The Yellow Meeple's First Impressions 10th-15th June 2017

My first chance to try new games this week was actually at a friends hen party. Having a few more people than our usual player count of two meant it was a good chance to try a couple of new games, with high player count on the box. We've also had ample gaming opportunity during the week this week, so we've been working hard on our pile of shame, and there's plenty of thoughts to share.

So, here are the Yellow Meeple's first impressions;

• Timeline British History is quite an educational game, about historical events in Britain. Collectively, players are creating a timeline, starting from one event with a known date. Each player has four cards and you take turns to try and correctly place them in the timeline. Each card has the date on the reverse so that you can then check if you've put it in the right spot. As the game continues, it's harder to fit your card in the right spot as the windows between each card get smaller and smaller. The first player to place 4 card correctly wins. For some reason, this game is quite addictive, even with players with very little historical knowledge, everyone has wanted to play this 3 or 4 times in a row. I'm definitely starting to learn a few more dates and I can see Timeline British History working well in the classroom too.

• In A Bind Junior is a party game and although it says its a junior edition, I would happily play this with adults (I've not seen the adults equivalent which is just called 'In A Bind'). I introduced this to friends at a hen party and they called it 'card-Twister', which I think is quite fair. Each turn you pick up a card and that determines how you need to act until the end of the game, either a position you need to put your body in, or a noise you need to make before you pick up a card. With a few drinks, this game was hilarious! It's not much of a game, but it is a very funny party activity that I will be bringing out on appropriate occasions, but not game night.

• EXIT The Game - The Pharoah's Tomb is the second escape room game we've tried and thankfully we preferred it to the first. It's the first game in the EXIT series that we've tried and I was really impressed by the system, especially the way that the answer deck is so well thought out. The puzzles in this game we're very logical in general, with variable difficulty, and our only hurdles came when we just didn't think outside the box enough to open our minds to the potential methods of finding a solution. The game worked well with two players, and I wouldn't want to play with many more due to the fact that there aren't many simultaneous puzzles and not enough materials to share. The Pharoah's Tomb has definitely got me excited for more in the EXIT series.

• The Ravens of Thri Sahashri is an asymmetric, 2-player cooperative game. The anime-style artwork and story in the rulebook is not appealing to me and actually would normally put me off a game, but good reviews put this small game onto my radar. For a very small card game, The Ravens of Thri Sahashri is extremely deep and only after our first game did we understand where we went wrong. There is a lot going on with trying to predict your team mate and trying to deduct the best way to help them as well as the spatial aspect of placing cards in the central group to help your team mate the most. I'm very impressed by the game but I'm not 100% sure whether it's one we will desperately want to get back to the table.

Whilst I was away at the weekend Amy got the chance to play both Yokohama and Crisis, which I'm extremely jealous of. She enjoyed both but thinks I'd prefer Yokohama out of the two. I just hope I can try them soon!