Roux Dat: Recent Plays of Hot Streak, Silver Eye, and Logic & Lore
The Jay Bell is back in town! Mitchell from SoBo and I organized a little meet up at our newest FLGS in town, so some of the friends from Southern Board Game Fest could say hey to Jay and play some games.
Jay had already made a pass by the Gumbo Pot this past week, where we played his newest prototype (an interesting game using the river in Poker as a mechanic), as well as streaming Kaiser Cucumber and the Gangs of McChanicle Corners and ESP: Experiment in Supersensory Perspicacity on our Twitch channel. I’ll post those up on YouTube soon.
But at the FLGS, we had a pile of games to play, and three of them caught my eye. I have been reading about and seeing pictures of Hot Streak now for ages and just knew it would be my kind of game.
In Hot Streak, players are betting on a quick spring of a race among four mascots, sort of like a linear Camel Up race. The mascots are big plastic representations of four very funny figures, each with funny names and a deck full of cards that move them about, turn them around, and help them stand up. Players have their own hand of cards, and using that very little knowledge as well as the cards that are available this round, place bets on how well the mascots will do, or even jump into side bets about the finish.
The first part of the game is very straightforward — just make two bets and throw in a card into the auto battler style deck — and then it’s time for the race. That’s where the hilarity begins. Cheering on your favorite mascot, groaning when it falls down or turns around or even runs off the track, all of that makes for a great little thirty minute game. My family always asks for recommendations for new games at Christmas time, and Hot Streak is shooting to the top of the list.
Next up, we played a three player game of Silver Eye, from Bezier Games. This is the fifth game in the Silver series, and feels to me dramatically different from the others. The set features lots of cards that allow you to peek at cards or flip them over, and even a few that radically change how scoring works.
We all really enjoyed Silver Eye. The abilities in the cards feel very strategic. You can manipulate the deck, flip over cards, and even ghost some cards right out of someone’s village. I had an early lead, but Jay stormed back in the last two rounds to take the win. Silver still feels like a game that is one round too long, but even as I say it, I am staring at Silver Fang and wanting to try those cards now.
And finally, we took turns taking each other on in Logic & Lore, a very thinky deduction game from Weird Giraffe Games designed by The Durdles. If you are looking for theme, that’s not really here, but if you are looking for a top tier deduction game, you will find it in Logic & Lore.
Players have a set of cards numbered from one to nine that are randomly placed side-by-side. Our job is to get the cards to be in the correct order, by asking questions of the other player of the position, strength, and other characteristics of the cards. Using the answers we get, we then deduce where to move the cards until finally aligning them in the correct spot. The first player to get all nine correctly wins.
That’s the base game. After Mitchell destroyed me — picture a toddler playing chess against a grand master — Jay turned it up a notch with the next module in the game, which introduced dragon meeples that you spend to gain access to the questions you need to make your deductions. I watched as smoke began to wisp out of Mitchell’s ears. Again, Jay was down pretty far in the game, but came roaring back with an amazing last turn that secured the victory. This is a very, very solid two player deduction game with an expansion coming soon to Kickstarter. I’ll have more info soon, as our friends Carla & Nick from Weird Giraffe sent us a preview copy.
Three great games for a great Sunday afternoon of gaming. Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo