Shelf Life - April 2026 (games covered in September 2025)

0:00 Hey, everybody. This is Mike and welcome to another episode of Shelf Life, my monthly series where I look at games I covered six or seven months ago and let you know whether they're still in my collection. And this month I'm looking back at September of last year. Let's see which of these games had Shelf Life. Okay, starting off in the crowdfunding corner, we've got Storybook Saga. This is one of Gabe Barrett's solo game of the month series. And yeah, this one was fun. It was a take on Oh, what's that called? Seventh inning stretch, the baseball game where you are like placing dice. Uh but this one felt a little bit less random. It's basically a combat game with beloved characters of literature of the past. Uh I still didn't love this one. It's not like top top of the solo game of the month series games for me, but it's a good time and I do like it more than the baseball one. So, that is Storybook Saga. Next is Don't Starve, the adaptation of the famous video game. And this one I was also very mixed on. I only got to see a small amount of the content, a small amount of the craftables, only one of the scenarios. It felt tuned to be very punishing and overly hard in a way that I didn't find that fun. And also the crafting seemed a little too limited and punishing cuz you would lose your items very quickly, uh which kind of emulates the video game quite well. So, maybe that's what they were going for. And this company does tend to do amazing uh video game adaptations. So, I have some confidence that by the end it will be a great game, but uh they also did uh Frostpunk and that game was also incredibly difficult. So, I don't know if it'll be very accessible in the end, but we shall see. That's Don't Starve, the board game. Okay, next was Flames of Fafnir. This is a competitive game where you're like moving around building buildings, but then you also have like a

1:31 little bit of a dexterity element where these uh marbles are being rolled at you to destroy your stuff. And it had a solo mode that I played. Uh this one was a little bit forgettable, honestly. Uh it didn't make a strong impression on me. I seem to remember the solo mode feeling a little unbalanced, uh but yeah, I I I didn't play it that many times with the prototype I got and it's hard for me to remember uh how I felt about it cuz I know I didn't like it that much. So, not very helpful, I guess, but that's Flames of Fafnir. Next is The Dealer's Tarot. I actually think this one is delivering or already delivered. This is from Level 99. This is just a book that lets you play different games with tarot cards, although you could also get a deck I think from the crowdfunding campaign. But this one I thought was great. It had some more traditional card games, but it also had the one that I did in my video, Judgment Quest, which is like a little dungeon crawl using tarot cards. So, there's some really clever uh designs here, tons of variety cuz each of the games has like 15 different ways to play it. Uh you know, that being said, it's just a book that you use for playing basic card games with tarot cards. So, I don't think it's going to blow anybody away, but still a very solid offering.

2:31 This is The Dealer's Tarot. And finally is Honor's End. This is a solo co-op deck builder uh where you're comboing cards together. So, it has uh some elements of the company's uh Oh, Moonrakers, that's what it's called, the company's other deck building offering. And yeah, it's got a campaign mode where you are kind of going through a story while also playing the game. I enjoyed the core mechanics of this one pretty well, but the balance felt off. Some things just felt a little weird, but the publisher did seem to be taking those notes seriously and working more on the balance. So, the game might be awesome by the time it's done. It's hard to say at this point, uh but I have some hope for Honor's End, although honestly, looking at the crowdfunding games for this month, none of them is really exciting for me. Uh so, we'll see how it goes. Let's get to the released games. First is Kingdoms for Lorne, which is a huge adventure campaign game from the team that did Aeon Trespass: Odyssey. I think this one is great. I love how they kind of do different stories in little bite-sized chunks. I think the combat continues to be excellent. The riff on KDM, Kingdom Death Monster's combat system, is really well done. Uh the adventuring is not always too exciting where you're just walking around the town, but still great great game. And surprisingly, I'm actually keeping it uh you know, kind of aspirationally. I don't know if I'll ever play it again.

3:38 At some point I might just cull it cuz the box is so big, but I hope to play some of the expansion content they're coming out with. And if I ever have like just gobs of free time, this would be a great one to dive into. So, that is Kingdoms for Lorne, a keep for now. Next is Tokaido Duo, the one-to-two player take on the Tokaido system. This is a re-release from Stonemaier. Uh this one was okay for me. It ended up being a cull. I definitely like it more than the regular Tokaido. I like how you have these three different workers and you're kind of uh matching their actions against each other. And the solo mode plays really smoothly. My son did enjoy the competitive play, but I don't know. It It's just not the kind of game that I'm really getting excited with. Uh the die rolling can be a little random and frustrating at times, but still a a solid game, just not one that I wanted to keep. That is Tokaido Duo. Next up is Ashes: Ascension, the uh latest in my long-running coverage of the Ashes system. And this one is really solid. Uh it's a nicer entry point than trying to track down a copy of the master set. It gives you two Phoenixborn, two characters to play. And it has one boss.

4:35 Now, the boss is less interesting than many of the other bosses they've already come out with. So, this is kind of a weaker entry in the series, but it does mean they're going to keep supporting it. They're going to go to the print-on-demand model for the uh the old sets. So, I I I like this for the life cycle of the game and that it's going to continue to be supported, but it's kind of again a weaker entry than many of the other ones they've done. So, that is Ashes: Ascension. Next is Gisuke Anime Studio Tycoon. I just realized I never did a review of this one. I guess I just totally missed it. And unfortunately, I did cull it, so I can't uh fix that mistake anymore. But yeah, this game is great. I didn't cull it for any like design reason. I love love the uh design of the one. The art of it is amazing. Um I think the worker placement is simple, but very straightforward and fun. I think the theme is incredibly [snorts] well brought out. This is one of the coolest like for an anime lover like me and a manga lover, this is one of the most well-done kind of theme-to-game mechanics thing I've seen. Uh but it just didn't work that great for my main game group. Like they liked it okay, but they didn't want to play it a whole bunch more. And I've said this many times before, I don't really keep Euros just for solo play. I tend to want them for competitive. But yeah, Gisuke, if you like anime, if you just like uh good financially focused Euros or worker placement Euros, I think this one has tons of cool stuff going on with it. I'm excited to see more from this company.

5:57 That is Gisuke and it was a cull. Next up is Dante's Inferno. Weird that I covered this and Kingdoms for Lorne in the same month. Uh this is another campaign boss battling uh narrative game. It is much more linear than Kingdoms for Lorne and kind of respects your time better. You'll keep on progressing the story at a very good clip. Uh the boss battling is fun, not as good as Kingdoms for Lorne, but I did like how they kind of used terrain and stuff. Uh it was a little bit of a hassle to run four characters. It kind of always is, but this one a bit more, although they did have like a little helper mechanic. And this one is actually a keep, just like Kingdoms for Lorne, kind of surprising. Uh mainly because I haven't done a review for it yet, so at least want to cuz I think I got to like the third circle of hell. At least want to get a little bit farther in before I do my review, but it just hasn't gotten to my table for a while. So, I'm keeping it probably to cull it, but uh at least I want to cover it a bit more. So, that is Dante's Inferno, a keep for now. Next is Lunar Rush. This is a financial Euro as well, kind of like Gisuke. The big uh kind of selling point here is that you are sending ships up and down to and from the moon and you have to kind of time them out correctly.

6:59 I thought this one was pretty fun. Uh my big complaint with it is that I think the solo mode is very poorly balanced because it doesn't really take into account that certain routes are just way better for solo and the uh AI is not intelligently competing with you for them. So, I don't really recommend it too much for solo, but for competitive it's really well done. And they just had an expansion that adds uh variable factions, which are great. So, can be a good one, but was a cull for me. That's Lunar Rush. And finally, we've got a competitive corner review, Galaxy Trucker, along with the Do What new expansion. And this one is definitely a keep for me. Galaxy Trucker is a perennial favorite. I've loved this game series for years. And you know, you do have to be in the right mindset to appreciate it cuz it's a mix of building your ship like you're seeing now and then semi-random, uh very sometimes frustrating adventures where your ship can get blown to heck. But if you can get into the cast of that, this is just a super fun one and my whole game group over the years have loved it.

7:51 So, yeah, Galaxy Trucker with expansions, that is definitely a keep to finish out September. So, not a bad month. About half the games were crowdfunding and of the released games, I kept four out of seven, which sounds pretty good. But then if you look, two of them are giant adventure games that I am kind of keeping under duress and might never play again. And two of them are expansions for games I already love. So, maybe more of a mixed bag. But let's get to the contest results and see who was able to predict my decisions. So, jumping right in, almost everybody figured out that I was keeping Ashes. I've been covering it for so many years now. And Kingdoms for Lorne, the other one I kept, only got 41% but again, I don't blame you cuz I kind of don't want to keep it. I don't know.

8:26 But Tokaido Duo only got 9% voting for it. And in the second group, this one was bloody. Galaxy Trucker only got 46% of the vote. Ouch. Uh Gisuke got 36%, Lunar Rush got 23%, and just destroying everybody's bracket, Dante only got 17% even though I kept it. Although again, how long will I keep it for? Hard to say. And this pretty rare, but we only had one person get everything right this time. So, they're just our immediate winner and that is Panos Sainidis. So, Panos, I'll be in touch for your free game. And everybody else, check the video description and you can vote for next month, May's edition of Shelf Life. Thanks for watching, everybody. Good gaming and I'll see you at the next stop.