Wayfarers of the South Tigris

Obstacles in front of obstacles in front of obstacles to what you want to do. An exercise in frustration.

We are outliers. We didn't like this game,

Very addictive tableau builder. The AI's design is wonderfully elegant and consistently challenging. Yet another home run for Garphill.

It's not as fun as I was hoping. A lot of symbol matching and hoping for cards to come up that combo with what you're doing. Also, not very intuitive to learn.

There is just too much going on with this game. Too many options, too many chaining effects, too much AP making the time played very watered down. I really liked the ideas here with the tableau building, resting being rewarding, and the polyomino board.. but the execution is just not too my tastes. Im also just not a huge fan of the variety of scoring objective cards causing players to all be going there own direction for VP

I have only played solo so far, but I can safely say that this is one of the more complex games I've played from Garphill. It has all the hallmarks (the icons, the quirky townsfolk) but with a greater emphasis on small incremental plans. There are only four different ways of scoring points, but two of them (sky cards and inspiration cards) are so diverse that the choices you make can have a wild effect.

I really do love the way the elements interlock: reputation, journaling, locations, townsfolk, can mesh together in different ways, with some of them far more optimal than others. Unfortunately this could leave a new player totally lost unless they're given constant reminders of their place in the game.

The theme really shines! Like all Garphill games I feel like the mechanics perfectly represent what I'm doing, right down to hiring the right townsfolk in the right locations. None of it feels arbitrary or "pasted on" to me, and all of it maintains the theme.

The solo bot requires a bit more maintenance that I find in most Garphill games, but it's still breezy (and, for this newbie, unbeatable at the moment). I'd recommend this as a solo game. I expect there's a lot of analysis-paralysis at larger player counts so solo might be the best way to play.

First time ever with Shem's gates it took me quite awhile to learn his game. The rulebook is not good. I do really like th opportunities available for scoring, allows for a lot of adaptation. It does look like someone threw up symbols all over the board, too, but after one playthrough they make some sense. Heaviest of the trilogies by far (i haven't played Inventors or Scholars yet, though.