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Kaptiv8 Games

@kaptiv8games

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Board game fanatic who does game reviews. I'm also designing a thematic game called Drëd Peak: Curses & Calamities crowdfunding in the spring of 2027.

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

How many of these games can you guess from just one component?

0 ~ Rookie! Don't fret about it, think about all the great games you have yet to play 🤩!

1-3 ~ Fledgling! You're on an exciting journey of discovery in the world of board gaming 🧳.

4-8 ~ Rising Star ⭐! Keep going, you'll reach gaming nirvana in no time.

9-13 ~ Kahuna! You know your games hotshot 🍻.

14-19 ~ Aficionado! You have some serious gaming chops 🤟.

20-27 ~ Sensei! Teach me, Master 🙏.

28 ~ Super Nerd 😎! I'm not worthy to play at your table.

I'll post the answers on Monday 🙂.

#boardgames #brettspiel #guesstheboardgame #bgg #boardgameaddict by @kaptiv8games

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a day ago

Pact designed by Zack Hoekstra and published @wulfhorngames is a 3-4 player area-majority and tug-of-war game where you're vying for power in an insect kingdom upended by political turmoil. You'll seek pacts with the four pillars of society and work to gain influence with courtiers, all in an effort to finish with the most legitimacy.

📌 This is a prototype provided by the publisher. It's currently live on Gamefound.

During set up you'll choose an asymmetric character each of which has Agenda cards.

Each corner of the main board has a Pillar of Society (Merchants, Military, Church and Nobility). You’ll make Pacts with them to gain favor and build their wealth by shifting treasure from other pillars. If you succeed at this you'll move up a Legitimacy track at the end of each season. If the treasure tokens on a Pillar are below your Pact token, you can lose Legitimacy.

The object of the game is to achieve 13 more Legitimacy than the lowest player on the track, or finish with the most Legitimacy.

However, all players lose if the Military fails in two attempts to defend the kingdom from invading centipedes.

On your turn you'll choose an Agenda card for the season you're in (fall, winter and spring) which has a mini-quest you'll need to achieve before the season ends.

Then you'll draft a Season card from the market. Each of these has left actions and a right event. If the card matches your faction you'll choose one side of the card to activate. If it supports another faction that player gains the actions or event you didn't take. Neutral cards offer an event for all players.

Actions can include:
- place or move influence tokens on one or more of the 12 Courtier spaces, or move tokens from your supply to your player board.
- shift Treasure token(s) from one Pillar to another (to do this you control the Courtiers with allegiance to the two affected Pillars).
- remove an opponent's influence.
- sign a Pact: move your pact token on a pillar up or down.
The characters also have special actions and rules you can activate.

Continued in Comments ▶

#boardgames #brettspiel #pactgame #gamefound #boardgamereview by @kaptiv8games

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3

2 days ago

Essen Spiel 2026 is fast approaching and with it comes a LOT of exciting new games.

Last year I bought one too many games (despite bringing a spare suitcase), so I gave one away to lucky gamers in the lobby of my hotel. I'm going to try and avoid buying too many this year 😁.

Here are 18 games that look fun to play, and possibly buy (I already pre-ordered many of these).

Sixty Below (-60°) published @nanox.games (Hall 3 3C115, pre-order at dlp-games.de) 1-4 players: a deck- and bag-building game where you’re searching for a meteorite impact site in Antarctica. It looks like another winner from Alexander Pfister.

Arctica published @thiswayice (demos at Hall 3 3J300) 1-4 players: I was given an overview of an early prototype by Rémi Mathieu at Gen Con 2025, and it looks amazing. The gears (Activation Wheels) on the player boards are clever.

Gaudi published @devirgames (Hall 3 3E610 and 3D600, for sale at Essen) 1-4 players: a tile-placement game where you’re journeying through the famous architect’s life.

Shugendo published @devirgames (Hall 3 3E610 and 3D600, for sale at Essen) 2-4 players: build out your farm while constructing your deck of cards.

Timespan published @alion_games (Hall 3 3F120, pre-order for Essen pick-up at ipa-gameshop.com) 1-5 players: civilization game that can be played in around 90 minutes.

Wireless published @spielefaible (Hall 3 3G515, pre-order at spielefaible.de for pick up at Essen) 1-4 players: build a wireless network in the early 20th century. It looks like it has an interesting action-tile mechanic.

Wildscape published @karma__games (Hall 3 3M517, no pre-order, for sale at Essen) 1-4 players: a mancala game where you’re restoring habitats in Africa.

Caribe published @pythagoras_games (Hall 2 2B355, pre-order at pythagoras.pt for Essen pick up) - 1-4 players: you’re a scientist and explorer documenting the diverse wildlife of the Caribbean.

Continued in Comments ▶️

#boardgames #essen2026 #essenspiel #brettspiel #essen by @kaptiv8games

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8 days ago

Tikal Legend is the new 25th-Anniversary edition of the original Tikal, and is published @super.meeple. Not only is it super-deluxified, it has a lot of improvements including a more elaborate draft, a new planning phase, more freedom with placing terrain tiles, new strategies and bigger scoring opportunities.

Everything is top quality, with weighty and solid pyramid floors, impressive resin volcanos, detailed minis, treasure "poker-style" chips and even a truly-impressive abacus.

It also comes very well organized with excellent storage trays.

The main board can be flipped over to play the Classic Tikal as well.

A warning though, this is a massive table hog, more like a table Godzilla 😳. It might be the most sprawling game I own (and I have some whoppers).

I have one play-through so far, and after a couple more I'll do a full review. First impression is very positive.

Have you played Tikal Legend yet?

#tikalgame #boardgames #tikallegend #supermeeple #deluxeboardgames by @kaptiv8games

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2

11 days ago

Everdell Journeys designed by James A. Wilson and Clarissa A. Wilson and published @playtycoongames is a 2-5 player drafting game, based in the Everdell universe. The Deluxe Edition can play up to 10 players!? 😮

📌 While this has the Everdell name and art style, it's vastly different from other Everdell games.

Unlike the traditional Everdell, there is no worker-placement nor resource-gathering. Instead you’ll draft journey cards, play them into your tableau and spend campfires to move your traveler mini from one card to another. The main objective is to collect patches (icons) and terrain-types (foothills, peaks and ridges) that help you complete Journey tokens and end-of-round scoring.

The game is played over 3 rounds, and in each one you’ll draft 5 cards. Each round has a randomly-placed scoring objectives (collecting certain patches and/or terrain types).

On your turn you can play a card and spend campfires to move your traveler mini onto it (paying extra if you change terrains). You’ll gain a bonus such as refresh a campfire, gain “Cheers”, gain another Journey token (but you can only have 3 at any one time) or gain points from certain patches in your tableau and on your Song cards.

“Cheers” let you move your (fruit punch? 🤔) tankard on the inn track. When you pass the 10th spot you gain a Song card, which scores points and gives you additional patches.

Instead of playing a card and journeying, you can also Rest, which will end your round and refresh 3 of your campfires.

Scoring comes from certain cards, Journey tokens you’ve completed and Song cards.

🎢 Learning Curve: easy: draft cards, spend campfires to journey with your traveler and collect patches to fulfill journey tokens.

🛠 Strategy Tips: campfires are always needed so look for cards that let you refresh them.

⏳ Length: around an hour with 4p after teach. Turns are brisk, downtime wasn't an issue.

🎨 Design & Production: the deluxe edition looks beautiful, and the critter minis and tankards are cute, but it's a bit overproduced (says me who backed the Deluxe Edition on Kickstarter 😂).

Continued in Comments ▶

#everdellgame #everdelljourneys #tycoongames #boardgames #everdell by @kaptiv8games

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15 days ago

Falling designed by Kantaro Yazawa and published @boardgame.sunnybird and @capstone_games is a 1-4 player device-placement game where you're an explorer collecting items from a fallen tower, that falls again and again for some inexplicable reason (the theme is a bit weak 😂).

📌 This is out of stock in the US and hard to find, hopefully it will become available again soon.

Each round you’ll draw a Supply card and a Skill card. Each type of card has two sides and you’ll choose which side to use. Supply cards give you immediate resources, while Skill cards are tucked under your board so only the side you chose is visible. These have either 1 or 2 spaces to place Skill tokens which provide conversions of resources (iron, brick and crystals, gas and/or money).

On your turn you can spend gas to move your airship up to one of the five rows (the higher up you move the more you pay), and choose a bonus. Across from each row there is a tower board with bonus spaces to place one of four-types of devices (Refinery, Smelter, Mining and Exploration).

On a later turn you can spend resources to place a device onto the tower board in the same row as your airship and gain a bonus.

On your turn can also place a Skill token on either the main board to gain resources, or on your Skill cards to convert resources.

Play continues until everyone passes. If you pass early you gain a first-tier bonus. If there are still active players when it’s your turn again you gain the next-tier reward. You’ll continue to gain rewards until all players have passed. This is a very clever mechanic and gives incentive to pass early.

After all players have passed there’s an Income phase and you’ll gain bonuses from each of the buildings you’ve placed.

Then the last two rows of tower boards slide off the main board, and any devices on them are returned to the players. Return devices also gain players bonuses. This is the crux of the game and it’s a fun mechanic.

The score track has a stack of cards on the 10-spot, and each time you pass this you gain a card with a bonus.

Continued in Comments ▶

#boardgames #fallinggame #capstonegames #sunnybird #boardgamereview by @kaptiv8games

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23 days ago

Gold Country designed by Reiner Knizia and published by Bitewing Games is set up and ready to play.

I've seen a few comments and reviews that the advanced River side of the board is more fun.

I bought the upgraded components which include hefty metal gold-panning bowls which are nice, but I probably didn't need all this bling for such a simple game 😁.

Have you played Gold Country?

#goldcountrygame #bitewinggames #bitewing #boardgames #reinerknizia by @kaptiv8games

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14

a month ago

I'll play all types of board games, but I lean toward medium-heavy the most. Don't get me wrong, I've had great fun playing Magical Athlete and Flip 7, but if someone wants to play Kanban EV, I'll be first to the table 😁.

Here are my top 10 favorite Medium-Heavy games. A couple of these I would actually label as Medium (Underwater Cities and Dune Imperium: Uprising for examples), but since BGG lists them as Medium-Heavy they're on this list.

This was harder than I thought to make, because there are so many great games in this category, like Brass: Birmingham, Revenant, Sweetlands, The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era, Civolution, Age of Innovation, to name a few. But these are the ones that I count as my favorites.

10. Underwater Cities (@deliciousgamesboard) - still competes with the newer games after all these years.

9. Food Chain Magnate (@luckyduckgames) - the use of cards to represent workers and how you manage them is very clever.

8. Andromeda's Edge (@cbalchemy) - among my favorite space games

7. Nemesis: Retaliation (@awakenrealms) - I could insert any Nemesis version. The player interaction and theming are spectacular.

6. Speakeasy (@eaglegryphon) - I love the theming, and it looks stunning.

5. Kanban EV (@eaglegryphon) - It's very smart and clever in how the theme integrates with the gameplay. Each turn has so many interesting decisions.

4. Nippon: Zaibatsu (@crowd.games) - This is probably my favorite economic game.

3. Galactic Cruise (@kinsonkeygames) - the building of rocket ships and then sending meeples on a space cruise is clever and different.

2. Dune Imperium: Uprising (@direwolf) - I can't get enough of the Dune Imperium line-up of games (which is why I have all the editions, expansions and upgraded components). Of the bunch I like Uprising the most.

1. SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (@czech_games_edition) - I've played (and taught) this game the most of this category. The visually-striking rotating board, the unveiling of the aliens and the thinky gameplay have me enamored 😍.

What are your favorite medium-heavy games?

#boardgames #mediumheavyboardgames #favoriteboardgames #top10boardgames #bgg by @kaptiv8games

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92

a month ago

Electrify published by AEG was showcased @gencon this year. They weren't offering play-throughs but I did get a rundown by one of the designers Ian Hutchison. I also read the rulebook because I'm nerdy like that 🤓 (available on the AEG website).

📌 Electrify will be launching on Kickstarter later in September.

The Theme: in the early 20th century you're capitalizing on the expanding demand for electricity.

Game Summary:
The game is played over 12 rounds. You'll start with 5 sector boards in a row that you'll place purchased Industry cards on to later activate with cubes.

Your player board has an upper Depot and lower Grid section. When you produce energy cubes you'll place them in the depot, then use an action to move them to the Grid. These can be used to fulfill Demand cards.

Each turn is 6 steps, played simultaneously with the other players.
1. Use your Sector Selection Dial to secretly choose an industry sector that you'll charge.
2. Optionally buy an Industry card by spending energy cubes. The card is placed on one of your 5 sectors, which will become action options you can later activate with cubes.
3. Charge 1 sector along with the cards you want to activate on it by placing cubes. Sometimes this can trigger nearby cards to also activate.
4. Take the actions (Discharge) and return the cubes to your supply. Actions include produce energy cubes, move energy cubes, move cubes from your depot to the grid, advance your research marker, draw an industry card and slide a sector to the left.
5. Use cubes from your grid to complete Demand cards, which will earn you various rewards and points.
6. Reset by moving your activated sector back to the front of the row (like the mechanism in Ark Nova).

My Impressions:
This is an engine-building game where you can strengthen your sectors with cards. It seems like there are a lot of choices on a turn. I especially like how you chain card actions for big turns. I also like the sliding of sectors after activating, making the sectors on the right stronger. It looks thinky and fun, and I plan to pledge it.

What do you think about Electrify?

#electrifygame #alderacentertainmentgroup #aeg #boardgames kickstarter by @kaptiv8games

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4

a month ago

Ostia published @uchibacoya was hard to get for a long time but thankfully there's been a reprint (The new Mariner Edition which has upgraded components and includes the Merchants & Patronus mini-expansions).

This is one of the best games that uses the rondel mechanic.

A quick summary of the gameplay:
You start with a few ships in your harbor (the rondel) and one on the main board. On your turn you'll choose one of the wedges on your rondel to do production (wood and steel for building, wheat for buying Order cards, coins, and permits for ship movement, etc).

Then you'll move all the ships from this wedge leaving one on each consecutive area. The last ship is where you'll take your main action, such as build a ship or Construction disk, move your ship(s) on the main board, buy an Order card, etc.

On the main board you can move your ships on one of 4 paths, and each can provide bonus tokens, resources and points.

Placing Construction disks on the main board allow you to add a building to your rondel for construction discounts and bonus production.

What makes Ostia fun is the challenge of managing your ships on the rondell. Because your start location is also where you do production, you want as many ships as possible in that wedge. But if you want to take a specific action, you must also plan for where your last ship will stop. This creates a quandary and good tension.

You need to add more ships to the main board and keep them moving, because there are a limited number of bonus tokens and there's bonus scoring if you reach the end of the 4 paths.

In addition you need to place Construction discs on the main board to later activate for bonuses.

There are also points for sets of icons collected from Order cards and tokens.

On top of all that you have to move up the Triumph track to increase your multiplier for scoring.

Whew! 😅 So much to think about. Fortunately the actual gameplay is not hard to learn at all (it's medium weight).

I originally graded this an 8.5 and that still holds true today. Ostia is a solid rondel Euro that will give you plenty to think about.

#ostiagame #craftygames #boardgames #boardgamereviews #uchibacoya by @kaptiv8games

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a month ago

There are so many excellent board game content creators that I like that I couldn't possibly list them all here. But here are a few that I highly recommend if you don't already follow them.

@honvsalex
@boardandshield
@itsyourturn.bg
@welcome2boardom
@howirollgames
@acoupleofboardgamers
@thegamebard
@thebrickside
@spaghettiandmeeples

Who are your favorite content creators?

#boardgames #boardgamecontentcreators #boardgameinfluencers #boardgamereviews #boardgamehumor by @kaptiv8games

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2 months ago

What is a cozy game? I would say it's a game that has low stress, comforting aesthetics, a peaceful theme and friendly competition.

These are 10 games to help you relax after a hard day at work, but still offer meaningful decisions.

Pergola published @rebelstudio.eu - A fun puzzly game of creating a lovely garden of plants and flowers to attract butterflies and other insects.

Honey Buzz published @elfcreekgames - build your hive from tiles you'll draft with your "beeples". Gorgeous table presence and comfortable gameplay.

Kanō published @studiomatagot - games don't get much cozier than this one: draft paint pots, convert them into ornate polyomino tiles and fill your scroll for points. Super chill 🍧

Hanami published @keymastergames - this is a Reiner Knizia game of where you're placing tiles in parks, scoring from blossoms, rice balls and lanterns. Beautiful on the table and very simple to play.

Aspens published @ludivoregames - each turn you're planting trees until the board is full. Super simple game you can learn in about 5 minutes.

A Place for All My Books published @smirkanddagger - place a worker, collect some books, place them onto your shelves and complete projects. I wasn't sure this was my cup of tea, but then I played it and wow, this game is great.

Tokaido published @stonemaiergames - while taking a journey in Japan collect items, discover beautiful panoramas, visit temples and enjoy fine meals.

Spectacular published @chilifox_games - you'll draft dice or tiles from a supply board and then pass the board to another player. It's a competitive game yet feels kind of neighborly 🙂.

Foxglove Farm published @alleycatgames - draft buildings with special powers and connect them with roads to build out your settlement. Chill gameplay yet thinky.

Everdell Emerland published @playtycoongames - I chose Emerland but all of the Everdell versions are cozy. The art, cute critters, theme and simple worker-placement all work together to create a fun, pleasant experience.

What are your go-to cozy games?

#cozyboardgames #boardgames #familyboardgames #hanamigame #kanogame by @kaptiv8games

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2 months ago