Game Details
Name	Obsession (2018)
Complexity	Medium [3.10]
BGG Rank	65 [8.10]
Player Count	1-4
Designer(s)	Dan Hallagan
Artist(s)	Dan Hallagan
Publisher(s)	Kayenta Games, 4GAMES, Boardgame Mall, CMON Global Limited, Giochix.it, Lucrum Games, Maldito Games, Strohmann Games, Super Meeple and TTGames CZ
Mechanism(s)	Action Retrieval, Deck, Bag, and Pool Building, Hand Management, Open Drafting and Solo / Solitaire Game

Participants

• Mark
• Logan
• Bailey

Rules missed

• When the market is refreshed, put the tiles in reputation order. After season two, remove any 1 reputation tiles during refresh

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About the game

From Boardgamegeek:

You are the head of a respected but troubled family estate in mid-19th century Victorian England. After several lean decades, family fortunes are looking up! Your goal is to improve your estate so as to be in better standing with the truly influential families in Derbyshire.

Obsession is a game of 16 to 20 turns in which players build a deck of Victorian gentry (British social upper class), renovate their estate by acquiring building tiles from a centralized builders’ market, and manipulate an extensive service staff of butlers, housekeepers, underbutlers, maids, valets, and footmen utilizing a novel worker placement mechanic. Successfully hosting prestigious social activities such as Fox Hunts, Music Recitals, Billiards, Political Debates, and Grand Balls increases a player’s wealth, reputation, and connections among the elite.

Each turn, players choose a building tile representing a room or outdoor space in and around their 19th century British country house. The tile chosen dictates the event that can be hosted and the guests to be invited. Players must carefully plan, however, to have the proper staff available to service the event and support guests as needed. The reward for success is new investment opportunities, permitting further renovation of the estate (acquisition of more valuable/powerful building tiles), an increase in reputation in the county, an expanding circle of influential acquaintances, and a larger and highly-trained domestic staff.

Throughout the game, a competitive courtship for the hand of the most eligible young gentleman and lady in the county presents specific renovation and reputation objectives. The player who best meets these objectives while accumulating victory points will win the hand of the wealthy love interest and the game.”

Gameplay

A mix of luck and strategy will deliver victory in the final courtship, allowing you to capture your love interest, and likely the game.

Players each start with the same set of improvement tiles. They must then navigate their way through 4 seasons of courtship. Each season rewards the winner with extra VPs and an additional powerful card added to their hand. Each improvement tile and card in the player’s hand have a reputation level that must be reached to use them. So increasing reputation is an important part of the game and can earn lots of extra VPs.

Final Thoughts

We played the builders market refresh incorrectly, so some advantages of gaining very powerful improvements for cheap, would have mitigated by the higher cost of those improvements. The cards are very thematic with their flavor text which matches their characteristics with the benefits they provide. Anyone who enjoyed the series Downtown Abbey, will enjoy the theme of this game. Very much looking forward to playing it again.

Game Details
Name	The Expanse Board Game (2017)
Complexity	Medium [2.81]
BGG Rank	1988 [7.17]
Player Count (Recommended)	2-4 (3-4)
Designer(s)	Geoff Engelstein
Artist(s)	Uncredited
Publisher(s)	Pendragon Game Studio and WizKids (I)
Mechanism(s)	Action / Event, Action Points, Area Majority / Influence, Campaign / Battle Card Driven, Catch the Leader, Take That, Variable Player Powers and Victory Points as a Resource

Participants

• Mark
• Sean
• Katey – Winner
• Frank

Rules we Missed

• None found so far

BGG Clarifications

• Being able to move up to one band means you can also move within a band.

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About the Game

This area control game plays well with 4 players. Rules are simple. On you turn, you have the option to purchase a card. Each card has a number of actions points and an event. Events can only be used by the factions shown on the card. Once you have chosen your card, you can either use the action points or the event. The action points allow you to move/build your fleets and establish influence in different areas. If you use the action points each faction shown the card has the option to use the event based on the order of the initiative track.

Once a scoring round is initiated, your influence and fleets are used to see who has control of each sector. Points are awarded based on this. The person in last place gains control of the Rocinante. this catch up mechanism gives the player extra options to use during the scoring round.

Final Thoughts

The theme of the game is nice for those that are familiar with the books or television show. However prior knowledge in no way affects gameplay.

The catch up mechanism works well. In our case the person in last, up until the 5th scoring round, won the game.

This game was a long one since we were learning straight from the instructions. Future games should be much quicker, since all the rules were very straight forward.

Game Details
Name	On Mars (2020)
Complexity	Heavy [4.67]
BGG Rank	58 [8.17]
Player Count	1-4
Designer(s)	Vital Lacerda
Artist(s)	Ian O'Toole
Publisher(s)	Eagle-Gryphon Games, Angry Lion Games, Arclight Games, Delta Vision Publishing, Giochix.it, hobbity.eu, Korea Boardgames, Lavka Games, Maldito Games, Mosaico Jogos, Skellig Games, TLAMA games and YOKA Games
Mechanism(s)	Contracts, Delayed Purchase, End Game Bonuses, Hexagon Grid, Income, Movement Points, Moving Multiple Units, Set Collection, Solo / Solitaire Game, Tech Trees / Tech Tracks, Tile Placement, Variable Phase Order and Worker Placement

Participants

• Mark – Winner
• Curtis
• Alain
• Robert

Rules we Missed

• Building complexes using executive actions on blueprint cards: The corresponding tech must exist on someone’s board in order to build or increase the size of a complex. If the existing tech’s level is toolow to build a complex of the desired size, you can boost it by sending colonists to the working area.
• If you develop only 1 tile twice, treat each of the movements separately.
• If you gain a discovery or research tile, resolve it immediately by paying any associated cost, then place it in your play area (put Discovery tiles face down).

BGG Clarifications

• When 2 players have the appropriate tech tile, the player who uses the tile chooses who gets the benefit
• If a tech tile is used twice on the same turn, the owner gets two oxygen

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Final Thoughts

Like all of Vital Lacerda’s games, this game has a learning curve. The rules take a while to learn, but they all make sense and seem logical as play progresses. This is a long game but turns can be quick, since you can take one action and one executive action each turn That said, the best turns are ones that can string multiple actions together by moving tech tiles or completing your personal goal. As someone who also likes The Gallerist, I would recommend this game.

Game Details
Name	Tapestry (2019)
Complexity	Medium [2.96]
BGG Rank	285 [7.44]
Player Count (Recommended)	1-5 (1-4)
Designer(s)	Jamey Stegmaier
Artist(s)	Andrew Bosley and Rom Brown
Publisher(s)	Stonemaier Games, 999 Games, Albi, Angry Lion Games, Arclight Games, Automa Factory, Delta Vision Publishing, Feuerland Spiele, Ghenos Games, Lavka Games, Ludofy Creative, Maldito Games, Matagot, PHALANX and Surfin' Meeple
Mechanism(s)	Area Majority / Influence, Card Play Conflict Resolution, Contracts, Dice Rolling, Die Icon Resolution, Events, Grid Coverage, Hand Management, Hexagon Grid, Income, Map Addition, Multiple Maps, Once-Per-Game Abilities, Open Drafting, Push Your Luck, Solo / Solitaire Game, Square Grid, Tags, Take That, Tech Trees / Tech Tracks, Tile Placement, Variable Player Powers and Variable Set-up

Rules we Missed

• First player to complete an era gets a resource
• Some technology cards have a requirement that your neighbor has a specified technology

BGG Clarifications

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