Which Game First: A Board Game Podcast

Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out! First up: We seek tangy prestige as we age cream to stinky perfection in FromageNext: We take rock monsters to polyominoes heights in GrumbleStoneAnd lastly: We sneak our watery way to radioactive victory in Con Sonar! Fromage Designed by: Matthew O’Malley, Ben RossetPublished by: Road To Infamy Games (R2i Games) (2024)Players: 1 – 4Ages: 14 & upPlaying time: 30 – 45 minutes Fromage is a worker placement game where players are French cheesemakers in the early 20th century making, aging, and selling artisanal cheeses.  The game board is a giant circle, divided into 4 sections. Once players place their workers into the quadrant that is facing them, the board will then rotate clockwise so that a new quarter wedge of the board is facing them. Place one of your workers in the resource gathering area of the wedge facing you, and then place another worker in the area to make cheese. As the board rotates, if any of your workers that you placed are now facing you, you retrieve those workers. Workers placed will take 1, 2, or 3 turns to be retrieved. Each of the 4 sections of the board have different rules for how to score for the cheeses you make. Players may also collect resources to unlock extra abilities and bonuses to use throughout the game. And may collect livestock and fruit to unlock bonus cheese points. Score Prestige Points by selling cheese to the four locations, and by efficiently managing and upgrading your creamery. Become the most prestigious cheesemaker in all of France by running a highly successful creamery and crafting exceptional cheese, and the winner gets to claim victory using an outrageous French accent! GrumbleStone Designed by: Josh McBridePublished by: Blue Fox Games (2024)Players: 1 – 4Ages: 8 & upPlaying time: 25 – 40 minutes Grumblestone is a tile placement game where players are golems, each with their own special abilities, fighting it out versus other golems in a test for supremacy. TUMBLE- roll both six sided dice and assign the results on to a grid RUMBLE- activate the symbols in the row and column GRUMBLE- buy polyominoes and enhance your grid The results of the dice placement will result in players dealing damage, repairing their golem, enhancing the defense of their golem, and gaining points to purchase new polyominoes.  Fill in one of your rows or columns completely to unleash your golems special power, and then fill in both a row and a column to unleash their superpower! And whatever you do, try not to CRUMBLE… The last Golem standing wins the game and becomes “King of the Mountains”… so Tumble Rumble Grumble try to to Crumble and always remain Humble. Con Sonar! Designed by: Christian BoutinPublished by: Exequor Studios (2011)Players: 2 – 6Ages: 12 & upPlaying time: 10 – 30 minutes Con Sonar! is a card game where your goal is to sink more enemy submarines than the other players, while making sure your own subs survive.  12 submarines are placed on the “firing solution” board at the beginning of the game. The board ranges from the numbers 1 through 8. Players play a fleet card to move a submarine up or down t...

Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out! First up: We shuffle up and deal a path to the great outdoors in TrailblazersNext: We peel out and puzzle our way to the finish line in Tiny Turbo CarsAnd lastly: We wheel and deal our way ahead of the other kids on the block in Junior Executive Trailblazers Designed by: Ryan CourtneyPublished by: Bitewing Games (2023)Players: 1 – 8Ages: 8 & upPlaying time: 30 minutes Trailblazers is a card drafting game where players are gutsy folks who pave and brave the trails of the great outdoors.  Players are competing to earn the most points by building biking, hiking, and kayaking loops from their campsites of the matching trail type. So this game is all about completing those LOOPS. Each round, players are dealt eight trail cards where they’ll draft two cards, arrange those cards in their personal area, and pass their hand to the next player three times. Cards must either be placed adjacent to or overlapping other cards. While players can push their luck by aiming to construct long and elaborate trails, only closed loops that start and end at a matching campsite will score points. Players also compete to fulfill “First To” and “End Game” goal cards.  After four rounds, the game ends and the player with the most points from closed loops and goal cards wins, blazing new trails while everyone else goes off the rails! Tiny Turbo Cars Designed by: Hjalmar Hach, Alessandro Manuini, Jonathan Panada, Laura Severino, Giulia TamagniPublished by: Horrible Guild (2022)Players: 2 – 4Ages: 8 & upPlaying time: 30 – 45 minutes Tiny Turbo Cars is a race game in which you program the movements of your tiny toy car, with a sliding puzzle acting as your remote controller. At the beginning of each round, players have to work their way through their sliding puzzle controllers simultaneously, trying to create the sequence of actions they want their car to perform during the round. Each symbol on the puzzle corresponds to one of the possible actions — but only the two middle rows of commands on your controllers will be applied, so there’s room for maneuvers, but be quick! The first player to put down their controller will be the first to move their car during the round. Each player then executes the program they created, and the sooner you play during a round, the safer you are that your actions will actually play out as planned rather than crashing into unexpected obstacles…or other cars! But trying to be quick might also increase your chances of making mistakes, and every time you take damage, you lose battery power, which will slow you down. But hey, mistakes happen, right? You can always recharge and be back in the race. The winner is the player who makes it across the finish line first, and/or the farthest. Ladies and gentlemen, start your tiny engines!  Vroom! Junior Executive Designed by: (Uncredited)Published by: Whitman (1955)Players: 2 – 4Ages: 7 – 12Playing time: (not listed) Junior Executive is a “play money game” game where players are kids in charge of a company that makes one of these products: toys, ice cream, soda pop, or candy. Players each start with $2000 of capital. Each player must start the game by obtaining a truck, which a player can buy for $1k and then take a loan out for another $1k,

Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out! First up: We ravage the English countryside to build our Viking homesteads in LoootNext up: We attempt to raise strong and loveable kits for SCIENCE! in The Fox ExperimentAnd lastly: We spring into action in a furious dash and bring the thunder from down under in Billabong Looot Designed by: Charles Chevallier, Laurent EscoffierPublished by: Gigamic (2024)Players: 2 – 4Ages: 10 & upPlaying time: 35 minutes Looot is a worker placement and tile collection game where you are a Viking, gathering resources and capturing buildings to develop your fjord.  In turn, players will place their Viking on a hex max, and will take whatever resource exists on that space. Vikings can only be placed next to another Viking, or a longship. The resource is then placed on that player’s personal tableau, anywhere they like.  The player’s tableau also will have a few construction sites, such as a port and an altar, which require the placement of the correct resources adjacent to that building. Along the way, Vikings can capture special buildings such as houses, watchtowers, and castles.  If a player places a longship on their tableau, they must be completed, or you will earn negative points for any uncompleted longships. Trophies can also be collected for additional victory points. So store up the most riches, add up your victory points once all of your Vikings have been placed, the most VP wins and is crowned Jarl of the Vikings! The Fox Experiment Designed by: Jeff Fraser, Elizabeth HargravePublished by: Pandasaurus Games (2023)Players: 1 – 4 + expansion for 5 – 6Ages: 10 & upPlaying time: 75 minutes In 1958, Demitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut started an experiment on domestication. From a large group of foxes, they selected the ones that reacted to humans with more curiosity and less aggression. In each generation, they selected only the friendliest pups to become parents — hoping to recreate the process that originally led to domestication thousands of years ago. The experiment made stunning progress. Even though the foxes were chosen only for their friendliness, they soon started to get many of the physical traits that we associate with domesticated animals — like spots, floppy ears, and curly tails. As communication opened up, the foxes made major contributions to our understanding of how these traits are expressed. The experiment continues to this day. In The Fox Experiment, you’ll breed your own domesticated foxes. In each round you’ll select a pair of fox parents who have certain traits. You’ll gain those specific trait dice, roll them, then try to move them around to make complete trait symbols which you’ll then mark off on your pup card. You’ll then gain trait tokens depending on how many traits you marked off which you’ll use to upgrade tracks on your personal player board. At the end of the round, the previous generation of foxes will be cleared and all of the new pups will be moved to the kennel — thus becoming candidates to be chosen as parents in the next round. The game ends after 5 rounds and you’ll gain points for pleasing patrons (end of game scoring bonuses), studies completed (personal player objectives), if you ever won the friendliest fox award, upgrades on your personal player board, and extra tokens. The player with the most points wins!

Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out! First up: We cruise for Orca sightings on a card filled sea in Whale to LookNext: It’s 2075 and we’re cats in charge of the planet and it’s future in MLEM: Space Agency And lastly: We test our trick taking skill and our friendships in Rage Whale to Look Designed by: Bruno Faidutti, Jun SasakiPublished by: Oink Games (2023)Players: 2 – 5Ages: 9 & upPlaying time: 30 minutes Whale to Look is an investigation and deduction game where players are captains of boats, leading their boats of tourists into the ocean to look for whales and orcas. Each captain controls 3 boats.  One boat will have 1 tourist, another has 2, and the third boat has 3 tourists. On their turn a captain will use one of their investigation markers to take a peek at one of the 12 face-down fish cards. Investigating means you have to move one of your three boats on to an area car. area cards are the areas among the fish cards where boats go to try and find the whale and the orca. An area card can only hold a max of 3 boats. Once all players are done moving, the fish cards are turned over. Each area card counts the total value of the 4 fish cards around them. The area with the highest amount of fish sees the Whale. The area with the least sees the orca. Each tourist in a boat that sees the whale or the orca is worth a point, with bonus points available if your boat lowered its anchor. Play 2 rounds, highest point total wins, and the winner gets to holler and whale MLEM: Space Agency Designed by: Reiner KniziaPublished by: Rebel Studio (2024)Players: 1 – 5Ages: 8 & upPlaying time: 30 – 60 minutes MLEM Space Agency is a press your luck dice game, where players are cat astronauts trying to reach the depths of space and safely land on planets and moons. Play starts by each player loading one of their cats into the rocket (one rocket holds all the player’s cats, so it’s a shared journey) but there is only one captain, the cat placed in the lead position on the ship. Each cat has a special ability. On their turn, the captain rolls six 6-sided dice. The faces of the dice are 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, and a boost symbol. Roll all the dice, and decide which dice to use, depending on where the rocket is in space. Each space along the path can utilize only certain numbers or the boost symbol, and in order not to crash the ship, you have to utilize at least one of the dice matching the particular space on the rocket’s path. Along the journey, the rocket will pass by planets and moons, and at the end of each successful roll, the players must decide if this is a good spot for their cat to leave the rocket to land on the planet of the moon. Or they might want to continue the journey deeper into space to find bigger scores. Game ends when a player places their last cat, or if the rocket crashes 10 times. Add up the points, declare victory, and then go lie down in the sun for a nap. Rage Designed by: (Uncredited)Published by: AMIGO (1983)Players: 2 – 10Ages: 10 & upPlaying time: 45 minutes Rage is a trick taking game that takes place over 10 hands, with the hand size shrinking by one each time, until the final one-card hand. Players use the deck of zero through fifteen in six...

Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out! First up: We’re trying our hand at urban development one tile at a time in StreetsNext: We show the gods how much our royal blood cares about them in Amen-ReAnd lastly: It’s 1830 as we invest our cards in the future of steam engines in Trick of the Rails Streets Designed by: Haakon GaarderPublished by: Sinister Fish Games (2021)Players: 1 – 5Ages: 10 & upPlaying time: 30 – 60 minutes Streets is a hand management and tile placement game where players are investors creating attractive new streets in a growing city, investing in new businesses and homes. Valuations are affected by the other buildings in the street, so smart placement is essential to maximize profit. Players start with three building tiles in their hand. There are 4 sets (colors) along with wildcards.  When a player places a building onto a street, they will receive a number of matching meeples as shown on the bottom edge of the tile. Place the matching people on the tile as well as an ownership marker. Buildings can only be placed in a way that it connects to an existing street, either in line with an existing street, or perpendicular to the existing street. A street can have a maximum of 5 buildings. When a street is closed off by having a perpendicular street on both of its ends, that street then scores. Collect your money and remove any ownership tags on that street. Any meeples on that street will move onto the perpendicular street. You have limited ownership markers, so be careful about running out of them.  To earn the most money and win the game you need to manage your limited investment funds cleverly, planning ahead while keeping your mind open to fresh opportunities. The city is populated by hipsters, families, shoppers and tourists, each with their own preferred building type. Cleverly located properties can benefit from the growing crowds of people who further increase the value of the buildings they visit. The player with the most money at the end of the game is the winner, while all other players get kicked to the curb. Amun-Re: 20th Anniversary Edition Designed by: Reiner KniziaPublished by: Alley Cat Games (2023)Players: 2 – 5Ages: 12 & upPlaying time: 60 – 90 minutes Amun-Re is an area control and resource management game where The players are leaders of a royal Egyptian family, who are choosing their sites to control and to build their pyramids in thanks to Amun-Re and the other gods for their bounty. In Amun-Re, each pharaoh wants to build the most pyramids. To accomplish this, they must first acquire a province where they can trade and farm by bidding on it.  Try to get the province you want for the lowest possible price. Some provinces grant automatic bonuses when you win them. With their profits, they can buy power cards, bricks, and farmers. Place farmers in provinces you control, and you’ll get money at the end of every turn. Place bricks in provinces to build up pyramids. 3 bricks equals 1 pyramid.  After the purchasing and placement of resources, players then make an offering to Amun-Re.  You silently choose a number of coins to make, then all cards are revealed, and add up all the offerings together. The higher the number, the more money per farmer players get. Sometimes players want the number to be smaller – depending on the provinces they own – so their contributions might be very small. At the end of each round,

Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out! First: We try to catch the last cart out of town as we scramble away from black death in Bristol 1350  Next: We draft rather unique castles to please a picky regent in Blueprints of Mad King Ludwig And lastly: It’s party time as we gobble up all the trash in our neighborhood in Goat’s Day Out.  Bristol 1350 Designed by: Travis HancockPublished by: Facade Games (2021)Players: 1 – 9Ages: 13 & upPlaying time: 20 – 40 minutes Bristol 1350 is a race against your opponents, as the dreaded Black Death has descended upon the town of Bristol, and you are racing down the streets in one of the three available apple carts, desperate to escape into the safety of the countryside. Each player’s meeple starts on one of three carts, and starts the game with two symptom cards, which are always kept secret. The cards are numbered 1 to 4. During the game, you may have to get new symptom cards, and if they add up to 6, you are plagued! Each player gets a remedy card as well, Remedies help the players with special actions during the race out of town. Six Dice are then rolled, which will act as the movement for the carts, plus if two or more rats of the same color as the cart is rolled, all players in that cart add a symptom card to their hand, combine all players cards in the cart, reshuffle, and redeal two cards to each player in the cart. let’s hope you don’t have 6 or more after the redealing. Take one of three actions per turn: reroll two dice, draw a new remedy, or move inside your cart or to another cart. If you leave town with a plagued villager on your cart, you will catch the plague. You must do whatever is necessary to make sure that doesn’t happen! If your cart is the first to leave the town and it is full of only healthy villagers when you leave, you and your fellow cart-mates successfully escape and win the game, to live another day in the healthy world that used to be Bristol circa 1350! Blueprints of Mad King Ludwig Designed by: Ted AlspachPublished by: Bézier Games (2024)Players: 1 – 5Ages: 15 & upPlaying time: 60 minutes Blueprints of Mad King Ludwig is a flip and sketch strategy game, where you are an architect in the time of Mad King Ludwig, trying to test your architectural skills to impress the mad king, as you draw the most extravagant blueprints for his next castle! Select rooms to add to your castle’s floor plan. As you complete rooms’ entrances by connecting them to other rooms, earn new abilities such as adding or removing entrances, earning new bonus cards, and taking extra turns. Keep your eye on the King’s favors to beat out your opponents for public goals, as well as create courtyards and moats around your castle for some massive points to get ahead!  The player who sketches the castle most suited to the whims of King Ludwig takes the royal victory, and is duly rewarded with now having to build this palace which is most likely, unbuildable! Goats’ Day Out Designed by: Rebecca Bleau, Nicholas CravottaPublished by: ThinkFun (2023)Players: 2 – 5Ages: 8 & upPlaying time: 30 – 60 minutes Goats’ Day Out is a tile drafting and tableau building game, where each player is a hungry hungry goat. Plates of food scraps, old clothing, and other equally delicious edibles are passed around on plates in front of you,

Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out! First up: We puff out our feathered chests for mating season as we scoop up seeds for the win in PiepmatzNext: We scramble for woodland resources to help our little furry friends thrive, in Tiny TownsAnd lastly: We dodge dragons and trolls to build luxe castles in forbidding territories in Kingdoms Piepmatz – Little Songbirds Designed by: Ben Pinchback, Matt RiddlePublished by: Lookout Games (2018)Players: 2 – 4Ages: 10 & upPlaying time: ~ 30 minutes Piepmatz is a set collection card game where players play bird cards from their hand to collect seeds and birds at the bird feeder. Seeds and bird couples in your collection are worth points. Single birds only score if you have the most of their species. Each turn, players add birds to the line at the bird feeder. The bird closest to the feeder is the one that is feeding. A player can collect that feeding bird by placing a card in that line, and if the value of all the birds waiting in line to feed is greater than that of the bird currently feeding, the player will collect the feeding bird, along with collecting some seed cards. Bird cards can also be collected by playing a lower value card on the feeding line, and then taking another card from your hand and putting it into your collection. Each bird card and each seed card have one , two, or three eggs on it, so the player who has the most eggs of a specific species of birds at the end of the game will score the victory points for that particular species.  Mating pairs – exact matches of birds in your hand – score bonus points.  Beware squirrels and crows, you might have to pick them up along the way, and they will eat some of your seed cards. When the seed card pile runs down, the game ends, add up your points, and the winner becomes top of the pecking order. Tiny Towns Designed by: Peter McPhersonPublished by: Alderac Entertainment Group (2019)Players: 1 – 6Ages: 14 & upPlaying time: 45 minutes Tiny Town is a resource management game in which players are the mayor of a tiny town, deep in the woods, where you must collect raw materials to build specific types of buildings. A player’s town is represented by a 4×4 grid. As you collect a resource, you must place it on one of your squares. Place your resources in certain patterns to build certain types of buildings. When you have the resources in place in the correct pattern on your card, remove the resources and erect the building on one of those squares. Keep doing this until you have no more legal moves to make.  Each building scores victory points (VPs) in a unique way. Any squares without a building are worth -1 VP. The player with the most VP wins, and graduates from being the Mayor to the Lord and Overseer of the greatest Tiny Metropolis the forest has ever seen! Kingdoms (Koninkrijk) Designed by: Rogier J.C. OoijevaarPublished by: self-published – (2016)Players: 3 – 5Ages: 12 & upPlaying time: 20 – 50 minutes Kingdoms is a card game, where you use your hand of cards to battle opponents with them to win the cards that can make your kingdom complete. The deck contains 3 sets – red, yellow, and blue. Each set is numbered 1-9. There are also a few non-suited treasure cards. Group your cards.

Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out! First up: It’s pesticide warnings be damned as we grow big in Mutant Crops Next: We collect the finest breeds of man’s best friend to take on a stroll through the Dog Park And lastly: We warm up and stretch as we get ready to roll and write our way to the Diceathelon Mutant Crops Designed by: Sebastian Koziner & Rocío OgñenovichPublished by: Atheris Games (originally by El Dragón Azul & OK Ediciones) (2016)Players: 1 – 4Ages: 14 & upPlaying time: 15 – 30 minutes Mutant Crops is a fast and light resource management and worker placement game, where players are farmers in the near-future, where agro-toxics and contamination created some strange mutant plants. You have 12 actions on the table (half face down, half face up) that allows you to gather resources (tokens), get plants, and nurture them. Each turn you have 2/3 actions (depending on the number of players) Place your farmers on spaces to gain resources, such as seeds or water or food. Use your seeds to plant a type of mutant crop, and then use your water and food to unleash their potential, such as earning money or activating that tplant’s special powers.  Certain combinations of plant powers can yield greater advantages for your fields, including more money (victory points). And it’s one worker to a space, so your farmer might be blocking your opponent from the space they need. But all’s fair in this battle of toxic farming. Dog Park Designed by: Lottie Hazell, Jack HazellPublished by: Birdwood Games (2022)Players: 1 – 4Ages: 10 & upPlaying time: 40 – 80 minutes Dog Park is a competitive set-collection and point-to-point movement game in which players take on the role of dog walkers who recruit, walk, and care for their dogs over four rounds. Each round is split into four phases: Recruitment Phase: Players compete in two rounds of offers to add dogs to their kennels. Offers are made with players’ reputation (victory points), so must be placed wisely. Selection Phase: Players decide which dogs to place on their lead to walk this round. Walking Phase: Players journey through the dog park with their fellow walkers, collecting resources, earning reputation, and interacting with other walkers. Home Time Phase: Players earn reputation for their walked dogs, and lose reputation for any unwalked dogs in their kennel. Players must choose their routes and dogs carefully to earn the best reputation and prove they are the most accomplished walker of them all. At the end of the game, the player with the most reputation wins. That’s a good puppy! Diceathlon Designed by: Chris HeaneyPublished by: Self-Published (2022)Players: 2 – 99Ages: (not provided)Playing time: ~ 10 – 20 minutes Diceathlon is a roll and write game where players compete across 6 different sports to win the most gold medals. The players roll the dice and, in turn, take a dice and write the number on their score sheet in one of the 6 sports. Each sport has their own specific goals for how the player can win the medal at the end of the game. * Crew – there are 2 rows, make sure the dice you place are equal on both sides of the row

Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out! First up: We dig up the ancient past to discover long forgotten games in UnboxedNext: We chip away at an ominous cube to save the multiverse in TesseractAnd lastly: We pack our 747s with impatient travelers in Now Boarding Unboxed Designed by: Jordan SorensonPublished by: WizKids (2023)Players: 1 – 4Ages: 12 & upPlaying time: 30 minutes In Unboxed, you and your friends take on the role of archeology interns under the direction of Dr. Ramos. At the dig site, the team has uncovered ten caches of ancient board games and they need your help to figure out how they were played. The centuries have not been kind to the rulebooks, so you’ll have to infer the rules based on each game’s symbology, components, and your own experience and intuition. Hopefully you’ve been attending board game night regularly… EXAMINE Each of the ten dig-sites will grant you a specific set of components and a few questions to help guide your “research”. EVALUATE Figure out how the components work together. PLAY Once you’ve successfully recreated the rules, you’ll have a fully functional game! Dr. Ramos will be there to provide hints as you theorize and test your designs for all ten of the provided scenarios, and will hopefully answer the age old question … What’s in the box? Tesseract Designed by: James FirnhaberPublished by: Smirk & Dagger Games (2023)Players: 1 – 4Ages: 14 & upPlaying time: 60 minutes Tesseract is a cooperative dice-manipulation game where players are scientists, trying to contain and control the reactions of an alien artifact in the form of a Tesseract cube consisting of 64 dice.  The Tesseract, which sits at the center of the board on a raised platform, and players will remove cubes to place in their individual labs, transfer them as needed to others, adjust the cube’s values and, importantly, isolate the cubes into the containment matrix, neutralizing them. To contain a cube a player must have in their lab three or more cubes all of one value (a set) or in sequence (a run); and either all of one color or having none of the same colors. By filling the containment matrix completely they will stop the reaction and win the game.  But if the Tesseract has its last cube removed beforehand – or if 7 breaches occur, the game is lost and our world ceases to exist – no biggie. Asymmetric character abilities include a passive, ‘always on’ ability and a unique action that is only available to that player. Research cards earned during play help give players an edge, as do the even more powerful Containment cards, unlocked from the matrix. Can you and your team work together to shut down the Tesseract, or will humankind simply be a blip in the grand scheme of the universe? Now Boarding Designed by: Tim FowersPublished by: Fowers Games (2018)Players: 2 – 5Ages: 10 & upPlaying time: 30 – 60 minutes Now Boarding is a real-time cooperative game in which you work together to fly a fleet of airplanes. You must deliver all the passengers to their destinations before they get too angry — and new passengers are constantly arriving! 

Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out! First up: We call on our tribesmen to settle the land in VaalbaraNext: We call forth our Shamen to shape the land in RauhaAnd lastly: We zoom towards the center of the void at a dizzying pace in Hypnosia Vaalbara Designed by: Olivier CipièrePublished by: Studio H (2022)Players: 2 – 5Ages: 10 & upPlaying time: 25 minutes Vaalbara is a card game, a deck management game, in which players are clan leaders exploring uncharted lands in order to establish sedentary villages. All players have the same deck of 12 cards representing the members of their tribe. Each turn, players secretly choose one card. Lowest number card plays first. In the order of initiative of the revealed Characters, players will be able to activate their powers and take over one of the available Territories. Each type of Territory has its own way of scoring points (collection, pair, diversity, risk…). After 9 rounds, the player with the most points wins the game and unites the tribes of the continent under their banner! Rauha Designed by: Johannes Goupy, Théo RivièrePublished by: GRRRE Games (2023)Players: 2 – 5Ages: 10 & upPlaying time: 45 minutes Rauha is a card drafting game where you are a venerable Shaman, whose divine powers allow you to shape your environment in order to turn this world into a cradle of life energy, keeper of serenity and harmony for the centuries to come. The game plays in 2 Ages: In Age 1, vegetation, terrain, and wildlife will appear. In Age 2, civilizations will thrive. Each age has 4 rounds, divided into 3 turns followed by a scoring phase. Each turn, there are 5 steps which are: 1. Simultaneously take all Biome cards from the satellite whose symbol matches the one beneath your Avatar on your Player board (moon or star). 2. Choose one card to place on any square of your Player board or discard to the Black Hole. 3. Receive a Divine Entity if you create a row or column of matching symbols on your Player board. 4. Activate your Avatar, plus any Divine Entities in the same row or column as your Avatar. 5. Finally move your Avatar one notch clockwise along the edge of your Player board, changing the row or column that will be activated on the next turn. During the Scoring Phase, you will activate all your Biomes with Spore tokens and any Divine Entities you may have, gaining crystals and points as shown on the components. Obtain the most Life Energy, to win the game, while all other players must tremble in fear of your immense shamantic powers! Hypnosia Designed by: Renaud Joseph, Adam NovotnyPublished by: Self-published (2018)Players: 2 – 6Ages: (not listed)Playing time: 20 minutes Hypnosia is a ludo style race game, with no theme whatsoever. Get as many of your 4 pawns to the center of the board without being captured in the process. On a turn, a player will roll 2d6. Move 1 or 2 of their pawns the number of spaces indicated by each die. Important: a player must “burn” all the points of a die, so a pawn cannot stop short. Pawns move in a counter-clockwise direction.  Some locations are special (double-colored). They permit a pawn to enter the next inner circle by crossing a “bridge”.