Played Ark Nova to see what all the hubbub is about. It was good, and I can see why people like it so much, but I don't think it does anything you can't get somewhere else - It's been said before, but it's true, it's Terraforming Mars with a zoo theme. It's a typical janky Capstone production, so it doesn't have a component quality advantage over a Stronghold game either.
Played Hadrian's Wall and it immediately clicked with everyone. If flip and writes are all like this I might need to investigate the genre more!
Aaaaand we played it again on a weekend getaway, too.
It was so well received that one of the kids asked to play it again solo... That's never happened before.
Nemesis: Lockdown was what I expected, more of the same, and that's a good thing - We love Nemesis. The light and dark mechanic is a fun, thematic twist. Finished the first Nemesis campaign and everyone's chomping at the bit to play the second one...
And I built one of those gigantic Fancy But Functional game crates for Death May Die. It holds everything, including Rise of R'lyeh, Scarlett, and the comic investigators, in one box but it took the better part of a whole day to build! I don't know if that kind of effort is worth the convenience, but I'm glad to have everything for the game in one Kallax cube. I can think of other games I'd like to do this for, but the thought of building another one of these behemoths makes my stomach uneasy.