Month in Review - March 2025

by Josiah Matson

March Madness

This was a SUPER month!
It’s not too far removed from my February review, but that’s more due to me getting that one out too late, but today is the day where I will be going through my monthly games played to discuss my thoughts on everything that hit the table. There have been some really great additions to my collection and I cannot wait to discuss them here on this post!

New Games
]Critter Kitchen x2 (4 all-time) NEW!
It’s been some time since I have been waiting on this game, but to finally get it into my hands is something that I am very excited about. While not technically a new game to me, this was the first time that I had played both the solo and physical version of the game, so I consider this a “new” game to me this month. The box is significantly bigger than I had expected, especially due to all of the deluxe components and the wooden components are definitely worth the upgrade and I have really enjoyed the solo mode of the game. I have yet to play this at a higher player count, but I expect that it will be a lot of fun to play.

Under Falling SkiesNEW!
My first foray into this solo-only game did not yield positive results when I attempted to play the Roswell introductory scenario. I ended up doing decently on the first attempt but still lost pretty quickly to the mothership which had made its way too far down the row. Still, I think that gave me a good idea about how to approach my next attempt with the game and I will have to give it another go in April to see if I can get further!

WindwardNEW!
I picked this up for $12 at a second hand board game shop and was excited about the fusion of fighting giant sky whales with a steampunk airship theme that was shown on the game, but after a solo play of the game, I was mightily disappointed. I think that attempting the game solo before playing it multiplayer didn’t really give me a good idea of how the rest of the game played, so I’ll need to give it another try before I write off the game entirely.

Steampunk Rally Fusion: Atomic EditionNEW!
This was a very unique racing game that saw players building and shedding parts on their vehicle in order to complete a racecourse with about 30 or so characters to choose from, each with their own abilities and starting vehicle cards. It was definitely a clever dice placement game and I think I enjoyed it as much as I did because I got to play “Doc Braun” with his modified Delorean, but even without that, I definitely think this is one that I want to try again.

Sandbag x2 NEW!
I played this a few times for the review that I put out on March 14th and despite playing with two separate groups and only beginning to grasp the rules and play of the game, I still had a fun time. While there are quite a few people who have played this and didn’t really enjoy the game (which I was made aware of in the comments!)I still think that the game managed to be pretty fun to play for me, especially when I started getting the strategy and screwed with my opponents by changing the trump color. Is it the game that I’ll go to for my trick-taker I want to play all the time? Probably not, but I still enjoyed the experience.

Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade x2 NEW!
After trading another game for this, I launched (heh) into a game of this solo twice and found myself pinballing around with my opinion on it. It went up and down and really flipped me off a few times, but ultimately, I think I made a pretty good trade for this game. While I’ve only played the Carniball table so far, I think this will bump-er up my list of solo games pretty quickly to give it a high score.

Outside the Scope of BGG (Gamme Logic) x2 NEW!
Not much to say about this “game” as it is a series of logic puzzles that were introduced on BGA for players to go through. As someone who loves logic puzzles, this was right up my alley and I played a few games to see how fast that I could get the puzzles done. I did two separate versions of the game (easy and medium) and managed to get the puzzles pretty quickly, so it was a fun diversion.

ISS Vanguard x3 NEW!
There’s so much game in this box and it’s incredible. I traded away a few games for this plus two expansions and I am certain that the base game alone is going to take me a long time to get through. I normally am not someone who enjoys spending a ton of time on upkeep and taking care of things in the background, but I do also enjoy Real-Time Strategy games with a tech tree, as well as the Mass Effect series, so this managed to scratch the itch for me quite well with a great story and incredible ship upkeep. I wish I had a way to keep it out so I could come back to it without having to pack it away, but aside from that small complaint that’s more about my own home, I love this game.

Dragomino x5 NEW!
This was purchased for my eldest daughter for her fifth birthday and of course we had to get a few games of this in. She absolutely loves the puzzle of putting pieces together and then taking dragon eggs to see if there’s a baby dragon underneath, and while she’s still working on optimization, she loves playing with her dad. I personally think this is a fun introduction to dominoes and the dragon-theme really helps sell it for when I want to play something with her.

Ascension Tactics: Miniatures Deckbuilding Game x5 NEW!
I played this for my review of the game and overall, I was not terribly impressed with the gameplay. I know that others really enjoy it, but I just couldn’t get behind the constant need to regain the ground I had earned with my Champions. Overall, I think that I will probably end up selling this game as I just wasn’t a big fan of the tactical gameplay, despite enjoying other games that feature the same mechanic.

Animal Upon Animal x2 NEW!
Another birthday gift for my daughter and this was a ton of fun to play. This is a simple animal-stacking game that has players roll a die to see if they will stack a few of their own animals or make another player do it, or have someone else choose for them. The animals are thick wooden pieces and are the perfect size for small hands to put them on top of one another. It’s a great intro to dexterity games and I personally love playing it with her.

UndergroveNEW!
I was sent this for a review by AEG and my initial read through of the rules did not prepare me for how brain-burny this game was. I played, what I thought was pretty well, against the solo AI player, but still ended up being stomped in points at the end of the game. Each turn felt extremely important and I’m definitely going to have to give this another attempt or two as I have a feeling it will be some time before I truly understand the strategy. It’s beautifully done and I’m still wrapping my head about how I feel about the game.

Super Boss Monster x6 NEW!
Another review copy game and this one was a game that I was extremely excited about. I played multiple games of this the week I got it and even threw out a review of the game two weeks later, praising the game for it’s additions to the already fantastic Boss Monster series. I love how the game allows integration of the rest of the series and I can already see myself planning out how to get the rest of the cards that I’m missing from various locations. Oh, and the big box to hold it all, because we know that I’m a collector gremlin who needs to have everything together…

SolForge Fusion x4 NEW!
The final review copy of a game that I played this month and the review of this went live last Friday, so if you’re curious about my whole total thoughts on the game, give that a check. I personally found the game to be underwhelming in physical format, but enjoyed the digital version when I was able to play it on the free app through Steam. I do like the campaign mode that is included with the game and the forge mechanic is really neat, but I think I’ll probably end up only playing the digital version versus the card version in the future.

Praga Caput RegniNEW!
An old-school style game that sees players building a bridge, university and cathedral in Prague during the reign of Charles IV. Its visuals feel very old school and gameplay feels similar, but it has a really neat little rondel system that tracks player turns as each player chooses an action on the rondel. I felt like there was a ton going on and while I tried to focus on several things, that ended up being my downfall and I got second for my first game, which I didn’t think was too bad. I am definitely up for a game of this again.


New Expansions
Obsession: Characters Expansion
Dan Hallagan was kind enough to send a copy of this expansion my way and I actually took longer to get this to the table than I had originally anticipated. When I finally did get it to the table, I of course had to attempt my hand at the game and played a solo game of it with the Characters expansion included. Unfortunately for me, I ended up not utilizing the incredible new characters as much as I should have since there wasn’t much mitigation that I needed to do, and that ended up with me getting a big “L” to the family that I played against. I want to replay it again and this time I might even include Sarah on the play too.

Minigolf Designer: Minigolf Empire Extension
Like an earlier entry, this technically isn’t a new expansion, per se, but rather the first time that I had been able to play the dice golf minigame that came with the expansion. I had purchased some blank dice exactly for this reason, and I was really excited for an opportunity to try out the minigame now that I had prepped everything. I launched into the game after finishing a solo game and Sarah and I played the dice golf minigame together. It was a really fun little time, being able to play your course after you finish it and a great addition to a fantastic little minigolf game.

Escape: The Curse of the Temple – Queenie 16: New Traps
I really enjoy playing Escape, and [user=abmagic]Anthony[/user] had gotten the 2019 version of the Big Box, which came with all the various Queenies that I didn’t have in my copy. We played with the New Traps module, which was a blast as it added new variations to the game rooms and added some additional danger. We made it out the first game, but the second game, Anthony’s daughter actively sabotaged my efforts to get a treasure (rude) despite this game being cooperative and we lost with everyone but me being trapped in the temple. Karma, she is cruel.

Welcome To...: Spring Thematic Neighborhood x0 (0 all-time)
After owning this game for about two years and never getting this expansion to the table, I finally was able to get a play of this with Sarah as we wanted to play something that was thematic for the season. I managed to get a really great score in this game as I filled in multiple houses with the eggs and truly dove into the new objectives. It was nice to finally get a play of this map since I’ve owned the game for so long without playing it and it was far better than anticipated.


Revisited Games
Ascension: 10 Year Anniversary Edition x6 (16 all-time)
This continues to be one of the go-to games for Sarah and I when we need something simple to wind down with at the end of the evening. I really like the simple card play and deck-building contained in the box, even if I do want to add a few additional center decks to add more variability to the game. I’ll look into that later, but for now, we’re content with the base box and playing against one another, even if Sarah managed to beat me by almost 20 points the last game we played.

The 7th Continent x2 (33 all-time)
I continue through the Offering to the Guardians curse and it’s becoming a bit of a slog to finish up this curse. I looked up a spoiler-free guide to the curse and found that many others complained about the curse being very grindy, which I could agree with. To my dismay, I saw that it was often paired with another curse, so I might have to add in that curse to my game the next time I pull this out, even though it’s not technically in the rules to add another curse mid-game.

Let's Go! To Japan x7 (41 all-time)
I continue to play multiple games of this with some friends on BGA (hi Gerry and Peter!), and it’s been really interesting seeing how the game has transitioned from a game that I was getting sick of to a more “comfort food” game. There’s a great little puzzle element to this game and I think it’s definitely been great to play the game over and over again with the two guys as we’ve gotten fairly close to each other’s scores during the game. I’m attempting the game with the Passport expansion later this month, so we shall see how I feel about it then.

Everdell Duo (4 all-time)
After my devastating loss of the game with Sarah when we played cooperatively, I knew that I had to try this again to see if I could do better with the solo mode. I barely managed to pull off a win this time with the starting scenario and I know that I’m definitely going to have to up my game if I want to be able to play the entire campaign and earn enough points to get through it well. I think I still prefer the base game of Everdell more than this, but it’s a great little diversion when I don’t want to pull out the entire big box.

Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection (15 all-time)
I was finally able to get this to the table in a multiplayer aspect as I played it with Sarah and it was definitely all that I expected. The game was a great push and pull experience with Sarah actually maintaining the lead most of the game with her health being close to 50 each turn. I was able to pull out the win however when I managed to get 30 mastery and played my Infinity Shard, causing infinite damage to her character, getting me the win. It was so much fun.

Dorfromantik: Sakura (15 all-time)
The campaign is slowly coming to an end with this and as I dive further and further into the unlocks, I find myself liking Sakura more and more. There’s more end-game depth to the game and getting all of the unlocks more feels like a reward to push my score further than something I’ll reset after finish. I have a few more achievements to complete and then I’ll be done, but I expect that I’ll continue playing this for a good while with all the unlocks before resetting the game.

Lands of Galzyr (11 all-time)
Mor was back at it with his adventures across Galzyr. I love how the world grows and develops as you play and interact with the characters. I’ve chosen to implement a “level up” system that I found on BGG for solo play and that really makes the game feel like it’s progressing along nicely. It’s a chill adventure game to end the night with and one that I love coming back to after a long day.

Thunder Road: Vendetta – Maximum Chrome x2 (7 all-time)
Of course I had to pull this out in March and one game was played at work while the other was played at home. The work experience was absolutely over the top with ramp jumps, ridiculous attempts and massive failures, all culminating in a great win. My home game was the shortest game ever with me getting the win in two full rounds. It was wild and I loved it.

Minigolf Designer x2 (12 all-time)
This technically was one game split into two, but I count it twice because the player count changed. I continued my solo campaign (which is so much fun) managed to get a decent score with my final course. I then took a break and set up the dice game to play through the course and Sarah joined me for this. I really like the mini game as while I’m not physically putting a ball, the push your luck elements are a blast.

Cartographers Heroes: Collector's Edition x6 (11 all-time)
Six plays of this to start a hefty chunk of my 10x10 challenge plays. I enjoy the game and it’s quick enough for me to play in 20-30 minutes solo, which means I expect to have this all done next month. The additional map options are a godsend as I would definitely get bored of just the basic map this many plays in.

Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition (4 all-time)
For our Sunday Lunch Game session, I pulled out this fantastic trick taker and we laughed uproariously at the antics of the princes. With every turn of the game we managed to sink deeper and deeper into the absolutely ridiculous chaos that this game brings and even though three players were new to the game, it ended up being a smash hit.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf x3 (30 all-time)
Of course we then had to play some ONUW to follow up and I embarrassed myself by panicking and admitting I was a werewolf the first round. Round three went much better as I managed to sneak past aspersions when one of the players became targeted for the werewolf accusations. It was a great time and always a favorite to pull our.

The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth x2 (8 all-time)
Sarah and I continue our back and forth wins of this game. I managed to pull out the first win this month, but she came roaring back in the second game. It’s so interesting how close this game is between us and how much there is going on. I cannot believe I sit at a 50/50 win ratio with Sarah, but then again, she’s significantly smarter than she gives herself credit for, so that shouldn’t be as much of a surprise to me.

Unvention (4 all-time)
Of course I had to get at least one more game of this in during April. It’s Kickstarter is just winding down and I cannot congratulate Amir on putting out such a great little roll and write game. Even if you’re not a fan of the genre, check it out. It’s a solid game with a ton of potential.

Viticulture (2 all-time)
In order to get my “V” game in for my A-B-C Challenge, I was able to get a game of this in with Gerry and Peter on BGA. I had been ahead most of the game but Peter managed to sneak up behind me and steal the win out from under me in a brilliant play. I have been growing on Viticulture and I like the play it offers. I might have to pick up a copy for myself sometime soon.

Escape: The Curse of the Temple – Big Box x2 (24 all-time)
Normally I am usually up for a game of this, but I was exhausted the night we played this and we had the addition of Anthony’s kiddos joining us, so my heart wasn’t in it. We did play with the Extra Traps expansion which added some fun to the rooms, but overall, I was not really in the mood to play this.

Dead Man's Draw x4 (24 all-time)
It’s really easy to pull out this fantastic push your luck game. It’s been a hit at work, and at home with Sarah, so it obviously comes out quite a bit. I love the randomness that it plays with and the addition of the Traits even adds some player powers, making this game feature quite a bit in a small box.

Ark Nova (41 all-time)
Another game of this on BGA and I’m always astounded with how much the game can turn in the last few rounds. I had a solid lead the entire time, but my opponent managed an absolutely devastating combo and managed to outpace me in points with his final turn. Unfortunately, I was not able to make up the deficit and ended up losing pretty handily, but it did provide me with some valuable information about how to proceed with the game in the future. I love this game and need to get back to playing it solo too.

Terraforming Mars (25 all-time)
I continue to play this on BGA against some truly excellent opponents. The great thing about playing people who are better than you is that you learn about what to do more efficiently with the game when playing again. I will fully admit that I’m definitely not a pro at this game, but playing it again and again has really allowed me to understand the better strategies that come with this game. I actually found that I own the digital implementation of the game so I might have to give it a try in April.

Welcome To... x2 (42 all-time)
Continuing my plays of this for my 10x10 Challenge, I tried two new maps this time: The Roswell Map and the Easter map. Both were really fun, although I think I prefer the Roswell map a bit more. The estimation of how many houses you can infiltrate at the beginning of the game is a nice twist and I wish I could get the expansion without getting the Collector’s Edition.

Magic Maze x5 (44 all-time)
This was brought to work two weeks in a row and we played through several games each day. I love the quick and expedient nature of the game and how fast the game goes. It’s a great game to bring and play with anyone of any skill level and the speed at which it plays allows the game to be played multiple times in a row, which I don’t mind at all.

Gizmos (22 all-time)
I played a game of this with Anthony in the hopes of getting this started for my 10x10 Multiplayer Challenge. I couldn’t get my engine going until the midpoint of the game and that allowed Anthony to run away for most of the game. He beat me by about four points at the end of the game, which was not as bad than I expected, but it was still frustrating and I need to get back into playing this again.

Clank!: Catacombs (18 all-time)
A game of this with Sarah and I managed to pull out a win from this despite Sarah even pulling off some shenanigans. She hopped around the dungeon like a bunny attempting to get an artefact and even managed to pull off a last-minute escape to get her Mastery Token, but I still got a win. I really loved this game and look forward to coming back to it again later for my challenge.

Obsession (37 all-time)
I played a game of this solo with the new Characters expansion against (what I thought would be) a decent opponent to familiarize myself with the new expansion. Things definitely did not go as planned as poor draw after poor draw from the room tile bag ended up with me being a disappointing 60 points behind the “Intermediate” opponent and the lack of any Prestige Guests hurt my chances at even coming close to beating the AI opponent. I need to dive back into this because my pride took a significant blow and demands a rematch now. Plus, I want to get five plays of this to really get an idea of what the expansion adds into an already amazing game.

A Feast for Odin (2 all-time)
Game number two yielded significantly better results for me than my original play as I knew a bit more about what I was supposed to be doing during the game. I managed a positive score this time, rather than my negative score, but I still am on the fence about how I feel about this game. It’s fairly dense and while I do enjoy games that have that feeling to them, I am not certain if this one is a game that I will ever seek out to play unless someone else offers the opportunity to do so.

Scythe (4 all-time)
Another play of this on BGA and after attempting this for the third time, I think I’ll have to take Gerry’s advice and either play the digital implementation (which I own) or play the physical version (which a friend owns). It’s an interesting game that I now understand a bit more than I had previously and while I still prefer it’s sequel, I can appreciate what is offered here in this game and why it’s so highly praised.

Wyrmspan (14 all-time)
A game of this to end the month with as I have it on my Solo 10x10 Challenge and I know that I’ll have to continue pushing myself to play this more in order to get all ten plays of this. I really want to upgrade the internal components more to a better storage solution as well as sleeving the cards and buying the upgrade pack for the resources, since the cardboard chits really don’t do a great job of complementing the incredible cards. The game itself went fairly poorly for me as I went all in on the “Get more turns” strategy by attempting to get as many coins as possible, but that ended up biting me in the butt as I got to the end of the game and had run out of resources. I took the learning process of this game and applied it to my next game, focusing more on balance than any other aspect, so this was a great learning experience.


Final Thoughts

Nothing is more fun than introducing a wild new board game to friends!
Overall, March was slightly less in plays than the previous month, with me focusing more on lighter games than the medium games that I tend towards. This is in no small part due to my wife being at school and being completely exhausted from a sickness that hit hard at the beginning of the month, which has taken me out most evenings. I still remain constant in my steps to get (at minimum) 730 plays for the year and a game every single day, and I have yet to miss one so far. I’m well on my way to 365 plays for the year and I bet I’ll hit that sometime in April, if the numbers line up correctly.

My March stats are as follows:

Plays: 96 (down 4 from March)
Solo Plays: 30 (up 3 from March)
Number of Unique Games: 42 (up 2 from March)
Number of New Games: 14 (35 total for the year)
H-Index: 5
Year H-Index (Total H-Index): 8 (22)

It’s been a good year so far and I’m almost halfway through my solo 10x10 Challenge and well on my way to 100 new games for me this year (which is my goal). I know that I could work towards 365 new games, but that just seems unreasonable, even to me, and I want to limit myself so I actually enjoy the games I’m playing.

I have some great games coming down the pipeline that I have set for reviews, but as always, I am looking to get at minimum 5 plays to ensure that I understand what they have to offer. It’s going to be an amazing year, despite everything that’s going on, and I have no doubt that I’ll continue to connect with each and everyone of you in the comments below. Thanks for making this blog truly special and I hope you have a great rest of your week and see you on Friday!

Again, I want to mention that I am now hosting a Discord server! You can join my server on Discord by clicking the link here and as it grows, I'll have more additions to things. I'm keeping a dedicated channel for announcements about my blog and there's a few channels already for you all to interact with, so go forth and let's connect more! :)

Give me your thoughts:Any standout new games for you this March? Anything that was really fun to play? Got any great gaming stories that you would like to share? Post it in the comments below!

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- Solo 10x10 Geeklist - 48/100
- Multiplayer 10x10 Geeklist - 20/100
- 10x10 Challenge Master Geeklist Entry - 68/200 total games
- 2025 365 Play Challenge - 337/365 plays
- 2025 Five and Dime Challenge - 10/10 Games
- Raise Your H-Index Challenge - 22/25 H-Index
- 2025 Solo Plays Challenge - 53/50 Totals; 14/15 Variety
- A-B-C Challenge - 23/26 Games

- 2025 Challenge Champion Entry - 0/30 Challenges

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