Board games we played this month! | 10+ mini game reviews | AUGUST 2022

hey guys it is jenna what is up and welcome back to the board game garden and welcome to another monthly overview monthly wrap-up of all of the games that we played over the month of august i like last month we'll be doing all of the multiplayer games in this video and then i will be coming out with another video in a few days of all the games that i played solo which i had in august like solo challenge and i'm doing that again for september so i think in that video i'll let you guys know like the games that i'm hoping to play in the month of september um we will see but i don't know if i want to keep that like a surprise for the following month video or if you guys want to like hear the games that i plan on trying to get to the table solo um let me know down in the comments but anyways i have my cell phone right here and we are going to get into the board game stats but without further ado if you're wanting to see all the games that we played in august just keep on watching give this video a big thumbs up it really helps the channel be seen comment down below any games that you played in the month of august that you want to chat about and also consider subscribing if you have not done so already the garden is growing and it just makes me so so happy and i'm really really enjoying making these videos so i would love to have you here but yeah let's get into this video shall we so getting into these stats for the month august was actually a pretty good month it wasn't as good as july in july we played 35 times 27 different games in june it was pretty low with 21 plays and 15 different games and then august is almost as good as july with 33 plays this is the stats 33 plays in total 22 different games and i believe one two three four five six seven eight eight new to me games eight new to us games um that's pretty good anyways without further ado let's get into the games starting with august 2nd we managed to be able to play um a game that i only played solo we managed to play it multiplayer with france's parents and that is cascadia this is designed by randy flynn uh published by aeg in flat out games and this just recently won the spiel the genres don't know if i'm saying that right but they just won that award and i can see why this game is fantastic it is easy to teach easy to get to the table i did play this multiple times in august as well solo so i will chat about my experience with that in that video but multiplayer this game is fantastic basically in cascadia it is a tile drafting game where you have four different options on your turn of a habitat tile which is a hexagon tile that has a bunch of different um or can have multiple habitat types on it or it can just be one habitat two habitats um and then it also shows you like what animals can go on that habitat and then you also can choose a animal token so there are four different um pairs of options so one habitat and one animal token you're taking those adding the habitat tile to your board attaching as many of these similar habitats together because at the end of the game you will score for your biggest groupings of each type of habitat and then you're also playing the animal token or placing the animal token on the habitat any habitat in your board or on your board that you've made that allows for that animal and each animal scores differently there's a bunch of different um scoring objective cards that you can choose from at the beginning of the game for each animal and it is just a really really fun puzzle very chill game not hard to teach like i said and just so easy to get to table and that's what i love about this game um france's parents seem to really really enjoy it so super excited to hopefully introduce this to more people some of our board game friends also my family i feel like my parents would really enjoy this one so yes that is number one that is cascadia so moving into a game that francis and i played i believe like four times four or five times throughout the month and this game has just uh floored me i can already tell you guys right now this game is most likely going to be in my top 10.

um i really really love ryan lockett games well the only ones i've played so far are above and below and rome and above and below is one of my favorite games and i wanted to branch off from above and below and obviously the game that you go to after above and below is the next in the series and that is near and far guys this game is so freaking good i loved this game so did francis we always are wanting to bring this back to the table we are going through the campaign mode of this game basically you are going through 10 different maps so 10 different games and it is a worker placement game where you are either going into town and doing some sort of work replacement action in town like getting a pack bird or getting a treasure um recruiting people just different things that you can do go to the mines freaking love this game oh i'm just so excited to talk about it you can go to the town and do any sort of action there or you can choose to go exploring and you can go do quests oh my goodness i love this game so much and the nice thing is that you can play this on like a single play mode where you just play one game and you're done you can play a campaign of it or you can play a character mode that's kind of like a campaign where you're you're building a character but you don't necessarily have to go on the full campaign i haven't played that version yet so i don't really know the extent of it but there are three different ways to play and it is just so much fun i really need to make a full video on this one because i really really enjoyed it and now i want to try um now or never i want to try sleeping gods oh oh my goodness i've only ever experienced above and below and then i experienced this and it just makes me very happy so that is near and far i forgot to say it is designed by the amazing ryan lockett and published by red raven games and can you tell i really liked it also can you tell that it's probably going to be one of my favorite plays of the month probably so francis and i ended up playing that on the fifth and the sixth um we then played brass birmingham which i have chatted about before on the channel it's just up here um we played on stream and this was our second time playing this and we played it on stream without going back over the rules because we played it once when we first got it a few months ago and then we didn't play it at all until we brought it to the table for the live stream and we ended up like fully forgetting some of the rules so we ended up having to kind of relearn it on stream it was a little bit stressful but it was fun and everyone in chat was super super nice about it and helped us through which if you are not already i definitely recommend going and checking out our twitch channel francis and i have been live streaming every tuesday and then i do some solo live streams on sundays and sometimes other days but i've been really really enjoying live streaming over there on twitch it's just the board game garden it's always linked down below would love to have you come and hang out but yes we ended up playing brass birmingham which i've chatted about before and then we moved into some new party games which these are three party games that i've been really wanting for a while we picked them up at our friendly local game store i believe at the beginning of august um the first one is this game right here this is so clover it is designed by francois romain and it is published by repos productions and everyone says how amazing um so clover is and i i i see where it's coming from because it is a very very fun um like word connection game i guess basically you have this clover i'm sure you guys have seen it before but you have this clover and then you randomly pick out four um cards to place on this clover and each card has four different sides and whatever two words are on each side of the clover you are producing a word that connects those two words and then you're taking off the cards shuffling them up and then seeing if everyone at the table can place those cards back in to the clover in the correct configuration and it is a cooperative game so everyone's working together to figure this out obviously the person that made the puzzle can't contribute on their turn but when it's on to another person's turn they get to work with the rest of the group to figure out the words and it's just a very casual party game um everyone kind of goes off on their own and makes their little clover puzzle and then brings it back and then you each do your turn and it is a lot of fun i really really recommend it like i said easy to teach i actually didn't say that but it's easy to teach and it's easy to get to the table and just a good fun group time so we played that with i believe france's parents and they really really enjoyed that one and then the next party game that we played with france's parents is another kind of similar kind of concept with like word connections but this is medium this is designed by who is this designed by does it tell me who it's designed by i don't think this one tells me who it's designed by but it's it's by greater than games um not the only greater than games game i'll be talking about today but medium is a mind reading card party game where on your turn the person to your left is going to be placing one of their cards down everyone has a hand of just a bunch of random words and i really love the design of this game because it kind of looks like tarot cards and i am a huge fan of tarot cards if you did not know i love doing tarot card readings i have multiple decks of tarot cards and francis always like jokes like hey can we play a game of tarot and it's not funny but uh he thinks it is but anyways um the person to your left puts down one of their word cards and then you get to pick out a word from your hand and place it down and then the two words that you have placed in front of you both of you have to think in your head a connecting word and then on the count of three you have to say the word that you're thinking and if you both say the same word you get a tile like a first attempt tile and that is worth more points and you place it in between the two of you um if you get it on the second attempt you get a second attempt tile third attempt tile if you can't get it by then um you just don't get one and then at the end of the game all of the tiles on both sides of you so with your partner on your right and your partner on your left you count them all up and whoever has the most points wins and it's super super fun basically i guess i didn't explain this but when you say the words that you're thinking in your head if they're not the same you then use the two words that you both shouted out to try to connect those two words and then so on and so forth so i definitely recommend this one this is kind of one that we just picked up kind of on a whim i've seen it a few times here and there i really love the like theme of it again with the tarot cards and the mind reading super fun there's also a few other cards in the game that we have not brought in i guess it's like a different module but yeah a very very fun uh party game and then lastly this is the third party game that we picked up at our friendly local game store this is wavelength i've heard a ton of good things about this game um a lot of people actually brought this to the table with my family and uh they were like oh my goodness i saw this on tik tok so i guess wavelength is pretty popular on tick tock i did not know that but this is published by it doesn't even say much about who it's published by oh maybe it's cmky yeah that might be it anyways in wavelength um you are working in two teams and on your turn you're trying to get your oh this is hard to explain let me this is this one's a hard one to like it's an easy game but it's hard to explain and hard to teach um basically on your turn is this the right way this is the right way there we go so basically on your turn you are trying to get your team to put the dial in the correct spot and you're going to this thing's very difficult to open but you're going to be looking at this obviously not showing your team and then you're trying to get them to get as close to the 4 or on the 4 because you'll get the most points obviously and you're trying to get them to turn the dial to here and you will have different cards that show you a scale so this one is from introvert to extrovert so on a scale of from introvert to extrovert um and then you're gonna say something i don't know what would i say for this um going to a party and dancing on a table how introvert how on the scale of introvert to extrovert where would that situation uh be i guess i'm not very good at this game clearly and then your group would be like okay um on a scale of introvert extrovert going to a party and dancing on a table it's pretty extroverted let's let's do that there and then you'd go okay you sure and then you do that and we would get three points woohoo what a game don't you guys wish i took out the game and explained it fully for you for every single game that would be crazy what a box fart so anyways that is wavelength this one is a fun one for big groups and big parties if you have a bunch of people coming over pretty sure you can play this uh 12 to 12 plus people because you go on to two teams and the teams can be as big as you want basically you're just going to have one person from the team trying to get everyone else to guess the correct answers so it's just a fun one very low-key a little bit confusing to teach but overall you know most people get it but yes that was the last party game we then had a game night with our friends joy and caleb and we played three different games three that i've already chatted about here on the channel but we played so clover which i just finished talking about we also played dungeons dice in danger which was one that i chatted about quite a bit last month i have really really been enjoying that both solo and multiplayer everyone that we have played dungeons dice in danger with has really really enjoyed it so that was fun and then we also played clank with them they are a little bit new to the hobbies so we want to start um introducing them to bigger games and we thought that clank um caleb is a big fan of magic the gathering so we figured that might be fun for him to learn and one that he would enjoy because it is a deck builder so we ended up introducing them to clank just the bass clank and i think i've chatted about clank before here on the youtube channel um but clank is a fun game where you are building your deck and on your turn you are using your cards to go down into the depths of a castle um you're going to grab an artifact and then try to get out as soon as possible um before the dragon kills you and you create clank which is kind of like creating noise and that is adding cubes of your color into a bag and then every time the dragon attacks someone is grabbing cubes out of the bag and if your cubes are pulled out then you're getting attacked and you could possibly die which most of the time i do in clank i will admit i'm not the best at getting out before the dragon kills me but i think when i played when we played with them i think i actually got out but i don't think i won um i think francis might have won but anyways clank is a very fun one one that we really really enjoy we also have clank in space and i do possibly in the future want to do a video on comparing clank and clay can space let me know if you guys would want to see that i don't know if like people are in the hobby wondering like which one to get and kind of want a comparison between the two but there's also now clank catacombs coming out so maybe i should wait grab clank catacombs and then do like a huge comparison between the three i don't know but we love clank such a good game and that was our night with joy and caleb so moving into a two-player only game that i was really really excited to finally get to the table um this was sent to us by roxie games so a huge thank you to them but they sent us over radlands and i didn't know how i felt about this one at first but i really genuinely enjoyed this one it is a two-player head-to-head game where there's a little bit of take that so i think that's probably the reason why i wasn't like too too sure about it but i ended up really really enjoying it the art is beautiful and basically you have three i don't know what they're called but they're like your bases i guess and you are trying to um defeat or destroy all three of your opponent's bases before they defeat yours and on your turn you have a certain amount of water that you can use and you're playing cards down on your turn to protect your bases and you're just you know fighting back and forth and trying to defeat each other's bases so it is very very fun one that i want to continue playing i feel like this would be a good one to take traveling it's very small we just have i believe this is just like the retail edition but some of the like i think there was like a kickstarter edition that's a lot bigger but i really like that this one is in a small little box and it's easy to travel with and uh i'm obsessed with the like art style it's so like bright and fluorescent and really really cool so that is by roxy games actually don't think i said who designs this but i actually don't know oh it's daniel peach nick peach nick um redlands by roxy games really really enjoyed it definitely recommend and then after that francis and i ended up playing near and far another two times i think that was the weekend with the tabletop live network marathon that we were a part of so we played one game of near and far and then the next day we finished up that game and uh do i have to talk about near and far anymore because i will uh but yeah we played another two games of that and then after that that same night that we played near and far we ended up playing cascadia with france's parents as well as ten penny parks which they really enjoyed i think i chatted about ten penny parks in the last month's video so i'm not going to chat about it too too much but i will say that i will be talking about it a little bit more in the solo video because i did end up getting it to the table solo so i get excited for that but we played those two games with them um and then next one this was a game that i was very scared to get to the table and very scared to learn and play but this is another one that i really really enjoyed this month both francis and i i think we've been really enjoying like bigger games um together just like near and far and this amazing game right here spirit island so many people are saying you guys need to play that and i can see now why because this game is a lot of fun it is a cooperative game where you are spirits and your different spirits their asymmetrical like player powers and stuff like different factions i guess and you're trying to defeat the invaders and protect the dehaan and francis and i have played this i think three times now we lost the two first times that we played this and then we ended up live streaming this this past tuesday and we ended up beating it we played on like the easiest level um we played with two of the easiest spirits and we're really really excited to experiment with other spirits and try to beat this again i can see why this is such a popular game it is very very fun it's very difficult and a little bit stressful but honestly i kind of enjoyed the stress and um losing the first two times that we played it really really like pumped us up to get it to the table again and like finally beat it so really really enjoyed spirit island it is a i think it's technically like a deck builder kind of and on your turn you are using your spirit powers by paying energy um to move the invaders and defeat the invaders and the invaders are going to be ravaging and building and you're basically just trying to fight them off and gain fear and stuff like that it's very very fun if i was going to explain the whole game we'd be here for hours but it is a very fun one i will say it's not as complicated as people uh make it up to be i think it's just more difficult to win um but the overall um rules of the game are not too too crazy i maybe like once you get to the more complicated spirits i could see that happening but for the most part it was pretty easy and easier than we thought to learn so that is spirit island um i didn't say whose design bar it is designed by r eric rius and it is published by greater than games um the same publishing company as medium so that is a spirit island like i said we ended up playing that three times we played it on the 24th the 25th as well as the 30th of august so very very fun um and then we have a few more to go through the ones that we ended up playing at my parents house um we had a fun get-together where we did the hot ones challenge as a family i actually uploaded a vlog over on my main channel which is jenna rose if you guys do not know i do have like a main channel where i film vlogs and stuff some board games are featured you know in daily vlogs and weekly vlogs and stuff but i don't focus on board games um but we did a hot ones challenge it was very fun and then we ended up playing a bunch of board games as a family we played all of the different um party games we played so clover we played wavelength and we played medium and then we also played this game right here this is one that we've had in our collection for a while and i really enjoy it i will say francis doesn't enjoy it as much as i do so it it always makes me happy when i can get this to the table with other people francis sat out of this one um but this is point salad it is published by aeg and they did actually send me a second copy of this so i will be doing a giveaway with that in the future as well as another copy of tiny towns um i'll do a giveaway for that as well but in point salad you're basically on your turn taking two veggie cards or you're taking a point card that gives you points based off of the veggies that you collect it's a very simple easy game but a lot of fun easy to teach easy to get the table you can play it up to six people um i don't know if you guys can see that there but you have your garden where you're taking your veggies or you can take one point card and it's just easy fun it's it's a good time so that is point salad they do have a new one coming out i forget what it's called point city i think it's called point city um and that one i believe is not a card drafting game i think it's like a tile drafting game correct me if i'm wrong but i'm excited to see what that one is all about um but we also played another game that i love and that is the whatnot cabinet this is published by pencil first games it is one of my comfort games which i think i actually want to make a video of like my top 10 comfort games spoiler alert the whatnot cabinet is probably going to be on that but um yes it is a easy game where you are drafting tiles and placing them into your whatnot cabinet and you're putting these little objects into your cabinet in different columns and rows in order to get points in different ways and the player order is determined by what action you take on your turns if you're taking a better action on your next turn you will be later in the player turn order and i really really enjoy that type of mechanism so yes the whatnot cabinet absolutely adorable easy to teach both of my parents really really enjoyed that one we ended up just playing with my parents after everyone else left and then we also with my parents played this game here which one of the boxes is opening but this is similar and i think i chatted about similar on the channel before i don't know what i think it might have been in the art that i really really love similar is a pretty straightforward deduction game where one person sees one of the character cards and then puts that character card in with 12 on the table and they're trying to get the other players to guess that character and there are a bunch of different packs we have history myths and fables fables is typically the one that we play with just because it's the one that people know most of the characters from because it's just like disney characters that most people know but the person that's trying to get the other players to guess are placing other cards and they have a hand of all of the other characters um from the deck that aren't on the table and they are placing one of those characters on the table either horizontally or vertically and if they place it vertically it's that the character that they're trying to get the other players to guess has similarities to that character or if they place it horizontally that character is different than the one that they're trying to get them to guess so very very fun little quick deduction game i really really enjoy similar they have a bunch of different um themed ones they have like a spooky one they have animal ones um they have a harry potter one i believe as well i kind of want to grab some more of these similar games so maybe i will do that in the near future probably the harry potter and the spookies i want the most um but yes that is similar and i didn't say it is published by horrible guilt and then the last game that we played this month is a game that is on game found right now this was sent over to us for review by quality beast the same people that make sees the bean one of my favorite games ever and philosophy is a very interesting game and one that i didn't think i would be too too into when i first heard about it but um for some reason recently i've had this like urge to learn how to play chess i don't know why i think i just like want a game that i can play easily with two players back and forth kind of thing and master and philosophy i think is going to be something that will fill that need for me it's very similar to like it gives me chess vibes where you're going back and forth with another player you can get an expansion for it to add in a third player but you're placing these tiles that are targeting your opponent's tiles and doing different things to their tiles and you are the thematic ties of this is that you're having a conversation with the other person and the tiles are your ideas and you're going back and forth and trying to come to a conclusion and making different arguments and going back and forth and i really really enjoy this one it's beautiful on the table this is just a prototype and it's not going to be as beautiful as the finished product which i'm very very excited about but it's like we played it a few times so far and i really really have been enjoying it it's a good brain burner we just played it on the coffee table while watching something on tv and it's just very calming and light and just easy to get to the table i really really enjoy that about this so i'm excited to do a full video on this in the near future if you guys want to go check it out it is on game found right now if it's something that sounds interesting to you a two player back and forth um conversation placing tiles pushing your players tiles in different ways i think i forgot to tell you guys the way that you win but basically you're trying to get three of your own tiles in a straight line or a diagonal line so um francis actually said it was kind of like a mix between chess and like connect four which we really really enjoyed so i'm excited to dive into philosophy more that is published by quality beast huge thank you to them for sending that over so excited to chat about it more in a separate video um but yes i will have the link to that game found down below if you guys want to go check it out but yes i think that is everything for the games that we played this month all right friends so we have made it to the point in the video where i have to choose my top three plays of the month which this uh this month is going to be so hard because i played so many amazing games and it's so hard to compare like party games with bigger games i always tend to lean towards bigger games as games that i enjoy the most just because they are bigger experiences and i just personally enjoy bigger games so i always kind of go towards those so um it is no surprise that my number one are we gonna go from number one are we gonna go to number three let's start with three my number three is going to be oh this is a tough one i really enjoyed radlands and i really enjoyed philosophy both of those are like two player only games which i really really enjoyed those but i think my number three is going to be cascadia um you guys can't see it but it is down here um cascadia has been one that i have enjoyed time and time again both multiplayer and solo but this is specifically talking about the multiplayer game um we really really enjoyed playing this with france's parents um and i'm really really excited to introduce it to more people board game friends my family so cascadia is number three my number two is going to be spirit island um this one is one that surprised me this is definitely my like biggest surprise of the month i didn't think i would like it as much as i do because there is a little bit of that combat and there's not so much like area control but you're fighting off invaders and that's typically not something that i love but i really really enjoyed that game spirit islands so spirit island is my number two and then it is no surprise my number one is near and far i could go on about this game forever it is absolutely amazing and like i said spoiler it's probably going to be in my top 10 so very very excited for that one um we have played i think four or five maps now so i'm excited to finish up the campaign with francis i'm going to be so sad when we finish up the campaign but i do think it's one that i or we want to start a campaign with four players maybe with our friends tom and asha i think that would be a lot of fun and i think that they would enjoy it as well and they are friends that we you know periodically get together with them we like to get together you know once or twice a month to play games with them so i feel like that would be one that would be fun to start a campaign with them with so yes near and far is my number one such a good game and it makes me want to try even more of the red raven games now or never sleeping gods the ancient world so many games that i want to try from that publisher so yes that is going to be the video that is the monthly overview for august hopefully you guys enjoyed if you did give this video a big thumbs up comment down below your like top three plays of the month also subscribe if you have yet to do so be sure to go and check out our twitch channel we've been really really enjoying that i kind of want to start doing some more solo live streams so definitely go check out that follow us over there and um join our discord we have a discord i really need to start shouting these things out because i feel like some people don't know that they exist so yes discord twitch definitely go check them out i love you guys so so much remember you are somebody's reason to smile and i will see you in the next board game video which is going to be all of my solo plays so get ready [Music] you