Tag Archives for board games

Finally getting back into an old hobby: board games

It’s embarrassing to admit, but up until last November, I hadn’t sat down to play a board game since…

… yikes, was it really back in 2021 when I played Gloomhaven? Oof.

Anyhow, despite everything else going on in the world lately, and everything I’ve been dealing with personally over the past year, I finally got to a space where I can play board games again.

And, crazily enough, just in time to celebrate the blog’s 13th year! (A little belatedly, anyway. Friday was the blog’s birthday, and I just remembered it now, haha.)

Stacking cats on Thanksgiving.

Anyhow, it all started on Thanksgiving day last year. I spent the day with my closest friends and some of their family members, and after we all ate dinner we were looking for a simple game to play. I’d backed Stack O’ Cats on Kickstarter, as did my friends J and Kasi (though they got all the different cat variant expansions, while I just got the tuxedo cat expansion), so I figured “hey, why not stack some cats?” It was silly, low-stakes fun, and we played collaboratively in two groups trying to make the biggest stack of cats. I really enjoyed finding silly ways to test the laws of gravity with the little wooden cats.

Apparently I only got blurry photos of this game, oops.

Then Christmas rolled around, and J bought me a copy of the My Little Pony deck-building game, along with a couple of the expansion packs. It’s surprisingly fun! Even my friend Rachel, who doesn’t really know much about My Little Pony, had fun playing the game. (And I remembered how much I love deck-builder games, thanks to this.)

Organizing books and staying at home to charge my social battery? Oh, I’m a champ at this.

And then last weekend I broke out A Place For All My Books, another game I backed on Kickstarter. It was so much fun! It’s such a cozy and chill game, and I’m looking forward to playing it again.

This one’s been waiting on my shelf since 2024!

And then today: I finally broke out Cyber Pet Quest, another Kickstarter game. This one I got to pick up at Gen Con 2024, which was awesome – and I’d really been looking forward to playing it, but never had the time or the energy. Until today, that is. J and Rachel and I played it all afternoon and got through the first three chapters of the game.

I’m not sure exactly what shifted in me that made it so I can actually focus enough to play board games again instead of just zoning out while friends play games next to me. All I know is that something has shifted, and I’m back to enjoying playing games again.

And thanks to all this, I might actually start reviewing games again here on The Crafty Nerd. In addition to the games I posted about here, I have a couple more brand new games I want to play and share my thoughts about. And where better to do that than on my sadly neglected blog?

… granted, now that I might start posting regularly here again, I’m going to have to figure out how I want to spread the word about new posts. I don’t use Facebook or Twitter anymore, though I am on Bluesky, and could possibly be convinced to post on Instagram again…

Eh, that’s a problem for future me to deal with. Tonight, I’m just going to sit here and enjoy the warm fuzzy glow that comes with finally being able to play board games again.

A ramble about ArchRavels

This week was originally going to be a podcast week, but I caught a cold. Recording a podcast with a cold is less than ideal since I sound weird right now and keep having to blow my nose. So! Instead, I’m going to post about one of the things I was going to include in the podcast: ArchRavels! It’s on Kickstarter, and as of right now, there are 34 hours left before the campaign finishes. It’s over 300% funded, and as of the time I’m writing this, it’s about $3000 away from unlocking the last stretch goal.

ArchRavels is a game that I’ve been interested in since I heard about it at Gen Con this summer, back when it was called ArchRavelry. I’m sure you can guess why I’m interested in it: it’s a game about yarn crafting! It’s like it was made for me, someone who enjoys board games and crafts. The game seems pretty straightforward: Compete against other players to see who can craft the most items before the end of the game. Just like in real life, you have to collect patterns and yarn before you can make things – and also just like in real life, some events can happen that’ll make crafting difficult, like the cat.

Tangled Cat card from ArchRavels.

Just like in real life, cats can come in and mess with your yarn, causing you to stop, untangle the cat (or in my case, splice ends together because someone decided yarn makes a good chew toy), and lose a turn while you sort things out.

I backed the game pretty quickly after it came out, and the stretch goals added since then have made me even more excited about the game! There are additional characters you can play as, more patterns to make (including the Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Wizard packs), and even an upgraded insert for keeping game items organized. The last stretch goal is one I hope happens: they’re going to make a Cat meeple you can put in a player’s yarn bowl when you draw the Tangled Cat card if they hit that last goal.

If you want to learn more about ArchRavels, check out the campaign on Kickstarter or read the rulebook for the game here. Once I get my copy, I’ll be sure to review it for everyone!  (Now, to wait until next August for it to finish production!)

Gen Con 2019: The Haul

One of the big reasons people go to Gen Con is to buy games – lots of them. And this year, I definitely bought some games! Not as many as some folks, but I did bring home a couple new additions to my game collection. Of course, I found some not-quite-game-related goodies too! My Gen Con 2019 haul is a little smaller than it’s been in previous years, but here’s just about all of it!

Photo of my Gen Con 2019 Haul.

Some – but not all! – of the haul.

Want to hear more about what I got? Read on!

Continue reading →

Tiny review: Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

How many of you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure book series? I remember reading through all the Choose Your Own Adventure books that my elementary school library had, multiple times, so I could get to all the endings.  Choose Your Own Adventure books were the best.

Well, did you know that there’s now a Choose Your Own Adventure game?

Well, there is, and I got to play chapter 1 of the game today at work!  (Yes, we got to play games for research purposes, so we can make our own choose-your-own-adventure-esque games – how awesome is that?) And oh, it was lots of fun.  I’m going to buy it for myself so I can introduce friends to it, because I know a lot of people who would really enjoy this game.

In the game, the player (or players – while this game can be played by one person, we played it with twelve today!) takes on the role of a detective who’s been having nightmares about a haunted mansion and its missing owner – so of course you have to go investigate it. Gameplay involves two decks of cards – the story deck, which is composed of cards that tell the story, and the clue deck, which includes tools that help the player out, clues that change the story paths available, and other information the players might find helpful.  The game mechanics also include a danger meter, which determines just how challenging any challenges that come up during the game may be, and the psychic scale, which we didn’t really get to interact with much today.  The game starts by a player reading the beginning story cards for the chapter, and the game progresses by making choices on what to do next, much like your typical Choose Your Own Adventure book.  However, unlike reading the Choose Your Own Adventure books, sometimes challenges appear that force you to go one way or another, depending on if you pass or fail.

The story itself is based on an actual Choose Your Own Adventure book, and that includes all the random dead ends and false starts and, of course, multiple ways your character can die.  We managed to die, what, four times today? We got buried alive twice, got strangled by plants once, and – my group’s favorite – killed by a pack of Dobermans surrounding a chimpanzee playing a violin. I’m not even kidding. (We’ve been making jokes about the violin-playing chimpanzee all day.)

As I said, we only got through the first chapter today, but playing the first chapter was so much fun! Part of that might have been due to playing with a larger group of people, with a chunk of us tending towards the nerdier side of things (there were a number of Doctor Who and Stranger Things references made while we were playing), but I think it’d be fun with almost any group of people. Heck, I can see Ross’s family having fun with this at the next holiday gathering. (Then again, we’re all huge nerds, haha.)

If you have fond memories of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, then you should give this a try!

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger on Amazon (affiliate link)