch foreign policy and the goal of opening up the Sound to Dutch trade. This would happen by creating a situation where no single power held both shores of the Sound. By aligning your Power with the Dutch views on the Sound (in game terms, having van Beuningen in your Court) you are rewarded with beneficial trade deals and access to lots of capital. This is represented with the +2 modifier to the Mercantile Hegemon track, as well as increasing your Loan Limit. Should the situation in the Sound be resolved in favor of the Dutch you are rewarded even further with annual subsidies.
Van Beuningen can be useful to all players, as there is no requirement for your power to be actively part of events in the Sound, although he will likely appeal more to those powers who are already heavily committed to the affairs of the Sound: Denmark and Sweden. For the former, Beuningen is obviously mostly interesting if you fail to keep your control of Scania, in which case he helps cushioning the blow of losing the Sound Due Thalers and let you pursue other paths to victory – which is more or less exactly what happened in the Baltics after Sweden acquired control of Scania in 1658 and Dutch policies shifted from supporting Sweden to one of supporting Denmark defend their islands from the Swedes.
George Rooke (1650-1709)
Goerge Rooke was an English naval officer who saw extensive action against the Dutch, French, and Spanish during his long career. In the Baltic context he is mainly known for commanding the Anglo-Dutch Squadron that cooperated with the Swedish fleet in 1700. This squadron attacked Copenhagen and made it possible for King Charles XII to land and knock Denmark out of the Great Northern War (1700-21) in its opening phases. After the short Danish campaign Rooke would fight in the War of Spanish Succession (1701-14). Here he would capture the Spanish treasure fleet in the Battle of Vigo Bay in 1702 and command the Allied naval forces that captured Gibraltar in 1704, where a statue of him was raised in 2004.
The Baltic Empires version of George Rooke closely mirrors the historical Rooke. He is represented as a Ship of the Line Leader unit that gives you control over Independent units in the same sea area and must enter the game in the in the North or Norwegian Sea. Due to his entry restrictions Rooke will likely only be interesting for the Danish player, or for Powers that want to contest Denmark’s control of the seas. His benefits are highly situational, and if the North Sea is empty of Independent ships or if Denmark´s naval situation is too strong and secure he will likely be passed over for the other four cards available that round, or any other pressing concerns troubling the players at the time. But if the English offers of naval support come at a critical time and the conditions are right the questions of who gets George Rooke will cause lots of angst in the Production Phase, and will be one of the most talked about events after the game.
Thomas Roe(1581-1644)
Thomas Roe was an English diplomat whose voyages ranged from Central America to India, and who worked as ambassador to the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire. and the Holy Roman Empire. During the Thirty Years War (1618-48) he brokered a peace between Sweden and Poland and strove to get Denmark and Sweden to join the Protestant anti-Habsburg coalition.
In Baltic Empires, Thomas Roe is shown more as an abstract representation of British diplomatic and economic pressure in general, and less as a representation of Roe’s personal achievements specifically. He allows the Power allied with Britain (represented by having Roe in your Court) to choose any one of the other powers in the game and effectively cripple their Maritime Trade Phase by limiting them to only trading a single Good. As a side benefit, he also increases your Power’s position on the Mercantile Track to represent increased trade with England. During a game the former is a hugely interesting power to wield as it can be used both to hurt enemies but also as a tool for diplomacy/blackmail, and it is my experience that Thomas Roe is a card that increases the intensity of the table talk.
King Louis XIV(1638-1715)
Louis XIV, the “Sun King”, was king of France from 1643 and his reign of 72 years is the longest recorded reign of any monarch in European history. Louis’s France was emblematic of absolutism as exemplified in the quote: “L’état, c’est moi”(“I am the state”). His revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 abolished the rights of the Protestant Huguenots and the resultant stream of Huguenot refugees to the Baltic region brought with them valuable technical skills. In the Baltic context he is mainly known for thoroughly intertwining Baltic power politics with the greater European power politics, as he sought to distract his Habsburg enemies by subsidizing the standing army of his ally Sweden.
No game on early modern power politics and war would be complete without Louis XIV! In Baltic Empires, the Louis XIV card reflects the massive impact on the Baltic scene of the Sun King’s many wars against his English, Dutch, and Habsburg rivals. His effects are two-fold, and one of only a handful of multi-category cards (Immediate and Permanent effects in this case). Upon getting Louis in your court the strong French armies will cause an abrupt diversion of Habsburg attention away from the Baltic and towards the borders with France, as represented by the removal of all independent units in the Habsburg Lands at that time. As with George Rooke above, the impact of this effect is largely situational. His other effect, representing the substantial subsidies Louis offered Sweden to maintain a large army at all times (so France’s German opponents would always have to watch their back), is a permanent effect. A -2 reduction of your Power’s upkeep costs is a significant boost, and especially so since upkeep costs can only be paid using ever scarce Thalers. Just as in history, an alliance with Louis XIV will allow your Power to maintain a far larger army without going bankrupt.
That’s all from the Netherlands, England, and France! In the second part of this article we will look at some personalities from the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire who played an important role in Baltic affairs.
Clans of samurai cats are in a battle for dominance in this suitless trick-taking game from Shiny Pigeon Games. Be careful though, each season ends with a peace treaty, and showing too much force will bring disgrace to your clan. Let’s dig into this card game from designer Caner Cooperrider and see what sets it apart.
Managing Your Clan
Disgraced House feels familiar because it uses a standard trick-taking mechanic. What makes it unique is that there are no suits or trumps in the game and it’s solely based on numbers. Each envoy card, which makes up the majority of your hand, has two values on the card. The standard value is in black at the top of the card while the red value at the bottom of the card can be unlocked by using a fate token. With cards having two values, players have flexibility with each card as long as they have fate tokens that they can spend.
When a player leads, they can play a single card or pair with identical numbers. Followers have to play the same quantity of cards but there are rules on what numbers you can play. Followers have to play the same number or higher. If they cannot or choose not to beat the played cards, they have to play the lowest card(s) in their hand.
Playing a high card(s) means that followers are going to be forced to play their highest cards or flush away the low cards in their hand. The twist here is that players need low cards for the final trick of the round.
The Peace Treaty
The final trick of each round is a single card trick called the Peace Treaty. Players will play the final card left in their hand but there will only be one loser in this trick. The player who played the highest card has used too much force during the Peace Treaty and becomes the disgraced house. All other players score points based on half the value of the card they played during the Peace Treaty. The Disgraced House will miss out on this bonus but is given a +1/-1 modifier card that they can use in the next round of the game.
Players score a point for each trick they won during the round plus any bonus points they received during the Peace Treaty. This final trick of each round is really creative. Players who choose not to plan for the end of the round may miss out on a significant number of points.
You also don’t want to hang on to cards that that have too low of a value. By holding on to a 0 value card, you’re guaranteed not to be the disgraced house, but you also don’t score any bonus points during the end of the round.
Samurai Legends
Disgraced House has one more trick up its sleeve in the format of Ally and Advisor cards. At the start of each round, players get one of each. The Ally card will go into your hand and gives a unique ability you can play during the round. The Advisor gives you an additional ability or scoring opportunity and this card sits on the table in front of the player for everyone to see.
Either of these cards can be discarded before the round starts to take a fate token from the supply. These fate tokens allow you to flip your envoy card during the round to the red value at the bottom of the card. More fate tokens means more flexibility during the round. These tokens roll over to future rounds so saving up over a series of rounds isn’t a bad strategy.
Honor in Battle
Disgraced House has enough twists during a round to keep everyone engaged. Players are trying to be the first to earn thirteen points. There’s even a catch up mechanic that gives players a free fate token when they are more than three points behind the lead player.
I think the only thing that I’m lukewarm on is the cat theme of the game. The samurai cat artwork from Parker Simpson is gorgeous in every way. But, it’s not a theme that really drew me into the game. I’ve taught this game to dozens of people and the theme wasn’t a huge selling factor for them. Players really loved how rounds shifted as players utilize Ally and Advisor abilities and force cards from their opponents hands.
As each game advances, the hand sizes of the players decrease based on how close a player is to thirteen points. Rounds become faster with less cards in hand. Leading with a pair of cards will also limit the number of tricks that can be won which is another satisfying strategy.
My very first game was at just 2-players and my expectations were low. Trick-taking games at just two is usually a bust. Disgraced House played really well at 2-players and can be played with up to six.
At the five and six player counts, you play a variant of the game called “Crowded Court”. Players always receive six cards in the round and have a new option to “bow out” during the trick. The first player to do this can play any card(s) they want, intentionally losing the trick and playing their card(s) facedown, ignoring the high/low rules. Bowing out locks other players who play after you from doing this which can be really strategic. There’s even a team play variant in the game that we’ve not played yet, but I’m sure that we’ll dig into that one soon.
Final Thoughts
Disgraced House does just enough to set itself apart from other trick-taking games in our collection. With each card having two values, fate tokens are incredibly important if you want options in your card play. This makes for dynamic gameplay and fun surprises during the game. In a year that was filled with trick-taking games, this one has flown under the radar because of its small print run. Thankfully, Shiny Pigeon Games is bringing this game to a broader audience with a larger print run through Kickstarter.
I really enjoy Disgraced House and it’s a game that I love to teach. It hits the table more often because of how smooth it plays at just two players which has been a huge plus. Don’t miss out on this card game has it hits a broader audience in 2025!
I’m a big fan of spatial reasoning games. Over the years, games like Patchwork and Isle of Cats have always brought me joy. I don’t know if it’s something left over from all the Tetris I played as a child, but figuring out little puzzles to get everything to fit just right is just… fun!
So when I was first introduced to Tiny Towns, I was immediately intrigued. I loved the idea of having to put your resources on the board just right, but adding in different scoring elements? Oh yeah, this one’s gonna hit the spot…
We Built This… Town…
Each player is the mayor of their own… well, tiny town. There’s a back story about creatures and predators and all that, but it’s not really that important.
What is important is that the game tasks you with building structures in the 4×4 grid on your player board. This construction happens by placing resources in the patterns specified by the available buildings. A tavern, for instance, requires two bricks and a glass resource to be placed all in a single line, while the cloister requires four resources in a very particular L-shaped arrangement.
On a turn, one player is designated as the “master builder”. That player announces one resource type, and all players have to add a cube matching that resource to their player board. If anyone has resources in an arrangement that matches a building, they may remove the matching cubes from their player board and place a building token. The building has to be placed on a site where one of the resources was that built the structure.
Watch Where You’re Going
Placement is important for a few reasons. For some of the buildings, you get points based on location. The inn, for example, gets points if it’s not in a row or column with another inn. The bakery gets points if it’s next to buildings of a particular type. You’ll also have to be careful to keep your board open for future buildings. If you don’t leave enough room for the pattern needed for a particular building – well, tough. You won’t be able to create that building for the rest of the game.
If you ever reach a point where you can’t build anything else, then your game is done and your town is complete. You’ll wait for everyone to finish their building, then calculate your points. And, as per usual, the player with the most points at the end of the game wins!
Lookin’ Good
When Tiny Towns hits the table, its charm is immediately evident. The box art is great, and all of the little building meeples are great. The artwork on the different building cards is also wonderful, and it all comes together to create a really attractive look.
The game is also very creative in how it adds variety. Each building meeple is associated with four different building types, and you randomly choose which building for each type at the beginning of the game. It’s a small thing, but it allows for increased replayability without having to have a bunch of components that are only used for certain setups.
Monuments are another element of the game that add a little spice. Each player is dealt two Monument cards at the beginning of the game and select one to keep. These special buildings are unique to each player, and they can provide some major scoring opportunities if used correctly. This small wrinkle ensures that everyone will have their own strategies and approaches as they move through the game.
Like Coming Home
Tiny Towns is a game that strikes a perfect balance for me. It’s simple enough to teach in just a few minutes, but it’s complex enough that I have to weigh my options on each turn to decide what I should do. It’s not so complicated that I will sit for several minutes trying to decide what to do, but it also has enough going on that I feel that my choices are important.
People that don’t like spatial reasoning games are probably going to get a bit frustrated with this title. However, given that you’re not putting down polyominoes or anything like that, maybe it’s easier? I’m not sure.
What I do know is that Tiny Towns is a game that I really enjoy. It’s one that I could play with almost any group, and each time it’s going to be a solid experience. With the addition of a few expansions over the past few years, there’s a ton of variety that can keep people coming back for more. Tiny Towns is a game that I’d recommend for any hobby gamer to add to their collection. It’s certainly one that I’ll be keeping on my shelf for a very long time.
