Cozy Town
2022 / Roleplaying community-building game / 3-4 players (played with 2)
***
I limited the card-based turn-taking activity to one short season to prevent boredom, but the young player continued the extracurricular roleplaying of Sonic Town's milestone Happiness Festival all evening, complete with extracurricular Lego diorama. You had to be there.
Since then, she's just enjoyed coming up with a town but not bothering with the game aspect. Fair enough.
2016 / Solo/cooperative board game expansions / 1-2 players
These voyages on the low-rolling high seas took a little longer to love than some of the other games, but it got there. Here are the essential expansions and optional screwovers.
The Mages ***
More stuff you have to collect, but more time to do it in, and the game gets easier if you do. I thought this was going to be one of the more far-out titles in the series, but it's often just Onirim on tiles.
The Mercenaries *****
Even if I hadn't been aware of this battle expansion in advance, the base game might still have had a nagging feeling of something lacking each time the enemy ships passed without incident. It also makes sense of all those stray harpoons. Thematically essential, if taxing.
The Reefs ****
Environmental obstacles you can work to your advantage, just don't forget all the other stuff you're supposed to be doing simultaneously. Like the Mercenaries, it would be hard to go back to an uncluttered route now. Add in the Mages too and all your crew are pulling dual roles. This is the proper game now.
The Darkhouse ***
The Oniverse isn't normally this wordy. These punishing actions are satisfying to overcome, but there's probably too much to think about at this point, especially if you're also adding in:
Heroic Actions **
Couldn't they have come up with illustrations for these, like in Sylvion? I add them in to be comprehensive, but can't muster enthusiasm for special powers you not only have to discard precious crew for, but are yet another mandatory task for victory. The game becomes too demanding.
Hark!: Aerion >
2016 / Solo/cooperative board game / 1-2 players
****
The Onirim sequel I was most looking forward to, this convoluted nautical Ludo is as ingeniously devised and balanced as the rest, but its fiddly setup and lean towards strategy over tactics (yes, in a dice-throwing game) make it less appealing than the card-based ones for a quick work procrastination activity. It's not the first or last that feels distinctly lacking before rounding it out with the expansions, but it does seem notably easier than average without their insane demands, even when working through the trickier submarine boards. Never fear, the expansions will take care of that little quibble.
