It’s time to post about 3 more games which i had an opportunity to try out recently.
La Isla
I’ve seen a video review of this game recently. It seemed simple and kind of interesting. I’ve read the rules and decided to give it a try on Yucata. And.. didn’t like it much. It just has too much choices and the game itself felt a bit dry and “mathy”. When you are choosing which card of 3 to use for what purpose you have to to go through the whole map, and evaluate where you can use it most effectively. And as there are also 3 phases where you can use a card, brain burning process intensifies even more. Same as with Helios game, this one is too heavyweight and you don’t enjoy it while playing, but it feels like you are solving a hard mathematic exercise. 6/10
Port Royal
This game was available on Yucata for a long time, but i’ve decided to try it only after seeing a video review by Tom Vasel. I’ve started playing it even without reading the rules. That’s how simple this game is. Money, special abilities and victory points, everything is in a single cards deck. The game is of “push your luck” type, when you are revealing card by card and hoping that bad card won’t come up and you will manage to gather more money or get some good character or a lot of points. But the risk grows with every revealed card and you have to weight it. Although there are ways to mitigate this risk, but the game felt too much depending on luck. So, after playing more sessions of this game i’ve ranked it one point lower than at first. 6/10
Cacao
After just seeing first pictures of this game, first review, i thought, i must like this game. I have played 3 sessions of it so far, but impression is good so far. It reminds Carcassonne a bit with tiles laying on the table (although there is no puzzle mechanism in this game). But the game is very different of course. And very simple. It will suit families and those, who is doing their first steps in the modern board games world. You lay your workers tiles next to already laying tiles on the table and try to gather more resources or sell for the highest price ones you already have. There are also a few other options to score points, which you shouldn’t overlook. So far i have a hard time winning in this game (i haven’t figured out what is the best balance between different points scoring strategies), but scores are usually very tight by the end of the game. 8/10