Spirits of the Wild: Awakening – Andrew Lynch
First released by Mattel back in 2018, Spirits of the Wild had a brief period in the sun before its publisher decided to pivot away from hobby games. It quickly became a cult favorite, fetching absurdly high prices on the secondary market. Fast forward eight years and Mattel is not only pivoting back to hobby games, they’re starting with a new edition of Nick Hayes’s game, this time called Spirits of the Wild: Awakening.
It was with some excitement that I sat down to, and vague dissatisfaction that I stood up from, my first game. Spirits of the Wild and its predecessor are equal parts set collection and tug-of-war, as two players try to fill out the gem slots on their different tiles. I do love the structure: pick an available action from your personal supply of actions, make it unavailable, perform the action, then on to the other player. Spirits shares the same tempo considerations as many of my favorite 30-minute two-player games.
What it lacks is any sense of intentionality. The game ends the moment five wild gems are drawn from the bag. This can happen any time, and it has never once felt satisfying. Across four or five games, neither player has breathed a sigh of relief to see the game end as their opponent closes in, nor has either player damned the Gods for cutting their comeback off at the pass. Fundamentally, the game is a bit flat. It could be that the scoring isn’t obvious enough. It could be marrying an efficiency puzzle to such an arbitrary endgame fundamentally doesn’t work. Whatever it is, the spirits are the only ones who are awake.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Soar – Andrew Lynch
Soar is, on paper, exactly the kind of game I like, a straightforward auction and bluffing game. In reality, it is so slight as to barely register. It is trying to create an environment in which all of your decisions are aching ones, as clear an attempt at channeling what I call Knizian Agony as anything, but the result doesn’t do much. In reality, your decisions are rarely meaningful, unless they come at the exact right moment in any one auction.
Soar does include a tremendous idea I haven’t seen before; an NPC that scores points as the game goes along, adding its score to that of the player in last place when all is said and done. This is a smart way of trying to balance poor token draws, but it doesn’t amount to much. What’s more, at least with three players, it seems entirely possible for one player to royally f*$¡ themselves over from the start, with no chance of recovery. The game doesn’t soar so much as it barely manages to get off the ground.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Phantom Ink – Andrew Lynch
Allplay’s new edition of Phantom Ink is beautiful to look at. There’s no argument there. The game itself is enjoyable if uneven. The idea of publicly revealing clues one letter at a time is fun, and there are times when it works beautifully, but the game never takes off. Phantom Ink is a great idea, but it’s hard not to feel, in a post-Jibber Jabble world, like this idea has been taken in better directions.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Stonk Market – Andrew Lynch
Rather than a trendy cash-in on some memes, Stonk Market is a frantic real-time trading game from Reiner Knizia. Players are dealt a handful of cards with a variety of unequally distributed suits. Players simultaneously perform trades, attempting to create a hand that is majorities-only. For every card in any suit for which you have more than half the cards, you score points. But beware: there’s always a lone card in the center of the table, and anyone stuck with that card at the end of the round—which happens the moment anyone with a hand full of majorities calls “Stonks!”—loses points. It’s paper-thin, but it’s also a blast. Stonk Market is certainly more robust than you’d expect from the title, but the bar is not high. A cute little filler when you have a literal five minutes to fill, Stonk Market does just about as much as it’s possible to do with that time. That may not be much, but hey, sometimes you have five minutes to fill.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Moustache – Andrew Lynch
Moustache has a good pair of hooks. You play in teams, but the teams change with each hand, and each of the four hands you play introduces a new rule that stacks with the previous rules. Both of these ideas, separately or together, could make for a good game. The problem with Mustache as it exists, however, is that the stacking rules serve to constrict rather than broaden what’s possible. The first hand or two are a matter of skill. By the fourth hand, the cards you’re dealt more or less determine your fate. A game that gets less interesting as it goes on could work as a piece of art, but it does not make for the enjoyable family game Moustache wants to be.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
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