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Stellar Drift: Review Information: Mechanics:   Verb and Write, Resource Management  Player Age:   14+   Player Count:  1  - 5 Players Time to Play:  30 - 45  Minutes  Game Designer:  Bryan Kline Game Artist: Nilanjan Malakar Publisher :  Mystic Tiger Games Year Published: 2024 Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher. Introduction : Verb and Write games is a favourite mechanism for me, the more unique the verb is the more intrigued I am from Sonora being a flick and write game to an emergence of draft and writes like Boomerang and Draft and Write Records. Stellar Drift has brought a drastic change by creating a pull and write. On the base level players are pulling cubes from a bag each round determining the resources they can spend. As the game develops players will build their engine allowing for more cubes to be drawn per turn, more energy gained allowing for even more cubes or changes t...

Cosmos Empire: Review Information: Mechanics:  Dice Rolling, Engine Building, Set Collection Player Age: 11+ Player Count:  2 - 8 Players Time to Play: 15 - 45   Minutes  Game Designer: Martin Brandel Publisher : Bigger World Games Year Published: 2022 Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher. Introduction: Cosmos Empire is a dice resource generation game. Think Machi Koro, Valeria Card Kingdoms or space base. Cosmos Empire's twist on this growing genre is firstly the game is closer to filler weight and it gives a player more immediate agency in dice adjustment. Game Anatomy: Cards: The game is mainly compiled of cards. Each card will have the cost to purchase on the top left. The card type at the bottom of the card, this will either be bio, spirit or tech, each type has cards that create synergies from that type. On the bottom right is the dice result that will trigger the production generation followed by the amount of re...

Race for the Galaxy: Review  Information: Mechanics:  Engine-Building, Simultaneous Play Player Age:  12+ Player Count:  2 - 4  Players Time to Play:  30  Minutes  Game Designer:   Thomas Lehmann Game Artist:  Martin Hoffmann, Claus Stephan Publisher : Rio Grande Games Year Published:  2007 BGG Weight:  2.99 Disclaimer:  A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher. Introduction: Race for the Galaxy is an engine-building game where players are trying to use high-scoring cards, or to create an engine that produces and consumes resources to score victory points. The unique hook for this game is that five possible phases can occur each round. However, only the phases that the players secretly select at the start of a round will determine which phases every player will partake in. For example if two players select the develop phase, this phase will only occur once and both of those players will gain a b...

Apiary: Rapid Review Information: Mechanics:  Worker Placement, Point Salad, Tile Placement Player Age:  14+  Player Count:  1 - 5  Players  Time to Play:  60 - 90   Minutes  Game Designer:   Connie Vogelmann Game Artist:  Kwanchai Moriya Publisher : Stonemaier Games Year Published:  2023 BGG Weight:  3.00 Disclaimer:  A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher. Rundown: In Apiary, players are building their hive with farms (engine-building), carvings (end-game scoring), recruits (ongoing benefits), and development tiles (one-off benefits). This is achieved through placing worker bees on locations. The longer a bee worker is used the stronger they become but after their last action at strength four, they must hibernate.  On a turn, a player will either play a worker to activate the location or retrieve all their placed workers. As you place a worker, no location is ever considered blocke...