Happy Sunday, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here with another month of Whatcha Playing. Our writers will be sharing what they’ve been playing–board games and video games–over the past month. Feel free to share what you’ve been playing over the past month, because you’re part of the Geekly Gang, too. I’ll start by sharing my month’s games.

Kyra’s Video Games

I mentioned Slime Rancher 2 a couple of months ago, during one of these lists, but I finally finished the game this past month. In fact, I picked up Slime Rancher 2’s platinum trophy on PlayStation 5. Oh, yeah!

While I like Slime Rancher 2’s new method of farming for materials (just use your vacuum to harvest science material like wild honey or jelly stone), Slime Rancher 2’s map took longer to click than the original’s, and I didn’t care for how rare drones became. I do appreciate Slime Rancher 2 adding drones back into the gameplay; Monomi Park included drones in Slime Rancher 2’s final update. I love automating my ranch.

The original Slime Rancher will always hold a special place for me. Despite eliminating certain features (the speed run mode is missing, and all special gameplay modes like glitch slimes and quicksilver slimes disappeared), Slime Rancher 2 does a great job of building on the original. Still, fewer gameplay elements can make the game repetitive. I never realized how much I’d miss Viktor’s research. I didn’t care for Slime Rancher 2’s puzzles as much. The reflector puzzles within the Gray Labyrinth pulled attention away from the slimes. That’s why I liked the special gameplay modes from the original. The focus never wavered from the slimes.

Slime Rancher 2 is an amazing game. I just don’t see myself returning to the title as much as I did the original.

I don’t know if I’ve played any new video games this past month. I have a few on my to be played list. Looks like they’ll have to wait until December.

Kyra’s Board Games

I played all the monsters in Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons. Each one perfectly captures the monster. Of course, the Red Dragon has a horde. The Beholder is a menace with all of its eyebeam powers. Gamers need to discover the Mimic by revealing treasure. Yes! Similarly, Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons does a great job with hero abilities. The Wizard can zip around the board through teleportation spells. The Fighter gets a boost in combat. And the Bard can beckon villagers to their call. Unfortunately, these powers can place the game on easy mode, especially if you’re facing weaker monsters.

Balance issues can crop up as they did with the previous Horrified entry: World of Monsters. But I’ve had a blast playing Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons. I may have had the most fun against the Red Dragon. We had no chance of winning. Woo hoo!

Deadlines is an interesting party game. It includes over 200 cards with famous people. On one side, you get the person’s name (and a quick description of who they were), and then, you must place them in one of three columns: Birth, Death, or Lifespan. You’ll need to place the person on your card in chronological order based on when they were born, when they died, or how long they lived (going shortest to longest). For instance, Napoleon was certainly born before Princess Diana, so you would place Napoleon’s card before Princess Diana’s. Deadlines was a blast. It’s unlike most trivia games, and you can get some fun interactions.

During one turn, I picked up Janis Joplin. I knew she was a member of the 27 Club (rock ‘n rollers who died at 27 years old), and placed her between someone who died at 23 years old (River Phoenix) and another who passed at 30. Ka-ching! If you screw up the timeline, you keep the card. It counts as a point. The player with the fewest points wins. But some cards, like Janis Joplin’s, will allow you to say (or guess) how they died. If you get the cause of death correct, you can add one of your kept cards to one of the available columns for free. This accelerates the game as a column can only be 12 cards long. We played with columns of 10.

Deadlines won’t be for everyone. But I liked it a lot. We may need to get Deadlines to the table more often.

I love certain elements of Nevermore. The Edgar Allen Poe theme shines through Nevermore, and the game’s better for it. But Nevermore–at its core–is a Take That game. I’m not a big fan of Take That games, especially ones that last longer than twenty minutes or so. Nevermore took over an hour to play with the teach.

Despite my dislike of longer Take That games, Nevermore has one of the most interesting card drafting mechanisms. Most card drafting games (like Sushi Go) have players pick one card, pass the rest, and then play the card they picked. In Nevermore, you draft every card for your hand upfront, and then play your hand of cards. Begin by picking two cards to keep and then pass the other three to the next player. Then, you pick three cards in your hand to keep and pass two. Finally, you pick four cards to keep in your hand and pass one. This final hand is yours. I love building my hand over time.

And I love the idea–in theory–of claiming an action by having the most cards of that action-type. If you have the most daggers, you can stab another player. If you have the most hearts, you can heal damage. And so forth. I just wish there wasn’t so much Take That in Nevermore, or that Nevermore took less time to play. Take That games can get mean, especially when gamers play cutthroat. I don’t like being in that headspace for long.

Still, I love many of Nevermore’s gaming elements.

I check in with Season and Skye, and it looks as if they didn’t play too many new games last month because they were dealing with an illness. Yikes! We’ll give them a week to recover. But feel free to share which games (video games and board games) you’ve been playing this past month, Geekly Gang.

Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.