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Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out!
First up: We seek tangy prestige as we age cream to stinky perfection in Fromage
Next: We take rock monsters to polyominoes heights in GrumbleStone
And lastly: We sneak our watery way to radioactive victory in Con Sonar!
Fromage
Designed by: Matthew O’Malley, Ben Rosset
Published by: Road To Infamy Games (R2i Games) (2024)
Players: 1 – 4
Ages: 14 & up
Playing time: 30 – 45 minutes
Fromage is a worker placement game where players are French cheesemakers in the early 20th century making, aging, and selling artisanal cheeses.
The game board is a giant circle, divided into 4 sections. Once players place their workers into the quadrant that is facing them, the board will then rotate clockwise so that a new quarter wedge of the board is facing them. Place one of your workers in the resource gathering area of the wedge facing you, and then place another worker in the area to make cheese. As the board rotates, if any of your workers that you placed are now facing you, you retrieve those workers.
Workers placed will take 1, 2, or 3 turns to be retrieved. Each of the 4 sections of the board have different rules for how to score for the cheeses you make.
Players may also collect resources to unlock extra abilities and bonuses to use throughout the game. And may collect livestock and fruit to unlock bonus cheese points.
Score Prestige Points by selling cheese to the four locations, and by efficiently managing and upgrading your creamery.
Become the most prestigious cheesemaker in all of France by running a highly successful creamery and crafting exceptional cheese, and the winner gets to claim victory using an outrageous French accent!
GrumbleStone
Designed by: Josh McBride
Published by: Blue Fox Games (2024)
Players: 1 – 4
Ages: 8 & up
Playing time: 25 – 40 minutes
Grumblestone is a tile placement game where players are golems, each with their own special abilities, fighting it out versus other golems in a test for supremacy.
TUMBLE- roll both six sided dice and assign the results on to a grid
RUMBLE- activate the symbols in the row and column
GRUMBLE- buy polyominoes and enhance your grid
The results of the dice placement will result in players dealing damage, repairing their golem, enhancing the defense of their golem, and gaining points to purchase new polyominoes.
Fill in one of your rows or columns completely to unleash your golems special power, and then fill in both a row and a column to unleash their superpower!
And whatever you do, try not to CRUMBLE…
The last Golem standing wins the game and becomes “King of the Mountains”… so Tumble Rumble Grumble try to to Crumble and always remain Humble.
Con Sonar!
Designed by: Christian Boutin
Published by: Exequor Studios (2011)
Players: 2 – 6
Ages: 12 & up
Playing time: 10 – 30 minutes
Con Sonar! is a card game where your goal is to sink more enemy submarines than the other players, while making sure your own subs survive.
12 submarines are placed on the “firing solution” board at the beginning of the game. The board ranges from the numbers 1 through 8. Players play a fleet card to move a submarine up or down the board, by matching symbols on their other fleet cards or on the revealed torpedo cards, they can chain actions together and launch a torpedo. If a torpedo is launching, 8 sided dice are rolled and the higher a submarine is on the firing solution board, the more likely it is to be sunk.
Player score is based on the number of subs sunk, the number of surviving friendly subs, and various bonus objectives.
Highest score wins, claim glory, because there is no SUBstitute for victory