Week In Review - May 11, 2026

0:12 Hello everybody. Welcome to Week in Review. This is where we take a look at all the videos we put out over the past week at the Dice Tour and we talk about them. And if you want to see the full video, the full experience, the the epic, well, whatever. Anyway, we have links in the description below. So, what have we done last week? Let's tell you.

0:31 Hey everybody, I'm Z Garcia. Here's what I reviewed last week. I reviewed Coohl's, which I gave a five out of 10 to. This is an abstract strategy game that came out originally back in 1999, but it just got reprinted from the OP. And it is okay. It's very, very serviceable. I It's It's a simple game, that's for sure. So, if you're someone looking for an abstract game that you can teach to just about anybody, you can quickly jump into it and quickly be competitive so that you're evenly matched, then yeah, maybe this is one you want to check out. But, uh, there's lots of better abstract games out there. Just get one of those. I reviewed Mayor of Chicago, which I gave a seven out of 10 to. This is a solitire only game with a very tricky set of challenges for the players. It's a thinky game. It's a It's a difficult game to do well in, but it is cool and it is uh like I said, kind of a puzzle, a really neat puzzle in a box with some personality, some interesting artwork, challenging. It's going to take you some time to get up to speed with the game.

1:38 Uh, so don't give up right away because it'll punish you at first, but if you give it the time, it'll reward you with an interesting uh interesting time. And then lastly, I reviewed the new printing of San Juan, and I gave it an eight out of 10. Uh, same thing I gave the other San Juans before it. Uh, this is basically the same thing really, but it is a game I very much enjoy. It takes Puerto Rico and puts it into just a card game. And I always thought that San Juan did that very, very well. Condensing a lot of the game play, a lot of the feel of Puerto Rico into a smaller time frame with fewer components without losing a whole lot in the process in my opinion. So, I very much like San Juan and this is it's this is a good printing of it.

2:25 And that's it for me. Let's keep on going. Hey folks, it's another Chris time and my week started with the six out of 10 for me. This is a David Turxy large board and dice game. Board and dice the publisher, but also it has a board and it has dice, but it is a bit of a a movement game, dice placement. It has a lot of interesting things going for it, but I don't really love the soup at the end of it all. Great ingredients all around. I have a lot of fun playing it, and then I have a lot of moments where I feel like there's not enough good options at any given point, and it's not a game that I want to wrestle with the systems to get better at. So, it's 6 out of 10 for me. Wordsy, a 6.5. This is a fun word game. Uh, this is a a positive feeling on it. It's just not the word spelling type game that I'm going to be coming to and gravitating towards, but I know a lot of people like it because it's very approachable. A display of letters out there. Come up with a word that uses as many as possible. Try to do it quick. There's a little time element to it, but not too much pressure on it either. 6.5. Uh, Mura expansion. This is the Magmell expansion. I give this one an 8.5. I think that it is solid. It's rock solid.

3:34 Improves the basic game in my opinion by just giving more options of these non-player enemies to compete against and they behave in some tricky ways. I like the little extra elements they add to an already great game. Uh so 8.5, a little bit higher than my score of the base game. And then the Azure expansion, uh the yellow dragon, I believe it's called. And this one adds this kind of seven wonders dual tugof-war type track to Azure which I already gave a nine. I give this one a 9.5 because it adds a little bit more variability, some bigger boards to kind of play with, a little more space to play with this really incredible abstract two-player head-to-head game system. And I think that it is I might not play with it every time, but I'm also really glad that it's there and it improves my experience. That's why it's a 9.5. And that folks has been my week.

4:23 All right. Last week I took a look at Flip Pick Towers, which I did enjoy. Came in at a 7.5 on. At first, I was a little thrown off um by the special powers that the different royals can have. I thought that would not lead to a lot of replayability because it doesn't really matter who has what power, but there are a lot of powers that still come in there and it leads to some really interesting uh scoring. It also kind of threw me off a little bit that you have to actually draw, which I'm not a fan of that in my roll and write games, but this one was really simple and I felt like it did a good job of not forcing you to have to draw really well in order to actually be clear and be able to do your scoring. So, a really fun game. Enjoy it, especially in this really tight and I guess overcrowded marketplace of flipping rights. This one did stand apart. So, for me, it's a 7.5.

5:09 Let's keep going.

5:10 Hey everybody, I'm Joy Evans. Here's what I reviewed this week. Uh first off was Flip Pick Towers. Uh this is a very cute kind of h family maybe low rolling right game where you can actually draw. It's really it's enjoyable. End up giving that a seven. Um then also Clank Catacombs Underworld and it's expansion for Clank Catacombs. I think this is a fantastic expansion but only if you play Clank Catacombs a lot because it does add some time to set up but what it does add is another place to go. I think it's very fun. If you like catacombs then definitely check this out. And I looked at Star Trek Space Hunt. This is a Star Trek version of Captain Sonar for four people. I say four people, only four people. This is fantastic. I really, really enjoyed this. This one I came in at a nine on this. This again, Captain Sonar takes eight people. This one can be played at four. And it feels really good. It's got asymmetric powers, all that stuff. Yeah, check that out. It's pretty cool. Anyway, those are the games that I reviewed this week.

6:11 Hi, I'm Wendy Ye and this week I have one game and that is TheBay. I gave this one a 6.5 and I really enjoy some of the actions and the the general aspects to the game. Like I like tracks. I like the way it builds out. I like just a lot of what's going on. Um, however, I gave it a 6.5 and it's not quite to that recommend because there is a tightness to this game that I don't normally get in other like tight heavy euros. It's not an economy tightness, but instead it is 10 turns and in those 10 turns the the building up and the fun parts of the actions I can really only do a couple times and I have had multiple turns where I go, "Oo, I don't really want to do anything. I'm just wasting time. I'm wasting one of those whole very precious turns kind of doing nothing important so that I can get my board to wipe off eventually and kind of start over and have things more available. So, uh, 6.5 for me. I kind of like what's going on, but in the end, the package is not quite there.

7:17 Hey there everybody. It's Mike Delisio, and this week I've got four games that I reviewed. First up is an expansion to a game called Azure. And uh this one I gave a six. I did not recommend this expansion. Uh I like the base game of Azure quite a bit. And when there's a base game that I like and I feel like the expansion fundamentally changes the way the game feels, that's usually not a good thing. I feel like that was the case here. Uh it just kind of distracted I felt from what I like in the core experience of Azure. It's not bad, but it's not for me. I choose not to play with it. That's why it's a six. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong or broken about it. It's just not the way I want to play the game of Azure. Next up is Mayor of Chicago, which I rated a 7 out of 10. And if you watch that review, uh I point out that this is a game that could pretty easily be an 8.5. There uh there there needs to be some difficulty tuning. The game is far too difficult out of the box, even on the easiest level. There's some iconography issues that could be cleaned up. Uh, but it's a game that I still want to continue playing, so I recommend it. But man, I wish a few tweaks uh could be made to it to make it a truly excellent, excellent game. Next up is Tebo, which I rated a 7.5. This is a really unique feeling, cooperative game where uh you are trying to guide a herd of elephants across the savannah while trying to avoid uh some lions that are

8:48 going to be hunting you uh throughout the game. it. Um it it just doesn't feel like any other uh cooperative game that I can think of and I love the theme and the look of it and so that's why I went with a 7.5. And then finally is the other expansion for the other game from the same publisher called Moa. This expansion I rated an 8.5. This is one where I really feel like it gives me more of what I already like about Moour. you've got these new factions that are slightly more comp complex, excuse me, than the ones that came with the base game. And I think that makes sense. So, if you've played the base factions a lot and you want to change things up and throw one or two or three of these more kind of slightly complex um factions in there, it's a great thing to do. Keeps up the same feel of the game, just with some little tweaks to how uh the the experience comes through. All right. Well, that's going to do it for me this week. This is Mike Delisio. Let's keep it moving. All right. I reviewed Tempo um with Mike. Uh this is a cooperative game with some really nice artwork, but I just found it to be okay. Little lucky in the setup.

9:59 Little odd communicate. I don't know. There just something about it that missed the mark for me. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it was okay. Six out of 10. Pirates of the High Tease. A silly name game, but a very, very light game. worker placement, collecting delicious food and teas, and serving a pirate. The pirates has almost nothing to do with the theme at all, but a fun little game. Seven out of 10. Um, Tiko, this is a game in which uh you are pushing tiles through and putting them on a board. And there's some really cool concepts. It's a nice looking game from Panosaurus. It just at the end it just felt it felt fine. Six out of 10. Um, and then I did a um a video, five things I hate about Monopoly, just kind of clarifying some of that. Um, out there, Monopoly is very popular game, so we talk about it. I also reviewed Cullles with Z, uh, a an abstract strategy game, which I don't really like the production of it that much, and it's just it's an very very okay at best, and you mix that with the production. Five out of 10.

10:59 Estate: Raise the Realm. This is a very nice uh worker placement style game and but your workers the actions you do get better the more buildings you build. We've seen games like this before and the theme of this is kind of very boring but the the game itself is a really nice game. Seven out of 10. Uh I took a look at Spokes a fun racing game where you are it doesn't look that particularly that good but putting out these little lines in the board and then being able to move on them. It's like an adult version of the Haba game Monza. 7 out of 10. Carnival of Sins. Ah man, I wanted to like this more than I did. It's fine for maybe one gameplay, but after that it's just lucky rolling dice. Beautiful cards, but not a great game. Five out of 10. And Star Trek Space Hunt. This is Star Trek uh Captain Sonar, which is fantastic. Two against two. Very fun.

11:55 Jumping into hyperspace. Really enjoyed this one. and 8.5. I also took a look at a pile of mid games on Board Game Geek and talked about my thoughts on them. Uh we played uh the a game live. What was that game we played live now? It was uh Druids of Adore It. We played that one live. We also did our top 10 games and play in 60 minutes in our other live shows. That's it. We're done. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Tom Bassel and this has been Weekend Review on the Dice.

12:28 Hey folks, thanks for watching another one of our videos. If you like our videos, if you like our channel, you would love to game with us at one of our conventions. Check out Dice Tower Cruise, Dice Tower East, and Dice Tower West. Fantastic conventions where we play games with wonderful people, a humongous library, and lots of other events and stuff. Also, don't forget to check out our channel, like and subscribe. I'm Tom Bassel. The shelves may be different, but the books are still here, folks. And today I'm going to read Joseph D. Andrews, the complete win at hearts, official rules, game variations, and strategy. Chapter 4, spade suit management. In hearts, the spade suit is the most important. Familiarity with basic concepts and special techniques is essential if you want to be a skilled player. For example, the spear play.

13:19 East has passed the ace spade Q to south. West wins the club two opening and leads spade jack 10 n. North has to duck every spade lead someone dump the queen on his king. He smokes out the queen spade. Some players in the south would wail about the bad break, the lack of protection from the queen. After pass direct, irrelevant. I used to think I was smart.