130: HECK | Honey Buzz | Oxford Dilemma

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 this week: We try to figure out what the dinosaur is going on in HeckNext up: We zig to the nectar, zag to the pollen, and zip to the finish in Honey BuzzAnd lastly: We pull on our corduroy blazers with the leather elbow patches to compete in the Oxford Dilemma HECK: A Tiny Card Game Designed by: Jason AnarchyPublished by: Jason Anarchy Games (2019)Players: 2 – 4Ages: 14 & upPlaying time: 15 – 30 min Heck is a tiny bidding game where you bid tiny wooden snake eggs on tiny snake cards behind tiny screens to earn tiny critter friends. Players are the Snakes befriending the cute Critters  The game starts with players choosing 1 of 4 tiny screens (90’s Lan Party, Camping, Cheese Factory, Venice Italy). Each player gets 3 wooden eggs, and at the start of each round 3 critter cards are dealt out for all to see and players each draw a snake card and wager your eggs behind your screen on one or more Snake Attributes (hiss, slither, length, Chomp) to try and outbid for the friendship of critters. Alternatively, you can place eggs on the Heck space and draw random HECK cards which may help or hinder you in a variety of ways. The first player to befriend 5 critters, or 3 critters with matching catchphrases wins! Honey Buzz Designed by: Paul SalomonPublished by: Elf Creek Games (2020)Players: 1 – 4Ages: 10 & upPlaying time: 45 – 90 min The bees have discovered economics. The queens believe that if they sell honey to the bears, badgers, and woodland creatures, they will find peace and prosperity. Spring has arrived and it’s time to build the hive, find nectar, make honey, and, for the first time ever, set up shop. Honey Buzz is a worker bee placement game where players expand a personal beehive by acquiring various honeycomb tiles that grant a variety of actions. Whenever a tile is laid so that it completes a certain pattern, a ring of actions is triggered in the order the player chooses. A tile could be triggered up to three times depending on how the player places their beeples (bee+meeple) and builds their hive. After all, in the honey business, efficiency is queen. As you continually expand your hive, you’ll forage for nectar and pollen, make honey, sell different varieties at the bear market, host honey tastings, and attend to the queen and her court. There’s only so much nectar to go around, and finding it won’t be easy. Players will have to scout out the nectar field and pay attention to other players’ searches to try to deduce the location of the nectar they need for themselves. At the end of the game, the player with the most honey-money is the winner! Oxford Dilemma Designed by: (Uncredited)Published by: Smartegg Games Ltd. (1998)Players: 2 – 6Ages: 12 & upPlaying time: about 90 min Oxford Dilemma is a monopoly style spelling bloodbath. At the start of a turn, a player will roll the two movement dice that send you around a square board with 10 spaces per side, as well as a special Level of Difficulty die that determines the question asked on a card. The main mechanic of the game consists of landing on Letter Spaces of one of four colors – the player to the left of the active player draws a card of the appropriate color and reads a word of the difficulty level indicated by the...