First Impressions of Queen Alice – Ignoring the Hype, It’s Still a Good Game

I’m not entirely sure how I ended up being so fortunate that I again got a copy of THE hot game of SPIEL without originally having any serious intend or plan to buy it. It happened last year with Feya’s Swamp where I—mostly out of curiosity—found myself queueing in line and saw in real time how publisher Fractal Juegos was hit apparently completely unaware of the hype that had built up on BGG during the weeks leading up to SPIEL. The head of SPIEL rushed past me, trying to dissolve the line as it quickly became a potential health & safety issue. At some point, the publisher even wrote numbers on sticky tape and asked people to clear the alley but hang around / come back later in a vague way. And in the end the number of copies was so low that of course they were all gone long before my number would have come up. Only due to the kindness of a dear reader was I able to play the game and write my review on it. This time, I again had some help. I sort of had a professional curiosity as a…