Sheep & Thief might just be the cutest card game we've ever played. We got to try out the Japanese edition at our last gameday with @boardgamesanctuary and had a great time.

Played over three rounds, you draft cards pick and pass style, then take turns to place them on your map. The goal is to collect and herd sheep into your farmyard using sheepdogs, while watching out for the pesky robbers who will steal them away.

Points are scored by moving sheep from the fields to your pasture, connecting roads to the surrounding towns, and for building large segments of river.

For a light game there were some definite thinky moments, especially when trying to figure out where you will place each card. You gather them before putting them down, so there's a lot of planning going on in your head as you try to make sure they will fit. The good thing is that placement doesn't matter except for scoring, so if you get it wrong it doesn't matter that much.

Production wise, the map is a fold out sheet which doesn't sit as flat as it could, but the game makes up for it with their choice of sheep token. Each time you place a card showing a sheep you get to add a little fluffy white pompom to your map. How awesome is that?

There were plenty of laughs to be had when someone got a nice pile of sheep close to their farmhouse only for someone to snatch them away with a well timed thief card, and even more when the fan made all the sheep float away!

It's a bit luck heavy and falls firmly into that light filler box, but it was a perfect way to finish the day.

Over the years we've become quite good at knowing what works for us - beautiful beige Euros, and what doesn't - games involving speed, making things up, or a ticking clock. Knowing ourselves as we do, we can avoid those things that we know are going to turn us off a game before we even have to play it. But what happens when you find something that turns you off in a game that you otherwise love?

A few weeks ago Obsession found its way back to the table. We both really enjoy it, but there is a certain time commitment to playing it, so it doesn't come out as often as it should. It had been almost 6 months since we last played, so of course, we needed a slight refresher on the rules. "How many objective cards do you draw each courtship phase?" "I'll check the rulebook."

The information we needed was pretty simple. It really shouldn't have taken all that long to find. But the rulebook for our edition of Obsession comes with so much information that trying to confirm a simple step takes so much longer than is necessary. Rather than following a linear progression, the information you need is interspersed among other facts and figures that distract from the game at hand.

So for us, our big gaming turn off really has to be poorly composed rulebooks. Extra information is great, but that's where an appendix comes in. The rulebook should clearly and concisely show how to set up the game, how to play, and how to score. It should flow the same way that the game does, one step to the next, in chronological order. It should allow you to pick it up, check a rule, and get back to the business at hand, playing the game.

This isn't to say that we're turned off from playing Obsession. On the contrary, the more we play it, the more we enjoy it. We love the extra turns that you get in the long game and thematically the game has always clicked. Maybe we just need to print a cheat sheet to help with those hard to remember rules!

#boardgames

Tick Tick Tick Tick BOOM!

A couple of months ago we were at a convention and caught up with @boardgamebangers for an evening gaming sesh.

Our brains were fried by then, so we went with Bomb Busters, a game where you play as a team of experts trying to defuse bombs before they go off.

Everyone gets a set of tiles showing numbered wires, hidden from the other players. It's your job to use the little bit of open info to try and guess where the wires matching yours are.

Get it right, and you get to snip them, moving one step closer to victory. Make a mistake and the countdown timer gets closer to zero.

Later levels add different colours wires, as well as numbers in between the normal ones, making things tougher (but more interesting)

There were a great set of training modules which helped ease us in and while there were a few mishaps we did pretty well as a team. We made good use of the action cards which help when you get stuck, and only had to redo a few missions.

While it's not our usual sort of game (co-op, deduction and pressure!) we actually had a really good time. Part of that was the great company, and part of it was that it's a really clever game.

We can totally see why it won the Spiel des Jahres last year. It was easy to learn and you could play it with pretty much anyone, no gaming experience required. Not one we think we'd want to play at two, but lots of fun with the right group.

#boardgames

Would you prefer to be going on a grand adventure, with the game guiding you and filling in the world around your actions, or would you rather be doing your own thing, unfettered by narrative that you're not interested in?

This week's #topictuesday🎲question is "How do you feel about story-driven games? " and it ended up being a tough one to answer, even though we were the ones that chose it!

Turns out that we have some mixed feelings about story driven games. There have been a few we've loved, like The Animals of Baker Street, Perspectives Blue, and the Lord of the Rings Trick Takers, but then there are others that haven't been as enjoyable.

We think there are a few main reasons for it. We only get to game a few hours per week, so don’t like being committed to any one game for long periods of time. Many story driven games seem to be cooperative, or can involve failure, neither of which are things we enjoy. Add to that the fact that we both dislike leaving things unfinished and you can see why it's not a genre we go for often.

Does it mean we'll never play them? Of course not, we're always happy to try new games and every so often one hits very well. We'd have been sad to miss out on any of the great experiences we had with the ones we enjoyed. It just means we're careful about which we choose to try.

What about you, are you a fan or would rather avoid them? Any recommendations are most welcome!

#boardgames

Over the holiday break we had a chance to introduce friends to the magical marbles of 12 Rivers.

Even in the box the visual appeal of this game had our friends hooked. It was an instant yes when we asked if they wanted to try it, even before we'd shown them the marbles.

As we were setting things up they took the marbles for a test drive. Several times! Releasing the gate and watching the pearls travel down the river is such a lot of fun, but there's also a game to play!

At 4p we found that we needed to utilise the top spaces a lot more than at 2p. Some rounds there would only be a single pearl of a certain colour, so if you wanted it, you needed to spend big.

Lots of cards and fairy tokens were used so we found most of the pearls were collected each round, leaving very little in the lake for those that took a gamble.

For the new players, collecting the pearls was something easy to focus on, but it did mean that they neglected to also pick up new villager tiles. Having pearls is one thing, but without the tiles to move them to, they soon found their Alpacas were full. This meant that the colour bonuses came into the game a lot more than they did in our 2p game, but there were less points coming from villager tiles.

We all had a fantastic time stealing marbles from each other (sorry, not sorry for taking that purple pearl!) and left with a promise to play again soon! #boardgames

Used Games, Heck yes or no way?

That's what @magicandmeeples has asked us for this week's #topictuesday🎲question, and we're team Heck Yeah all the way!

Now, I get why some people don't liked used games. They can be a bit beat up, the boxes dented, or if you're really unlucky, missing pieces. If you like your games pristine, which I totally get, it can be a bit off-putting when they come like that.

On the other hand, they can be awesome value, depending on where you find them, plus sometimes it's the only way to get hold of those out of print games. We've been on a real vintage Euro kick, and it can be the only way to try many of those classics.

Where do we find our used games? Well I've had some incredible luck at what we Aussie's call the Op Shop (Charity store) over the years. How does King of Tokyo for $4, Carcassonne for $5, 7 Wonders for $8 or Terra Mystica for $10 sound?

Our other main source of secondhand games is our favourite convention. Each year they have a huge Bring and Buy stall. Not only is it a great place to rehome your unwanted games, but we've picked of some great bargains. Last year we picked up five Stefan Feld games for a song, and you can see this year's stack in the photo!

There have been the occasional disappointments, like the time I got an expansion home to find that it contained the empty punchboards and some leftover tokens, but 99% of the time what we've picked up has been fine. Sometimes they've needed a wipe or a little tape to make them right, but with a little TLC they've given us many hours of enjoyment and we're glad to give them a second life.

What about you, are you team Heck Yeah, or Team No Way?

#boardgames

The number of different games played may be a bit lower than last month, but we've managed to get a few larger games to the table a couple of times which makes us happy.

We spent a weekend playing Obsession which is still a lot of fun.

We weren't sure whether we made the right decision buying a second-hand copy of Bora Bora, but after playing it we have no regrets! Everything made a lot more sense this time and we hope to get this back to the table soon!

Alongside the bigger games there were some nice little fillers. Uno and Delta Rummy are fast, but highly competitive when they hit our table!

We hope you had a great month of gaming! Let us know if you want to hear more about any of these games. #boardgames

Marco! Polo!

No, we're not talking about the classic swimming pool game, instead we're talking about The Voyages of Marco Polo, the board game. We'd highly recommend not mixing them up unless you like your Euro games wet!

It's a dice placement game about tracing the journey that was made from Venice to China. You travel the world by river or overland, setting up trading posts in each place you stop which get you permanent benefits or new action spaces to use.

Points come from gathering goods, completing contracts, setting up outposts and visiting certain cities - it's a real point salad with lots of paths to victory.

Our favourite part was the way you can get ongoing benefits by setting up shop in the various locations. Some gave us more flexibility when it came time to place our dice, while others just gave us income at the start of each round which was handy as well.

Many spaces require a certain number of dice to trigger them, then the values determine the reward you get. The lowest face is the one that counts, so we found taking the action at the higher strengths could be quite costly.

At two players you block off a couple of the low cost spaces, making them more even for both players, but otherwise it plays the same as normal. Because travelling is so expensive, not having other players on the map didn't feel like it was a problem and it still felt tight.

The game did feel quite short, with not enough time to do everything we wanted, but that might change as you get more familiar with it. It's always tough in a convention setting to get a real idea of how a game plays, but we liked what we saw and are keen to try the revamped sequel version which is meant to add a bit more depth to the game.

#boardgames

It feels good to help, right?

Our Village is a card game where you work to build up a community. From a simple well all the way up to schools, improve your little patch of the world by collecting resources and using them to grow your village.

If you don't have the resources you need to build, and can't draw it from the deck, feel free to ask your neighbours, the other players, for help. Of course, it's good to share so if they give you something you need to return the favour with a resource card from your hand.

We like the engine building aspect of the game, and how you can upgrade your buildings as you go along instead of having to pay the full cost outright. It lets you start small and work towards those bigger buildings.

The sharing didn't come into play as much as we'd expected at two players. We managed to build with just what we drew for the most part, but it's good to have the option and it might change with more players.

It plays in about 15 minutes and could be a good way to teach younger players about sharing, as well as about basic community needs.

If you’re after a copy you can get it directly from the Delta Phase Games website at https://www.deltaphasegames.com/. Thank you to Eris, the designer, for giving us a chance to try it out!

#boardgames

Which game has your favourite rule for deciding the first player?

Deciding who goes first in a game can be tough. Most of the time I'll let Steph do it, just because I'd such a nice person (😇) but sometimes a game has such an epic rule for choosing that we just have to run with it.

For Steph, her favourite first player rule comes from The Great Heartland Hauling Co. It reads "The player with the best moustache, or failing that, the longest hair, is first player". Anyone who's met Steph knows she's a shoe in to win that, though I won't tell you which part applies!

For me, my favourite is any game where the oldest player goes first. That's a rarity, because designers seem to want to give the young an advantage (like they need it!). I'm the oldest player in our gaming circle, so this one always benefits me.

I'm sure there are a ton of other great ones out there, so we'd love to hear which game has your favourite!

#boardgames