Quick takes: Neon Reign, Mercado de Lisboa, Jurassic Snack

Neon Reign is a simple game I have played several times, and still don't understand. This is a 2-player card game about those 1v1 fighting arcade games. There are several characters you can play, and every character has their own deck of cards. To win, you need to reduce the opponent's life points to zero. 

You have a hand of seven. Your cards are mostly button presses or joystick moves. Some are specific defensive moves like blocks and throws. On your turn, you either play cards to attack, or you draw to seven. Some cards when played in combination give you extra effects. For example extra attack points, or storing energy for your power attack. Some cards can be used in response to your opponent's attack, possibly cancelling some of their card plays. 

These are the various combinations and their effects

Every character has a different power attack. You need to store energy for this. Once the energy bar for this is full, you unleash the power attack. Usually you'll deal some damage, and there are usually other effects as well.

Although I have played three games, I feel I have been doing the equivalent of button-mashing. I still don't quite know what I'm doing, and I am losing consistently. I always complain that when I play complex games on BGA, I don't have patience to learn the game properly. Neon Reign is not a complex game, and it's not hard to learn. I don't know why I am so clueless about this game. Is this just a pretty random game? Or are there tactics I have not discovered? Looking at how consistently I am losing games, my hunch is I don't really get the game yet. I need to play this more. 

So far I have been mostly playing as many buttons and joysticks as I can, until I'm out of cards, and then I replenish. I suspect that is not necessary the best move. Maybe I should be replenishing more to try to get better combos. Also I suspect I need to be building up my shields more. Possibly I need to be saving cards for defence. Maybe I need to anticipate attacks and keep cards that can break the opponent's combos. 

I can't conclude about this game yet. I'm still need to figure it out, despite it being such a simple game. 

Mercado de Lisboa is a game about opening market stands, placing restaurants, attracting customers, and most important of all, making money. 

This is a tile laying game. You will place market stands, which will cost money depending on how crowded the row and column are. You will also place customers along the edges. When you do this, all market stands in the row or column which sell something the customers want make money. The board starts with some restaurants. When market stands are placed next to matching restaurants, they can earn more money. If a market stand is placed on top of a grey restaurant, you claim that restaurant and you can place it (coloured side) on a future turn. 

You win by having the most money. In the early game, you need to earn money to fund your subsequent market stands. This means spending victory points to earn more victory points. Money is victory points. This is a perfect information game. You have to plan carefully how to position your market stands well to make the most profit, and at the same time try not to help your opponents. A market stand can potentially earn money from four customer tiles. Customer placement spots are valuable and you have to watch out. The game looks simple, but I think if you want to play well you have to play thoughtfully, considering your opponents' possible moves. 

If you claim restaurants (the round tokens) but fail to place them all before the game ends, you will lose $1 per restaurant. Restaurants don't belong to anyone. They help all matching market stands next to them. 

Customer values go from 1 to 4. You can play the higher level customers only when a row or column has the required number of market stands. It is important to position your market stands to score big in late game. I think the game is deeper and more serious that it appears to be. 

Jurassic Snack feels like a children's game. Maybe it is. It is an abstract game for 2 players that plays in about 15 minutes. 

You move your dinosaurs in straight lines (like rooks in chess) to eat vegetation. When you eat a patch of vegetation, you flip over the tile to see what's in front. 

Some of the vegetation tiles show special powers, e.g. you can fly one dinosaur anywhere, or you give birth to a new dinosaur. Tiles have point values (represented as number of leaves). 

Two of the vegetation tiles show a T-Rex. Once a T-Rex comes into play, on your turn you can choose to move it instead of one of your dinosaurs. The T-Rex moves in a straight line too, but it eats dinosaurs instead of vegetation (of course). 

If you manage to have a T-Rex eat all of your opponents' dinosaurs, you win, ignoring the points scored from eating veggies. The victory points only apply if the game ends in a normal way - when players are not able to eat anything on two consecutive turns. 

Technically the T-Rex doesn't eat your dinosaurs. The rulebook clearly says it just scares them away. If you are playing this with your child, please use the proper term.