#82 Dingo's Dreams
Dingo's Dreams is part BINGO and part slide puzzle. There are four sets of 26 tiles in the game and two kinds of cards. There are the location cards, which your "BINGO Caller" calls out during play, and there are objective cards that show a pattern that players are competing to finish to win a round of the game.
Tile sets (called Dreamscape Tiles) are assigned to players and show locations (Dreamscapes) on one side and an animal on the other. Each player picks an animal and gets that matching tile set. The animals are cute and have an Australian focus, but practically speaking I think that this is because Dingo sounds like BINGO. So, this theme provided a fun play on words. The "theme" serves no other purpose, but the art is beautiful.
The tiles show locations on the back. There are 5 locations in 5 colors for a total of 25 tiles. Each player also has a 26th tile that has their animal on both sides. Players shuffle their set of the 25 tiles with locations on them and then create a 5x5 grid of those tiles with the location sides turned face up. This 5x5 grid is your BINGO card. (Your Dreamscape)
Each turn of the game has two phases. First is the Walkabout Phase. In the Walkabout Phase the caller (the Dreamer) flips the top card of the location deck of cards (The Walkabout Deck) and calls out that location. All players then simultaneously flip that location tile in their personal Dreamscapes (BINGO Cards) so that their animal side is now face up.
That was the BINGO step of the game. Now comes the slide puzzle step.
Remember I said that each player has 26 tiles and that one has their animal on both sides. You made your board with the tiles with locations, and that 26th tile was extra. Now, you slide that extra tile into your BINGO card, slide puzzle style, pushing a different tile out the other side. (This tile is now your spare tile.) You are doing this to move the tiles that show your animal side into the positions shown on the objective card. The step of the turn is called the Dream Phase.
Dingo's Dreams is light and breezy. You could play this with anyone, gamers and not gamers alike. I just love it! In fact, Dingo's Dreams is my 82nd favorite game of all time.
#81 Disney Lorcana
Disney Lorcana is a collectable card game. Collectable Card Games are games where players buy packs of cards and then use their card collection to create a deck and play a game against other players. In Lorcana the cards are themed around Disney characters and all the cards are bright and beautiful.
Gameplay is fairly simple, play a card face down in front of you. This card represents ink. Ink is what artists use to draw animated characters. So, in this game, "ink" is what they call the resource in the game that is used to play cards. Cards have an ink cost on them. You just put down one ink at the start of your turn. So, you can play a card that costs one ink.
Used Ink replenishes at the start of every turn and you can keep adding to it. This will enable you to play better and better cards. The cards are mostly Disney characters. These characters can go on quests (which earns you Lore Points which is how you win the game) or they can challenge other characters. When one character challenges another character, the loser of the challenge is embarrassed and has to go home (is discarded.)
Game play is simple, but cards break the rules in different ways (which are always clearly described on the cards.) It is these "exceptions" to the rules where games like Lorcana really shine, and it's what makes the construction of new and interesting decks and the collecting of new cards so interesting.
Julie and I played a ton of Lorcana when we first got it. The game is so much fun and is so engaging. There is a cooperative version of the game that Julie and I are really looking forward to. (It features Ursula the Sea Witch!) Until then, Lorcana is my 81st favorite game of all time.
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